Quagsire is niche pokemon and can only function on stall teams. Even in that rmt you mentioned, he specifically mentions that haze is for BP teams. On almost all other playstyles besides stall, Quagsire is not a good choice, as it has terrible offensive presence, loses momentum extremely easily, and is taken out by many common threats. Quagsire should only be used as a sort of patchwork for defensive cores, which means its use is pretty much limited to stall.
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Baton Pass - its role in the metagame and possible solutions to nerf full Baton Pass chains
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Quagsire is niche pokemon and can only function on stall teams. Even in that rmt you mentioned, he specifically mentions that haze is for BP teams. On almost all other playstyles besides stall, Quagsire is not a good choice, as it has terrible offensive presence, loses momentum extremely easily, and is taken out by many common threats. Quagsire should only be used as a sort of patchwork for defensive cores, which means its use is pretty much limited to stall.
Yeah, it's too bad Imposter doesn't work through Substitutes, which will always be up, so yeah, nice try. Also, even if you do end up passing boosts, since Baton Pass teams always boost defensively with the exception of Calm Mind, copying their boosts doesn't really accomplish too much as they will just continue to boost unperturbed.
This brings up a major problem I have with the anti-ban side in this thread: people either don't bring up any specific examples and say something to the effect of "Baton Pass isn't hard to beat there are plenty of viable answers" or they being up specific examples but don't list why the thing that they mentioned beats BP. You say that Landorus-I and LO Aegislash (which isn't all that great and is a huge waste of Aegislash's defensive capabilities tbh) beat BP easily, but can you provide reasons why they beat BP or better yet, can you provide a replay where the thing you mentioned actually beats a good (this is the key word here, no one cares if it beats players who don't know how to use BP correctly) player using BP? The anti-ban side is just devolving into meaningless theorymon that doesn't prove anything and it's kind of bothering me.
Re: Haze: The only defensive Pokemon with Haze in OU is Quagsire (No, defensive Milotic, defensive Vaporeon, and Tentacruel are not OU viable), which a) is unviable outside of full stall and b) already has Unaware, so Haze is completely useless on it otherwise and beyond redundant. That's like running Rain Dance Politoed or Magic Coat Espeon (idk if it actually gets Magic Coat but that isn't the point). When you are forced to run one of just a few things that are useless in 99% of cases just because of one random "playstyle" that you would auto-lose to otherwise, there is a problem.
Also, please stop calcing against BP mons without defensive boosts unless you're trying to prove that something beats all common BP mons from turn one. It's really misleading.
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Substitute is pointless if your attacks are dealing more than 25%, and protect will only buy them time. Sure they will get free speed boosts, but that's the only boost they will be able to get without takibg high damage, and every time they use baton pass they will give you a free turn to attack. Baton pass just cant handle early game pressure, specially from special attackers. And there are many special attackers who can put that pressure. And good offensive or balanced team is bound to have at least one.
Guys, just one thing: the fact that haze is the only thing that hard counters bp doesn't mean it's broken, because bp is not a pokemon or a move, it's an entire playstyle. Of course it's not easy to slap a perfect baton pass counter on any team. If it were, nobody would use it. There arent a bunch of ways to completely shut down ho either, and nobody thinks ho is broken. There are, though, multiple things that can hold a fight against baton pass, including talonflame, thundurus, aegislash, gardevoir, keldeo, volcarona, pinsir... they don't have a 100% chance of winning, it will depend on which player makes the best predictions and switches, but like some other guy said, it's not black and white. And that's a good thing, it means the style is not broken.
That's totally besides the point i was making, that Haze on Quagsire has no use other than combating Baton Pass teams.
Also, Aquaslash, defensive Milotic is not viable in OU.
I beg to differ on that
Is Baton Pass (with specific reference to full Baton Pass teams) a problem for the development of the metagame?
So far its not an issue but for countering it creates limitations wen team building, un-prepared teams will have problems specially with Scolipede having access to speedboost witch is the usual lead on BP teams
If so, what elements, in particular, do you think are pushing Baton Pass over the edge?
How Steamrolling it can be and easy to pull off
If taunt had a +1 priority BP wouldn't not be an issue and neither would be para swag crap but since its not the case .
Mental herb is no that common most BP teams use leftovers or sash , sableye is a good counter for BP teams prankster taunt same with thundurus
Having to carry a taunt pokemon it always helps your teams but fast taunt pokemons are not that common
Haze and Clear Smog , Punishment are bad moves wen not used on boosting mons , And Topsy-turvy is exclusive to Malamar
OU viable infiltrators are also an issue
Do you believe that banning individual Pokémon (such as Espeon/Scolipede) would make Baton Pass manageable?
