Revisiting Evasion Abilities in DPP

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This is something that has been brewing for quite a while now and I believe it's time to address it.

For a long time, people were calling for action to be taken against Sand Veil Gliscor. With Sand being omnipresent in the tier, people started to realise how effective playing to its Ability could be. Many games were being won and lost based on whether or not attacks were hitting this Pokemon. It was no longer just a good Pokemon with an annoying Ability, but rather, a good Pokemon with a potentially game-breaking Ability. However, a Sand Veil vote would not be straightforward in the slightest. Banning Sand Veil essentially means banning actual Pokemon such as Cacturne and Sandslash from use. Arguments were also made for the inclusion of the conceptually-similar Snow Cloak Ability, despite it having the same issue of banning actual Pokemon (Froslass).

After much deliberation, a vote was finally held. Despite this, few were happy about it. The decision to include everything was not appreciated by some. The list of voters was criticised by even more. But most importantly, the lack of clarity in voting options led to a result that many were left feeling unhappy with. A mid-tier Pokemon was now completely banned from the tier. Why? Because of a mistake. One of our major OU tiers has a ban because of a mistake. We can blame the voters, we can blame the leaders, but the fact of the matter is that Froslass is gone from the tier when it shouldn't be, and I say that as a pro-ban voter.

This has been an issue for over a year now, and with Classic due to start in a little over a month, I firmly believe we should hold another vote. Fix the issues surrounding the last vote and give people the chance to rectify this mistake. Maybe we will reach the same conclusion, maybe we won't, but either way at least it will be legitimate.
 

destinyunknown

Banned deucer.
Assuming complex-bans are still out of the question, banning only Sand Veil instead of both Sand Veil and Snow Cloak seems like the best solution. Before anyone brings up that there's still 2 pokemon (Cacturne and Sandslash) that would be banned because they don't have a secondary ability, it must be noted that there's absolutely no reason to ever use Cacturne or Sandslash in OU, so the impact that the ban has on the OU metagame will be minimum. If it affects lower tiers the Sand Veil ban could just be restricted to OU (I think the old ban already covered that?).

Anyway, the only other options would be outright banning Gliscor (which obviously nobody wants) or a complex ban. Since complex banning Gliscor+Sand Veil seemed out of the question (as to be consistent with Blaziken ban, etc etc), this only leaves us with the option of Sand Stream + Sand Veil ban, which is obviously still not a good solution because Sandstorm is so prevalent in the metagame that Sand Veil shenanigans could still happen.
 

Zarel

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I'd suggest banning evasion abilities only when the Pokémon has no other ability available? It might be a complex ban, but complex banning an uncompetitive ability is different from complex banning an overpowered ability.
 
The best option seems to be to ban Sand Veil Gliscor (complex ban). As stated above, aside from the status quo, the other option is to ban Gliscor. The only reason to do that is to avoid a complex ban.

For reference, as far as I am aware the arguments against complex bans are:
  • Looks tacky on ban list
  • More difficult for newcomers to get into the meta
  • Could lead to people trying to unban other Pokemon by banning one powerful option typically available to other Pokemon (e.g. ban Dragon Dance or Life Orb on Salamence, Soul Dew on Latias, Nasty Plot on Manaphy, Substitute on Garchomp, Air Slash on Shaymin-S, Dark Void on Darkrai, etc)

The last one is obviously the most troublesome. To me, banning a unique-effect item option (Soul Dew on Latias) or one of multiple ability options (Gliscor) feels more right than banning a move option - although it has been done in the past in gens 2 (Hidden Power on legendaries) and 3 (Ingrain Smeargle). In the end, this just comes down to what the people in charge feel like preserving in the metagame though, particularly the people who decide what it is we are voting on.

The other two arguments don't matter in the slightest.

Therefore, I'd be satisfied with defining the ban as Sand Veil Gliscor.
 

Texas Cloverleaf

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As long as it's defined specifically as for purposes of being applied to an uncompetitive situation that should appease the segment of the playerbase concerned about precedent applying to things like Speed Boost Blaziken.

Though, you would also have to define it so that you aren't banning purely because the ability is anti competitive but because it leads to anticompetition in the metagame, in order to prevent things like the brightpowder ban and to justify leaving froslass unbanned.

