Banning sleep moves in Gen 5

[JabbaTheGriffin]

No offense Jabba, but this entire topic is ridiculous...especially if you really did make this just to propose banning more moves later on. How would we even test for a broken move? What would qualify as a broken move? What moves do you have in mind? Why are you going around looking for things to ban? The attitude of your posts in this topic is detrimental to the Policy Review as a whole. We shouldn't be going around actively proposing bans "just because". The ideal PR forum is one whose actions are practically invisible to the player base. We should be looking for fewer bans, not setting ourselves up to ban things in the future.

"no offense jabba, but your posts are retarded"

don't pull that fucking shit please

i'm not proposing this ban "just because." i am entitled to my own personal opinions on what is broken and what is not. i do not think that breloom or darkrai are broken, i believe that sleep moves are broken in gen 5 due to the counter reset. i would like to nominate what i think is broken. it is as simple as that. i was forced to make this topic because for some odd reason unknown to myself i was not allowed to nominate sleep moves. sure we can ban abilities and we can ban ohko moves/evasion moves, but for some reason we can't currently ban other moves we deem to be broken. clearly on the subject of whether or not sleep moves are broken i'm in the minority, but there are definitely a few people out there who agree with me. i think we have the right to at least nominate sleep moves. if anyone's attitude in their posts is detrimental to PR (and everywhere you post let's be honest) it's yours.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

I never said your posts were retarded, I said that they were ridiculous.

i was forced to make this topic because for some odd reason unknown to myself i was not allowed to nominate sleep moves.

This is why I thought they were ridiculous. You said you made this topic because you werent allowed to nominate sleep moves...but you nominated sleep moves... I wasn't insulting you, I was pointing out the absurdity of the topic's progression. Relax. Nobody is trying to take away your opinions and rights to post topics. People are just upset that we have to post about some new ridiculous ban concept every week and this is just stoking the fire. I didn't realize that Phil was being so indecisive about these topics when you asked him about it. Now that I know you were confused about what to actually address in the OP, the topic makes more sense now. Thanks for clearing that up for me (mostly on AIM). But please don't insult me over a misunderstanding that would be impossible for someone who didn't know your exact thought process to completely see...because THAT is definitely detrimental to the forum.

TheChargersOwnU: i really don't care about sleep moves and if they get banned
TheChargersOwnU: i just want to be able to nominate them
plankton7: that makes sense but i think you need a bit more than a nomination
plankton7: what phil should have told you is "get a process and talk to me again"

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

new ridiculous ban concept

i just want to focus on this. we have already banned moves before (evasion/okho moves), therefore this is no way is a new ban concept.

you could try to differentiate evasion/ohko moves from other moves i guess (but in the end it all just boils down to them being "moves") but even then look at what we can already ban. we can ban pokemon, abilities, and items (soul dew, and i'm sure if swimming goggles existed they would have found themselves a ban too!). the next logical step is to ban broken moves on top of that (if there are even any, which there may not be yet, but the option should still be open).

once again, i'm clearly in the minority when it comes to sleep moves. and several people on the other side have presented good arguments as to why sleep moves may be just the same as they were in previous generations. but even if i'm a 5% minority i should not be denied the right to nominate something i find broken. i tried to frame the topic that way (last sentence) but in the scope of sleep moves since arguably they're the only moves this gen that comes even close to broken. i clearly did a terrible job of wording the op. sorry guys i was extremely confused at the time. i wanted to nominate sleep moves but wasn't allowed and had to make a PR topic if i wanted to nominate them in the future. i had no idea what this topic was supposed to contain so i just wung it.

i guess it boils down to "is there any differentiation between banning ohko/evasion moves and banning other moves" and if there is "why shouldn't moves be included in the list of things we can nominate/ban, even though items and abilities can be banned"

 

[cim]

Why couldn't you have said this in the "putting my foot down" topic? We could have used this reasoning there.

Because this logic COMPLETELY IGNORES every reason anyone ever opposed game modification on principle. Frankly, I don't buy that you're unwillfully ignorant of the reasons people opposed game modification at this point; there's just no way you're not completely intending to create false dichotomies or vapid inconsistencies. You know why I and everyone else stuck up for following the game and you're just trying to drag out every other damn policy discussion we ever have into a revision of history in an attempt to make anyone who thinks any differently from you look bad.

