np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory

[alexwolf]

The Evasion Clause was only for moves which increased Evasion; if we are to add abilities and items to it, there has to be an explanation, you can't just say "it belongs to the Clause" because it never actually belonged to it.

If Garchomp is the only real abuser of it, then I can't see why we can't consider it part of Garchomp and thus, ban Garchomp as "the pokémon which has a 20% chance of evading any move in Sandstorm".

And I guess no one noticed, but Rising Dusk banned Brightpowder in every other gen because "it was banned for being a violation of Evasion Clause". I hope you guys realize that, if we were to ban Sand Veil/Snow Cloak for that same reason, Froslass would be Uber in DPPt.

first of all you say that there has to be an explanation if we were to extend the evasion clause from moves only,to items and abilities...
so what explanation was given to the fact that the evasion raising items were banned in the last suspect test?
(if the reason was that they violated the evasion clause then that's true for sand veil also...)
none i think except from the idea within the voters head's:evasion is uncompetitive!
the only reason(at least that's what i think)that the evasion raising abilities have not yet been banned is that their banning would have some obvious downfalls like limiting some pokes movepools or even entirely banning some pokes from ou play(garchomp).
or if we implemement a complex ban(evasion raising ability + respective weather ability) the downfall is that it will set precedent for even more complex bans(which is very untrue for the current complex ban).so if we didn't have any downfalls by banning sand veil and snow cloak(either by a simple or by a complex ban)it would already have been done.
'casue we would have removed something negative from the game without losing anything...
that's the reason that the evasion raising items were banned!they only added extra hax to the game without any other purpose and there weren't any downfalls to banning them so why not?
why not make the game slightly better and slighly more competitive?it's a win win situation...

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

It's not about brokenness. All five of the other Pokemon I listed, and likely more, can and will be a detriment to their respective metagames if the combo is allowed to remain in use, and yet none of them are broken. We need a solution, and the simple solutions we normally use are clearly not enough.

Clear cut enough? I say banning broken pokemon is as clear cut as one can get. And why else would you ban a pokemon, for when clearly it is not broken at all. Surely you are not losing any games to Glaceon are you? And as a said, only offensive pokemon can pull of hax from this right, like Garchomp, and I don't see many other pokemon out there that even come close to it's prowess. In comparison, you might as well ban speed boost, as it makes a few pokemon slightly better, under the right situtations, and one pokemon has already proved broken. Honestly banning the evasion abilties, is the exact same as banning speed boost, and I don't think we want that.

 

[NDenizen]

If Giratina did for some ridiculous reason come in to OU, it'd be very easy to vote it back to Ubers again. Not that I actually think there is any merit to doing this. The arguments proposing Giratina be tested sound as bad as the ones suggesting Ho-Oh and Lugia be tested.

I don't see why people are so averse to just...shaking things up a bit. Send Giratina down, and send it back up if it just breaks OU. Simple. There's always the possibility it just won't, in which case yay different metagame.

If Kyurem was insta-Uber I imagine people would say the same about that - "there's no merit in doing this"

 

[khz]

I don't see why people are so averse to just...shaking things up a bit. Send Giratina down, and send it back up if it just breaks OU. Simple. There's always the possibility it just won't, in which case yay different metagame.

If Kyurem was insta-Uber I imagine people would say the same about that - "there's no merit in doing this"

The issue being, no one has given a solid argument as to why its even worth our time, or in other words why Giratina is OU worthy. Without that it's pointless, because otherwise let's test Arceus to "shake things up and make a different metagame" whilst wasting a lot of time.

 

[Thorhammer]

Clear cut enough? I say banning broken pokemon is as clear cut as one can get. And why else would you ban a pokemon, for when clearly it is not broken at all. Surely you are not losing any games to Glaceon are you? And as a said, only offensive pokemon can pull of hax from this right, like Garchomp, and I don't see many other pokemon out there that even come close to it's prowess. In comparison, you might as well ban speed boost, as it makes a few pokemon slightly better, under the right situtations, and one pokemon has already proved broken. Honestly banning the evasion abilties, is the exact same as banning speed boost, and I don't think we want that.

I didn't say clear cut, and these Pokemon aren't broken, so of course they shouldn't be banned.

