np: OU Suspect Testing Round 3 - So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

[XienZo]

All other things which you are referring to add only a reasonable amount of luck, and at the same time add a reasonable amount of strategy.

Evasion, in any form, does not add strategy.

Evasion does introduce new things though. For example, Sand Veil Garchomp leads to Substitute Garchomps, which in turn can be countered by Cloyster's Icicle Spear, so all of these strategies increase in popularity due to evasion.

Likewise, DT/Minimize may also make Baton Passing teams strong enough to be viable again, potentially adding a new strategy to this metagame.

Perhaps the above examples won't work out exactly as stated, but it's oversimplifying the issue to say that Evasion cannot possibly add strategy whatsoever.

 

[Arc Tech]

Evasion does introduce new things though. For example, Sand Veil Garchomp leads to Substitute Garchomps, which in turn can be countered by Cloyster's Icicle Spear, so all of these strategies increase in popularity due to evasion.

Likewise, DT/Minimize may also make Baton Passing teams strong enough to be viable again, potentially adding a new strategy to this metagame.

Perhaps the above examples won't work out exactly as stated, but it's oversimplifying the issue to say that Evasion cannot possibly add strategy whatsoever.

I doubt people will want to remove evasion clause, and as you said, the same thing can be said of Double Team and OHKO's in adding new strategies depending on them. Once again, to ban DT and OHKO's but not the abilities is simply a double standard- or at the very least it will be once banning the abilities do not result in a soft ban of several pokemon.

But those strategies rely entirely on luck (needing you to miss) and so take the game out of the players hand and into the RNG's hand. Uncompetitive. (Unless you want argue statistics, in which the player will get free turns in which to set up, making an easy sweep possible if you have a pokemon capable of stalling enough, or just plain lucky, which is broken.)

 

[XienZo]

I doubt people will want to remove evasion clause, and as you said, the same thing can be said of Double Team and OHKO's in adding new strategies depending on them. Once again, to ban DT and OHKO's but not the abilities is simply a double standard- or at the very least it will be once banning the abilities do not result in a soft ban of several pokemon.

Well, you have to remember that Evasion Clause BARELY passed, and that if we had done our math correctly, it WOULDN'T have passed. Given that, we're basically as close as possible to being on the fence regarding Evasion Clause, so I wouldn't say that the passing of Evasion Clause in the first place was necessarily the right decision.

But those strategies rely entirely on luck (needing you to miss) and so take the game out of the players hand and into the RNG's hand. Uncompetitive. (Unless you want argue statistics, in which the player will get free turns in which to set up, making an easy sweep possible if you have a pokemon capable of stalling enough, or just plain lucky, which is broken.)

This may well be true, but I'd think it depend on how the evasion was used; the longer the period it's used over, the less dependent it is on the RNG. That might seem counter-intuitive, but an example of it is how it's unreliable to depend on crits to KO a regular threat, but it's fairly reliable to depend on a crit to break through a Cosmic Power staller; the longer the period of time is, the less variation there is in the overall amount of hax, at which point, as you said, it becomes a game of statistics instead.

And once it becomes a game of statistics over luck, the player once again has the power to manipulate the statistics into their favor (for example, sticking Substitute onto Garchomp), which could potentially make the positive aspects of DT/Minimize outweight the costs.

Once again, I'm not saying that DT/Minimize's effects WILL be positive, I'm just stating that it's far more complex than it initially seems in terms of positive and negative effects.

 

[Thorhammer]

Shadow Tag.

In most cases Levitate, unless the pokemon in question has a better ability to warrant the use Magnet Rise (Why bother using Magnezone if it didn't have Magnet Pull?).

Imposter, unless you're playing doubles (I remember running an uber team with Transform Mew and Scarf Kyogre that resulted in double STAB Water Spout spam. Good times.)

Speed boost, although Agility does give you more speed faster.

Purely from a singles standpoint, No Guard, although it is possible Telekinesis may have some other uses in doubles for helping pokemon with ground weaks on teams that like to spam EQ, or if you don't want to run Gravity but want to use moves with less acc, etc etc (although I guess this is getting away from what you're trying to prove).

