"Stupid" arguments work just as well as brilliant ones as long as no one provides any reasoning against them.
The point stands that it justifies banning swiftswim-luvdisc, a useless pokemon, and there's no way around that, "stupid" argument or not.
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On Banning Abilities and Ability Combinations
- Thread starter TheValkyries
- Start date
The point stands that it justifies banning swiftswim-luvdisc, a useless pokemon, and there's no way around that, "stupid" argument or not.
The metagame itself has relegated luvdisc to uselessness by virtue of it not being a very good pokemon. It's not relevant whether or not, say, Croconaw or something is banned in OU play, because nobody's going to seriously use it outside of a joke team anyway.
Whether or not Luvdisc is banned with swift swim is irrelevant to the metagame. If there was -any- portion of players who used swift-swim luvdisc in their teams, this would be a different matter.
Besides, Magikarp gets swift-swim too, and you haven't been complaining about that. Both of them are in NU, they're irrelevant.
The fact that smogon has banned it is one of the biggest problems I have, and no I will not stop complaining about it becuase its amazingly stupid that it is banned. And no one seems to bring up a point against this, besides there own lazyness, or going by some vague philosophy. Which is odviously flawed, if it causes a pokemon like Luvdisc to be banned. I don't care how irrelivant Luvdisc is, it has no reason to be banned just to make things simpler.
As far as I am aware, Luvdisc is not banned, as you say it is. You are more than welcome to use Luvdisc on a team that does not include Drizzle Politoed.
PS. Read the thread linked about simplicity in bans. Clearly you glossed over any post mentioning that. If you read through the thread, your point would have been answered.
PS. Read the thread linked about simplicity in bans. Clearly you glossed over any post mentioning that. If you read through the thread, your point would have been answered.
Well my view on this issue, simple as it is, is that if an ability breaks multiple pokemon, it should be banned. Just to clarify though, if multiple pokemon who have the same ability are broken, this doesn't necessarily mean we should ban the ability unless it is the ability that breaks the pokemon.
That's not the point. >_>
Luvdisc demonstrates how far the ban would go. The ban would hit everything INBETWEEN top-OU and bottom-NU.
Between Luvdisc and Kingdra on the scale of usability, there inevitably ARE SwSw pokemon that would fit your criteria for being "relevant" when in reality, they're still nowhere near suspect.
The Luvdisc example just demonstrates that the ban goes far past the actual suspect "top-OU" level, blasting things through the rest of OU, UU, all the way to the bottom of NU at Luvdisc.
I agree with the pokemon + ability argument.
Some Pokemon really could've seen some usage if the restriction on Swift Swim was better reviewed.
It's somehow "unfair" that rain teams can't have a top class revenge killer like sand does in Excradill. For instance, Excadrill is far more threatening than Seaking or Kabutops ever were.
Also, Blaziken. Seriously, what the heck? He is far from useless without Speed Boost to simply cut him out of the metagame.
Some Pokemon really could've seen some usage if the restriction on Swift Swim was better reviewed.
It's somehow "unfair" that rain teams can't have a top class revenge killer like sand does in Excradill. For instance, Excadrill is far more threatening than Seaking or Kabutops ever were.
Also, Blaziken. Seriously, what the heck? He is far from useless without Speed Boost to simply cut him out of the metagame.
This Luvdisc argument truly is moronic. I understand that Drizzle/Swift Swim was a staple on many people's teams, and that they are angered that they can no longer use it. However, a majority of Smogon found it broken. Now, simply because you have to revise your team, this "Luvdisc is banned" argument has arisen, and it has spawned from people's anger.
Personally, I voted that abilities/ability combinations should be banned when they make multiple pokemon broken. Banning an ability that only makes one pokemon overpowered is not appropriate. However, I believe that banning abilities on a specific pokemon should be a possiblity; Take Blaziken for example. He was banned because of Speed Boost, however with Blaze, he is still a fairly average pokemon. We would still be able to use him had they just banned Blaziken+Speed Boost. This would also settle a majority of the Reuniclius debate. Many people don't enjoy him because he is a wall that can not be affected by status. While I personally don't find him broken, I would rather have one ability banned then have Reuniclius banned.