For the show: The hard stance on game modification is because any modification of Pokemon makes it no longer Pokemon, not because "there's some arbitrary amount of modification that's not okay that we can't detect".

 

[jrrrrrrr]

i guess it boils down to "is there any differentiation between banning ohko/evasion moves and banning other moves" and if there is "why shouldn't moves be included in the list of things we can nominate/ban, even though items and abilities can be banned"

I believe there is a distinction but I can't quite put it into words. Banning moves should be a much more serious process than banning pokemon or abilities, considering the sheer scale of the potential problem. They should definitely be included on the list, but I think a move ban proposal would be used so infrequently that it seems superfluous to even consider one until something serious comes up. I don't think that we are at the stage where this is an issue yet. We've had our metagame for 2 months tops, we don't even have usage statistics yet. We should let things settle down a bit more in my opinion, I think gen4 was seriously hurt by our constant fluctuation of tiers and bans. I don't want to see the same thing happen all over again when we have the means to keep things stable.

Because this logic COMPLETELY IGNORES every reason anyone ever opposed game modification on principle.

For the show: The hard stance on game modification is because any modification of Pokemon makes it no longer Pokemon, not because "there's some arbitrary amount of modification that's not okay that we can't detect".

So if we're refusing to go down slippery slopes at all...let's take a hard stance on these things like Phil did in that topic? That seems like a logical conclusion from our posts.

I'm also going to maintain the new leaf I've turned over and ignore your baseless and insulting theories about my posting.

 

[lilyhollow]

things

"Blame" (ok) is not a relevant metric for determining what should or shouldn't be considered ban-worthy. You can say things like "well, a move can be strong, but really it's all because of the Pokemon that's using it," but we all know that that's just code for "it's really messy and annoying and looks wrong to almost everyone involved when you ban a move to solve a balance issue that could instead be solved by just banning a Pokemon or two." The latter is the real issue that we need to be worried about here, the former is a vague rationalization that really isn't needed.

There are other "real issues," like "well, maybe sleep moves aren't broken on non-Darkrai/Breloom Pokemon, but what if the game is still deeper and more balanced in a 'no sleep moves' metagame than in a 'no Darkrai/Breloom' metagame?" So again, the issue is potentially very complicated-- much more complicated than "a move's effectiveness is contingent on the Pokemon that use it, so 'usually' the Pokemon is at 'fault.'" That's why I agree with Chris that it seems brazen to try and whip out any sort of prescribing statement as to what moves we should or should not ban in the future. Obviously I take said "real issues" very seriously, though, so while I don't agree with explicit policy discouraging move bans, I don't expect them to be necessary any time in the near or late future either.


And yes, jrrrrrrr's "slippery slope" argument is weird (though I do agree with some of his anti-ban sentiments) because he's comparing two wildly different situations: one where the community's identity was arguably placed in jeopardy, and one where we could maybe end up being more ban-happy than we already are (which is "very," and I'd suggest that this thread is more of a symptom of that than a potential cause). I'm not even going to get into the relative appropriateness of the term "slippery slope" for the two individual issues, especially because it's kind of a vague, dumb term as it is, but it certainly seems to have outlived its usefulness at this point!

 

[obi]

I have no opinion on banning sleep in Gen 5.

However, I do agree that we should be allowed to nominate moves, abilities, items, Pokemon, or any other clearly definable, discrete part of Pokemon. Move bans should be reserved for extreme situations, but only because all bans should be. If we use bans too frequently, we run the risk of having a community of people who ban things instead of countering them, which is detrimental to competitive play.

 

[Firestorm]

Like obi said, there's not much of a distinction between banning moves / pokemon / abilities / items / etc. They're discrete aspects of Pokemon that can be restricted from use. We've already banned moves, Pokemon, and items before.

I'm not saying sleep should be banned or that it's broken (I don't agree with either but I don't care either), but I'm not sure why a move can't be nominated if both abilities and Pokemon can be. And by move, I mean Jabba would have to specifically list out Sleep Powder, Dark Void, Spore, and every move he thinks should be banned. Not "Sleep" as that would then get into a PR topic filled with "well what about [insert move with secondary effect]"? It's really not crazier than some of the nominations I've already seen.

 

[cim]

Sleep could be easily banned. "If your opponent is asleep and did not use Rest, you lose."

 

[Firestorm]

Like I said, that's an additional clause rather than a ban on moves. You have random effects (Metronome, Effect Spore, etc) to take into account as well. Completely different from wanting to ban a move due to an effect. It could be banned, but not through nominating a move for banning.