Scrappy

Magic Bounce

This is debatable in my opinion. Regenerator allows you to switch around more freely and helps mitigate the damage from entry hazards but you need to actually switch out to activate its effects, meaning you can't just sit there stalling a pokemon or perhaps you risk losing momentum trying to heal your pokemon. Recover doesn't help you switch in easier but it does heal more health and can be used whenever you want, meaning you don't have to switch out making it preferable for stat-up sweepers. They are both very good but they work differently so I don't think they're comparable.

Well, that depends. Drizzle is better in most situations, but if you want to abuse Swift Swimmers then RD is preferable for obvious reasons. Not to mention that RD can be stuck on any pokemon in order to change the weather--whether it be to start up rain again if Politoed goes down or to forcibly change the weather against certain teams (although you'd probably run Hail for that--and you don't have to risk bring one pokemon in over and over to nullify opposing weather. So yes, I'd say Drizzle is better but Rain Dance has its merits.

Again, this kind of depends. On a stat up sweeper, it'd go Shed Skin > Refresh > Natural Cure in my opinion. A wall would want the abilities, but Heal Bell or Aromatherapy would be preferable to Refresh any day of the weak and, depending on your team, those two abilities as well.

Pure Power/ Huge Power

Mummy can actually come back to bite you in the ass if you're not careful and since it only activates on certain attacks you can't invoke it whenever you wish. As for Mold Breaker vs Gastro Acid, Mold Breaker again is preferable in singles but Gastro Acid has the additional benefit of helping your team get rid of annoying abilities (did you see that triples warstory TheMaskedNitpicker posted the other day? It showcases how Gastro Acid could be effective there as you could see by his removing Truant from his Slaking and also crippling an enemy Machamp). Also consider that Mold Breaker only nullifies abilities that prevent certain attacks, whereas Gastro Acid erases ALL abilities. Mold Breaker will not prevent that opposing Haxorus from EQing your Bronzong; Gastro Acid will. Mold Breaker will not stop that Gliscor from stalling you with Poison Heal; Gastro Acid will. Mold Breaker will not stop that CM Reuniclus from shrugging off Toxic; Gastro Acid will. Et cetra et cetra.

Moody I suppose, but again I would contend that Acupressure does have an advantage in doubles in that you can use it on your allies, not to mention it doesn't carry the risk of lowering your stats (can't end up with +2 acc -1 Def, or +2 Sp. Att -1 Acc, etc etc)

Trace, unless you're playing multibattles and you want to guarantee you get the right ability.

That kinda depends. Unaware will negate the advantage of heavily-boosted pokemon, but if they kill your Unaware pokemon all their boosts are back and you're SOL, whereas Haze forces them to start over no matter what, even if you eat it. It also destroys BP chains better than Unaware due to Ingrain.

Intimidate

Bad Dreams

I would say Work Up. Download gives you an instant boost, yes, but what you get is out of your control and it's either one or the other. Work Up allows you to increase both stats at once which I would say is better for mixed sweepers, not to mention you can use it more than once for increased power whereas with Download you get one boost once and that's it.

Pressure though they both suck.

Sturdy

The abilities, I would assume, although you are adding in another variable that is allowing those abilities to shine (if the weather gets nullified all the moves instantly become better than the abilities) so it is possible that auto-weather itself could be a confound.

So yes, in most cases, the abilities are better than the moves, although I would say many of the moves have their merits. We also run into the problem that we have a potential confound with auto-weather, and for Sand Veil/ Snow Cloak specifically we have to determine if it activates so often and is so detrimental to the metagame to potentially screw over a bunch of pokemon with said ability by banning them.

I'm referring to singles only, since that's the only metagame in question. What I'm not referring to is only strategies that are permitted. Swift Swim + Drizzle may be banned, but it's still better than Rain Dance + Drizzle. There should be no question about that.

With that in mind, while in many cases there is merit to using the move rather than the ability, the ability is always better by a significant margin. In all cases where the Pokemon does not have a better ability, the fact that the ability does not require the Pokemon to expend a moveslot or a turn using the move makes it overall better. This includes Sand Veil and Snow Cloak.

Repercussions that would follow from a ban of Sand Veil and Snow Cloak entirely are irrelevant, as those would be foolish bans to make and therefore I am not advocating for them. What I am advocating for is a ban of Sand Veil + Sand Stream and of Snow Cloak + Snow Warning.