None of the usual mons used on BP teams are broken on their own so no
Would you support a blanket ban on the move Baton Pass?
No BP is a legitimate strategy and banning it is wrong,
Would you support the introduction of complex bans (like Pokémon X+Pokémon Y on the same team)? Feel free to suggest more forms of complex bans, of course.
Perhaps limiting the number of BP pokemons on a single team would make then more manageable
Or Ban Magic Bounce mons on BP teams
I find surprising your asking suggestions about possible complex bans since smogon is against then , witch for me is wrong the game has become so complex and with so much options smogon has to adapt to the times
On that note absulutely complex bans need to happen
Knock Off spam is an issue and limiting the number of pokemons on a single team with it would be nice
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To the people that are bringing up Talonflame and Rotom-W's presence as 'restrictive to teambuilding', just remember that Talonflame and Rotom-W counters in general tend to have use outside of dealing with Talonflame and Rotom-W. I use Porygon2 and Conkeldurr as counters to the respective pokemon, who I can actually use for other things like Gliscor, Chansey, Mandibuzz, Greninja, Blissey, Heatran, Landorus, and some other pokemon who are actually used regularly in OU. Murkrow has no practical use outside of countering Baton Pass, and you can tell because it isn't hardly used in OU (falls behind Scyther, Shiftry, and Marowak in usage), or UU (falls behind the terrifying duo of Raticate and Swoobat). The suggestion seems to me like when people said "Look at all these Own Tempo pokemon who counter Swagplay" when in reality they were more or less garbage pokemon who had no use other than to counter Swagplay. Same goes for Murkrow (and to an extend Haze Quagsire, epitome of redundancy).
To the people that say that "Haze is useful for stopping BP", the only team that I have seen to do that is Stall with Quagsire (and even that is really redundant with Unaware) since other teams run Whirlwind/Roar to get rid of set-up pokemon, which btw, is useless against BP since ingrain Smeargle.
Also, to the people who are saying that "running one pokemon as a stop to another playstyle is worth it and adapting" I advise that you consider the times that you don't run into a BP team. Generally, even counters to pokemon like Rotom-W and Talonflame actually can be used in battles where you don't fight them (Talonflame counters also tend make good counters to Mega-Pinsir and Physical threats in general, Rotom-W counters tend to just be hard-hitting pokemon), and are not relegated to death/setup fodder for the other team like Murkrow would be. By running Murkrow or Quagsire (granted not stall) you would be sacrificing a team-spot, and unlike suicide leads who do the same thing, they actually give you some momentum/hazards with whereas Murkrow and Quagsire would not. And you try fighting a 5v6 battle without significant difficulty.
To the people that say that "Haze is useful for stopping BP", the only team that I have seen to do that is Stall with Quagsire (and even that is really redundant with Unaware) since other teams run Whirlwind/Roar to get rid of set-up pokemon, which btw, is useless against BP since ingrain Smeargle.
Also, to the people who are saying that "running one pokemon as a stop to another playstyle is worth it and adapting" I advise that you consider the times that you don't run into a BP team. Generally, even counters to pokemon like Rotom-W and Talonflame actually can be used in battles where you don't fight them (Talonflame counters also tend make good counters to Mega-Pinsir and Physical threats in general, Rotom-W counters tend to just be hard-hitting pokemon), and are not relegated to death/setup fodder for the other team like Murkrow would be. By running Murkrow or Quagsire (granted not stall) you would be sacrificing a team-spot, and unlike suicide leads who do the same thing, they actually give you some momentum/hazards with whereas Murkrow and Quagsire would not. And you try fighting a 5v6 battle without significant difficulty.
All this conversation about "how to possibly counter baton pass" is literally giving me cancer.
Baton Pass chains are a Monster with Impenetrable Defenses, switch initiative, and the ability to Sweep your team mercilessly many times over.
There are no true counters. There are a hodgepodge of things that might work but as people have stated before you are having to fight the team as a whole, not just one pokemon, with every turn you switch trying to counter them they are accumulating more boosts.
Powerful attackers, such as listed before, are not guaranteed to get the job done. They may do some damage, but in the meantime the BP team is boosting in your face and every boost gives them more and more momentum until it gets completely out of control and you are helpless, control is completely taken away and there is no way to get it back, ever.