Worth noting the above gives the ADV cacturne banners a stronger leg to stand on but also a cleaner angle of defense for anti banners
 

Karxrida

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Just ban Gliscor and unban the rest if it's that much of an issue. It's clearly the only abuser that gets any legitimate traction due to factors like Baton Pass, and a complex ban of Sand Veil + Gliscor would set an extremely messy precedent (people will push harder for shit like Blaze Blaziken being unbanned if this option goes through).

Doing nothing is also technically an option, but I doubt the Gen IV playerbase will be satisfied with that.
 
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gen 4 playerbase would also not be satisfied with a pure gliscor ban (or at least it being done without a vote), that would be awful

a re-vote with better options would be better imo. like, ban gliscor / ban sand veil / ban sand veil on gliscor / ban sand veil and snow cloak entirely / ban sand veil and snow cloak on pokes that have a 2nd ability... or something.

banning gliscor because it also removes glis pass would be a half measure because the issue of full chains would still exist. if we really care about the baton pass problem then we'll do something that'd limit both (imo it should be that you can't pass speed + other boost. seems to cover everything)

in any case let's free froslass
 

Zarel

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One idea: Ban Sand Stream + Sand Veil. That would ban the uncompetitive aspects while still allowing other things. Still a complex ban but might be simpler than my previous proposal.
 

Andy Snype

Mr. Music
One idea: Ban Sand Stream + Sand Veil. That would ban the uncompetitive aspects while still allowing other things. Still a complex ban but might be simpler than my previous proposal.
sand is very common as both tar and hippo (mostly tar) are pretty common. that ban would be ineffective as I could reasonably bring a Sand Veil mon anyway with a reasonable expectation that sand would be active in an average DPP battle. Tar is really good on offense and SDef Hippo (and some variants of Tar) have merits on stall outside of sand stream. Nobody really thinks about sand itself unless you specifically want the residual damage on non-rock/ground/steels or if you are running Cradily (rock mon that benefits from the sdef boost).
 

jrp

Banned deucer.
sand is very common as both tar and hippo (mostly tar) are pretty common. that ban would be ineffective as I could reasonably bring a Sand Veil mon anyway with a reasonable expectation that sand would be active in an average DPP battle. Tar is really good on offense and SDef Hippo (and some variants of Tar) have merits on stall outside of sand stream. Nobody really thinks about sand itself unless you specifically want the residual damage on non-rock/ground/steels or if you are running Cradily (rock mon that benefits from the sdef boost).
sand veil + sand stream ban might add a different competitive element here though. If you're choosing to run a sand setter, you should reap the disadvantages of sand just the same as the advantages of it. In this case, one of the disadvantages of sand would be your opponent having the potential of having a pokemon with sand veil on their team.

Personally, I don't see a problem with sand veil + sand stream as a complex ban.
 
we didnt do that stream + veil complex ban in bw where sv was even more brutal because of how powerful flying gem acrobatics gliscor was (to say nothing of garchomp) because its a dumb chickenshit way of skirting around the issue. it doesnt "add a competitive element" it keeps the uncompetitive element around. youre saying that if you want to use ttar/hippo, two incredibly important pieces of the metagame, you should deal with the fact that you got swept by gliscor even though you had three faster 100% accurate ice attacks because they went from effectively being aerial ace under normal conditions to becoming stone edge/hydro pump and i'm sure even people who dont play the game know how awful 80% accuracy can be (plus vs sub gliscor you have to hit multiple times, fun). ttar is a top 2 pokemon at worst and always at the absolute top of the usage stats while hippo isnt exactly uncommon to say the least and gliscor is a great pokemon on its own so you are not exactly taking some great anti-metagame risk to be rewarded for here. ttar/hippo teams already reap the disadvantages of sand, do you think i enjoy it being rubbed into my zapdos/breloom/starmie/infernape lol jesus nothing hates it more than him/6 million other pokemon?

plz play the game before you chime in with this nonsense
 

Pocket

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Just remove the ban on Snow Cloak. Tyranitar is on virtually half of the teams in SPL and WCOP, whereas Abomasnow has been seen on less than 5% of teams. Frosslass's Snow Cloak ability is essentially a dud ability; the same cannot be said for Sand Veil.
 
