Lets face it; Espeon cannot be lower than B+ (and should be given that rank immediately until argued otherwise). And for what would probably be the 100th time this has been said; Scolipede cannot be lower than A-. Seriously, can I ask why what are probably the 2 most requested and logical changes have been continuously ignored for the past months by the mods? Everything about them has been said, so can we just update the damn things already so we can shut up about BP for a few seconds?
Quoting this to show you guys an example of a post you shouldn't make. Only demands, accusations, and claims and no arguments or evidence to back it up.
Anyway, to answer your question, Espeon and the other BP members haven't moved up in the past because the Baton Pass suspect test happened, and we all knew that Baton Pass was getting nerfed one way or another, so i preferred to wait until after the test is over to raise the ranks of those Pokemon in case Baton Pass teams were still a thing. As for what will happen now, you will know in a few days.
Scolipede and Espeon can be ranked high on a ladder basis, but I believe the rankings lean more towards tournament viability, and Baton Pass chains are not at all viable in tournaments. Since the better part of the good OU players mainly participate in tournaments, BP mons can hardly be given great ranks on the basis that they wreck the ladder which has a mediocre average skill level at best.
The ranks are supposed to be made with both ladder players and tour players taken into consideration. The more important thing to have in order to determine those rankings is metagame knowledge, which can be found in both kinds of players.
the-bumper-car said:
Okay, let me reiterate why I'm against Espeon moving up:
It is a terrible pokemon, even in a BP team. Espeon is the Achilles Heel in the 6 man BP Team (at least, after 6BP started running Zapdos over Mr. Mime) and ties with Smeargle as the biggest defensive liability on the BP team. Part of the reason why people said "BP can only make mistakes in the first 5 turns" is because the main goal of BP at the start of a match is to pass resilience to Espeon (via Iron Defense, Speed Boost, and a Sub) and the moment that something disrupts that game plan and Espeon comes in with little-to-no resilience, it's going to die, and then BP's got a massive gaping weakness to Status Moves (including Phazing moves).
Now that it's 3BP, it's even worse. There was a chance before in 6BP that losing Espeon wasn't the end of your game, but under 3BP, losing Espeon is death. Again, this is not a sign that Espeon is good.
Espeon is not a bad mon that becomes amazing on the right kind of team. It is a terrible mon that is run on a good team in spite of it being terrible. If Espeon was even a mediocre pokemon, we wouldn't have had multiple extended debates on whether BP should get nerfed or not - we would've quickly come to a consensus to ban that shit as decisively as possible. There would have been no talk about "collateral damage" and "mindlessness" and "legitimate strategies" if Espeon wasn't such a shitty mon that people actually sorta felt bad for BP teams for being forced to run it.
Without Espeon, Taunt and phazing would be big problems for BP teams, so even though Baton Pass teams can certainly work without it, Espeon is almost mandatory on such teams and not a liability at all. Espeon is the reason why many balanced and every stall team insta-lose against Baton Pass teams. You can't deny its usefulness in those teams and even if Espeon is not as good as Scolipede at supporting Baton Pass chains, it is still the next most vital member, so you are definitely selling it short.
Halcyon said:
When C05ta had 3 out of the top 5 spots on the BW2 ladder did we raise all the Pokemon on his team to S rank? No that would have been retarded. I get that people have this huge raging hard on for Denis but honestly he's just a dude who really likes annoying people.
Baton Pass isn't "still viable despite the nerf," it just didn't actually get nerfed. People (myself included for most of the suspect test), didn't even consider the fact that the Baton Pass team didn't need most of its team members and that they could be replaced by just about any Pokemon that could deal with the threats to BP. Right now, what you guys are hailing as "the best playstyle in OU" is legit just dual screens smash pass. It's really funny actually how people get so caught up in the fact that Denis is sweeping teams with a shit Pokemon that they believe that Pokemon or the playstyle is "good." But the truth is that it's simply more of the same bullshit matchup garbage (that and the real broken threat in his team is Deoxys-S but whatever). Seriously, play any dual screens team and it'll beat you just as easily as Denis's team could. Just because he happens to use a BP core instead of a more common setup sweeper doesn't mean that his team or it's members are top tier. And if you don't believe me, I invite you BP enthusiasts to battle any of the people in the Battle of the Week nominations list to prove it n_n
Not arguing whether Deo-S is broken or not, but SmashPass is way different than Baton Pass chains. First, SmashPass teams can be dealt with by phazing, which is huge when facing defensive and balanced teams. No matter how many screens you have up, my Mega Venusaur can always switch into your Shell Smash Smeargle or Shell Smash Gorebyss and phaze them before they manage to successfully pass the boosts. Same goes for Whirlwind Mandibuzz (i know it's not super common but it's a viable option), which is immune to Smeargle's Spore too. Unaware users can take on a lot of the Smash receivers, once Sleep Clause has been activated (to make sure that the Smeargle doesn't put them to sleep). Screens can be stalled out before too much damage is done, as unlike Baton Pass teams, SmashPass teams don't accumulate boosts, they just boost once and then pass, so if you manage to survive long enough to make screens go away, you can KO the receiver if you have something able to take a hit from it. Third, because SmashPass teams don't use Sub on their stat boosters or they use it on Gorebyss, Clear Smog Amoonguss is a very good answer to such teams, erasing their boosts with Clear Smog and breaking Gorebyss's Sub with Giga Drain even with Light Screen up.
I brought up those examples to show how SmashPass and ChainPass are quite different playstyles and i don't really get what comparing them does. Halcyon, your point is basically that SmashPass teams are broken because Deo-S is broken, but what does this have to do with our discussion? Yes, Deo-S takes part in ChainPass teams too, but its role is way less vital than its role on SmashPass teams, as ChainPass teams have other ways to boost their defenses too. I can get that Deo-S is maybe what makes or could make ChainPass teams problematic, but even without Deo-S there are plenty of viable dual screeners, which means that even without Deo-S ChainPass teams would just become less effective, not bad and unviable.
