Er...well scizor won't be using BP because he'll either bug bite or u-turn unless BP is going to get the kill. You've also got to to take a hit switching in, take a hit setting up TR and most of the time against offensive teams, those 2 hits will kill you. Scizor can also come in at least once to either kill you or force you out and do you really think you'll be able to take more hits coming in and setting up trick room again if your opponent is competent?
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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 3 - So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
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Er...well scizor won't be using BP because he'll either bug bite or u-turn unless BP is going to get the kill. You've also got to to take a hit switching in, take a hit setting up TR and most of the time against offensive teams, those 2 hits will kill you. Scizor can also come in at least once to either kill you or force you out and do you really think you'll be able to take more hits coming in and setting up trick room again if your opponent is competent?
How is Brightpowder any more broken than it's been since Generation III? It hasn't changed at all. And if it's broken now, it must be broken in Generation III and IV. Since it has always been against Smogon policy, then why wasn't it banned a long time ago? In fact, Cacturne's Gen IV analysis encourages the abuse of Sand Veil and Brightpowder. And has anyone ever used Lax Incense at all?
Not only was there no testing for Evasion items, there wasn't any discussion, either. What is the point of the suspect testing ladder if you're not even using it to test what you want to ban?
Not only was there no testing for Evasion items, there wasn't any discussion, either. What is the point of the suspect testing ladder if you're not even using it to test what you want to ban?
You know, I personally think the game would be more enjoyable if there was no critical chance (both the actual game and the meta game). It adds too much randomness in a game that's already the absolute king of randomness.
Though there's no way of doing that without changing game mechanics. And if we could, I'm not sure that most people would agree with me anyway. But I think that crits are the most obnoxious part of the game that favors chance over skill (I can't even begin to count the number of times critical hits have made huge impacts on a match).
Not having been done before isn't an excuse for doing now.
What does them having a counter have anything to do with them fitting the definition of "encourages players to rely on luck to win?" Whether there is a counter to that or not in no way affects the fact that they do by very definition encourage players to rely on luck to win.
Gravity
Odor Sleuth
Miracle Eye
Foresight
Haze
Defog
Hone Claws
Just disputing your claim that there exists no defense against evasion except always hitting moves. Nothing more.
By limited or generally not enough counters, you mean "counters people are willing to run" correct? If you don't mean that, then give me a general number of or example of something that has just enough counters for it not to be "uncompetitive." Either way, Sand Veil and Snow Cloak would still be exempt from the definition due to immunity to sandstorm/hail.
Either way, yes I do think people would complain about evasion raising moves unless all moves never missed. Except, then, you'd have no point in evasion. Or weaker moves, for that matter.
Mario With Lasers said:
And the same could be said for banning it. That is, not having banned it before isn't an excuse for banning it now.
...Yes, but no one ever tried to use that argument.
Has Deoxys-S/D or non-Soul Dew Latias really changed?
Rather, smogon policy has definitely changed over time.
the bolded part is so wrong...confuse ray and attract don't 'cause unfair wins...they only do very little times and when they do they do with the help of entry hazrds so some startegy is involved...confusion and attraction can be removed by switching and so are not uncompetitive!!!
but deifinitely a less skilled player cannot win a skilled one just by using these moves,unlike evasion items or moves which can lead to an unfair loss...
if they do it's beacuse they used them with entry hazards and they weren't unskilled obviously...
I don't believe that Brightpowder, Lax Incense, or any hax items are bad for the metagame, actually. People aren't realizing that this is the first time that Smogon has ever banned an item in the standard metagame. And unlike Moody, they weren't actually overcentralizing, or even used much. And although it may ruin a ladder, there are no ladders in the actual game; not everyone plays a simulator.
And WTF is up with them banning Lax Incense? Even if only Brightpowder was banned, Lax Incense wouldn't return to wreak havoc and vengeance; Brightpowder is only used on annoyers such as Cacturne. The entire banning process was just a bunch of guys winning a bunch of battles, and seeing whether Drizzle and Drought were broken (At least they were serious about that, considering that people actually used those) and then they just decided to ban an item just because they could, without considering the bad effects on the metagame. Like nerfing Cacturne, a Pokémon that isn't even broken with Brightpowder. I don't know about you, but I think that nerfing a Pokémon for no good reason is bad for the metagame because it makes it so Cacturne fans can't use their favorites. And when someone can't use their favorites (outside of when they're put on Ubers, where there's always a way to use your favorites with the proper team support, anyway) then that defeats the whole purpose of tiers. And when the whole purpose of tiers is defeated, then the metagame decays. Cacturne is also fun to use. I remember that Cacturne was my first breed.