Well I have read through all of Doug's post, that someone linked me. Honestly it has very little revelance to this whole topic aside from the "Efficeny" arcticle. Which appeared to deal more with in-game training, then this subject. In skimming through the thread the article of "Simplicity" was proposed, but it was quickly struck down. As Doug said so elegantly, "You can not try to simplify the metagame, it is complex."
So I don't see what is wrong with induvidually viewing pokemon like swift swimmers, or Blaze-Blaziken, as no part of Smogon's philosphy goes against this, as some of you mistakenly believe. Which it is so clear that they would not be detremental to the metagame, that we don't even have to test Luvdisc and Blaze-Blaziken.
And Luvdisc is just the posterchild for this whole thing, I would imagine the real debate for where swift-swm should be allowed is near Golduck and Lumineon. But thats not the issue here, its the fact that Smogon misguidingly banned something that had no right in being banned, for the sake of an article that doesn't even exist and is debated upon, without allowing anyone to go against it.
So I don't see what is wrong with induvidually viewing pokemon like swift swimmers, or Blaze-Blaziken, as no part of Smogon's philosphy goes against this, as some of you mistakenly believe. Which it is so clear that they would not be detremental to the metagame, that we don't even have to test Luvdisc and Blaze-Blaziken.
And Luvdisc is just the posterchild for this whole thing, I would imagine the real debate for where swift-swm should be allowed is near Golduck and Lumineon. But thats not the issue here, its the fact that Smogon misguidingly banned something that had no right in being banned, for the sake of an article that doesn't even exist and is debated upon, without allowing anyone to go against it.
What does that have to do with what I wrote?
The Luvdisc argument is basically, "Every SwSw from Kingdra to Luvdisc got restricted."
Luvdisc itself isn't important. We can replace it with Magikarp, Huntail, w/e.
It's not the point. The point is that EVERY SwSw pokemon, ranging from the abused to the ignored, got restricted. Luvdisc just demonstrates that there are CLEARLY collateral restrictions on pokemon.
Also, Luvdisc isn't banned. >_>
Edit:
Basically, this:
Yeah I know it isn't banned, but saying "drizzle+swift swim-Luvdisc" gets old after a while, I am sure pople know what I mean. And I can't agree more, we should really start up a thread about this subject alone and change this.
My opinion on the matter? I was never a fan of collateral bans. Sure, it's the simplest way to deal with it, but is it the best way to deal with an issue?
Basically, I'd say to ban When the Ability or Combination breaks all relevant Pokémon that have it.
I understand the whole "swift swim luvdisc" argument, but that just doesn't work. NU Pokemon like Luvdisc, in this instance, should not be considered in making any sort of decision as it's just not used enough to really matter at all. Usage is important here. If something isn't used at all, why ban it?
As for bans, they need to be enforceable, discrete, and warranted. The first two are easily done, as we can tell what Pokemon is getting banned as it's clearly defined. The problem is whether or not it's warranted.
First off, whether or not something is "too good." It should only be called that if it centralizes a game to the exclusion of almost everything else. Case in point, look at the early DP metagame. Teams basically consisted of Garchomp, a counter, a counter to said counter, etc. That's a perfect example of when something is too good for said metagame.
In other cases, just because a certain ability or technique changes the game does not mean it breaks the game. Even though things like Reuniclus and Excadrill are potent threats, for example with their abilities, they're still perfectly counterable. Things like Moody/Inconsistent are not.
Consider how Inconsistent basically turned the game into a game of chance. If left unchecked, it'd get to the point where people would need phazers, Perish Song users, etc. This would be fine and dandy, except said ability broke even the irrelevant Pokemon.