---

Perhaps I should give some examples to support my stance on the points regarding which we disagree.

In Gen 4, Slowbro had access to the move Slack Off, which functions precisely the same as Recover. However, it was not OU. In Gen 5, now that it has gained the ability Regenerator, Slowbro appears to have become OU. There may have been other factors, but the great advantage it gained in being able to use Regenerator to heal rather than Slack Off was certainly a factor, which demonstrates how much better Regenerator is despite healing slightly less.

In much the same way, Quagsire always had access to Haze, and yet it is used now so much more because of Unaware. How often in Gen 5 do you see a Quagsire with Haze and Water Absorb, choosing to make use of the merits of its other ability and instead stop stat-boosters with a move of its own? Despite the slight situational merits that such a set might have, you never see it.

As for the weather abilities, the possibility of the weather being taken down is already being taken into account. Say you're using a Drought team, and include a Sawsbuck. Tell me, would you use a Chlorophyll Sawsbuck, or a Sap Sipper Sawsbuck with Agility to boost its Speed instead? Even with the merits of not having to worry about changes in weather, I hardly think you would ever even consider using the latter.

I unfortunately lack perfect examples with which to address the matters of Mummy and Download. As such, I suppose they can be ignored in favor of the alternative abilities I offered to address the same moves, Mold Breaker and Sheer Force.

 

[StarmanXL]

I'm referring to singles only, since that's the only metagame in question. What I'm not referring to is only strategies that are permitted. Swift Swim + Drizzle may be banned, but it's still better than Rain Dance + Drizzle. There should be no question about that.

Repercussions that would follow from a ban of Sand Veil and Snow Cloak entirely are irrelevant, as those would be foolish bans to make and therefore I am not advocating for them. What I am advocating for is a ban of Sand Veil + Sand Stream and of Snow Cloak + Snow Warning.

Fair enough.

In Gen 4, Slowbro had access to the move Slack Off, which functions precisely the same as Recover. However, it was not OU. In Gen 5, now that it has gained the ability Regenerator, Slowbro appears to have become OU. There may have been other factors, but the great advantage it gained in being able to use Regenerator to heal rather than Slack Off was certainly a factor, which demonstrates how much better Regenerator is despite healing slightly less.

This actually doesn't prove that Regenerator is better than Recover (or Slack Off or Softboiled or Milk Drink or whatever) at all. I know that Regenerator was a major factor in Slowbro seeing much more use this gen, but it's not the only one--there was also a great increase in the number of viable fighting types not to mention Blaziken received a huge boost and Slowbro is it's only solid counter. Not to mention that Slowbro actually still runs Slack Off most of the time even with Regeneration; if the ability is so much better as you are proposing, he wouldn't even bother putting it on his set because it would be redundant, yet he still does. The only sets that Slowbro (and Slowking, but Slowking gets no love) don't run Slack Off on are offensive TR sets, and they didn't run Slack Off on those sets in 4th gen either. The two are good and interact with each other to make something better than they are individually but they are different enough in my opinion that they really can't be compared to one another to see which one is better.

In much the same way, Quagsire always had access to Haze, and yet it is used now so much more because of Unaware. How often in Gen 5 do you see a Quagsire with Haze and Water Absorb, choosing to make use of the merits of its other ability and instead stop stat-boosters with a move of its own? Despite the slight situational merits that such a set might have, you never see it.

Who knows, probably because Gastrodon exists. I'da thought with all the boosted Hydro Pumps and stuff flying around you'd see it more often.

As for the weather abilities, the possibility of the weather being taken down is already being taken into account. Say you're using a Drought team, and include a Sawsbuck. Tell me, would you use a Chlorophyll Sawsbuck, or a Sap Sipper Sawsbuck with Agility to boost its Speed instead? Even with the merits of not having to worry about changes in weather, I hardly think you would ever even consider using the latter.

Fair enough, if your team is a weather team then you should always use the weather abilities.

I unfortunately lack perfect examples with which to address the matters of Mummy and Download. As such, I suppose they can be ignored in favor of the alternative abilities I offered to address the same moves, Mold Breaker and Sheer Force.

I don't see how Sheer Force is comparable to Work Up. Sheer Force boosts the power of some attacks and Work Up boosts your attack directly. I don't see why you wouldn't run them in conjunction to be honest.

