Baton Pass - its role in the metagame and possible solutions to nerf full Baton Pass chains

[scorpdestroyer]

My problem with this post is the line "Baton Pass is so obviously the issue."

It is obviously an issue, but any argument about how those pokemon aren't broken without baton pass can go the other way, and say that baton pass isn't broken without those pokemon.

I posted here my thought process, but basically, Espeon and Scolipede are definitely issues too, just less obvious because support pokemon rarely get the reaction offensive ones do.

It's true that they are issues but the individual Pokemon aren't the root of the problem in this case because they are not broken at all, even with the exact same sets, without each other. Like you said in your post focusing on the Pokemon would just lead to people finding other means such as Mr Mime, fast Taunt, and Ingrain, and even if these chains are harder to pull off it's still very easy to catch out teams without dedicated means to stop it.

 

[MilkyWay]

I posted on this earlier today (http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...aton-pass-chains.3504331/page-59#post-5393257) and said that I'd either like Magic Bounce + Speed Boost banned or only up to 3 members on a team having Baton Pass. After reading more posts its been pointed out to me that Magic Bounce + Speed Boost being banned isn't really the best solution. Not only would it do collateral damage and harm things such as Sharpdo and Xatu/Absol, but it would be an unnecessary complex ban that would confuse new users. To quote what scorpdestroyer said a few posts ago:

If you were a newcomer to Smogon and saw the banlist, what would you think of a ban on, say, the combination of Magic Bounce + Speed Boost? I get that this is hardly a good argument but the point is that banning a combo of Magic Bounce + Speed Boost or something similar is unnecessarily complicated. How would you explain this complex ban? "oh this combo is banned because Espeon and Scolipede with Baton Pass are commonly seen on Baton Pass chains and BP chains are broken"? I do see the reasoning behind these proposals but I believe they are unnecessarily complex and difficult to understand at surface value; they don't get to the core of what is broken.

In addition this ban might not even fix the issue at hand completely. Say your opponent didn't have an Espeon and chose Scolipede instead. What if your team doesn't have a Taunter or a Phazer? Then Espeon really wouldnt make much of a difference even if it was on their team and facing Baton Pass would be just as bad as before. Of course teams that had Taunters/Phazers would be better off in this match up, not every team can afford to run one and if this ban was imposed it would continue to limit team building.

With that said, the best solution would be to limit the amount of Baton Passers per team. I think that Three Baton Passers per Team would be an appropriate number and nerf BP enough so it isn't overpowered nor unviable. Two users would almost entirely destroy full Baton Pass chains altogether and is only suggested by people that hate Baton Pass and want to see the play-style exterminated. On the flip side, 4 Baton Pass users per team is a bit too much, and only scum bags people who use the strategy and know BP is going to get nerfed suggest this.

tl;dr: Three Baton Pass users per team is the fairest ban and the ban consisting of Magic Bounce + Speed Boost is flawed and unnecessary

Edit: I wouldn't be completely opposed to banning Speed Boost + Iron Defense + Baton Pass because those moves on Scolipede really make this strategy easy to use regardless of the user's skill level. However, this might be a little to complex or not a big enough nerf, I'm just throwing the idea out there

 

[Aquaslash]

We don't care about low rank players.

That's an awful stance to take TBH. There are some people who are just as skilled as all you high ladder folks, but have no interest in laddering. Quite frankly, I really don't think ladder scores should have anything to do with the decision making or even this thread. Their experience is useful, yes. Their scores should hardly be.

EDIT: haha, typos

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

It's true that they are issues but the individual Pokemon aren't the root of the problem in this case because they are not broken at all, even with the exact same sets, without each other. Like you said in your post focusing on the Pokemon would just lead to people finding other means such as Mr Mime, fast Taunt, and Ingrain, and even if these chains are harder to pull off it's still very easy to catch out teams without dedicated means to stop it.

I agree that Espeon isn't the root of the problem, but in the post I linked, I explained why I thought Scolipede was. In this post I even said I'd rather limit BP to 3 users than ban Espeon, but my 1st choice is still to restrict BP teams from using Scolipede.