People suggesting niche counters or halfway measures are akin to saying "chemotherapy is a counter to cancer". Why have to go through chemotherapy in the first place if you can do things like living healthy to prevent cancer from ever being a concern? And the difference here is that we can actually do something about it, whereas in normal life sometimes there is nothing you can do to prevent cancer - sometimes it just happens. Here we can actually do something about it.
Make a Healthy Metagame Please.
Baton Pass chains are a Monster with Impenetrable Defenses, switch initiative, and the ability to Sweep your team mercilessly many times over.
There are no true counters. There are a hodgepodge of things that might work but as people have stated before you are having to fight the team as a whole, not just one pokemon, with every turn you switch trying to counter them they are accumulating more boosts.
Powerful attackers, such as listed before, are not guaranteed to get the job done. They may do some damage, but in the meantime the BP team is boosting in your face and every boost gives them more and more momentum until it gets completely out of control and you are helpless, control is completely taken away and there is no way to get it back, ever.
People suggesting niche counters or halfway measures are akin to saying "chemotherapy is a counter to cancer". Why have to go through chemotherapy in the first place if you can do things like living healthy to prevent cancer from ever being a concern? And the difference here is that we can actually do something about it, whereas in normal life sometimes there is nothing you can do to prevent cancer - sometimes it just happens. Here we can actually do something about it.
Make a Healthy Metagame Please.
A BP player is not stupid, if you do indeed have one of those threats, you can sack the least important member of your chain based on team previews and sash smeargle your only win condition. Having several bp counters is generally bad teambuilding against everything else.
Just want to point out something that should be obvious but seemingly isnt at all. There are far more than just half a dozen counters to BP out there. In order to beat BP you basicly need just 2 things. A strong special attacker that can ohko or at least 2hko Scolipede and Vaporeon and strong physical priority that isnt resisted by Psychic/Fairy. Now please go and count the number of things that can deal with BP.
The winconditions of BP in form of Espeon and Sylveon are both extremly frail on the physical side, without def boosts they are totaly fucked up by physical hits, so all you have to do is to prevent them from getting said def boosts and thankfully both def boosters in form of Scolipede and Vaporeon arent good at dealing with special attacks. The priority is there to prevent the evees from escaping unharmed. Oh and who with half a brain lets his most important mon to beat BP get spored by smeargle? Simply switch to something that can damage smeagle and isnt to important otherwise.
Every kind of team can prepare for BP to an extent where it has a good chance of winning even against good players and basicly have a free win against bad players. Mindless as it might seem on first sight, but there is a huge difference between facing the BP team of some amateur of the team of an experienced player.
And honestly moves/abilitys that give otherwise useless pokemon a niche... there are tons of them out there. Who would ever think about using Politoad if it wasnt for Drizzle? Nobody whines about that so whats the big deal in putting Haze on a Quagsire? Thats ONE freaking move that handles a whole playstyle alone, there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing that from an objective point of view, most people here just dont WANT to do that because they dont like BP to beginn with and its so much more comfortable to just go and ban it.
The winconditions of BP in form of Espeon and Sylveon are both extremly frail on the physical side, without def boosts they are totaly fucked up by physical hits, so all you have to do is to prevent them from getting said def boosts and thankfully both def boosters in form of Scolipede and Vaporeon arent good at dealing with special attacks. The priority is there to prevent the evees from escaping unharmed. Oh and who with half a brain lets his most important mon to beat BP get spored by smeargle? Simply switch to something that can damage smeagle and isnt to important otherwise.
Every kind of team can prepare for BP to an extent where it has a good chance of winning even against good players and basicly have a free win against bad players. Mindless as it might seem on first sight, but there is a huge difference between facing the BP team of some amateur of the team of an experienced player.
And honestly moves/abilitys that give otherwise useless pokemon a niche... there are tons of them out there. Who would ever think about using Politoad if it wasnt for Drizzle? Nobody whines about that so whats the big deal in putting Haze on a Quagsire? Thats ONE freaking move that handles a whole playstyle alone, there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing that from an objective point of view, most people here just dont WANT to do that because they dont like BP to beginn with and its so much more comfortable to just go and ban it.