I'm not losing any games to Glaceon in OU or UU, but it very well might be a threat in lower tiers. Those tiers don't exist yet, but it doesn't change the fact that the problem is not specific to certain Pokemon; it is equal among all of them.

Speed Boost couldn't be less relevant. Evasion abilities are uncompetitive on even the weakest Pokemon that have them. Speed Boost is completely competitive.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

The hax abilities in no way cause any problems with more defensive pokemon like articuno, its onlt with greally offensive pokemon, where you then by some chance might lose your counter when you miss, and then it killed it straight off. To be honest only a pokemon is doing that, the "hax" for all the other pokemon with it seems to cause no problem. So why would you go banning it? Uncompetive is a off reason, missing becuase of flash or sand attack is certainly hax, but since its a terrible as a move on a pokemon, why the hell would you ban it? Becuas of its as best "meh" properties, I certainly can compare it to speed boost.

 

[alexwolf]

Clear cut enough? I say banning broken pokemon is as clear cut as one can get. And why else would you ban a pokemon, for when clearly it is not broken at all. Surely you are not losing any games to Glaceon are you? And as a said, only offensive pokemon can pull of hax from this right, like Garchomp, and I don't see many other pokemon out there that even come close to it's prowess. In comparison, you might as well ban speed boost, as it makes a few pokemon slightly better, under the right situtations, and one pokemon has already proved broken. Honestly banning the evasion abilties, is the exact same as banning speed boost, and I don't think we want that.

first of all we woudn't ban a pokemon we would ban an ability combination!and if we only ban broken things then tell me why the evasion raising moves and items were banned?don't tell me 'casue of the evasion clause 'cause then i will ask you then why this 'clause was implememnted?

The hax abilities in no way cause any problems with more defensive pokemon like articuno, its onlt with greally offensive pokemon, where you then by some chance might lose your counter when you miss, and then it killed it straight off. To be honest only a pokemon is doing that, the "hax" for all the other pokemon with it seems to cause no problem. So why would you go banning it? Uncompetive is a off reason, missing becuase of flash or sand attack is certainly hax, but since its a terrible as a move on a pokemon, why the hell would you ban it? Because of its as best "meh" properties, I certainly can compare it to speed boost.

first of all you were asking why ban these moves if they suck so much?double team and brighpowder also suck(most of the times) but they were banned...so your reasoing is not the right one...these moves(sand attack,flash) are not banned,because they have viable counters in today's meta!so let's see how you counter sand attack and flash???hmmm......
you switch out!!!
but this isn't the case nor with double team nor with brighpowder nor with sand veil...they don't have viable counters in toda's meta(aura shpere from mew and lucario and a few thunders by a few rain teams are not nearly enough counters)!

 

[ToastTyrant13]

^That's because they were uncompetitive. Why on earth would you want a metagame where a Mean Look / Swords Dance / Double Team / filler or anything rediculous like that could not be competitive, but instead flawed and "cowardish", if you will. One could use Double Team or Minimize and spam Sand Attack and Flash, then either set up while you switch out, or switch to something that could set up again while forcing you to switch or die without any chance of survival. Bright Powder is also different because of it's higher chance. Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are different cases where they require an ability, ie another pokemon with Sand Stream, or the move Sandstorm. It requires activation, while Bright Powder, Flash, Double Team, etc. can just be slapped on to anything to make a game rediculous, boring, drawn out, and truly uncompetitive. A miss on a Garchomp is a miss, just like a miss on say Stone Edge to Volcarona is a miss. It's part of the damn game.

 

[alexwolf]

^That's because they were uncompetitive. Why on earth would you want a metagame where a Mean Look / Swords Dance / Double Team / filler or anything rediculous like that could not be competitive, but instead flawed and "cowardish", if you will. One could use Double Team or Minimize and spam Sand Attack and Flash, then either set up while you switch out, or switch to something that could set up again while forcing you to switch or die without any chance of survival. Bright Powder is also different because of it's higher chance. Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are different cases where they require an ability, ie another pokemon with Sand Stream, or the move Sandstorm. It requires activation, while Bright Powder, Flash, Double Team, etc. can just be slapped on to anything to make a game rediculous, boring, drawn out, and truly uncompetitive. A miss on a Garchomp is a miss, just like a miss on say Stone Edge to Volcarona is a miss. It's part of the damn game.