That's an awful stance to take TBH. There are some people who are just as skilled as all you high ladder folks, but have no interest in laddering. Quite frankly, I really don't think ladder scores should have anything to do with the decision making or even this thread. Their experience is useful yes. They're scores should hardly be.

Just read the switch to 1760 stats thread to understand why I say that. Here's the link:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-decision-to-base-uu-off-of-1760-stats.3502106/

 

[Rafael J. Feliciano]

I agree that Espeon isn't the root of the problem, but in the post I linked, I explained why I thought Scolipede was. In this post I even said I'd rather limit BP to 3 users than ban Espeon, but my 1st choice is still to restrict BP teams from using Scolipede.


Just read the switch to 1760 stats thread to understand why I say that. Here's the link:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-decision-to-base-uu-off-of-1760-stats.3502106/

Though I do agree with this... lets not throw ALL players under this broad paint stroke. Remember, we also made a point a few pages ago about how BP players can literally reach 1700+ ELO by simply riding the team through the ladder with little to no knowledge how pokemon outside of the components of their team and the checks/counters to it.

Its a two-sided coin and though players may not sport sexy ELOs, some can still provide constructive input on topics such as this...

Just wanted to throw that out there...

 

[Non-Guest 31415]

So, I can't use Speed Boost Sharpedo + Magic Bounce Xatu on the same team why?

Because two Abilities has a small amount of Smogon precedent in Drizzle + Swift Swim. Politoed + Magikarp was not broken. Politoed + Seismitoad was not broken. But Drizzle + Swift Swim was banned. Ability + Pokémon has Smogon anti-precedent in the form of Blaziken and Sand Veil; they were banned as a whole, not as Speed Boost Blaziken and Sand Veil Garchomp. (Ability + Pokémon) + (Ability + Pokémon) or Pokémon + Pokémon have no precedent, and the first is so deep into complex ban territory it's outside what this site would want to do. So, if we determine that it is Magic Bounce BP Espeon and Speed Boost BP Scolipede that is the combo that is broken, then we will ban Bounce + Speed Boost or POSSIBLY Espeon + Scolipede, although there is no precedent, even one as tenuous as Drizzle + Swift Swim, for Pokémon combination bans. Although we'd have to consider what combination can prevent the broken strategy while affecting the fewest number of non-broken strategies in that situation, not just existing precedent.

 

[Rhaegar]

Baton pass teams do not neccesarily need Scolipede to be sucessful. You can be a good bp'er as long as you have a combination of Espeon with someone that can naturally boost speed or Scolipede with someone that has ingrain. The replay below shows how someone can bp and win, even without Scolipede on their team.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-112006639

Baton Pass teams without Scolipede + Espeon don't require niche to counter. The opponent in that game didn't use any effective strategy. The only thing used were Whirlwind and Dragon Tail attempts which were bounced/fairied. Gorebyss being the only speed booster with SmashPass renders that team vulnerable to priority, Scarf, and Swords Dance.
A team which includes offensive elements such as Shell Smash and Focus Energy is definitely more tasteful but also more easily countered. Basically this team isn't broken, but the commonly seen defensive chain teams with Scolipede + Espeon are.

 

[Timurid_5]

This is just a random ass idea I haven't seen yet, but would banning Stored Power nerf BP teams hard enough?

Stored Power isn't viable on anything else but Unaware Swoobat.

Last time I checked, Swoobat is in a completely different tier.

Getting rid of SP may offset Espeon's offensive prowess on Defensive Baton Pass, but...then what? It seems rather unchanged,

 

[Berserking Now]

I have spent many hours hours today watching dEnIsSsS play baton pass on the ladder. I collected data on the type on teams that played against BP and what there win percentile was. I only used teams of players with a rating of over 1760 in the study to insure the quality of the results. BP won against heavy offense teams about 60% of the time (n=23). This is archetype that is said to be the best against BP. BP consistently beat balance (11 out of 13), stall (4 put of 5), and semistall (4 out of 6). This is obviously not healthy for the metagame. BP's total win percentage from my data was 72% (n=50). Something needs to be done about BP.