For example, we do not currently ban evasion. We ban two moves that specfically increase evasion: Double Team and Minimize.

 

[Ulevo]

I don't feel that the sudden change in sleep mechanics is the main culprit to Jabba and others promoting the ban of sleep inducing moves. Or at least it isn't the primary reason. In Gen IV, the only prevalent sleep inducer after Platinum nerfed Hypnosis was Breloom. Any other Pokemon attempting to use sleep inducing moves was merely a gimmick, and even then Breloom had its own share of hurdles to overcome. Now that we're in Gen V, we have Darkrai to deal with, along with a significantly improved Breloom, Parasect, and I'm sure there are others as well.

As others have stated, I feel this should be taken on a case by case basis. There are enough preventive measures to dealing with sleep (anti-status berries, Sleep Talk, Magic Mirror, Magic Coat, Taunt, et cetera), and from my personal experience Sleep isn't significantly harder to deal with in comparison to dealing with it in Gen IV.

I'd also like to emphasize heavily on what Obi has said. I feel that the community has become a little ban happy with the new tools Gen V has given us in an alarmingly early stage of the metagames development.

 

[cim]

Like I said, that's an additional clause rather than a ban on moves. You have random effects (Metronome, Effect Spore, etc) to take into account as well. Completely different from wanting to ban a move due to an effect. It could be banned, but not through nominating a move for banning.

For example, we do not currently ban evasion. We ban two moves that specfically increase evasion: Double Team and Minimize.

I'm just saying there's no reason we couldn't ban Sleep (or Evasion, if you want to get around banning Persistent!!!!) in that manner.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I am surprised no one has talked about potentially banning specific sleep moves. Then you wouldn't have to get into the nitty-gritty of rest/effect spore/whatever. Just ban Dark Void, Spore and Sleep Powder (and maybe hypnosis). I guess you could add things like Grass Whistle or Sing to that list, but honestly who cares?

To me that seems like a 4th Gen Flygon ban because Garchomp is broken. Just like the pokemon can be judged on a case-by-case basis, individual sleep moves could also be judged similarly.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Hypnosis Darkrai, then? The lower accuracy may be a bitch but I don't see it being really any less "broken" without Dark Void.

 

[Ulevo]

Hypnosis Darkrai, then? The lower accuracy may be a bitch but I don't see it being really any less "broken" without Dark Void.

I disagree.

Latias: 80/90/80/130/110/110

Darkrai: 70/90/90/135/90/125

Without Dark Void available, Darkrai is just another special sweeper with high Speed and Special Attack, and relatively good defensive capacity. If you compare this to Latios, it basically loses out. Latios is better defenisvely, especially special defensively. Latios has better typing by far, being given the best offensive STAB in the game, as well as resistances to Water, Grass, and Electric, all of which are common this generation. Included in that is a Fire resistances, and Levitate gives it an immunity to ground, Spikes and Toxic Spikes on top of all that. It is also notable that due to these resistances, Latios won't likely be revenged by Mach Punch or Aqua Jet, which are two of the more common priority moves. Latios has access to better type coverage with Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Surf, and Dragon moves at its disposal. It has recovery, many other support move options (Memento, Trick, Roar et cetera), and of course Draco Meteor. The only thing it doesn't have comparable to Darkrai is a +2 stage boosting move, and even then Calm Mind does just fine.

Darkrai on the other hand has a worse STAB, a worse defensive type giving it only an immunity to Psychic (which, admittedly while better this generation, is still not all that great), and two uncommon resistances, Ghost and Dark. To round off its coverages it often needs Focus Blast, which is a horrible move. It doesn't have any entry hazard immunities or access to reliable recovery, and its defenses are worse. Taking in all these factors, it's going to be dying sooner, and not hitting nearly as hard.

The only thing Darkrai has over Latios that's of any real relevance is Speed, but there's only a small handful of Pokemon it lets it outspeed past Latios's Speed tier, so it's not that significant.

tl;dr: Dark Void is what makes Darkrai shine. Without it, it would likely fall somewhere comfortably in the OU tier.

EDIT: Also, people wouldn't use Hypnosis Darkrai. Not to any success anyway. Otherwise we'd still be seeing Hypnosis Gengar.