Now, as for Speed Boost Blaziken. He did get banned. But, does the ability break the likes of say, Ninjask? Yanmega? Sharpedo? For example, Speed Boost is all that Ninjask has, and even though he can use it with Baton Pass, he's still incredibly frail and is limited by his environment with phazing, Taunt users, etc. Yanmega, while an excellent user of the ability, has extremely hard counters. Blissey can stop it, and wall it to no end or force it out. As for Sharpedo, he's not as common of a threat, but even then, he still can be countered. Priority kills him, and he cannot take a hit to save his life, alongside many things being able to take a hit. I'd only argue for the ban if it is absolutely warranted and overcentralizes or breaks the game. Just because it's highly effective against a playstyle does not mean it's broken.
Basically, I'd say to ban When the Ability or Combination breaks all relevant Pokémon that have it.
I understand the whole "swift swim luvdisc" argument, but that just doesn't work. NU Pokemon like Luvdisc, in this instance, should not be considered in making any sort of decision as it's just not used enough to really matter at all. Usage is important here. If something isn't used at all, why ban it?
As for bans, they need to be enforceable, discrete, and warranted. The first two are easily done, as we can tell what Pokemon is getting banned as it's clearly defined. The problem is whether or not it's warranted.
First off, whether or not something is "too good." It should only be called that if it centralizes a game to the exclusion of almost everything else. Case in point, look at the early DP metagame. Teams basically consisted of Garchomp, a counter, a counter to said counter, etc. That's a perfect example of when something is too good for said metagame.
In other cases, just because a certain ability or technique changes the game does not mean it breaks the game. Even though things like Reuniclus and Excadrill are potent threats, for example with their abilities, they're still perfectly counterable. Things like Moody/Inconsistent are not.
Consider how Inconsistent basically turned the game into a game of chance. If left unchecked, it'd get to the point where people would need phazers, Perish Song users, etc. This would be fine and dandy, except said ability broke even the irrelevant Pokemon.
Now, as for Speed Boost Blaziken. He did get banned. But, does the ability break the likes of say, Ninjask? Yanmega? Sharpedo? For example, Speed Boost is all that Ninjask has, and even though he can use it with Baton Pass, he's still incredibly frail and is limited by his environment with phazing, Taunt users, etc. Yanmega, while an excellent user of the ability, has extremely hard counters. Blissey can stop it, and wall it to no end or force it out. As for Sharpedo, he's not as common of a threat, but even then, he still can be countered. Priority kills him, and he cannot take a hit to save his life, alongside many things being able to take a hit. I'd only argue for the ban if it is absolutely warranted and overcentralizes or breaks the game. Just because it's highly effective against a playstyle does not mean it's broken.
Just becuase NU pokemon arent used, that doesn't mean they are not important, they are still useable pokemon for God's sake. And you don't ban them for Fuck's sake of simplicity. People say I am parroting the same thing over and over again, but I should NU pokemon can put you in Uber! And they are not even broken! And maybe I want to use swift swim-Golduck on my team, Golduck could then be one of the best users of swift swim and he would not be broken. What is wrong with that?
To be fair, NU Pokemon are NU because either the environment is just outright against them, or they, well, suck. Of course, changes in circumstance could make them powerful again, but I only argue bans on a basis of utterly breaking the Pokemon itself. Case in point, my Speed Boost argument. The only one that one could feasibly argue was too good was Blaziken, and only if it warped the metagame around itself. There is no "right" answer to this.
I never argued for banning for simplicity's sake either, so throw that line of logic out immediately.
Then why then? Relevance? It doesn't matter if they are good or not, its the prinple that the swift swim ban goes all the way down to fucking Magikarp, for no good reason. And as I said, one might want to use some of those lower pokemon. It relivant more on the principle, then what impact it might have. How hard would it be to test, then ban, Ludicolo, Omastar, Omostar and, others and allow the rest?
Only 2 pokemon have drizzle, Politoed and Kyorge, I don't see either of them going to UU and lower. So there is no reason to worry about if Golduck with break the UU metagame with drizzle.
Problem with that argument being that Inconsistent/Moody got banned, NOT Bidoof. It's generally the ability that breaks a Pokemon, not the other way around.