Most of tough games, BP really on the fact that they had 6 Pokemon to used. The extra hits that they took usually allowed BP to beat many games when the opposing team had Pokemon good against BP. I believe that limiting the amount of Pokemon with BP to 4 or 3 will nerf BP. 4 will allowed heavy offensive teams to usually beat. 3 is if you want balance and stall variants to be able to beat it. This is no need for a complex ban of magic bounce + Baton pass or speed boost + baton pass. Sylveon can function like Espeon as the finisher so banning Baton Pass + Stored Power just makes it harder for BP to win but will still leave it overpowered. This is slightly biased since I play the type of balance teams that nearly always lose BP.

 

[Duck Chris]

Okay so I've seen a couple posts in this thread talking about something I'd like to clear up.
First of all, I think we can agree that baton pass is not broken. We've seen that there are a decent amount of counter options or sets such as Haze Quagsire that not only give baton pass trouble but can even win the whole game right there. If we were doing this because it was broken then discussion of counters would be more relevant but as it is thats not why we're here (correct me if I'm wrong).
Second of all, I think we can agree that BP is not over-centralizing. Obviously you might meet a baton pass team even as much as one in 5 times on the ladder, but it's nowhere near being a huge metagame force to the level that other centralizing threats have been in past suspects (or metas hello rain). So we don't want to nerf BP for being centralizing and not cause its broken, so why?

I think we need to agree that the main problem with baton pass is that its uncompetitive and makes the game more matchup reliant. If we can focus on this aspect we could eliminate a lot of back and forth that has been clogging up this discussion, such as whether or not its broken or how centralizing it is. We've had discussion on how uncompetitive it can be, with some users showing how high they can get on autopilot, just like swagger. We've had other users show how baton pass teams can win matchups right from team preview, just by having no way to deal with scolipede/espeon and friends. I've seen some great posts on the same track as im trying to do, such as Whitequeens and ofc Haunter cause he started this discussion.

From this, I'd say banning a pokemon may not be a great idea. Having espeon or scolipede in the game doesnt make it uncompetitive or matchup reliant, only its presence on full BP teams does. Banning ability combos is more on the right track, but its not very elegant and wouldn't make as much sense just by looking at the banlist. I would definitely put my support behind a maximum number of passers, 3 seems like a complete ban on the teams whereas 4 or 5 could let noobs continue to use them. It would also be very clear to see that the ban is in place to stop the presence of full BP teams; all you would need to do would be look at the banlist and see that we as a community have decided no Mega Khan, no Mega Gengar, and no full BP teams.

 

[56k]

The burden of proof lies on the nerf-baton-pass camp to show that something is actually broken or uncompetitive here and I'm seriously not convinced at all.



Argument Number 1: Effortless Wins / "Uncompetitive"

First of all you're completely wrong if you somehow think your team is using any effort at all. The best teams and best OU pokemon are partly defined by the fact that they're so good that effort isn't even needed at all:

Talonflame: I suck at teambuilding so yolobird is my one-time click against every threat I forgot about

Keldeo: Let's pair it up with a STAB pursuit user and call it clever

Aegislash: Survives any one hit and rapes something with basically unresistable shadow balls

Rotom-W: I am a very experienced player for considering momentum in my game plan

Bisharp: It's gonna be so sweet when latios gives me that +2 attack I bet this noob wasn't expecting it *dies to crit meteor*

Do you really consider your teams and playstyle to be somehow uniquely creative and thoughtful compared to the other thousands of players out there? You're completely disillusioned if you think "attack with the obvious move OR should I predict the switch??" is using more brain cells than a two sided coin. Every game is also effortless in the fact that you probably have threats on your team that just aren't countered at all by the shitty opponent so all you have to do is randomly trade blows for a few turns to kill off their shaky "checks" and then set up for a sweep. And even if you are one of the best players on the ladder and you're just oozing with pokemon knowledge to the extent that your games are almost algorithmic, then you fit the bill yourself and simply following an algorithm on your way up the ranks. If baton pass teams are somehow yielding wins without hardly any effort put in by the player, it's not because BP teams are broken or OP, it's because well made teams don't require thought by definition. And we should congratulate the baton pass team creators/innovators for putting together such a dominant team.