Well I played a few teams with mainly just baton pass only, is it a problem for this meta game I played Four or so games with a baton pass only team I went two and two
One Rage quit, and a sweep
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-109299249
I feel that just one baton passer isn't that broken but when the whole team is throwing the baton around, it makes it harder to handle when you throw soundproof and magic bounce as well it makes it harder and harder to counter but there is some counters
Infiltrator: This is a good one because you have many baton passers have sub you can blast the pokemon down thats stuck behind it
Sound Moves: Provided they do not have a pokemon with sound proof
Kyurem-Black: Teravolt negates abilities like sound proof, and Magic Bounce
MoldBreaker: Same as Teravolt
Small Amount of counters I feel only one baton passers on a team I would say
Baton Pass Clause: Limit to only one baton passers per team
One Rage quit, and a sweep
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-109299249
I feel that just one baton passer isn't that broken but when the whole team is throwing the baton around, it makes it harder to handle when you throw soundproof and magic bounce as well it makes it harder and harder to counter but there is some counters
Infiltrator: This is a good one because you have many baton passers have sub you can blast the pokemon down thats stuck behind it
Sound Moves: Provided they do not have a pokemon with sound proof
Kyurem-Black: Teravolt negates abilities like sound proof, and Magic Bounce
MoldBreaker: Same as Teravolt
Small Amount of counters I feel only one baton passers on a team I would say
Baton Pass Clause: Limit to only one baton passers per team
Take it from me, a stall player and heavy Quagsire user,QUagsire isn't niche. Quagsire can counter many pokemon in this metagame that are dangerous because of their set up such as lum DDnite, SD chomp and the biggest one: DD Zard X. It is a great defensive glue to many teams, often used in stall but it can be effective in other playstyles if used correctly. Quagsire is a great pokemon and is almost mandatory on current serious stall teams such as my very own Goldfish or previously mentioned TFL 's teh fgts that nevr die.
Unaware in general is a great check/counter to end of chain BP sweepers. I do think however that the real threatening thing is that offense is getting damage instead of stall unlike every other suspect and that is what causes such an upset. So far my stall team often beats baton pass due to unexpected roar on mons like Mega Venu and use of high packed defenses, and unaware.
I think that Mega Venusaur is one of the best pokemon to combat this playstyle along with Quagsire. Mega Venusaur laughs at BPs highest regarded win condition and can unexpectidely roar out things like scolipede. I tihnk the best thing to do when seenig BP is to lead with a roar user as even if they pivot into espeon they don't really have any boosts yet, mold breaker taunt is another great way to break these chains. Here are some users of MB Taunt:
Basculin, Basculin-Blue-Striped, Druddigon, Fraxure, Gyarados-Mega, Hawlucha, Haxorus, Pangoro, Sawk(possibly, it's like C or + rank in OU but baton pass stopping and knock off give it a niche over things like megacham and terrak), Throh
In Bold are the most viable ones. I actually used tauntDD Gyarados in my older RMT Adventure melodyand it wans't only niche to beat BP, heck I barely faced BP on the alt, it was mainly to break through heavier walls from recovering, and it worked great.
Or just ban more than 2 things with baton pass on the same team. Also, if their magic bouncer bp's out you can still continue to phaze quite often. And they basicly always have obvious leads so you can just lead with something that deal with it (zard-y/mega-pinsir (most common mega's) for ninjask for example, and a lot of other things that just hit hard can break the chains right at the beginning before they get like +4/+4 defences). We shouldnt think about it like: "a well played chain is unbreakable you have to run roar and predict otherwise you lose", cuz that aint true. Its fine like this imo, it still takes skill (it isnt fully based on luck), often doesnt work (very unreliable) and is still considered a gimmick by most players and you would probably be better of running a actual well built team that isnt crazy risky and team-match up reliant. So yeh :]
To those of you saying that Baton Pass is a legitimate, viable strategy - you are basically saying it is the best, most viable, most successful way to play Pokemon. The number one Ranked Player, Denissss, has camped at the #1 spot, or close to it, for a very long time. Not to mention other players such as stinkki shark or Die Haxor Die have been incredibly successful.
So, should we all start playing Baton Pass?
Here is an example of what that metagame would look like.
So, should we all start playing Baton Pass?
Here is an example of what that metagame would look like.
It was good enough to get a mention on the analysis (even though you were completely against it), so it's at least worth something. It has its uses outside of dealing with BP.
What's the difference between "this great move has no use other than combating this team style" vs something like hazards, which basically requires every team to run a defogger or spinner? Couldn't you say hazards are centralising in that regard too?
Yes I know hazards are useful and turn 2HKOs into OHKOs and are important for keeping potentially broken things like charY and pinsir in check, and I'm not disagreeing with that, but is carrying something to deal with BP teams so bad when you've already got to account for how to deal with all of the other types of teams?
Baton pass? Sure, I'll contribute. These have been, at least on the higher end of the scale, more common ever since swagplay was banned (thank you).I think them to be a problem, but perhaps not in the way most people think. May I turn your attention to some personal experience. which I believe illustrates the problem of Baton Pass teams?
