Banning Pokemon & Ability combinations:

[Ulevo]

With the creation of this thread, and while browsing through the Dream World abilities, I had come up with a question I wanted to discuss:

Would it be acceptable to ban abilities on specific Pokemon as opposed to banning an ability or Pokemon outright within a metagame, where the Pokemon or ability by themselves would have otherwise not been suspect?

I feel this is important to discuss because not only might this become an important topic of discussion later when/if Pokemon that are already introduced and legal (i.e. Shandera) are released with a controversial ability that puts their tier placement in to question (i.e. Shadow Tag), it also poses relevant questions for the inverse effect in which an alternate ability available to a Pokemon gives it the chance to compete outside of the Uber tier.

The most obvious example would be Wobbuffet. Without the ability Shadow Tag, Wobbuffet would never have been placed in Ubers in Gev IV in the first place. Assuming Wobbuffet is banished to Ubers again, in the future Wobbuffet may be given Telepathy, and it could drop down to OU.

Other examples that can be considered are previous suspects such as Garchomp, who while it wasn't entirely regarded as suspect due to its ability Sand Veil by itself, could be considered tolerable without it and maintain OU status in Gen V if it were ever nominated to become a suspect again.

While it is true that theoretically we may never have Telepathy Wobuffet or Rough Skin Garchomp, I'd be interested in hearing everyones thoughts.

NOTE: Here are some presented arguments against the proposition, and my responses to them:

Banning an ability or item is targeted towards making a Pokemon fit a certain tier ("Gen IV Salamence would be OU without Outrage!"), which is unacceptable because if you do that, you're going in with the a priori assumption that said Pokemon deserves to be in a certain tier, it just isn't because of a fixable oversight.

What you end up doing is changing Pokemon to fit the metagame rather than changing the metagame to fit the Pokemon.

But this is something we've arguably done in the past.

We tested Deoxys-S in OU because we believed it deserved a chance to prove its worth in the OU tier.

For you to adequately support your claim, you'd have to prove what sufficient difference there is between Deoxys-S and say, Doexys-A by comparison to Shadow Tag Wobuffet and Telepathy Wobuffet.

Sprites mean absolutely nothing, competitively speaking. With that fact out of the way, the only difference provided between the two examples is stats, and abilities; both of which are an integral part of the Pokemon itself. If you suggest that in order to deal with Wobuffet, we would need to completely ban the Pokemon itself rather than treat Shadow Tag Wobuffet and Telepathy Wobuffet as alternate forms of the same Pokemon (which they are, there is no difference), then I would push for the complete exclusion of Deoxys (all forms) in the OU tier unless all of them prove to not fit the characteristics of an Uber.

EDIT: Ultimately, if you wanted to prevent a slippery slope from progressing anywhere with regards to regulating other aspects of a Pokemon separately from the whole Pokemon itself, implement a policy along the lines of:

Pokemon with alternate abilities are recognized and treated as alternate forms of the same Pokemon. Therefore, under the premise that a Pokemon is characterized as Uber due to an ability, that form of the Pokemon may be excluded from OU play.

It's really that simple.

Yeah, yeah, this is a slippery slope argument... but that exact same logic can be applied to Pokemon missing certain moves, Pokemon with certain EV spreads, or even Pokemon at certain levels once you open a door that's wider than "ban or allow" on each individual Pokemon. A Pokemon with a different ability is as much a "different forme" as a Pokemon with a different nature, held item, stat spread, or level, and there's no clear way to distinguish what is and isn't a different forme using your logic.

I like our current logic better in this regard, it makes things simpler and if the blowup of the last few days has taught us anything, removing ambiguity from the rules can result in disastrous, nightmarishly long debates.

No, they are not the same. Garchomp with Outrage and Garchomp without Outrage because we choose to ban Outrage + Garchomp are not alternate forms of the same Pokemon, they are the same Pokemon. Within that example, we are just artificially creating differentiations that are not already in place by what the cartridge provides us, and aren't tangible within the code. The exact same applies for EVs and items.

