[Done] Baton Pass in BW

[Lavos]

22:08 Lavos aldaron would it be acceptable to open up a separate discussion for baton pass in bw?
22:08 Lavos i feel like the current thread is clogged with too much multi gen discussion
22:08 aldaron acceptable and encouraged
22:08 Lavos cool
22:08 aldaron bp shouldnt be a catch all across the gens

as the above logs demonstrate, it's important that we have a clear and purposeful realm to discuss baton pass in every relevant generation, and the current thread is getting really messy with 4 generations being discussed, so i'm taking the initiative to open this thread solely for the purpose of discussing baton pass and its uncompetitiveness in the 5th gen. nothing is going to get done when the TDs have to sort through so many disconnected opinions.

let's get started shall we?

and if anyone's unfamiliar with bp in bw, standard full pass squad is ninjask/espeon/vaporeon/mr.mime/mew/smeargle. all doing what you'd expect. notable moves include flash on ninjask, encore on mr.mime, spore and ingrain on smeargle, aqua ring on vaporeon, and stored power on espeon.

i'll try to spark some conversation with my opinion, which is that baton pass in conjunction with speed boosting should be banned in bw. there's no strategy which utilizes this combination other than full bp which is the problem in this tier. stuff like nasty plot bp celebi is perfectly fine. however full bp creates a situation in which you either have the answer or you don't. and even when you do, you can still lose. shoutout to omfuga's haze politoed. essentially the issue is that full baton pass is almost purely reliant on team matchup similar to how sun offense teams operate, but to an even greater degree. sun was largely removed from wcop bw ou play for this reason, not to mention that forcing matchup to decide entire games is nearly universally agreed to be uncompetitive and unhealthy for any metagame. i think individually the components of the full bp team aren't op, but when combined they are nearly unstoppable. ninjask getting +3 means everything on the bp team outspeeds the entire metagame sans scarfers, who never pack enough damage to threaten bp once it starts boosting. even after a t1 protect, ninjask will outspeed every choice scarfer. i guess electrode would be the exception and i think i'm the only person who has ever used that shit competitively. ninjask's ability to use flash is an annoyance that can't be overstated, stuff that tries to switch in and break its sub to force it out lacking protection can be lucked out of a play which the game hinges on. additionally, smeargle's spore can neutralize a phazer, which bw teams rarely pack more than one of. and smeargle plus vaporeon with ingrain and aqua ring respectively means that the bp user is gaining 18% per turn, almost enough to make up for perpetual substitutes. the natural bulk of the pokemon who boost defenses (vaporeon for acid armor and mew for amnesia) also contribute to how hard full bp is to stop. but these aren't the biggest problems. the scariest part of bw baton pass lies in mr.mime and espeon, or more importantly, encore and magic bounce. soundproof is pretty dumb yeah, and it blocks roar, but mr.mime's key strength really lies in encore which means setup sweepers, something one would initially assume could break the bp chain, can't do shit because they are in constant fear of being locked into their setup move and boosted on for eternity. and magic bounce means phazing and hazards won't work either. the one saving grace is that espeon's pretty frail so getting hazards up early is a possibility. even so, only ninjask takes a ton from rocks, and once it gets a couple boosts under its belt it's done the job it needs to do and won't be coming in much more. so what happens in a standard game of bw where one player brings full baton pass is either 1) the bp user has his/her chain broken by an early crit or otherwise unfavorable luck, or 2) the bp user boosts to 5 stats of +6 and then gets espeon in to stored power everything for OHKOs from 3 million base damage. and that sucks regardless of which outcome occurs because it's matchup all the way down.

 

[BKC]

banning bping speed would also get rid of smashpass, which I support

 

[panamaxis]

Agility passing alone is a perfectly fine strategy, and for that reason, I don't think your solution is sufficient in its current form.

 

[Lavos]

any proposals for a different solution that's a little more comprehensive on what needs to go versus what's fine as is?

how about bp+speed+other boost?

 

[Zarel]

My post in the previous thread still applies:

I am currently still leaning towards "ban the sets containing BP + speed boosting abilities/items/moves". I'd rather find out something's banned while teambuilding than in the middle of a battle when I'm trying to BP +2 Atk +2 Spe from Scolipede.

I know that this bans AgiliPass which isn't otherwise broken, but I think it's worth it.

 

[Finchinator]

In my opinion, a fine solution would be to limit the amount of BP users per team as this doesn't restrict any other styles and fixes the "problem" we are encountering. Teams with pokemon like NP or SD + BP Celebi or Mew will not be restricted whatsoever with this ban being put in place while a team being only allowed to only use one pokemon with Baton Pass will make chains like the one mentioned in the OP will no longer usable.