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One day after I had gotten my work done, I decided to play PS! because I had some free time. Just for the databook, my first rating was around 1700 (I really don't care much about ratings so forgive me if I can't name it). Now, I believe smogon was having a slow day or something, because I kept seeing the same guys over and over again. One of these was a baton pass team.
I tried my best to defeat him by using clever switching and predicting his own switches, but it wasn't enough and I lost about 3-0 to him. Now, this had been maybe the fifth baton pass team that I had lost to in the last 2-3 days, and my record for non baton pass team beating was near flawless. Deducing this as a problem, I decided to put Deoxys S with Taunt and Dark Pulse to both counter Scolepede and Espeon at once. Or if it didn't, I'd pick something else- either way I was testing it and here is what happened:
I ran into the same guy with the same BP team. This time I led with Deo S and used Taunt, to which he protected. I used taunt again, and he was not fast enough to baton pass, so his scolipede became afflicted with the taunt condition.
He forfeited immediately.
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So what does my story have to do with anything? Well, I have seen many people arguing in this thread about whether baton pass is easy to counter or not. So is baton pass easy to counter? Yes. Is baton pass hard to counter? Yes.
From my experience of dealing with this since gen 4(3?) back when I had Haze Milotic, Baton Pass is incredibly easy to deal with if you have a solid counter to it. However if not, there is almost a 90% certainty you will lose. Thus, baton pass is both easy and hard to counter at the same time. This is the first problem of BP.
But now let's go back to the other important claim of baton passing: that it, like swagplay, requires little to no skill involved in order to defeat other teams, possibly of much higher skill than your own. The answer to that I believe is a resounding yes. That person I mentioned I battled? He had an espeon (all BP teams run one), and since he knew I was going to taunt he could have switched to it, taunted myself, and then would have won when I had to switch Deo S out. He clearly had no idea what speed tier his scolipede was in, and thus he made a critical error and had to forfeit apparently.
I had lost against this man before putting Deoxys S on my team. Think about that.
Baton passing is such a skill less strategy that something must be done about it, else we accept the fact that those who worked far less hard than you for wins get them more often than yourself. So I suppose I had better put my own opinion on what to do, since I have already written this much.
Should baton pass be banned? No, as many have pointed out, it has its uses outside of full on BP teams.
Should Scolipede/Espeon with Baton Pass be banned? Close, but no. These are team players, and have to rely on a full team in order to be deadly. Without these full teams they are not anywhere near broken.
Personally I think the solution to this problem is to limit the amount of pokemon with baton pass to 2-3 users. This would allow for dry passing and quick passing while simultaneously not allowing for the full on BP teams to take less skill from the meta. However! This solution comes with another effect: It will force the baton pass teams to get more creative. Remember how I said BP teams were skill less? Well now you can have only three. Which three do you pick? What moves? Suddenly these teams gain a lot more skill to be able to be used effectively.
That's all I have to say for now.
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One day after I had gotten my work done, I decided to play PS! because I had some free time. Just for the databook, my first rating was around 1700 (I really don't care much about ratings so forgive me if I can't name it). Now, I believe smogon was having a slow day or something, because I kept seeing the same guys over and over again. One of these was a baton pass team.
I tried my best to defeat him by using clever switching and predicting his own switches, but it wasn't enough and I lost about 3-0 to him. Now, this had been maybe the fifth baton pass team that I had lost to in the last 2-3 days, and my record for non baton pass team beating was near flawless. Deducing this as a problem, I decided to put Deoxys S with Taunt and Dark Pulse to both counter Scolepede and Espeon at once. Or if it didn't, I'd pick something else- either way I was testing it and here is what happened:
I ran into the same guy with the same BP team. This time I led with Deo S and used Taunt, to which he protected. I used taunt again, and he was not fast enough to baton pass, so his scolipede became afflicted with the taunt condition.
He forfeited immediately.
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So what does my story have to do with anything? Well, I have seen many people arguing in this thread about whether baton pass is easy to counter or not. So is baton pass easy to counter? Yes. Is baton pass hard to counter? Yes.
From my experience of dealing with this since gen 4(3?) back when I had Haze Milotic, Baton Pass is incredibly easy to deal with if you have a solid counter to it. However if not, there is almost a 90% certainty you will lose. Thus, baton pass is both easy and hard to counter at the same time. This is the first problem of BP.