Then again, I'd say Rain is pretty good already, trying to "alleviate" the Swift Swim complex ban would only make Rain even better and possibly make us waste time...
By the way, no one using Luvdisc as an argument here would EVER use Luvdisc in a Drizzle team, so who cares???? At least bring up Qwilfish or whatever, and take the "hyper offensive team" approach into account.
Besides, why the hell do we care X pokémon cannot be used in a lower tier? Really, what entitlement does Blaziken have to be allowed in UU? That's like saying we should have allowed Tentacruel in UU even though it was OU just because "it would fit nicely and even counter Moltres!". Come on guys.
lmitchell0012
Wi-Fi Blacklisted
Just because smogon banned the ability from standard play that doesn't mean that you have to play that way. If you specify in your sig that you play by different rules and someone agrees to those rules that's fine.
I am personally not a big fan of the 'who gives a fuck' attitute I see; I never thought I'd say this, but I support the "Don't ban DrizzleSwim Luvdisk" army. Banning the ability combo because a few bad apples spoiled the bunch just seems like a lazy cop-out. The idea as I understand it isn't that 'oh, it's stupid to make a ban just because it would ban something crappy like Luvdisk', the idea is that 'if the combo isn't powerful enough to make something that could use it, like Luvdisk, a potent OU threat, it's not broken enough for an all-around ban'.
And if Luvdisk is too abstract of a concept, what about guys like Gorebyss. With DrizzleSwim AND Shell Smash, it can reach insane speeds, compairable to base 208, with a Special Attack of base 228 after a single turn of set-up(assuming Drizzle is already active). Sorry for such rough math, but I'm fairly cirtain that that would make it a pretty powerful sweeper, even in OU. That outspeeds Kabutops and Kingdra, and has fairly compairable power, with the same set-up; and has got no mention as one of the major threats getting hit by DrizzleSwim. Just another overlooked casualty.
This is a pokemon that was previously NU, though it saw some rain-team usage in Gen IV UU, according to Smogon's own info page.
Don't tell me that just because Luvdisk is NU and nobody cares, that the DrizzleSwim bans really only hit relivent pokemon, and that there would be no cases of outclassed pokemon seeing fair and boosted usage post-ban without severly upsetting the metagame.
And if Luvdisk is too abstract of a concept, what about guys like Gorebyss. With DrizzleSwim AND Shell Smash, it can reach insane speeds, compairable to base 208, with a Special Attack of base 228 after a single turn of set-up(assuming Drizzle is already active). Sorry for such rough math, but I'm fairly cirtain that that would make it a pretty powerful sweeper, even in OU. That outspeeds Kabutops and Kingdra, and has fairly compairable power, with the same set-up; and has got no mention as one of the major threats getting hit by DrizzleSwim. Just another overlooked casualty.
This is a pokemon that was previously NU, though it saw some rain-team usage in Gen IV UU, according to Smogon's own info page.
Don't tell me that just because Luvdisk is NU and nobody cares, that the DrizzleSwim bans really only hit relivent pokemon, and that there would be no cases of outclassed pokemon seeing fair and boosted usage post-ban without severly upsetting the metagame.
Point is, it's believed it didn't make only, say, Kingdra, or Kingdra/Kabutops/Ludicolo or Kingdra+Kabutops+Ludicolo, but the majority of Swift Swimmers, either alone or all of them in a team, broken. And lol you mentioned Gorebyss... yeah good job, you just proved the pro-comboban people's point: It's not just the main trio; Swift Swim + Drizzle breaks other pokémon and makes them form broken teams which all share the same "counters" (read: Ferrothorn).
If we have ~10 relevant pokémon (yes, relevant pokémon, Luvdisc does not matter), and say, 7 of them are broken in some way during Drizzle, what's better, a combo ban for each pokémon, or a blanket one on the ability? It was believed the latter is better, so you have to show how the former would be preferable. And you're not going to prove it mentioning a pokémon not even you in your craziest dreams would use.