And WTF is up with them banning Lax Incense? Even if only Brightpowder was banned, Lax Incense wouldn't return to wreak havoc and vengeance; Brightpowder is only used on annoyers such as Cacturne. The entire banning process was just a bunch of guys winning a bunch of battles, and seeing whether Drizzle and Drought were broken (At least they were serious about that, considering that people actually used those) and then they just decided to ban an item just because they could, without considering the bad effects on the metagame. Like nerfing Cacturne, a Pokémon that isn't even broken with Brightpowder. I don't know about you, but I think that nerfing a Pokémon for no good reason is bad for the metagame because it makes it so Cacturne fans can't use their favorites. And when someone can't use their favorites (outside of when they're put on Ubers, where there's always a way to use your favorites with the proper team support, anyway) then that defeats the whole purpose of tiers. And when the whole purpose of tiers is defeated, then the metagame decays. Cacturne is also fun to use. I remember that Cacturne was my first breed.
it is absolutley relevant!
why do you think we have problem with pure luck?just beacuse it is luck???
if luck wasn's abusable it wouldn't be a problem...but the product and the purpose of luck in pokemon is to beat your opponent...so if a move that is involved totally around luck(such as minimize) didn't cause you to gain a distinct advantage for wining the battle then we wouldn't care..
of course evasion items and moves are deemed uncompetitive 'cause they cannot be countered easy when they appear...but that is not the case with confusion and attraction...
i totally forgot about gravity which is the only way to beat evasion that i forgot that matters...all the otther options are too useless to be considered competitively viable so they mean nothing...
no i don't mean that...i mean counters that can fit into the ou metagame which the most prominent and centralizing pokes shape and create...if you can't understand that then sorry but it's your problem....
and the example you wanted is right in front of you:confusion and attraction.their counter is switching which is a very prevelant option in the ou metagame....if we were playing another metagme in which switching wasn't as easy then they may have been considered uncompetitive or even broken...
Actually, Hone Claws is used on some Pokémon with no other boosting move.
Hitmontop also uses Foresight.
Hitmontop also uses Foresight.
sry but i haven't seen them in almost any ou battle i had.the only user that you may see that uses this move to a degree of success is aianto(even thought he doesn't completely ignore brighpowder's boost 'cause he alrdy has his lowered accuracy to fix).
so no i don't thing that the existence of hone claws does anything to make these items and generally evasion less uncompetitive...
You're missing my point. I am saying that if we define uncompetitive as anything that "encourages players to rely on luck to win" then we must ban Attract and Confusion as they would be uncompetitive by that definition.
As for evasion items, since when are they broken? It's not as though they suddenly became more abused and more viable than in Gen III and Gen IV. It's annoying, yes, but it is in no way going to decide a significant number of matches.
If we were playing another metagame in which evasion boosting moves were used then the "useless" moves would be less useless? However, I don't want to get into that discussion because it has no impact on our current metagame and it would be nothing but speculation.
My point being: plenty counters exist and would find a way to fit into the OU metagame if the evasion boosts from Brightpowder were actually an issue. I say this because, at least in Gen IV, the only counter to entry hazards once they were laid found a way to be used. And Rapid spin has an even smaller move pool than evasion reducers.
You seem to by going by an aboslute here and I can understand why. However, your absolute seems to have a flaw in it. In order to ban something it must be broken in some way and for it to be broken it must be viable to that point. Evasion is in the way swords dance would be broken instead of screech. (If by some way swords dance were broken) Evasion is boosting your own stats putting you in greater control of the match. You can argue that accuracy puts you in control of the match but not to the point that Evasion does because your opponent can just switch out to get rid of the accuracy loss. However, with evasion your opponent can't do so much because your in control of the evasion. You can argue roar or no miss moves like Aerial Ace but Roar has a chance of missing with the evasion boost and the only competitively viable no miss move is Aura Sphere which is extremely rare. (the only ous that get it are Lucario and Togekiss. Both of which do other things that are much better.) Therefore Evasion is viable to the point of being broken while accuracy is nothing more than a waste of a moveslot. In this regard attract and confusion would also be pointless as all they do is force switches. You can argue that forcing switches is a good thing in which case I agree with you but in that case it would be more strategy than hax making the game much more competitive.
tl;dr: Your absolute "everything hax must be banned" is flawed simply because evasion is competitively unviable to the point of being broken while things like attract and confusion are not.
Evasion is not competitively viable. BrightPowder essentially gives you a 10% defense boost over the long run, and Double Team is inferior to basically every other stat-up out there. Pretty much every competitive pokemon out there has better options than DT abuse, even if that was a legal option.
We don't only ban broken things!
Bans are made in order to achieve a more desirable metagame. If something is broken, then chances are it should not be part of a desirable metagame. However, something does not necessarily have to be broken in order to be undesirable. It doesn't even have to be particularly good!