But now let's go back to the other important claim of baton passing: that it, like swagplay, requires little to no skill involved in order to defeat other teams, possibly of much higher skill than your own. The answer to that I believe is a resounding yes. That person I mentioned I battled? He had an espeon (all BP teams run one), and since he knew I was going to taunt he could have switched to it, taunted myself, and then would have won when I had to switch Deo S out. He clearly had no idea what speed tier his scolipede was in, and thus he made a critical error and had to forfeit apparently.
I had lost against this man before putting Deoxys S on my team. Think about that.
Baton passing is such a skill less strategy that something must be done about it, else we accept the fact that those who worked far less hard than you for wins get them more often than yourself. So I suppose I had better put my own opinion on what to do, since I have already written this much.
Should baton pass be banned? No, as many have pointed out, it has its uses outside of full on BP teams.
Should Scolipede/Espeon with Baton Pass be banned? Close, but no. These are team players, and have to rely on a full team in order to be deadly. Without these full teams they are not anywhere near broken.
Personally I think the solution to this problem is to limit the amount of pokemon with baton pass to 2-3 users. This would allow for dry passing and quick passing while simultaneously not allowing for the full on BP teams to take less skill from the meta. However! This solution comes with another effect: It will force the baton pass teams to get more creative. Remember how I said BP teams were skill less? Well now you can have only three. Which three do you pick? What moves? Suddenly these teams gain a lot more skill to be able to be used effectively.
That's all I have to say for now.
That leaves us with 2 important questions. Is Denisss at number one because he plays BP or simply because he is a good player? My guess is its more of the latter. The next question is, is BP so viable because its so broken and cant be countered or because so many people refuse to prepare for it in any way? Here its the latter for sure. So I realy dont think that BP is the one to blame here, in both cases. The more popular BP becomes, the less viable it will get. Atm you can easily make top 100 even if you lose every match against BP because its not all to common, if that changes people will start to prepare for it and when they do BP will be at a huge disadvantage and eventually decline in usage.
I don't want to add a wall of text, as I think most of what can be said, has already been said, but I just want to emphasize a few points, and give my opinion
Just because something has counters and can be stopped, does not mean it is not broken or uncompetitive. Everything has counters, even Ubers. This does not make them healthy for the OU metagame. Assault Vest physical attacking Aegislash counters Geomancy Xerneas, but it fucking sucks outside of that purpose, and it doesn't mean that Geomancy Xerneas would be ok in the OU metagame. Mega Lucario had a pretty hard counter in the form of resttalk Gyarados, but it was still broken as fuck, and got the boot for it. Quagsire and Chansey were pretty hard stops to swagplay teams, but it was still deemed uncompetitive.
However, nothing about baton pass is broken or uncompetitive on its own. Banning baton pass as a move, banning espeon, banning scolipede, and banning baton pass + magic bounce is not the answer, as none of these are broken, and have uses outside of full baton pass chains.
So how do we stop collateral damage and still nerf/get rid of this problem, since I, and as it would appear, most people think that this makes the metagame much less fun. I think the answer is to ban the use of the move baton pass from being on more than 3 members of a team. This still allows baton pass for utility purposes, and other strategies like smashpass (smeargle, gorebyss, huntail/SD scolipede is more than enough) and can even allow for mini baton pass chains, if those are viable at all I have no idea (Iron defense scoli, CM sylveon, stored power Espeon). I think this leaves the most people happy, while still solving the problem completely.
Just because something has counters and can be stopped, does not mean it is not broken or uncompetitive. Everything has counters, even Ubers. This does not make them healthy for the OU metagame. Assault Vest physical attacking Aegislash counters Geomancy Xerneas, but it fucking sucks outside of that purpose, and it doesn't mean that Geomancy Xerneas would be ok in the OU metagame. Mega Lucario had a pretty hard counter in the form of resttalk Gyarados, but it was still broken as fuck, and got the boot for it. Quagsire and Chansey were pretty hard stops to swagplay teams, but it was still deemed uncompetitive.
However, nothing about baton pass is broken or uncompetitive on its own. Banning baton pass as a move, banning espeon, banning scolipede, and banning baton pass + magic bounce is not the answer, as none of these are broken, and have uses outside of full baton pass chains.
So how do we stop collateral damage and still nerf/get rid of this problem, since I, and as it would appear, most people think that this makes the metagame much less fun. I think the answer is to ban the use of the move baton pass from being on more than 3 members of a team. This still allows baton pass for utility purposes, and other strategies like smashpass (smeargle, gorebyss, huntail/SD scolipede is more than enough) and can even allow for mini baton pass chains, if those are viable at all I have no idea (Iron defense scoli, CM sylveon, stored power Espeon). I think this leaves the most people happy, while still solving the problem completely.