Since most people seem to agree with the idea of another vote, do we have the green light from those in charge to go ahead with it? I'm not sure who is responsible for deciding, whether it's Admins, OU Leaders, or others, but tagging Oglemi for his thoughts here.

That said, there's still the issue of deciding who gets to vote. The idea of handpicking people to vote doesn't go down well with me at all. Not only would there be subjectivity in picking, but there would also be a huge opportunity for voting bias to interfere. Last vote's system could be altered a little (such as removing TD vote) to make it more appealing. Maybe hold a couple of DPP Suspect Tours?

As for the vote itself, I think it should be something like:

1. Unban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak - Sand Veil and Snow Cloak will be unbanned and unrestricted on all Pokemon
2. Complex Ban Sand Veil Gliscor - Sand Veil and Snow Cloak will be unbanned and unrestricted on all Pokemon with the exception of Gliscor
3. Ban Sand Veil - Sand Veil will be banned on all Pokemon. Snow Cloak, however, will be unbanned and unrestricted on all Pokemon
4. Ban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak - Sand Veil and Snow Cloak will remain banned on all Pokemon, including those who do not have secondary Abilities (such as Froslass)
I've left out a couple of potential options because outright banning Gliscor is very unpopular (as proven by the previous vote), and banning Snow Cloak and not Sand Veil would make no sense whatsoever. Option 2 could be changed to "Complex ban Sand Veil/Snow Cloak on Pokemon without secondary Abilities" but that seems kinda unnecessary to me.
 

Oglemi

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The SS with the most experience with the metagame in question should take the lead on delineating how this should play out. Prior that was mcmeghan, right now i'd probably say either jirachee or tdk, or just teal as he is also head TD and that's the portion of the site affected. Maybe teal and tdk can jointly come up with something.

Personally, my opinion on how to proceed would be both a community poll of some kind of the previous voters, and a collection of new voters based on dpp tour performance and maybe a selection of weekend tours. However, this isn't exactly a large change in the scheme of things, so i don't know that that much needs to go into it. I think just a poll or vote of relevant ss, tds, and knowledgeable dpp players would be enough. This is more just rule fixing more than suspect testing gliscor or froslass or whatever.
 
Best option is to ban Sand Veil Gliscor, let's be honest. It's really not even that complex of a ban. There's a whole helluva lot more convoluted things to sift through on Smogon before you get down to "why was only Sand Veil Gliscor banned?"

Thanks for resurfacing this Ciele.
 
I'm neither knowledgeable nor invested in DPP but from a tiering/philosophical perspective alone I'd like to weigh each option that Ciele listed.


1) "Unban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak" - This really solves 0 of the issues we had with sand veil abuse so this really comes down to whether or not you think it was ever an issue.

2) "Complex Ban Sand Veil Gliscor" - I don't see how this differs from allowing Blaze Blaziken in OU. We never complex banned Gothitelle + Shadow Tag so I don't see why we would do that here, especially while we have other viable options. This option is not in line with Smogon's tiering.

3) "Ban Sand Veil" - This option directly tackles the abused strategy, without a complex ban, yet also preserves both Gliscor and Froslass. However, if we ban Sand Veil as opposed to both Sand Veil + Snow Cloak then it becomes more difficult to tie it into evasion clause. One who opposes this option could ask, "If Sand Veil should fall under evasion clause then why not Snow Cloak as well?" The response to this would be "well Sand Veil was dominant in the metagame while Snow Cloak wasn't an active issue."

4) "Ban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak" - This option is definitely the most in line with tiering philosophy as a whole, as it is both simple and effective in dealing with the issue. Banning both evasion-related abilities makes for a very easy connection to evasion clause. Despite this, it removes Froslass which many people seem to care about.


Option 1 is for those who do not think weather-related evasion abilities are an issue.

Option 2 is for those with no morals.

Option 3 is for those who want to keep Froslass but also don't mind straying a teeny tiny bit from ideal philosophical progression.

Option 4 is for those who are ideological purists.


Please keep the aforementioned tiering notions in mind when voting.
 