I'm tired of seeing horribly flawed arguments like this thrown up as "proof" of a point. There are also some other ones like "Uncounterable!" and "Just adapt to it!" that I really hate, but lately a lot of people are using this one.
You know why we aren't going to ban Confuse Ray even if it could be easily argued it's completely uncompetitive in the lines of Brightpowder or what-have-you?
Because people don't care.
No really, that's the reason. It doesn't matter until you get people mad at it. We may have something broken by our standards allowed in the metagame, but people won't care until it becomes clear to them (Specs Latias in DPPt, Blaziken just now) OR make them mad enough (Brightpowder). Of course, when it's something NOT broken which gets people mad, we will have people against its ban and the "right" majority usually wins out (Reuniclus?), but... if it's against Smogon policy and gets on people's nerves, how can we go against them?
Because people don't care.
No really, that's the reason. It doesn't matter until you get people mad at it. We may have something broken by our standards allowed in the metagame, but people won't care until it becomes clear to them (Specs Latias in DPPt, Blaziken just now) OR make them mad enough (Brightpowder). Of course, when it's something NOT broken which gets people mad, we will have people against its ban and the "right" majority usually wins out (Reuniclus?), but... if it's against Smogon policy and gets on people's nerves, how can we go against them?
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3414310&postcount=2120
My point was that the definition this person gave was not a reasonable definition. I feel we've come away from that, point though.
Apparentally seeing that small part must've made you miss the rest. Everything has to be broken in some way. For instance, evasion is undesireable to the metagame because it makes the game uncompetitive. It's is broken in that regard. What do you believe the definition of uncompetitive means in pokemon? I believe it means it something that in some way leads to an undesirable metagame.
The reason these arguments are being thrown up is because these are the main arguments. Uncounterable, I can understand because not everything has to have a counter in order to not be broken. This is 5th gen and the concept of counter is no longer viable as not everything has it. However, something that can be adapted to should be adapted to. People were screaming ban for Reuniclus for a long time the majority know that Reuniclus isn't broken because it was easy to adapt to once people realized it was a threat. Reuniclus doesn't have a surefire viable counter but it's rather easy to play around because it doesn't have very many sets. The Calm Mind set breaks full stall which does indeed make it broken in that regard but not to a point. Even with full stall you can play around it and eventually beat it. Adapt to it and know it and you'll eventually beat it.
@Uncanny Luck
Yea Thorhammer didn't give you a very viable definition. Not everything haxy has to be banned and some hax cannot even be banned. However, the hax that controls the metagame such as evasion leads to an uncompetitive metagame. Every broken hax must be banned. Even the items that only give you a 10% evasion boost. That's still a chance at victory that could've otherwise been avoided if that item were banned. Evasion is the most broken form of hax.
@XienZo
While it is true that there are better options if Double Team were legal I'm sure it would be competitive. For instance Baton Pass teams can use it to dodge Roar and whirlwind while their setting up and I'm pretty sure any Set up sweeper would kill for a chance of missing. Take Garchomp as an example. In the sand you can pray for that chance to miss while you set up which, if it does, wins games. I have a battle saved in which garchomp was the very last pokemon they had and they swept the rest of my team because of sand veil. Imagine if anything else had an evasion boost. Double team and Substitute would be a viable way to win battles. Double Team on the switch and Sub until that move misses.
1. Ingrain is MUCH better than Double Team for avoiding phazers, since it doesn't fail half the time.
2. No, a set-up sweeper would not like to waste a turn in return for MAYBE getting the turn back sometime in the future.
Doesn't matter what the most extreme situation is, however. What matters, especially in a ladder-type situation, where trends are far more important than individual incidents, is what happens MOST of the time, and most of the time, you're going to get more out of a non-evasion abusing pokemon.
And what does that Sub+DT pokemon do against a Ferrothorn idling setting up hazards, or a Conkledurr Bulking Up?
Sure you can beat an all-out attacker and the like, but what kind of opponent ISN'T going to use you as set-up bait?
Do note that Garchomp, since its evasion is given by its ability, can actually use more than 2 offensive moves.
Evasion boosting pokemon get enough so that they can go for a luck based miss which can lead to all sorts of shenanagins. What if a nattorei were to have double team? I'm not saying that it wouldn't have something better to do but what if it did have that? It could set up hazards that much easily
No argument with ferrothorn as it'll easily set up hazards on that double teaming newb but Drain Punch wouldn't hit very much if the double teamer got up 2 double teams. then it could do whatever it wanted until satisfied. I know your facing down a +6 conceldurr but their facing down a +6 evasion poke. Chances are about as low as ohko moves that the conceldurr will connect. What could you do in that situation? Whatever you want?
Something very stupid if they wanna face down a +6 evasion pokes while their setting up and missing or hitting the sub.