If random players can do well in tournaments because they brought copy'd baton pass teams, it's because it's a great team. You could copy any of the other tournament-great teams out there (which OF COURSE have plenty of options against baton pass, as well as everything else out there) and also do well in the tourney, because it's a great team, and ANYONE can beat ANYONE. Your mistaken if you think a tournament is the end-all measure of a players skill (and lets just ignore team match up, RNG luck, hax, fifty fifty guessing situations, the shaky competitive definition of pokemon in the first place, speed ties, broken threats that aren't banned yet, win-or-lose-depending-on-my-lead-choice, having the right coverage move or not, etc etc) and if you're insulted because baton pass fared well in a tournament you should sit back and think about it for a few minutes.



Argument 2: It's basically impossible to counter BP

This is crap and you're lazy. How about use TAUNT with a pokemon that can OHKO espeon. Tyranitar? Krookodile? Weavile? Or hell use Mold Breaker taunt on Gyarados and shut it down guaranteed. Don't complain about unviability or whatever, you're just angry that you had to sacrifice a coverage move in order to improve your team's matchup against baton pass and you don't know how to play unless you always have the super coverage move you absolutely needed that one time 20 battles ago. Use perish song, a good hazer, or just plain old use pinsir or mawile from the start and rape everything before the set-ups even become a threat. You can start boosting alongside them on turn 1 with something that can kill vaporeon before it roars. Use explosion to maim them or force the substitute down, nullifies their momentum, and bring in something that threatens. Use slow volt-turns to get your own switch initiatives. Use whirlwind or roar on an unexpected pokemon that usually doesn't use it and bust up the chain. Use ditto. Offense and stall have plenty of options to use and no playstyle is disadvantaged here.



Argument 3: Even if we bring counters to BP they will just adapt

Mr. Mime is killing quagsires with energy ball now? Well then use a better counter jesus christ. Do you think you DESERVE to win against a baton pass team because you put 2 and 2 together and decided to bring haze? First of all, if everything is functioning as intended then you will LOSE half of all the matches you play on showdown. Obviously this isn't the case when you ladder run a great team up through the crap players and crap teams at the bottom, but, ideally everyone will be losing, and losing a LOT when they play. Second, your opponent is probably always just as clever as you. They brought a good team to the ladder and deserve to win just as much as you. Your half assed try at bringing a hazer to the battle doesn't cut it and you should probably reassess your team from scratch and bring 2 or 3 decent useful moves for baton pass (obviously without sacrificing any integrity against the other archetypes on the ladder).



Either you are consistently losing to baton pass, which means you didn't bring any countermeasures to it. Why should you win lol?
Or you are losing about half the time to baton pass, which is good. That's what "should" be happening.
Or you are consistently winning to baton pass, so why would you possibly think it's broken at all? And please share with us how you did it.

 

[Hiphiphooray]

So this thread has slowly evolved into:

Yes we need to do something about Baton Pass, but we don't want to ban the entire move.

The next logical step is:

Should Defensive Baton Pass teams and Chain Baton Pass teams be removed from the meta, or should we just nerf them?


After some serious testing today this is what I have seen happens as a result of the following bans. Feel free to test yourself. I hope it helps make the decisions easier as to which you support.

• Limiting the number of Baton Passers to four is enough so that small variations are possible but have many more unanswered counters (i.e. it isnt as strong, but you can still do well if you play smart). I used Sylveon, Espeon, Scolipede and Vaporeon. It worked okay, but there are many more threats and it's more difficult to latter.
• Limiting to three is enough to make the playstyle uncompetitive (i.e. unless your enemy makes big mistakes, you can't really expect to win consistently). I used Sylveon, Scolipede and Vaporeon, and tried sweeping with Espeon. It was pretty weak to stall especially. I also tried Smeargle, but found it lacking against hyper offense.
• Limiting to two is simply overkill, as a set of three is pretty much guarenteed to have at least one solid counter to it.
• Simply Removing Stored Power wasn't enough. Espeon destorys shit with Psyshock just the same. Except Jirachi and Metagross.
• The complex ban of Ingrain and Stored Power makes Defensive Baton Pass Teams signficantly weaker to stall. In fact of the six stall games I played, I lost 4 because there is no answer to Skarmory or Hippowdon leads. If you mispredict a fee Whirlwinds even a max def Espeon dies in 3 hits.
• Simply removing Scolipede did nothing, Ninjask can be used or Gliscor/Scizor/Zapdos with agility.
• Simply removing Espeon did nothing. I used Musharna with Stored Power and made sure to get Ingrain up early. I also tested Mega Absol with magic bounce, but it wasn't that good. Taunt doesn't do much when you can Substitute first and then take the three hits anyway.