 

[shrang]

To those who believe the effectiveness of Evasion-causing abilities is not enough to warrant further extension of Evasion Clause:

Tell me, which is better? And by how much?

Block or Shadow Tag?
Magnet Rise or Levitate?
Transform or Imposter?
Agility or Speed Boost?
Telekinesis or No Guard?
Foresight or Scrappy?
Magic Coat or Magic Bounce?
Recover or Regenerator?
Rain Dance or Drizzle?
Refresh or Natural Cure / Shed Skin?
Swords Dance or Pure Power / Huge Power?
Gastro Acid or Mold Breaker / Mummy?
Acupressure or Moody?
Role Play or Trace?
Haze or Unaware?
Charm or Intimidate?
Nightmare or Bad Dreams?
Work Up or Download / Sheer Force?
Spite or Pressure?
Endure or Sturdy?

When the team contains the corresponding permanent-weather ability with which to activate the latter, which is better? And by how much?

Agility or Swift Swim / Chlorophyll / Sand Rush?
Aqua Ring or Rain Dish / Ice Body?
Refresh or Hydration?
Double Team or Sand Veil / Snow Cloak?

You'd have a point there if we actually banned Sand Veil / Snow Cloak instead of Brightpowder / Lax Incense. But no, we decided that 10% is more worthy of a ban than 20%! Brightpowder / Lax Incense is was just crappy any way, since Leftovers / Life Orb / *Insert useful item here* is always better. Like wasting a moveslot, you're wasting an item slot by carrying your Evasion item. The logic around here is absolutely astounding.

 

[Thorhammer]

This actually doesn't prove that Regenerator is better than Recover (or Slack Off or Softboiled or Milk Drink or whatever) at all. I know that Regenerator was a major factor in Slowbro seeing much more use this gen, but it's not the only one--there was also a great increase in the number of viable fighting types not to mention Blaziken received a huge boost and Slowbro is it's only solid counter. Not to mention that Slowbro actually still runs Slack Off most of the time even with Regeneration; if the ability is so much better as you are proposing, he wouldn't even bother putting it on his set because it would be redundant, yet he still does. The only sets that Slowbro (and Slowking, but Slowking gets no love) don't run Slack Off on are offensive TR sets, and they didn't run Slack Off on those sets in 4th gen either. The two are good and interact with each other to make something better than they are individually but they are different enough in my opinion that they really can't be compared to one another to see which one is better.

Fair enough.

Who knows, probably because Gastrodon exists. I'da thought with all the boosted Hydro Pumps and stuff flying around you'd see it more often.

Gastrodon doesn't get Haze.

What seems more relevant, though, is that several OU-viable Pokemon do get Haze, and yet never use it. On the other hand, DW Quagsire is used pretty much just for Unaware.

I don't see how Sheer Force is comparable to Work Up. Sheer Force boosts the power of some attacks and Work Up boosts your attack directly. I don't see why you wouldn't run them in conjunction to be honest.

Fair enough.

I had an explanation in mind for it, but thinking over it again, including Work Up at all was a bit of a stretch.

You'd have a point there if we actually banned Sand Veil / Snow Cloak instead of Brightpowder / Lax Incense. But no, we decided that 10% is more worthy of a ban than 20%! Brightpowder / Lax Incense is was just crappy any way, since Leftovers / Life Orb / *Insert useful item here* is always better. Like wasting a moveslot, you're wasting an item slot by carrying your Evasion item. The logic around here is absolutely astounding.

That post was made not in defense of the Brightpowder / Lax Incense ban, but in support of a future Sand Veil + Sand Stream / Snow Cloak + Snow Warning ban.

 

[AlphaSpade]

Just throwing this out there, but if such a ban went through, Garchomp could still grab a Sand Veil boost off the opponent's sandstorm. Sure the same could've been said about SSers and opponent's Drizzle, but outside of Kingdra, none of the SSers would really be viable outside its own weather, whereas Garchomp is easy to fit on teams.

In short, you would only solve half the problem.

 

[XienZo]

Just throwing this out there, but if such a ban went through, Garchomp could still grab a Sand Veil boost off the opponent's sandstorm. Sure the same could've been said about SSers and opponent's Drizzle, but outside of Kingdra, none of the SSers would really be viable outside its own weather, whereas Garchomp is easy to fit on teams.