 

[cim]

You're kidding, right? Darkrai has Nasty Plot AND much higher Speed. I'd take that over Calm Mind Dragon attacks any day. Consider it has perfectish Dark/Fighting coverage too and can actually beat Blissey relatively easily (NP + Taunt wins)

I'm not here to debate brokenness but to say a Pokemon with base 125 Speed and 135 Special Attack is worthless without a Sleep move is kind of insane.

 

[Ditto]

Just saying, if we are planning on banning moves that have the potential to sleep, would we also ban Ancient Song? For its 10% chance to sleep it would be banning an entire Pokemon form (Meloetta Step Form).

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Again, I find saying "here's a list of moves you can't use" a lot more fiddly than "If a Pokemon is asleep through any means other than Rest at the end of the turn, the opponent loses." Ancient Song wouldn't be "explicitly banned" but it'd be a 10% chance to lose instantly, so it would basically be a pseudoban. Same with the ~7% chance to Sleep with Effect Spore.

Then again, I'd like to see Evasion Clause as "If a Pokemon gains an evasion boost through any means, that player loses the game" and move away from banning moves altogether.

 

[Ulevo]

You're kidding, right? Darkrai has Nasty Plot AND much higher Speed. I'd take that over Calm Mind Dragon attacks any day. Consider it has perfectish Dark/Fighting coverage too and can actually beat Blissey relatively easily (NP + Taunt wins)

I'm not here to debate brokenness but to say a Pokemon with base 125 Speed and 135 Special Attack is worthless without a Sleep move is kind of insane.

I never said it was worthless without Dark Void. If you read, you'd note that I said he would fit comfortably in OU without Dark Void, in my opinion.

For the record, that extra speed doesn't do a whole lot. The only OU Pokemon it outspeeds with that extra 15 base is Gengar, Starmie, Espeon and Lati@s. It's definitely notable, but nothing to write home about.

Although I did forget about Taunt. That's definitely a notable quality to have.

 

[capefeather]

If we were to ban sleep moves, I'd want to stick to moves specifically intended to sleep. Ancient Song at least should be considered apart from them.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I don't get why having a clause that makes ancient song and effect spore have a % chance to lose the match better than a list of banned sleep moves (if it were to happen). Besides, one is more easily implemented by programmers, and you know just how available programming help is right now.

[derail]

Hide

You're kidding, right? Darkrai has Nasty Plot AND much higher Speed. I'd take that over Calm Mind Dragon attacks any day. Consider it has perfectish Dark/Fighting coverage too and can actually beat Blissey relatively easily (NP + Taunt wins)

I'm not here to debate brokenness but to say a Pokemon with base 125 Speed and 135 Special Attack is worthless without a Sleep move is kind of insane.

Sorry CiM, your comment makes me question if you've played 5th Gen OU . . .

Void-less Darkrai is not "worthless" but it certainly is no where near on par with Latios. If you want to see an example of "speed and power not being enough," just look at 4th gen alakazam . . .

Besides, Latios' set isn't calm mind, it's SPECS which Darkrai is obviously mediocre at. Neither of them have the overall bulk to be top-tier setup platforms.

I never said it was worthless without Dark Void. If you read, you'd note that I said he would fit comfortably in OU without Dark Void, in my opinion.

For the record, that extra speed doesn't do a whole lot. The only OU Pokemon it outspeeds with that extra 15 base is Gengar, Starmie, Espeon and Lati@s. It's definitely notable, but nothing to write home about.

Although I did forget about Taunt. That's definitely a notable quality to have.

Well, if you were comparing it to Latios than no, it's not comfortably OU because Latios is anything but comfortably OU . . . definite one of the prime suspects outside Shaymin-S.

However, I do think that Latios is a much better pokemon than DV-less Darkrai. Draco Meteor and Surf makes the difference. Dark Pulse's base power is decidedly mediocre, and it doesn't help that Darkrai has to rely on focus-fail for coverage.

Nasty Plot is interesting, but really it's difficult to pull off with all the priority/scarfers and the fact that Darkrai is almost devoid of useful resistances, making it a nightmare (lol) to switch in or setup, especially without Dark Void.

On the other hand, Latios has any number of useful resistances-- fire, water, fighting, ground, grass . . . it's definitely got way more opportunities to switch in and spam Specs Meteor. While Latios is real suspect material, I think Void-less Darkrai would be much closer to "comfortably OU".

[/derail]

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Can we please not turn this into a debate about how good Darkrai is?