What you're declaring as "the same" and "not the same" is completely arbitrary. Garchomp with Sand Veil and Garchomp without Sand Veil (assuming a second ability existed) is really as much of a choice / forme as Garchomp with or without Outrage. They are both options that the same "base Pokemon" have. How is an ability no less artificial than a move choice, EV, or item? All you have been doing is declaring that to be so.



My definition: An alternate form is a Pokemon with the same national dex number but a different typing and/or base stat distribution (i.e. non user-modifiable properties). Abilities are user-modifiable via breeding, RNG, etc but base stats and typing are for the most part set in stone.

No, it isn't.

Deoxys-A and Deoxys-S both have the exact same move pool, therefore they both have access to the same choice of moves. Banning Taunt on Deoxys-A but not Deoxys-S does not create a new alternate form because we are artificially creating differences between the Pokemon ourselves when they otherwise would have been the same entity. However, they are different forms because they have two entirely different base stat distributions, which when given a particular form, cannot be modified by the player whatsoever. I as a player can modify the base stat distribution by changing the form, but I cannot change, say, Doexy-S base stat distribution specifically. That is beyond my capabilities as a player in the cartridge.

With that in mind, Garchomp with Sand Veil and Garchomp without Sand Veil both have access to the exact same move pool. The only differentiation is they have two completely different abilities, which again cannot be excluded or modified separately in the same vein that Deoxys formes can't manipulate base stat distribution. Choosing between abilities is akin to choosing between different forms, or rather, different stat distributions between the Deoxys, while sharing the same move pool.

Like base stat distributions, you cannot manipulate abilities (manipulating breeding to ensure which ability you obtained is no different than touching a specific rock in DPPt to ensure you have whatever form of Deoxys you want, and thus any stat distribution you want.)

You can however manipulate the move set. If I want to exclude the move Psychic from either Deoxys form, I have that ability as a player to choose that, provided a ban or rule does not prevent me from doing so. And it is this "player freedom" that ultimately leads to slipper slope bans and complex policies.

EDIT: Also, I would like to add to this, since I thought of another appropriate example.

To expand on the fact that banning moves and banning Pokemon with particular abilities are not the same thing, I'd also like to point to the different Rotom forms in Gen IV (when they still shared the same type.)

The only thing that separated these forms from each other (aside from the completely irrelevant sprite) was their exclusive moves: Overheat, Air Slash, Blizzard, Leaf Storm, Hydro Pump.

If we were to ban say, Overheat on Rotom-H and Hydro Pump on Rotom-W, they would not become the same entity, because we would be artificially imposing that similarity. The fact is that we have no way of changing the game code to prevent Rotom-H from learning Overheat, and vice versa; it's integrated in to their move pool, and cannot be altered. We can choose to not use the move, of course. But that is identical to choosing a different form, or even a different item or trait, which as I pointed out, is not the same thing.

I'm not against blanket ability bans but I am against banning <ability> only on <pokemon> because it makes the rules way too complicated. New players shouldn't need to consult a spreadsheet to play competitively.

Please let me know if you feel that this defines a "spreadsheet":

Pokemon with alternate abilities are recognized and treated as alternate forms of the same Pokemon. Therefore, under the premise that a Pokemon is characterized as Uber due to an ability, that form of the Pokemon may be excluded from OU play.

Ban List (Example):

Pokemon:

Arceus
Dialga
Giratina
Giratina-o
Groudon
Ho-Oh
Kyogre
Lugia
Mewtwo
Palkia
Rayquaza
Reshiram
Wobuffet (Shadow Tag)
Zekrom

Items:

Soul Dew

Clauses:

Sleep Clause
Species Clause
OHKO Clause
Evasion Clause (Includes Sand Veil/Snow Cloak)

The policy that I created regarding this proposition to consider Pokemon with alternate abilities as alternate forms of a Pokemon would of course be included with the original Smogon Policy.

The ban list is an example ban list, with the only modification being that Wobuffet is banned with the ability Shadow Tag only, and everything else would be arguably the same.