and how will you spam double team exactly?
just explain this to me....
'cause even after one double team your opponent has a very high chance of hitting you!you are just giving a free turn to your opponent 80% of the time...do you know what this means competitively?that it's not worth it...when you use this strategies you have a statistically lower chance to win than your opponent has to win...
so spam double team with all your heart but in most of the battles you will still lose...
do you know why?
'cause double team doesn't make you invincible that's why...it wants at least 3 or 4 turns to be somwhat potent..
where are you going to find these turns to setup?with one double team your opponent has still 80% chance of hitting you which means that 4 out of the 5 hits will land.so in 4 out of 5 matches its game over for your perfect strategy.double teaming or minimizing is in most cases a crap strategy which only new players would use.
and if you are able to find 1 or 2 turns to setup(be it from forcing a switch or be it from a misplay of your opponent)double team why not setup with something more frightening?like quiver dances or dragon dances?what looks scarier to you a + 2/+2/+2 volcarona or a +2 evasion to whatever pokemon?
and finally of course sand veil is only active when sandstorm is active,but when this happens it still creates an uncompetitive enviroment(in fact sand veil grants twice as much evasion as brighpowder which you said that you consider as uncompetitive).that's why we must ban sand veil only in combination with sandstorm.'cause only then it is active!
and your last statement is just ridiculous:
''A miss on a Garchomp is a miss, just like a miss on say Stone Edge to Volcarona is a miss. It's part of the damn game.''
with the same logic i can say:a miss on a pokemon that has used double team once is a miss,just like a miss to say stone edge to volcarona is a miss.it's part of the game.

and to close this matter.sand veil's difference from brighpowder and double team is that it is only active when certain circumstances are met.but when these circumstances are met then sand veil equals to one use of double team once without spending one turn,or holding 2 brighpowders at once.but you are right these effects are not uncompetitive(a free double team or twice the effect of brighpowder without even losing an itemslot) 'cause you say so...

 

[TorchicBlaziken]

If we ban Sand Veil then we have to ban Tangled Feet, too.

 

[alexwolf]

If we ban Sand Veil then we have to ban Tangled Feet, too.

the circumstances which must be met in order for tangled feet to activate are very rare so no.
also you can actively abuse sand veil by putting a sandstorm setter in your team.
how can you activley abuse tangled feet?predict the switch in to espeon and use confuse ray?it's not gonna happen...

 

[Darusare]

It's not about brokenness. All five of the other Pokemon I listed, and likely more, can and will be a detriment to their respective metagames if the combo is allowed to remain in use, and yet none of them are broken. We need a solution, and the simple solutions we normally use are clearly not enough.

What evidence do you have that its detremental?
what evasion abilities actually do is force people to run surf instead of hydro pump or higher accuracy moves with less power
sure people scream hax
but honestly garchomp is broken on his own
the hippotas cacturne combo is exclusive to uu and although it is good
its far harder to sweep than one would expect considering the popularity of flying and fighting type attacks

 

[November Blue]

I find it strange that nobody ever mentioned gliscor when complaining about sand veil. Even in gen 4 IIRC. Kinda shows a bias towards powerful sweepers IMO.

But the question is, do people want sand veil/garchomp banned because it's broken or because it's annoying? I can understand the

"Oh no, I've let garchomp use swords dance! It's going to sweep me! It just KOed my wall! It just survived aqua jet and KOed my azumarill! Ah, my third switchin survived EQ and can KO with ice beam, phew... OMG IT MISSED BROKEN!

I don't think that it's okay to ban something because it's annoying. Skymin suffered this fate, so it has happened before. Sand veil is just a part of the game IMO, like stone edge missing. There will always be a luck factor involved (low damage rolls, misses, sleep talk misfiring ect.) How do you differentiate the fixed evasion boost (that only occurs) in sand from losing the game because of some other luck factor without citing evasion clause?

 

[fatty]

I wouldn't really call it a bias. More often than not, when you missed an Ice Beam, Surf, etc. against Gliscor, you had another chance to get rid of it the next turn or later in the match due to Gliscor not being able to do much to it's counters other than EQ or Toxic. On the other hand, most of Garchomp's counters / checks are OHKOd or 2HKOd when it's at +2, so a missed move can be totally game breaking.