I truly hated the way that battle went. I wanted to post it on here to help the cause of banning the evasion items and possible Garchomp but I didn't have the time.
If they can get off 3 Double Teams, why not get off 3 Sword Dances in the same time? Or three layers of spikes? Cosmic Powers? Agility? Dragon Dance? ANYTHING?
That gives you an average of THREE turns before you DO get OHKOed. And once you do, your team isn't going to have much luck...
Remember that 33% >>>> 0% of getting past that Conkledurr.
With Sub, you have a total of 2 remaining moves left.
You can either have:
2 attacking moves and get walled by anything bulky.
1 attacking + 1 setup and get walled by anything with resistant typing.
2 setup and get Taunted within 3 turns, if your opponent was nice enough to not Taunt you during your DTing.
I'd still like for someone to point how exactly how evasion is any less manageable than it was in Gen 3 and Gen 4. Passing up LO or Lefties in favor of an evasion item has much more dire consequences given the wider choice of pokemon, moves, and strategies overall. Sand Veil has been around since Gen 3, and no one had a problem with it. Same for the evasion items. The percentages haven't changed at all, and with every passing generation, they become more useless, or at least that's my opinion.
What has changed is that for some reason, the community at large is trying to sweep everything they don't like into the "uncompetitive" blanket category based on the choice to ban Inconsistent. Sand Veil + Brightpowder is not nearly as uncompetitive; people are just whinier as a whole these days when they miss against Garchomp every now and then, even though their place on the ladder would still be relatively the same.
What has changed is that for some reason, the community at large is trying to sweep everything they don't like into the "uncompetitive" blanket category based on the choice to ban Inconsistent. Sand Veil + Brightpowder is not nearly as uncompetitive; people are just whinier as a whole these days when they miss against Garchomp every now and then, even though their place on the ladder would still be relatively the same.
If your being careless with your DT the yes they can do anything you want but any smart person knows that these situations work against them. Come in on something that they force out and DT. Boom you got +1 Evasion and a chance of setting up without getting hit. They can set up along with you but what could you do with that one turn of set up?
What if the DT user was a special attacker. What could conceldurr do then? miss that DP while they continuously get hit and taken down.
The first one is an oddly scenario because this can pretty much happen with any pokemon. A bulky pokemon comes in an walls you. It happens to any set up user. You could always use a mixed attacker with well balanced offensive stats. Azelf (I'm only thinking off the top of my head because the very first thing I thought of got banned recently.) has low defenses but good offensive stats and fair speed so it could properly abuse Double Team and Sub which could help it against a major check in scizor.
The second one.... HA! If someone was stupid enough to do 3 set up moves and 1 attacking move I'd literally laugh in their face. That ain't Crocune.
The third one is also one I'd laugh at but not to an extent. All they'd really have to do is get rid of that taunt user first.
@IcyMan28
I think it all started when people were going on and on about Drizzle and Drought still being broken. People were using Sand as an example and then garchomp got into the mix. People were kinda complaining about it winning matches unfairly due to sand veil and that led to people going on about Sand Veil breaking Evasion Clause. Counterarguements arose about Evasion items and why they didn't seem to matter much then people suddenly remembered that the items broke evasion clause as well and cried for a ban on them as well.
In any case everyone has gotten way to ban happy sense they finally managed to get an ability banned in moody. I still don't completely understand this whole blaziken matter.
As a user of Cacturne, I'd like to make it known that if I had banning rights, I would ban Brightpowder and Lax Incense in a heartbeat, even when my Cacturne used to use it. Why? Because I have played several games where a timely miss has allowed me to set up and (with a little prediction) sweep my opponent. There is no need to test something like an evasion-boosting item/ability. If something is uncompetitive in the fact that it removes skill from the metagame without giving something back, it doesn't matter whether that effect is broken or not. It is a detriment to the development of a skill-based metagame, and should be removed ASAP.
Hell, I would extend this to SV/SC as well, even though it would destroy my "best" team, which uses ScarfChomp, SubPunch Cacturne, and ScarfRachi (not hurt by SV/SC being gone, but still a hax-generator that has won me games). That should really say something: the only team I have ever made that doesn't have a terrible win/loss ratio only doesn't because of evasion- and flinch-hax. My team may be at the bottom, but there have been plenty of obviously-more-skilled opponents that have only lost because I evasion- or flinch-haxed them. If Smogon's goal is a metagame where skill is the determining factor in who wins, such things should not happen.
None of this affects me too much, though, since competitive battling has become extremely boring to me, probably because I'm not skilled enough to adapt my team to 5th gen and not skilled/motivated enough to make a new team. I'm probly not gonna bother with counter-arguments either, I'm just posting since you brought up Cacturne-users.
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