I can't predict the metagame and any future bans we may need to discuss regarding individual Pokemon, but the only abilities that I feel are even a concern (and please, if anyone can add otherwise, speak up now) is Shadow Tag on Wobbufet (Dream World Shandera is underwhelming by comparsion) and Sand Veil/Snow Cloak, which are just a round about way of avoiding the Evasion Clause nearly everyone voted in a poll against, which could be just included in a blanket ban (since Garchomp and other Pokemon who have said abilities may get their secondary Dream World abilities in the future, we can include bans on these two abilities in a blanket ban with Evasion Clause later when we are able.)

Please explain to me how this is complicated, difficult to understand, and is otherwise non user friendly?

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

I've actually always been a big fan of this.

I think in situations in which the ability breaks pokemon (the mons you mentioned are the prime examples), we should consider a ban on the ability instead of the pokemon as it may be the ability itself that may be broken. It increases metagame diversity by allowing good pokemon that would otherwise be perfectly fine in the metagame to stay.

I really don't see this as a slippery slope either. We already ban broken moves. If we approach it broadly as banning broken abilities rather than attempting to ban abilities on specific mons to make them not broken anymore then we don't dip down into "well let's ban water moves/calm mind/thunder/ice beam on kyogre so it's no longer broken." This should be broad "ban broken abilities" kind of thing.

Whether or not the abilities in question are broken or not is up for debate, but I think that we should consider the option of banning abilities just as seriously as we take banning pokemon.

EDIT: gonna quote firestorm's post from lower on the page because this probably got lost in all my odd wording

If you're going to ban a Pokemon, ban a Pokemon.
If you're going to ban an ability, ban an ability.

 

[Ulevo]

While I agree that banning abilities broadly would be more ideal for the sake of simplicity, I would think we could simply ban specific Dream World Pokemon/Non-Dream World Pokemon while allowing their counterpart in standard, or vice versa, since this largely pertains to the inclusion of new abilities introduced by Dream World.

If we were to ban Shadow Tag before in Gen IV, it wouldn't have really meant anything, since it would be the same as banning Wobuffet because Wobuffet itself had no alternative abilities to use, and nothing aside from Wobuffet and Wynaut had the ability. But with the inclusion of Dream World Shandera, banning Shadow Tag no longer effects just Wobuffet.

Assuming for arguments sake Shadow Tag Shandera is found to be acceptable in standard, banning Shadow Tag rather than Shadow Tag Wobuffet would strike off a perfectly viable Pokemon in OU.

 

[cim]

I think this just makes the tiering process more complicated for little benefit. In cases where the only thing breaking the Pokemon is the ability, it becomes de facto banned anyway since it's useless without it (Wobbuffett). If the ability is just another thing that helps it, it's probably "close enough" to broken without it that trying to dissect Pokemon by banning moves, abilities, etc. would just be too much of a hassle.

The only thing that might really change this would be Shandera but I honestly doubt it'll be broken.

 

[Ulevo]

The only thing that might really change this would be Shandera but I honestly doubt it'll be broken.

Then given the scenario of Shandera w/ Shadow Tag being OU, not Uber, what would you propose to do in the event that Wobuffet w/ Shadow Tag is decided Uber?

 

[cim]

Ban Wobbufett (or however you spell it). Since Wobb without it is useless, it has the exact same effect on the metagame.

That way, we avoid starting a precedent with banning Pokemon + abilities that would make us reconsider multiple Pokemon bans "if they had a different ability". Since the opportunity benefit of starting the precedent with Wobb is so minor and the opportunity cost of "opening the floodgates" is a lot bigger we could just outright ban it.

 

[M Dragon]

I believe that banning shadow tag, drizzle and drought is much better than banning shanderaa, politoed and ninetales

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I have to agree with Chris is me. A Pokemon is a combination of its abilities, stats, typing, and movepool, and banning a single aspect of a Pokemon just seems convoluted compared to banning the whole damn thing. Besides, it's not like there's any chance we're going to "run out of Pokemon" and be left with this tiny metagame. If Shadow Tag Shanderaa gets released, and it's broken, ban Shanderaa, because "it's broken". If Shadow Tag is broken, ban the Pokemon that have it. There's only 3, you know, and it's not like banning only Shadow Tag is going to magically give these Pokemon some form of new life. Wobbuffet is locked to Shadow Tag, and even if Dream World Wobbuffet gets released, Telepathy Wobbuffet is so super-bottom-terribad-tier that it's tantamount to banning its serious usage in OU. Shanderaa is marginally interesting, but it's basically Heatran except with a worse typing and defensive stats. And Gochiruzeru is "another Psychic".