Conclusion:

• If you want to make Defensive Baton Pass weaker to stall and balanced teams, but roughly the same as it is now against hyper offense teams, then Ban the combination of Stored Power and Ingrain.
• If your want to make Defensive Baton Pass weaker to everything but still exist, Limit the number of Pokemon to 4.
• If you want to make Defensive Baton Pass no longer competitive, limit the number of Pokemon to 3.

As for my opinion after testing these, I would support limiting to 4, but would perfer just the complex ban of Stored Power and Ingrain. I think limiting to three is too much because it makes it no longer viable at all. Which I know some want, but I think it'd be a shame for it to go away all together. :/

 

[TheNextDimentions]

I agree with 56k. It isn't at the point yet that baton pass is being used by everyone on the ladder, so it mustn't be op yet. I feel that the only answer to whether baton pass is really "overpowered" or it's just the metagame evolving is to hold a suspect test where people expect Baton Pass and if the Baton Pass teams still beat the non-Baton Pass teams that fare best, then only then it should be banned.

EDIT: If this contributes anything to the debate, I think best way to counter a baton pass team is to have a setup sweeper, since baton pass teams tend to lack offensive moves at the start of the chain.

 

[Duck Chris]

The burden of proof lies on the nerf-baton-pass camp to show that something is actually broken here and I'm seriously not convinced at all.
*various shit talking*

This is exactly what I just posted about, please read 1 post above you. We're not banning it cause its broken. Please continue telling us how this game takes no thought to play.

So this thread has slowly evolved into:

Yes we need to do something about Baton Pass, but we don't want to ban the entire move.

The next logical step is:

Should Defensive Baton Pass teams and Chain Baton Pass teams be removed from the meta, or should we just nerf them?

I'm intrigued by your definition of defensive baton pass teams, I don't think I've ever seen one, unless you mean Iron Defence Scolipede, Acid Armor Vaporeon, CM Sylveon etc.
That being said I like your take on countermeasures.

 

[Of Moose & Men]

Argument 2: It's basically impossible to counter BP

This is crap and you're lazy. How about use TAUNT with a pokemon that can OHKO espeon. Tyranitar? Krookodile? Weavile? Or hell use Mold Breaker taunt on Gyarados and shut it down guaranteed. Don't complain about unviability or whatever, you're just angry that you had to sacrifice a coverage move in order to improve your team's matchup against baton pass and you don't know how to play unless you always have the super coverage move you absolutely needed that one time 20 battles ago. Use perish song, a good hazer, or just plain old use pinsir or mawile from the start and rape everything before the set-ups even become a threat. You can start boosting alongside them on turn 1 with something that can kill vaporeon before it roars. Use explosion to maim them or force the substitute down, nullifies their momentum, and bring in something that threatens. Use slow volt-turns to get your own switch initiatives. Use whirlwind or roar on an unexpected pokemon that usually doesn't use it and bust up the chain. Use ditto. Offense and stall have plenty of options to use and no playstyle is disadvantaged here.

As a member that plays mainly stall, i use Haze Unaware Quagsire just to get rid of pokes that plan on trying to BP around. And it works, however, does that mean EVERYONE should have to carry a Poke that can do the same general thing? No, that's the definition of "Over-centralizing" the meta game. . . And, I'm sure you and I both know, that's what many take into consideration when calling something broken. When you essentially put pressure on someone to carry one poke, regardless of how fitting or unfitting it is on a team, it becomes an over-centralization, and a problem.