For what it's worth, the same argument that calls for a snow cloak ban if only sand veil is banned also calls for a brightpowder ban right now. (One could say that 20% instead of 10% is what pushes it over the edge, but the same could be said for the ubiquity of sand.) I personally think brightpowder should be banned but apparently that's not the consensus, so unbanning snow cloak, while inconsistent, is not much of a departure from the status quo. ABR kind of addressed the difference between the two abilities but I think brightpowder is also a pretty important part of the equation.
 
Option 1 is for those who do not think weather-related evasion abilities are an issue.

Option 2 is for those with no morals.

Option 3 is for those who want to keep Froslass but also don't mind straying a teeny tiny bit from ideal philosophical progression.

Option 4 is for those who are ideological purists.


Please keep the aforementioned tiering notions in mind when voting.
Woah, that escalated quickly.

I think citing other (arguably bad) bans in different metagames as precedent doesn't seem like a wise approach here. The ultimate goal of tiering is to reach the minimum amount of bans to arrive at a balanced metagame. I truly believe that simply banning whole Pokemon (like Blaziken, for example) is lazy tiering in cases like these. I also believe that if Blaze Blaziken was anywhere near as viable in OU as Hyper Cutter Gliscor is, that tiering decision might have gone a totally different direction. There wasn't as much opposition because hey, who the hell uses Blaze Blaziken anyway?

I think it's very easy to explain that Gliscor's typing and stats, combined with its Sand Veil ability creates an uncompetitive environment. It's because of how easily Gliscor can abuse Sand Veil that makes only Sand Veil Gliscor broken.

We've implemented "complex" bans before, and people seem to understand just fine. It has nothing to do with morals and everything to do with creating the most diverse, balanced metagame possible.
 
I think it's very easy to explain that Gliscor's typing and stats, combined with its Sand Veil ability creates an uncompetitive environment. It's because of how easily Gliscor can abuse Sand Veil that makes only Sand Veil Gliscor broken.
I meant my "no morals" bit as half-funny, less so insulting. What I really want is that we don't set bad precedent with this vote.

That aside, there is a different way to interpret what you described above. When you say that "Gliscor's typing and stats, combined with its Sand Veil Ability creates an uncompetitive environment" then maybe Gliscor itself is broken. I get that there's a desire to preserve otherwise viable sets, but what you're describing seems to me as just a bunch of Gliscor's broken traits in the DPP metagame. The way I see it, Sand is a very prevalent (and ofc permanent) thing in the DPP meta. Given the metagame it is in, Gliscor's own traits, such as its typing/ability, put it over the edge of balance. This can be construed as Gliscor being the culprit, not Sand Veil.

And if Sand Veil overall is the issue, then there would have to be action taken against Cacturne and whatever as well. So, regardless of how you progress from there, complex banning Gliscor + Veil doesn't seem very appropriate here. Additionally, the only potential benefit of option 2 over option 3 is preserving Cacturne/whatever, but this still doesn't justify the complex ban. If Cacturne is also a relevant issue, then Sand Veil should be banned overall. If Cacturne is not a relevant issue, then Gliscor itself is clearly the problem, and thus Gliscor should be banned.

Ban Gliscor or Sand Veil, because there is no logical progression that leads to a complex ban being the best solution here.
 
I don't want to spend too much time debating this (I'm retired, after all), but I would say that you bolded the wrong words in my sentence. The word that should be emphasized is "combined". The fact of the matter is, Gliscor is the only Pokemon who can abuse Sand Veil to the extent that it makes the game uncompetitive. However, Hyper Cutter Gliscor is nowhere close to broken, and instead fills a solid niche in the metagame (just as solid, if not moreso than Froslass, whose wrongful removal from the tier is what started this thread to begin with).

I struggle to understand the concern around banning Sand Veil Gliscor. Can someone articulate what the "risks" are here? If the community at large thinks this is some major threat to our tiering system due to setting precedent, then the lesser of two evils is to ban Sand Veil, but it just seems backwards. If there are other Pokemon in the future who exclusively takes advantage of an ability in an undesired way, then why not consider complex banning that Pokemon/Ability combo as well? I'm not sure who started the idea that this is a bad approach, but you should always question the status quo and see if there's a better way of doing things.