It's too much work to try and justify and get working ability bans, when the payoff is so minimal. On top of that, it sets up a dangerous precedent (ban portions of pokemon rather than pokemon themselves), which I'm really not a fan of.

 

[DJXO9]

Let's say there's an ability which is the only reason a Pokemon is broken, but this same ability is absolutely useless on another Pokemon. Is it the Pokemon that's broken, or the ability?

I agree completely with SDS when he said:

A Pokemon is a combination of its abilities, stats, typing, and movepool...

The ability itself isn't broken, but the Pokemon. Even if ability does something ridiculous like give the Pokemon +2 / +2 / +2 / +2 / +2, it still is part of the Pokemon.

 

[undisputed]

Yeah, I am against banning abilities. We are essentially changing what makes Salamence a Salamence if we get rid of Intimidate. Without that ability, it works completely differently and thus is by all means a different Pokemon.

 

[eric the espeon]

The more general question that this brings up is: Should we modify the competitive characteristics (by means of mechanically accurate limits) of a Pokemon in order to make it balanced?

I'm not comfortable with it personally, it brings a significant and perhaps very real slippery slope. What if it's not an ability but a move that makes the Pokemon broken? What if we reduced the level by ten? What if we force it to hold Lagging Tail? The are millions of permutations of how to balance a Pokemon, even when the ability seems like the offending characteristic. Shanderaa would certainly not be broken if we cut it down to size by banning much of it's movepool, or giving it a tight enough level limit. Ultimately, we can balance any Pokemon given enough testing and thought, and a complex enough ruleset. I do not think it is beneficial enough to the metagame to justify the added complexity of ruleset, or the arbitrariness of singling out just abilities out of all the competitive aspects of a Pokemon.

 

[Philip7086]

I am open to the idea of banning certain Pokemon + ability combinations, so long as that Pokemon has another ability to choose from. To put it simply, yes, I think there are cases when a Pokemon is only broken because of an ability, or vice versa. If that Pokemon can use a different ability and not be broken, then I'm all for just banning a certain combination. This is not changing the game's mechanics whatsoever, so I don't see how any arguments citing that subject are relevant. I would have loved to see Rough Skin Garchomp in DPP, because I think the Sand Veil ability was just the slight push it needed to be banned. Other than that, I don't think Garchomp was really unmanageable. I also doubt people would consider a Pokemon like Doryuuzu Uber without Sand Throw. I think this is really something we should consider, and after enough discussion, I am open to putting this up to a vote.

 

[TAY]

In principle I don't see anything wrong with this, but do we really want to open up the door to banning more stuff? Don't we want to limit the amount of time spent banning stuff (and debating banning stuff, and forming policies for banning stuff, and re-testing and subsequently unbanning stuff), assuming we will wind up with a "good" metagame either way?

EDIT: Also agreeing with locopoke...the reasoning behind this also justifies banning certain moves on certain pokemon (which I also hope everyone thinks is way overboard!)

 

[locopoke]

I don't like the idea of nitpicking bits and pieces of Pokemon and banning them. I believe that we should either ban the entire Pokemon or not ban it at all. An ability is just as much part of a Pokemon as it's move pool and stats and we would never consider banning certain moves on certain Pokemon (I hope).

 

[Firestorm]

If you're going to ban a Pokemon, ban a Pokemon.
If you're going to ban an ability, ban an ability.

Going into the millions of possible Pokemon / Move / Ability / Nature / etc combinations is going to create a confusing mess to sort through both for those trying to figure out what's broken and more importantly, for players who might want to start battling competitively but become turned off by our convoluted rules.

 

[Philip7086]

In principle I don't see anything wrong with this, but do we really want to open up the door to banning more stuff?