Also, the fact you said one should use Explosion is quite humorous. . . chances are they have at least +2 Spe, you won't even get to explode at that point.

 

[56k]

This is exactly what I just posted about, please read 1 post above you. We're not banning it cause its broken. Please continue telling us how this game takes no thought to play.

I edited my post so it says "...prove something is broken or uncompetitive..." to be more in line with your post. And my argument is still "among other accusations, BP is not uncompetitive"

As a member that plays mainly stall, i use Haze Unaware Quagsire just to get rid of pokes that plan on trying to BP around. And it works, however, does that mean EVERYONE should have to carry a Poke that can do the same general thing? No, that's the definition of "Over-centralizing" the meta game. . . And, I'm sure you and I both know, that's what many take into consideration when calling something broken. When you essentially put pressure on someone to carry one poke, regardless of how fitting or unfitting it is on a team, it becomes an over-centralization, and a problem.

Also, the fact you said one should use Explosion is quite humorous. . . chances are they have at least +2 Spe, you won't even get to explode at that point.

Haze is just one example in a long list of things that work very well against baton pass teams. Just because every team should have 2 or 3 good answers to BP doesn't mean BP is overcentralizing, because every team should have 2 or 3 good answers against everything in the viable metagame, of which BP is a part of. You use haze, which helps against BP, but it also works very well against dozens of other pokemon, so Quagsire is definitely pulling his weight on your team. A hyper-offense team probably wouldn't use quagsire, but they could use mega-pinsir, mega-heracross, mega-gyarados, taunt-thundurus, and other such things that work well against baton pass.

 

[Of Moose & Men]

Haze is just one example in a long list of things that work very well against baton pass teams. Just because every team should have 2 or 3 good answers to BP doesn't mean BP is overcentralizing, because every team should have 2 or 3 good answers against everything in the viable metagame, of which BP is a part of. You use haze, which helps against BP, but it also works very well against dozens of other pokemon, so Quagsire is definitely pulling his weight on your team. A hyper-offense team probably wouldn't use quagsire, but they could use mega-pinsir, mega-heracross, mega-gyarados, taunt-thundurus, and other such things that work well against baton pass.

Aside from haze, there is mold breaker taunt that stops the, as I've stated before, nearly obligatory Magic Bounce Espeon. And yes, you can set up right along side it, but what if I don't have a Poke that sets up? Then what do I use? It gets to the point where you're crossing your fingers hoping for that crit, which if you're like me, never comes.

 

[KztxL7]

It seems you haven't bother to read much, if anything at all posted in this thread thoroughly, 56k.

Ok? You made a cookie cutter OU team? Sure its not creative/unique but the problem with Baton Pass isn't about being Unique. But lets say it is, That Team which is obviously Offensive orientated can easily switch things out and still be offensive. Baton Pass teams are optimized using the same 6 pokemon. Maybe 7. Espeon, Scolipede, Sylveon, Mr. Mime, Smeargle and Vaporeon with Zapdos being the 7th.

It also seems you've failed to grasp every single problem that comes from Baton Pass.

There is no team nearly as systematic and easy to use as Baton Pass. It is a team that can guarantee 100-0 wins from the team preview screen alone.

Those 5 Pokemon + a 6th you've listed will never guarantee you a 100-0 match up against another team archtype from the team preview screen.

Baton Pass does against certain archtypes unless they decide to pack niche counters which cause to lose effectiveness against practically everyone else. Its either that or abandon the archtype you're playing. Thundurus on Stall? I can probably bump it up to 95-5 but that is only accounting for "hax" and when "hax" is your only possible way to pull out a win then there is something wrong.

By the way, did you suddenly forget that Sylveon exists,is Fairy and can wreck those Dark Type pokemon you listed? Do you not know the meaning of overcentralizing when you're sitting their suggesting using suboptimal crap in order to win against a single team archtype?

Did you bother to look up the fact that Haze doesn't beat Baton Pass, it merely stalls it out ala Mega Kangaskhan vs Sableye?

 

[Awagarb]

You use haze, which helps against BP, but it also works very well against dozens of other pokemon, so Quagsire is definitely pulling his weight on your team.