 

[alphatron]

Brightpowder is only a 10% chance, lower than sand veil/snow cloak. And brightpowder is an awful item to carry anyway.

Let's talk about the fate of weather as opposed to evasion. Unless garchomp is game breaking all on his own...

 

[Ulevo]

Skymin wasn't banned because it was annoying. It was banned because it removed the three conditions that require a player to meet in order to take an offensive threat out:

• Status and cripple it
• Outspeed and overpower it
• Wall it and wear it down

The common sets it ran were Air Slash/Seed Flare/Substitute/Leech Seed. You couldn't status it because it was too fast and could simply use Substitute to block the status condition; it was also immune to Leech Seed, a secondary status. You couldn't out speed and overpower it because, again, it was faster than nearly everything in OU outside a few exceptions, and it was able to consistently flinch you to death. And you couldn't wall it and wear it down because either Seed Flare dropped your defense and made you vulnerable, it flinched you to death, or it used Leech Seed + Substitute and wore you down instead.

There was also the fact that the few Pokemon that were capable of dealing with Skymin were never guaranteed counters OR checks, because it all came down to whether or not the RNG favoured Serene Grace or the opponent, so you still had a chance to lose even given a proper check.

It was too good not to use. That's why it was banned. The fact that Air Slash was annoying only added to the incentive.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

I'm not losing any games to Glaceon in OU or UU, but it very well might be a threat in lower tiers.

Well then just ban it from the tier where it starts to become a threat. It's not a problem in the tiers above that.

I understand where you're coming from though.

 

[alphatron]

Shaymin-S is what originally had me running ScarfSwine in the past to revenge it, even behind a substitute. I was more paranoid about him than I ever was about blaziken. On the bright side, he was probably the best check to tail glow and CM Manaphy before Manaphy got banned.

Tyranitar's support is pretty insane. Looking at the number of pokemon who are invalidated by his existence in the OU tier alone is one thing. Of course, the number of viable pokemon in that rather large crowd is questionable, but still.

 

[jas61292]

What evidence do you have that its detrimental?
what evasion abilities actually do is force people to run surf instead of hydro pump or higher accuracy moves with less power
sure people scream hax

Agree

but honestly garchomp is broken on his own

Disagree


But that is another issue. The point is, people are calling out evasion as detrimental, uncompetitive, and other such things, when these terms are completely subjective. I could say *brings up random number generator* Medicham is detrimental to the metagame. You would obviously say it is not. But would either of us be able to prove it? No, all we can do is state our opinions.

So stop claiming things like Evasion should be banned because it is uncompetitive or detrimental to the metagame, without backing it up with something that is actually an intelligent argument.

 

[mf]

sand stream + sand veil complex ban, anyone?

 

[November Blue]

Skymin wasn't banned because it was annoying. It was banned because it removed the three conditions that require a player to meet in order to take an offensive threat out:

It was too good not to use. That's why it was banned. The fact that Air Slash was annoying only added to the incentive.

It's also frail, predictable and weak to stealth rock, priority, prankster and sap sippers. There were a lot of people arguing that it was OU for these and other reasons. Personally, I think that it was branded as one of the "big four" along with darkrai, deoxys and manaphy. Everyone was unhappy with the metagame at that time because it was still early and unbalanced while we ran suspect rounds to establish the initial stuff. Skymin was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone who wanted it banned complained about serene grace, and it was banned because it was so annoying to fight in a metagame that was already really annoying because of stuff like excadrill and darkrai.

Skymin was voted 100% uber. Every single voter wanted it banned. I've never seen that happen before. Not even moody recieved a 100% verdict. What does this say to you? Is skymin more broken than moody?

 

[Ulevo]

It's also frail, predictable and weak to stealth rock, priority, prankster and sap sippers. There were a lot of people arguing that it was OU for these and other reasons. Personally, I think that it was branded as one of the "big four" along with darkrai, deoxys and manaphy. Everyone was unhappy with the metagame at that time because it was still early and unbalanced while we ran suspect rounds to establish the initial stuff. Skymin was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone who wanted it banned complained about serene grace, and it was banned because it was so annoying to fight in a metagame that was already really annoying because of stuff like excadrill and darkrai.

Skymin was voted 100% uber. Every single voter wanted it banned. I've never seen that happen before. Not even moody recieved a 100% verdict. What does this say to you? Is skymin more broken than moody?