If anything, this would result in us banning "less" stuff. If a Pokemon is broken due to one of its abilities, and we don't have this policy in place, the entire Pokemon gets banned. If this policy is in place, though, the Pokemon can still be used with the banned version being broken.

@loco: Perhaps you're right about this being a slippery slope. I'd like to think that the community would not make an attempt to take things that far if this passes, but such a "give an inch, take a mile" thing just happened only yesterday. Maybe an arbitrary "cannot ban Pokemon + move combinations" rule should be put in place to baby any user who thinks to take it a step further. If people would rather not do that, I am not opposed to banning certain abilities in general, especially considering the vast majority of Pokemon with "broken abilities" now have a secondary usable ability (or will, when they're available in Dream World).

Or, you know, we could just all quit being pedantic and look at this as what it is -- possibly banning Pokemon + ability combinations, and not anything else slippery slope related.

 

[TAY]

The end result might be fewer bans, but the intermediary process would take much longer because there would be many more possible bans (and discussions on all of those...). Even if we end up with half the number of banned Pokemon, if the game would be good either way then who cares? Are we prioritizing a low number of bans, or a low amount of time spent testing (this is actually kind of a big deal and possibly goes beyond the scope of this thread)?

 

[LonelyNess]

The argument though would be "Drizzle is a broken ability" not "Drizzle on Politoed is a broken ability". I don't think anyone is for only banning certain abilities only on certain Pokemon. Either the ability is broken and it's banned in its entirety or it's not and you ban Pokemon on a case by case basis, rather than just the ability on certain Pokemon.

 

[Philip7086]

Oh, I also wanted to note that the way I see it, each Pokemon + ability combo is as different as different formes of a Pokemon. Just because two Pokemon share the same number in the Pokedex doesn't mean they're the same Pokemon, as we can clearly see with the different versions of Deoxys and Shaymin. Why do we consider stat differences more game changing than ability differences? They have the potential to change a Pokemon just as drastically, and both can mean the difference between being broken and not.

 

[Ulevo]

In principle I don't see anything wrong with this, but do we really want to open up the door to banning more stuff? Don't we want to limit the amount of time spent banning stuff (and debating banning stuff, and forming policies for banning stuff, and re-testing and subsequently unbanning stuff), assuming we will wind up with a "good" metagame either way?

In regards to the time spent, I really only see this being a concern with Shadow Tag Wobuffet, and Sand Veil/Snow Cloak Pokemon. Wobuffet with Telepathy could otherwise be dropped to Ubers since Shadow Tag is clearly the only attribute that makes it Uber. In regards to Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, well... We all know how everyone voted on Evasion Clause without even feeling a need to test it.

After having some consistent battling experience with Dream World abilities, I am fairly confident that the only Pokemon who could pose as suspects would be the same Pokemon in our current OU that would be listed as Uber without their newly added abilities. Pokemon such as Shadow Tag Shandera are proving to be formidable, but quite tolerable. And I don't believe anyone, despite some comments trickling in on Uncharted Territory, would nominate Drizzle and Drought on Ninetales and Politoed for Uber if nobody at this point hasn't felt the need to complain about Sandstream (or at the very least Tyranitar and Hippowdon).

I really can't see anything else posing a need for discussion, and given how streamlined our new tiering and policy system is for Gen V, I can't really see time restraints becoming a problem.

 

[Tleilax]

I'm really not a fan of nitpicking things on Pokemon. That is to say, unless a very strong case can be presented, I'd rather not pick and choose whether or not it's the ability that's broken or the Pokemon using the ability is broken. I can see some merit to the idea. Say, for example, that Intimidate Salamence is considered not broken in BW, and we play as normal. Then we get Overconfidence Salamence, and it's tearing through teams like nothing and is clearly overpowered. There are three possible options. Ban Salamence, ban Overconfidence, ban Salamence using Overconfidence. The easiest choice, and most sensible, is to ban Mence, since (presumably) other things with Overconfidence are not broken, and it's the easiest rule. I'd rather not clutter the rules and tiering with Pokemon with one ability being OU, and the other Uber. It's not that I think the community can't handle it. As others have said, it's more that I don't want the floodgates open on banning specific abilities from specific Pokemon. It has potential to become a clusterfuck of Ifs and Buts that we simply do not need.