Anyways, this is the last post I'll make on the matter (people rarely read past the first page of policy discussions anyway). Don't lose sight of the right thing to do for the sake of keeping things simple or maintaining the status quo.
 

Sam

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I'm not going to do anything about it myself, but the TD team are free to hold a vote like they did last time
 

Jirachee

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Alright, time to vote on Evasion abilities once more.

The options:
  • Unban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak - Sand Veil and Snow Cloak will be unbanned and unrestricted on all Pokemon
  • Unban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak Pokémon without a second ability - Diglett, Dugtrio, Gligar, Gliscor, Swinub, Piloswine, and Mamoswine can no longer use these abilities.
  • Ban Sand Veil - Sand Veil will be banned on all Pokemon. Snow Cloak, however, will be unbanned and unrestricted on all Pokemon
  • Ban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak - Sand Veil and Snow Cloak will remain banned on all Pokemon, including those who do not have secondary Abilities (such as Froslass)
We established a similar criteria to the previous vote to determine voters:
  • The player has reached the Semi-Final of the Smogon Classic DPP Cup;
  • The player was one of the people who collected the most amount of DPP Points in Smogon Tour 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 (Top 3 amount);
  • The player played DPP in the 7th or 8th SPL, and has at least played 6 DPP Games in it (50%+ winrate);
  • The player played DPP in the 10th or 11th WCoP, and has at least played 3 DPP Games in it (50%+ winrate);
  • The player is Top 20 in Smogon Tour DPP wins, from Tour 17 to Tour 22 (60%+ winrate).
Here is the voter list:
-Tsunami- (Tour 19, Tour)
Asuya (Tour)
august (WCoP 10, WCoP 11)
babidi1998 (DPP Cup I, WCoP 11)
Bad Ass (Tour)
BKC (DPP Cup I, Tour)
Bro Kappa (Tour 20)
christos21 (WCoP 11)
Ciele (Tour 22)
Conflict (Tour)
Energy (WCoP 10)
Fakes (WCoP 11)
giara (DPP Cup II)
Googly (DPP Cup II)
H-C (DPP Cup II)
Honor (WCoP 11)
Jirachee (WCoP 11)
Jsaok3 (WCoP 10)
Leftiez (Tour)
Luigi (Tour)
M Dragon (Tour)
Malekith (Tour)
Marshall.Law (SPL 7, Tour)
roroyurem (Tour 20, Tour)
Nachos (Tour 19)
Ojama (DPP Cup I)
osgoode (SPL 8)
panamaxis (WCoP 10)
PDC (DPP Cup I, Tour 20, Tour)
Philip7086 (DPP Cup II, SPL 8, WCoP 10, WCoP 11)
pokebasket (DPP Cup II)
Porengan (WCoP 10)
Posho (Tour 21)
Prankster. (DPP Cup I)
Reymedy (Tour)
roscoe (SPL 8)
silver ghost (Tour)
SoulWind (Tour)
Stathakis (Tour 19)
Sweepage (Tour 20, Tour 21, Tour)
Tamahome (Tour 21, SPL 7, SPL 8, WCoP 10, Tour)
Tesung (Tour)
ToF (SPL 8, WCoP 11)
undisputed (WCoP 10)
xtra$hine (Tour)
ZoroDark (DPP Cup I)


How will the vote work? We will be using instant-runoff voting, akin to the previous vote. You will have four options to choose from, and you should list them in order of preference. Be sure to bold your list. The options are:
  1. Unban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak
  2. Unban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak on Pokémon without a second ability
  3. Ban Sand Veil
  4. Ban Sand Veil and Snow Cloak under the Evasion Clause.
An option will just need to hit a simple 50%+ majority to be implemented, unless an option reaches a 2/3 + 1 supermajority at any point, in which case that option will be implemented. Here is what your vote should look like:
Sample Vote said:
You have to PM your vote to idiotfrommars. You may NOT edit your vote once it is sent. To make sure this won't happen, idiotfrommars will immediatly reply to the PM you sent with your own vote.

The deadline to vote is 11:59 PM EDT, Sunday the 2nd, April.
For the record, this vote won't count toward the Tiering Contributor Badge.
 
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