There are so many bad arguments in this thread, it's ridiculous. If you can't elevate your ranking above ~1750 ELO, I sincerely doubt you have anywhere near enough experience with BP to make an educated statement about it. If you think it's rare, then you're definitely not playing at that level. BP is common and indeed a legitimate threat.
BP is a very formulaic playstyle that requires little actual knowledge of the metagame to play. You have a couple coinflip predictions in a given match, maybe, and that's it for actually have to think. It's uncompetitive, and it's broken as hell too because of the dearth of ways to handle it. BP can be beat, but only with one of a few select, generally unfavorable options. If that isn't something to get rid of, I don't know what is.
A multiple BP user ban is probably the best way to go about it. Banning cores is dicey, and really unnecessary. A simple 2 Pokemon cap solves the problem well. So you can still have the legitimate uses of BP, but full BP doesn't exist.
Sorta an aside but assuming we actually go through with this, a suspect ladder doesn't really make much sense. People will just run the random obscure stuff to beat BP that makes little sense in a normal environment. BP won't be good on this ladder because every team will run one of these couple things to beat it. Just make a decision and leave it at that.
Bri, I respect your opinion but this really doesn't make any sense. List of Haze users viable in OU: Quagsire, Politoed. List of Prankster Taunt users viable in OU: Thundurus, Sableye. Are you suggesting that every player needs one of these four Pokemon on their team to actually beat this strategy, and that is okay? It's not like Haze is even a full counter. You can still lose running Haze. BP has Smeargle to Spore the Haze user, Mr. Mime to Encore the Haze and just get the team all set up again, and Espeon's Stored Power still does crap loads. Espeon needs 10 boosts to guarantee an OHKO on Quagsire with Stored Power given 0 SpA EVs, and 9 with 40. This isn't very hard to accumulate, and Haze can just PP stalled if you spam it due to the fact that stall teams (Quagsire) aren't exactly doing much in return to the BP users. And these Haze users are only viable on two archetypes: stall and the rare rain, respectively. Prankster Taunt has the benefit of Thundurus, which is extremely good on offensive teams, but it has to sacrifice a lot in that one slot (it has like a million options) just to run Taunt, which a lot of teams can't afford. Sableye is extremely niche, and mostly irrelevant in XY OU. So basically you have to run one of these four Pokemon for these counters, and sacrifice a better option in 95% of other matchups just so you don't get totally steamrolled by BP. This isn't adapting, this is overcentralization.
BP is a very formulaic playstyle that requires little actual knowledge of the metagame to play. You have a couple coinflip predictions in a given match, maybe, and that's it for actually have to think. It's uncompetitive, and it's broken as hell too because of the dearth of ways to handle it. BP can be beat, but only with one of a few select, generally unfavorable options. If that isn't something to get rid of, I don't know what is.
A multiple BP user ban is probably the best way to go about it. Banning cores is dicey, and really unnecessary. A simple 2 Pokemon cap solves the problem well. So you can still have the legitimate uses of BP, but full BP doesn't exist.
Sorta an aside but assuming we actually go through with this, a suspect ladder doesn't really make much sense. People will just run the random obscure stuff to beat BP that makes little sense in a normal environment. BP won't be good on this ladder because every team will run one of these couple things to beat it. Just make a decision and leave it at that.
Couldn't you say the same thing about gastrodon only being used to counter rain teams, even though outside of that purpose gastrodon isn't really OU viable?
The difference is that even without Gastrodon there are still plenty of ways to succesfully beat a rain team.
On Baton Pass, if you don't bring an obscure counter, a niche strategy, or get lucky, it's pretty much gg.
And just saying "oh bring Talonflame, bring Pinsir" doesn't work. Baton Pass has ways to get around these pokemon, such as Zapdos, defense boosting, and roar.
Landorus-I isn't steamrolling through a BP team without a significant amount of luck. Same can be said for other powerful attackers that have been mentioned.
Also, Gastrodon could actually make use of the rain with its water STAB being boosted, and benefited from the rain-boosted water attacks because of storm drain, making it a really good response to those kinds of situations. Quagsire doesn't benefit at all from the BP chain and can't do much in the face of stored power.