If everything with the ability is broken (say, Drizzle as an example), you ban the ability from everything. If the Pokemon makes the ability broken, ban the Pokemon. Unless a great case can be made otherwise, an ability should not be banned from a singular Pokemon.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I think the issue to be discussed is "how inherent is an ability to a pokemon's 'identity.'"

It's the feeling that "What a pokemon is," it's very identity is the combination of its Typing, Base Stats and Ability, with moves coming in or out of its move pool with generations.

This feeling was really strong in 3rd gen, when many pokemon had only 1 ability, and even in 4th gen when many did, or had only 2 at most.

Now the vast majority of pokemon have at least 2, and often 3. With the increased number of abilities, often with multiple good ones to choose from, ability is less associated with the basic identity of what a Pokemon is.

The question is, do we consider ability as a central part of what a pokemon's identity is, along with base stats and typing? If so, it makes no sense to alienate the pokemon from a part of its fundamental build (just as it would make no sense to alienate it from its typing or base stats), and the ban decision should be a ban of the pokemon itself.

If we don't consider ability a part of the fundamental build (and after all, the majority of pokemon now have multiple abilities to choose from), then perhaps we should consider banning abilities like we ban moves.

I would still heavily disagree with banning abilities on specific pokemon just like I'd disagree with banning specific moves on specific pokemon-- I don't want a "witch hunt" trying to find "what watered down version of a pokemon is weak enough to be allowed in OU."

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

My main issue is that once we rationalize banning "pieces of Pokemon", it's too easy to get into a loop of trying to figure out "how much do we have to neuter Pokemon *x* until it's usable in OU", which is a lot of work for very little payoff. It's hard to believe that an OU metagame where only, say... Shadow Tag Wobbuffet is banned (it's completely identical to a metagame in which Wobbuffet is banned, since tagless Wobb wouldn't even see use in the tier below the tier below NU) is any better than a metagame where Wobbuffet is banned as a whole, or whether or not a metagame where only Outrage Salamence (or Draco Meteor Salamence or Dragon Dance Salamence or whatever) is banned is any better than the metagame in which Salamence is just banned outright.

The bottom line is that it's a whole fuckload of work and needless convolution of rules for a resulting metagame that is only questionably "better" than the metagame that only has Pokemon banned on the whole.

 

[Erazor]

My main issue is that once we rationalize banning "pieces of Pokemon", it's too easy to get into a loop of trying to figure out "how much do we have to neuter Pokemon *x* until it's usable in OU", which is a lot of work for very little payoff. It's hard to believe that an OU metagame where only, say... Shadow Tag Wobbuffet is banned (it's completely identical to a metagame in which Wobbuffet is banned, since tagless Wobb wouldn't even see use in the tier below the tier below NU) is any better than a metagame where Wobbuffet is banned as a whole, or whether or not a metagame where only Outrage Salamence (or Draco Meteor Salamence or Dragon Dance Salamence or whatever) is banned is any better than the metagame in which Salamence is just banned outright.

The bottom line is that it's a whole fuckload of work and needless convolution of rules for a resulting metagame that is only questionably "better" than the metagame that only has Pokemon banned on the whole.

This. Too much effort for negligible pay-off.

 

[mien]

Why are splitting hairs on this issue? Abilities are a component of the Pokemon. If we are trying to "follow" game mechanics as everyone keeps alluding to in every PR thread lately, then we should never consider banning an ability.

You all need to get your shit straight. It seems as if many of you just arbitrarily decide which mechanics we can change and which ones we can't. I suppose that is why we have votes on a majority of these things. Unfortunately this topic lacks that and probably needs this option added.

Actually you should be getting 'your shit straight', as long as any pokemon with the banned ability has another ability to choose from it is perfectly possible to ban said ability without breaking the game's mechanics.

Not that I support banning abilities however or support banning anything without proper testing.

edit: nothing is obvious, only that it was after the statement is proven. Also i think you're confusing the game's mechanics with Nintendo's rules matty.