In short, you would only solve half the problem.

No one would use a Sub-Chomp for stalling if they can't guarantee Sandstorm though; if they do, they'll get lucky some of the time, but most of the time, they'd be much better off with another Chomp set.

 

[Thorhammer]

Just throwing this out there, but if such a ban went through, Garchomp could still grab a Sand Veil boost off the opponent's sandstorm. Sure the same could've been said about SSers and opponent's Drizzle, but outside of Kingdra, none of the SSers would really be viable outside its own weather, whereas Garchomp is easy to fit on teams.

In short, you would only solve half the problem.

Pokemon benefiting from the opponent's weather is not a problem. When that happens, the opponent has only their own team to blame, and the weather "abuser" likely isn't equipped to make full use of the weather in the first place.

 

[Ninja_13]

You'd have a point there if we actually banned Sand Veil / Snow Cloak instead of Brightpowder / Lax Incense. But no, we decided that 10% is more worthy of a ban than 20%! Brightpowder / Lax Incense is was just crappy any way, since Leftovers / Life Orb / *Insert useful item here* is always better. Like wasting a moveslot, you're wasting an item slot by carrying your Evasion item. The logic around here is absolutely astounding.

You might note that Sand Veil + Snow Cloak did not pass the nomination phase. This was a difficult decision for us to make. The bottom line is, none of the nominations for these evasion abilities even mentioned the fact that it would result in a soft-ban for multiple Pokemon. Nominations are not to be taken lightly; if you want something to be put on the ballot, cover all your angles when nominating things. We simply could not accept such an incomplete nomination.

 

[Arc Tech]

You'd have a point there if we actually banned Sand Veil / Snow Cloak instead of Brightpowder / Lax Incense. But no, we decided that 10% is more worthy of a ban than 20%! Brightpowder / Lax Incense is was just crappy any way, since Leftovers / Life Orb / *Insert useful item here* is always better. Like wasting a moveslot, you're wasting an item slot by carrying your Evasion item. The logic around here is absolutely astounding.

True, there are items that are better in the fact they bring very good bonuses, and far more consistently. But they are for the most part unnecesery on pokemon looking to abuse evasion- a moveslot is far, far more important barring specific situations (Dragonite, pretty much).

When looking to abuse evasion, you need a recovery move or substitute in order to stall, and a set up move to take advantage of your free turns. If you're using double team or minimize, this only leaves 1 move left for attacking. Unless you have dragon stab (or flying and even possibly bug, or steel, but I digress), that's a really bad thing, and even with Dragon stab it's far from ideal. When you have +6 stats, you really shouldn't be missing LO very much. The only cases where an itemslot would be better is for one of three things:
1) You're using Sub and have no healing ability such as poison heal or ice body- this one is generally not very effective anyway.
2) Multiscale + lefties to heal Sandstorm damage (and preferably Dragon stab, *coughDragonitecough*)
3) You need eviolite to be able to stall-heal until a miss and have Dragon stab (or flying etc.).

 

[Silent Storm]

Suspect votes are in.

Blaziken: 29 Ban, 11 Do Not Ban, 3 Abstain (72.5% Ban)
Deoxys-E: 22 Ban, 19 Do Not Ban, 2 Abstain (53.7% Ban)
Excadrill: 10 Ban, 33 Do Not Ban, 0 Abstain (23.3% Ban)
Latios: 22 Ban, 18 Do Not Ban, 3 Abstain (55.0% Ban)
Reuniclus: 9 Ban, 31 Do Not Ban, 3 Abstain (22.5% Ban)
Thundurus: 15 Ban, 23 Do Not Ban, 5 Abstain (39.5% Ban)

So long Blaziken.....