Ok, there are some arguments reappearing a lot that are really bothering me
1. Quagsire with Haze stops Baton Pass : FALSE
Smeargle spores, Quaggy can't even survive a stored power with what, 6 boosts? That's like the blink of an eye for baton pass. Not to mention that haze on quagsire is like the epitome of redundancy, and is basically a waste of a moveslot since a good Baton Pass can annihilate Quagsire regardless.
You literally need 2 Hazers on a stall team to fully counter baton pass, and that's just dumb.
2. Mental Herb isn't a thing on Scolipede
It is.
3. Baton Pass is unstoppable and undefeatable, we must nerf it
Holy shit, where does this even come from lol. Here's 3 perfectly viable counters, off the top of my head, that just destroy Baton pass.
A. Lando-I
B. NP thundurus
C. Char-Y
Nobody on baton pass can take two hits from ANY of these guys (bar vaporeon after sun is gone). The most specially defensive pokemon that you'll see on baton pass, zapdos and sylveon, can't really boost or live or anything. If Zapdos can live, all it's doing back is roosting. And just passing into another pokemon that'll be 2HKO'd. Zapdos isn't even a common sight on baton pass, it should be.
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Zapdos: 125-147 (32.6 - 38.3%) -- 2.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Zapdos in Sun: 241-285 (62.9 - 74.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Zapdos: 220-261 (57.4 - 68.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 171-202 (43.4 - 51.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon in Sun: 187-222 (47.4 - 56.3%) -- 30.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 192-229 (48.7 - 58.1%) -- 58.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
This amount of damage is simply unacceptable to a baton pass team. This is the most specially bulky pokemon the team is even going to see, and if its dying that easily, then baton pass is not gonna have a fun time.
4. Physical attackers have an easier time against Baton Pass
They don't, and its pretty easy to understand why. Iron Defense boosts +2, and Calm Mind boosts +1. That's all there really is to it. Baton Pass teams can accumulate defense boosts quicker than they can accumulate special defense boosts, making it much more worthwhile to be attacking on the special side in those few precious turns you have in the beginning of the game.
That said, banded talonflame does do a pretty good job of ripping things apart early game.
If I remember any more bad arguments I see, I'll definitely be adding to this post.
1. Quagsire with Haze stops Baton Pass : FALSE
Smeargle spores, Quaggy can't even survive a stored power with what, 6 boosts? That's like the blink of an eye for baton pass. Not to mention that haze on quagsire is like the epitome of redundancy, and is basically a waste of a moveslot since a good Baton Pass can annihilate Quagsire regardless.
You literally need 2 Hazers on a stall team to fully counter baton pass, and that's just dumb.
2. Mental Herb isn't a thing on Scolipede
It is.
3. Baton Pass is unstoppable and undefeatable, we must nerf it
Holy shit, where does this even come from lol. Here's 3 perfectly viable counters, off the top of my head, that just destroy Baton pass.
A. Lando-I
B. NP thundurus
C. Char-Y
Nobody on baton pass can take two hits from ANY of these guys (bar vaporeon after sun is gone). The most specially defensive pokemon that you'll see on baton pass, zapdos and sylveon, can't really boost or live or anything. If Zapdos can live, all it's doing back is roosting. And just passing into another pokemon that'll be 2HKO'd. Zapdos isn't even a common sight on baton pass, it should be.
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Zapdos: 125-147 (32.6 - 38.3%) -- 2.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Zapdos in Sun: 241-285 (62.9 - 74.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Zapdos: 220-261 (57.4 - 68.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 171-202 (43.4 - 51.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon in Sun: 187-222 (47.4 - 56.3%) -- 30.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sylveon: 192-229 (48.7 - 58.1%) -- 58.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
This amount of damage is simply unacceptable to a baton pass team. This is the most specially bulky pokemon the team is even going to see, and if its dying that easily, then baton pass is not gonna have a fun time.
4. Physical attackers have an easier time against Baton Pass
They don't, and its pretty easy to understand why. Iron Defense boosts +2, and Calm Mind boosts +1. That's all there really is to it. Baton Pass teams can accumulate defense boosts quicker than they can accumulate special defense boosts, making it much more worthwhile to be attacking on the special side in those few precious turns you have in the beginning of the game.
That said, banded talonflame does do a pretty good job of ripping things apart early game.
If I remember any more bad arguments I see, I'll definitely be adding to this post.
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Still, the fact that Lando-I, Talonflame, NP thundurus or a couple others can do lots of damage to BP doesn't change the fact that you are forced to run one of these few mons. It's overcentralization. I may not have a specific Char Y counter but I can still beat it with smart play. If you don't bring one of these few mons then you can't even beat BP with smart play.
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