So you're telling me that haze + unaware is totally not redundant, in fact its even great against dozens of other pokemon? Kay.

every team should have 2 or 3 good answers to BP

you are losing about half the time to baton pass, which is good. That's what "should" be happening.

Let me get this straight : I need not one dedicated counter, but a multitude of counters that, unless I am playing HO, will include Whimsicotts and the like, just to stand a fair chance against a strategy that I will maybe see 10% of the time, while royally screwing up my team against everything else?
All of this, of course, exclusively while the BP team remains unchanged and copy pasted.

Mr. Mime is killing quagsires with energy ball now? Well then use a better counter jesus christ.

When this happens, dump Quagsire and bring out the big guns. Murkrow.


Can someone explain to me why Kyogre is still banned?
If its not over-centralizing to pack 2~3 good answers against every flavor of baton pass to prevent a 6-0 starting at team preview, then we can all make room for a Parasect or two.

 

[Of Moose & Men]

So you're telling me that haze + unaware is totally not redundant, in fact its even great against dozens of other pokemon? Kay.

The reason I carry Haze on Quag is to stop the BP from continuing so that they have to start all over, which, isn't easy to do when toxic and SR damage is catching up to you. As well as Stopping mPinsir's and the like for after Quag goes down if he does.
Regardless, This Quag only is helpful to my Stall team because it has a way of wearing down the Pokes on said BP team. On a HO, or literally any other team, This Quag just doesn't fit.

 

[56k]

Baton Pass does against certain archtypes unless they decide to pack niche counters which cause to lose effectiveness against practically everyone else.

That's alarmist and wrong though. Where is this coming from? I haven't suggested anything suboptimal or useless, I've suggested really good OU pokemon that function well against the OU meta as well as functioning particularly well against baton pass teams. The fact that the lynchpins of BP are Esepon, Sylveon, and Vaporeon means that if you can threaten them with something that can OHKO those pokemon then you are already at a huge advantage. If you can set up with a sweeper that kills Esepon before it sweeps and/or kills Vaporeon before it phazes then you win. Among other options for other styles are haze, mold breaker tricks, encore, phazing, prankster, trick, destiny bond, etc etc

Did you bother to look up the fact that Haze doesn't beat Baton Pass, it merely stalls it out ala Mega Kangaskhan vs Sableye?

Stalling it out is all you need to do... you've bought more time and free switches to do damage and start wearing them down (and they've already been getting worn down from the beginning, losing HP to substitutes, taking hits here and there, etc). Haze isn't supposed to instantly win you the match (this is what I tell someone who is using Quagsire but is still losing to BP). You could pressure and chip during the whole battle, use haze on turn 8 or 10 or so, then keep the pressure on until you break something. Also, haze pokemon are not unviable; quagsire is extremely useful in all kinds of situations, as is multiscale dragonite, and cofagrius is starting to become a little popular as players are noting that his ability just messes up a lot of things in OU and provides set up opportunities on offense. But this is all besides the point because again haze is only one of many possibilities to employ.

So you're telling me that haze + unaware is totally not redundant, in fact its even great against dozens of other pokemon? Kay.

Let me get this straight : I need not one dedicated counter, but a multitude of counters that, unless I am playing HO, will include Whimsicotts and the like, just to stand a fair chance against a strategy that I will maybe see 10% of the time, while royally screwing up my team against everything else?

Haze + Unaware is exactly what his job is...it neutralizes set-ups so that the rest of your team can safely handle the threat, or you can ignore using haze on that turn if you think toxic will handle it just fine.

And you don't/can't use that many dedicated counters you just need a few things that work well. Something that is extremely strong and starts pressure from turn 1 is vague enough to include tons of different pokemon, but specific enough to be considered particularly useful and probably a "check" to baton pass. Simply supplement this with another useful pokemon or two that work very well in OU, but also have specific uses against baton pass, and you'll be good to go. You still won't win every match against baton pass teams, but why should you? If you win some of them and lose some of them then you should be satisified with your team, which also sometimes wins and sometimes loses against every other type of team out there.