For more on this, I'll quote part of my post in the first BP thread (this will cover why I think BP chains are banworthy and go a bit more in depth on my proposed solution):

Full BP is a whole other can of worms. I'm going to jump right into showing how hard it is to deal with it by referring back to the Omfuga vs Shake series for BW Cup, except using a different game, where Shake uses full BP instead of Smash Pass while Omfuga uses the same team, but this time Haze Politoed gets a use, but Omfuga still stands no chance bar a few extra opportunities to land a well-timed crit. To beat full BP, odds are you're going to need to continuously apply offensive pressure to your opponent and either crit at the right time or out-sweep them early and quickly, before it's too late and Espeon is sweeping you with Stored Power as you say "fuck pokemon" and eventually rage quit on your opponent haha. Going back to the main topic, full BP with no limits on the amount of BP users has the ability to adapt to normal counterplay and win a devastatingly high proportion of tour games it's used in (Espeon, a staple on these teams, has a win percentage of 65% in BW2 OU Smogon tour games this season and I bet it's even higher than that when being used on full BP because the rare occurance of seeing Espeon on a sun team and Espeon is also on SmashPass, which has a less reliable/consistent win rate). Before you ask 'why not just get rid of Espeon', I was just using it as an example as it's on every full BP team and it's pretty symbolic of the full BP archetype; there are better bans that wouldn't compromise a pokemon that has (albeit minimal) other uses. Anyway, the point of this is that full Baton Pass is nearly unbeatable using a lot of bulkier/slower paced teams and even when you're using something with a win condition or two and lots of offensive pressure, you have to execute perfectly in a short period of time just to have a shot to break through BP (you may still need to catch a lucky break to beat it depending on circumstances). Allowing a strategy with this capability isn't something anyone should want, so I'd think that bp deserves to be addressed in BW.

How should it be addressed? The solution that eliminates the current state of BP while not compromising any current outstanding strategies would be limiting the amount of BP users, similar to what is done in generation six and what is proposed in the OP, but I'm not sure if it should be to one or two users or what - that's trivial at this point, what matters is that the amount of users should be limited and once that's established, then the specific amount can be discussed if it's up for question.

PS: I am 100% fine with the proposal of BKC and Lavos (banning Baton Passing speed boosts) if people can get over the fact that the rare agility+bp strategy will be eliminated. If you think about it in perspective, the metagame's viable strategies would not be crippled at all while the solution would be fixed in a simpler fashion than limiting the amount of Baton Pass users. Nobody uses Agility Pass while Smash Pass in itself is cancer (outlined that in my post in the old thread, too).

 

[Kingler]

BP + Speed + Other boost sounds perfect. I don't really imagine another way where passing would be broken and this would severely nerf BP teams; even if they still manage to be effective, they lose a lot of their "autopilot" factor. Banning AgiPassing shouldn't really be done (this is moreso for DPP but still should apply for BW); we need to keep as much non-broken stuff banned as possible.

Also, we can implement the 1 BP user thing and pretty much nix bp forever, so I'd defs be behind BP + Speed + Other boost along with 1 Baton Pass user per team which leaves stuff like SDpassing and nastypassing, as well as passing agility, unbanned. I don't even think that any team would require two drypassers lol, and this also exists in ORAS where the same issue is present so this shouldn't be a problem.

As to "why we should we keep agilipass unbanned", we definitely should as we should strive to keep as many unbroken strategies unbanned as possible, whether or not it's more "convenient." (I realize no one has asked this yet, but i'm speaking generally)

 

[Lavos]

since there's been a distinct lack in both threads: are there any people who think baton pass is NOT broken/uncompetitive in any capacity for BW? if there are no outright dissenters then it's probably time for some TD action.

also what actually uses agilipass in BW? don't think that strategy exists although i agree limiting its potential existence should be avoided..

 

[Pocket]

Many of you will probably remain unsatisfied with simply banning Speed Pass, even you Lavos. As long as Espeon is around BP chains will be considered cheap by most of you. Omfuga vs Shake is an exemplar of BP chain w/o any Speed boosts, functioning the way you will find unacceptable. Even without Speed boosts, Espeon is already above the speed tier of most unscarfed threats, and can easily set up a Sub and either bop everything with Stored Power or BP away from danger, accumulating more defensive boosts. Granted the classic Rain Balance (as seen in the replay) / Rain Stall is pretty much set-up bait for most set-up sweepers and an easy BP bait... one of the more predictable and exploitable team archetypes that somehow still see use. However, our community does like making these team archetype as usable as possible, even if they are already viable and can be made more effective by deviating from the conventional builds. When considering all of this a ban on Espeon in conjunction with Speed Pass is most likely necessary to end this BP dilemma once and for all (at least in BW2).

This may sound like a snippy post, but they are my sincere thoughts based on my understanding of how our community perceives as what is 'bad for the metagame'. I'd personally prefer banning Smash Pass, Ingrain Pass, and Espeon to preserve much of BP functionality as possible, while surgically removing all the components that make the current BP teams a mindless spam. Speed Pass clause is a restrictive rule, but does not include the ever critical Espeon. People will continue to complain about BP as long as the Magic Bounce Espeon is still around to make these teams intolerable. It baffles me how hard our community tries to let Espeon loose when it's in fact the root of most problems with BP chains.

 

[SoulWind]

I think the problem in BW is in full Baton Pass chains and SmashPass.

Can't we just ban Shell Smash + Baton Pass in one set and limit the baton pass users on a team to 2/3? So that we aren't banning decent stuff like NP + BP Celebi, or Baton Pass + Agility on Screens teams or something