 

[IcyMan28]

Blaziken: 29 Ban, 11 Do Not Ban, 3 Abstain (72.5% Ban)
Deoxys-E: 22 Ban, 19 Do Not Ban, 2 Abstain (53.7% Ban)
Excadrill: 10 Ban, 33 Do Not Ban, 0 Abstain (23.3% Ban)
Latios: 22 Ban, 18 Do Not Ban, 3 Abstain (55.0% Ban)
Reuniclus: 9 Ban, 31 Do Not Ban, 3 Abstain (22.5% Ban)
Thundurus: 15 Ban, 23 Do Not Ban, 5 Abstain (39.5% Ban)

So Latios jumped from 13%, to 30%, to 50% in the course of three rounds. Rounds 1 to 2 saw the loss of Deoxys-A, Darkrai, and Shaymin-S. 3 checks. Round 2 to 3 saw the loss of Swift Swim (so basically 3 checks).

I'm really hoping Latios stays next round, because this round did not lead to the banning of any of its checks. I don't have any issues with Deoxys-E, either, so hopefully it (and the rest of this list) stays. I'm sad to see Blaziken go, it being my favorite pokemon, but it still tears shit up in Ubers so its not too big of a deal I guess.

Maybe we can stop nominating Excadrill and Reuniclus now.

 

[Thorhammer]

Suspect votes are in.



So long Blaziken.....

Let us have a moment of silence.

 

[Lightning Tiger]

Thundurus is safe again.... till the next round of suspect testing. Sayonara Blaziken, never had a real opinion on him.

 

[pkmn1000]

Oh Smogon You Morons
---------------------------------
Oh Smogon, you morons, down the slipp'ry slope you slide,
From your idiocy you can run, but you can never hide.
You're banning all manner of Pokemon, left and right,
So they cannot be used in a Pokemon fight.

Oh Smogon, you morons, where will this all end?
I'm deeply frustrated, I can no longer pretend.
Non-legendaries, and abilities too,
And Drizzle/Swift Swim, Smogon, how dare you.

Oh Smogon, you morons, you think you're the best,
But I've come to lay that fallacy to rest.
You ban stuff just based on some stupid idea,
And your logic stinks like week-old diarrhea.
-----------------------------------
Thank you

Sorry but this poem regarding Blaziken's ban is just too funny, shows what the gamefaqs mindset is LOL.

 

[RaRaRabbit]

You know, I read and hear comments like this all the time from other forums. People bitching about what smogon bans and doesnt ban. Or how they think Smogon is full of noobs who don't know how to handle things like Skymin. And I just wonder... Do they just see the ban results and start flaming? If only they looked at the 75 pages worth of discussion on these kinds of things instead of just blowing up.

Blaziken rightly deserved to go IMO. And not because I didn't like playing against him, but because he legitimately caused ohko's to 2hko's against everything, and he was ripping the meta game apart, unless everyone carried an Azumarril or a Slowbro.

 

[StarmanXL]

So now that Blaziken's gotten the boot that mean that Slowbro usage is gonna plummet? I mean yeah it's good for taking out Conkledurr but...

 

[Stunt]

Cleverly written, poet el schemo.

The poem sends a clear message, in such a nice meter as well.

 

[Arc Tech]

Yep.

That el schemo is an idiot.

Not that I think Smogon is infalliable or anything, or that I agree with all bans, but the fact he mentioned us banning non-legendaries is the clearest indication as towards how good he is. And it isn't like he HAS to play our tiers.

And technically, you would have to say either our metagame is the best or Nintendo's is- there aren't any others (unless there are Japanese communities whose rules differ from Nintendo's- anyone know?). And PO plays DW, which technically can't be called pokemon- yet. Although then again, our version of sleep clause...

 

[SJCrew]

I knew right from the start that Blaziken had a very good chance of being banned. Most of the things that countered Infernape had no way of standing up to Blaze's extra power and speed. He truly was a broken Pokemon, but I think that's what the people who used him most loved about him. Which was why we had to do the right thing and let him go.

Later, buddy.

 

[gabezj]

With Blaze gone, I think Infernape now has a chance in OU

 

[Arc Tech]

Possibly, but I doubt his NP set will be popular. Lati@s is too big of a problem for him. The genies don't help either, nor does only speed tying the musketeers. I can see a CB or Scarf set being used alot, especially since U-turn hit's Lati@s SE and lets you force out the genies, who are SR weak.

 

[gabezj]

That makes sense, and U-Turn is a good move to be able to use from his speed regardless of the coverage. Anyway, his STABs are pretty good and he's the only viable pokemon that can use them now, along with Iron Fist boosted priority and alright coverage.