 

[Raszamatasz]

Well, it's nice to see that those of us who don't dedicate more than a few hours a day to Pokémon are being allowed to weigh in. It's a nice change.

First of all, let me say that I DO NOT support an outright ban on the move Baton Pass. Simply put, that goes too far, and severely limits the options of a fair number of support 'mons. Additionally, Baton Pass is an interesting option to allow you to bring in a check, if the pass user is sufficiently slow and bulky enough to survive the hit. Maybe not a good strategy per se, but it is an interesting option that I at least don't see often. So, I'm hesitant to encourage the outright ban of all Baton Pass. However, it is also true that dedicated teams of baton pass either win or lose based more upon match ups than is strictly desirable. So I would suggest the following:

Ban Baton Pass chaining. Allow the move, but make it so that a Pokémon that has had stat boosts passed to it cannot both boost and pass again. Or some variation of that. The idea is, if you can pass enough boosts from one 'mon to another to open up a sweep, or overpower what is usually a check, or something such as that, all is fine and dandy. What you cannot do however is set up entire chains of Pokémon who have over time built up enough boosts to be un-KO-able baring extreme luck.
Example: My Scolipede builds up attack, defense, and speed boosts, and passes them to my Electrivire. My Electrivire can then, with it's expert belt and slightly ridiculous movepool, OHKO a large percentage of the metagame, even some of it's usual checks (like anything that can usually survive a hit and/or outspeed and use Earthquake/Earthpower) But it's not passing those boosts to anyone else, and so at least in my estimation this is a strategy that might well be viable, but cannot be considered too powerful, and is still easily check-able by a fairly wide range of threats. I'm sure someone else can come up with a better example than I just did, but hopefully everyone get's the point.

 

[scorpdestroyer]

56k There's a difference between "using something specifically for BP teams and having no other purpose" and "rising in prominence because of another threat while fulfilling other roles". Unaware Quagsire is an example of the latter, rising in prominence to deal with Defiant users for stall. Haze + Unaware Quagsire is just overkill against pretty much everything not named BP teams, don't even get me started on Haze Dragonite lol.

Haze is a decent method to stop BP teams but do you also realize how unreliable it can get? For all you know the BP user can simply stock up a few boosts and pass around, wait for Quagsire to enter the field and pass to a Taunt user, a Spore user or simply a Stored Power user to threaten Quagsire out while possibly gaining momentum from there. Stored Power + coverage would easily take Quaggy out and the stall team cannot afford to mispredict in such a situation between Haze or risking Quagsire get crippled.

I'd agree that Taunt Thundy, Taunt Mold Breaker Gyarados / insert Dark-type etc help but I'm sure as hell that you'd not deny that all of DD / Waterfall / EQ / coverage are really great. In such a case using an amazing coverage move that helps Mega Gyara get past Lati@s / Dragonite / whatever becomes a liability because then BP teams walk over you. You can afford to sacrifice the coverage because your teammates can cover it up for you, but you can't afford to sacrifice Taunt for such great moves if you want to beat BP teams alone because nothing else can cover them up for you... Yeah I hope you see what I mean, BP chains warp teambuilding so much if you want to adequately prepare for them. Hopefully that clears up why BP is so broken in my opinion (yeah I think it's as broken as it is uncompetitive but that's not the point, the point is that this shit is potentially unbeatable and needs to go)

 

[Anty]

The fact that quagsire is forced to run haze shows something. Its ability would usually make haze redundant, but it has to give up on one of its coverage moves just to run it solely for baton pass.
As you saw in the replay (the top of the ladder losing to a bp team despite having haze quag and clear smog), if quag had eq, the opponent might have lost. But because he was forced to run haze, he couldnt consistently break subs, allowing the espeon to ware it down easier.

Bp does need a nerf, especcially because its greatest 'counter' (haze quagsire) doesnt always work. All you need is a bp team and some skill to beat higher skilled players.

 

[AwesomeFennekin]

If you ask me, I dont think baton pass is the entire problem.
Some pokemon, like Scolipede and Espeon, are forced to rely on BPass to stay viable. Its not that Baton Pass is broken. Its full BP teams.