Moody did receive 100%. The one person who didn't vote to ban moody made a voting error. Check for yourself.

That said, Darkrai and Deoxys-A had a 98% and 95.8% ban percentage, so I wouldn't say that either of those votes reaching 100% was relatively special at that point in time.

 

[capefeather]

Skymin was voted 100% uber. Every single voter wanted it banned. I've never seen that happen before. Not even moody recieved a 100% verdict. What does this say to you? Is skymin more broken than moody?

It says... absolutely nothing. You can't lazily compare Shaymin-S to Moody; the circumstandes behind their ban are very different, even if "luck" is a big part of both. People keep failing to realize that Pokémon are rarely broken by a single factor (Swift Swim being a notable exception). Moody was a landmark situation opposed by people ability ban naysayers.

I'll just quote the part of my nomination post here where I talk about Shaymin-S because it honestly doesn't boil down to "it's annoying". It's almost insulting to all the people who actually made an effort to make these arguments when you're trivializing the Shaymin-S ban like this.

Shaymin-S is a more obvious case of high result variation. Consider that an opponent who is 3HKOed by Air Slash stands a ~28% probability of losing, and two ganging up on the same Shaymin-S stand a ~8% probability of losing. That's the kind of scary prospect that a "check" to a Serene Grace Pokémon faces. What really sets Shaymin-S apart from other Serene Grace Pokémon, however, is its much better ability to force such scenarios. While Jirachi runs into Heatran or Magnezone and is stopped cold about 99% of the time, Shaymin-S can run one of at least three different sets, all of which impose different versions of the scenario on different Pokémon. Even worse is that its best checks, typically specially defensive Steel-types, tend to be easy to lure and heavily damage. As a final insult, Shaymin-S's 127 Base Speed allows it to function as a fantastic anti-metagame Pokémon in its own right, checking many of the other powerful threats in the game. Shaymin-S not only imposes a highly luck-reliant scenario; it demands it.

 

[alexwolf]

I find it strange that nobody ever mentioned gliscor when complaining about sand veil. Even in gen 4 IIRC. Kinda shows a bias towards powerful sweepers IMO.

But the question is, do people want sand veil/garchomp banned because it's broken or because it's annoying? I can understand the

"Oh no, I've let garchomp use swords dance! It's going to sweep me! It just KOed my wall! It just survived aqua jet and KOed my azumarill! Ah, my third switchin survived EQ and can KO with ice beam, phew... OMG IT MISSED BROKEN!

I don't think that it's okay to ban something because it's annoying. Skymin suffered this fate, so it has happened before. Sand veil is just a part of the game IMO, like stone edge missing. There will always be a luck factor involved (low damage rolls, misses, sleep talk misfiring ect.) How do you differentiate the fixed evasion boost (that only occurs) in sand from losing the game because of some other luck factor without citing evasion clause?

annoying and uncompetitive are 2 entirely different matters.
was skymin annoying?hell yeah!did he create any uncompetitive circumstances?hell no!
is garchomp annoying?hell yeah!does he create any uncompetitive circumstances?hell yeah!
annoying is something that you would prefer not to face because the strategy that it uses seems cheap to you(paraflinch) or because it takes you a lot of time to deal with it(subseed)...
uncompetitive is something that comes into the game to introduce luck and luck only and in the same time doesn't have enough viable counters.
skymin's air slash is annoying!but not uncompetitive...it doesn't only introduce hax it also does damage...same goes with iron head,parahax and whatever...
do you know why double team was banned and do you agree with it's banning?

 

[Innocent Criminal]

Flash is fine because you can just switch out. Crits are irrelevant as there is no way to prevent them without mechanics modification. Jirachi is just as fine as Techniloom's bullet seed, as its basically not much more than a multi-hit move. If your only ScarfRachi check is at a low enough health to be 3HKOed by this weak, steel-type attack, you can't really say you lost unfairly.

"Prediction" is also mostly about luck, but the real skill is to truly evaluate the risk vs reward balance and choose accordingly. Inaccurate moves introduce the same kind of luck as, by choosing to use Stone Edge, you willingly take the risk of missing. Inaccurate moves introduce risk vs reward, which is a desirable aspect of competitive pokemon, as long as it is a choice from the user. If you build a team that can only handle Volcarona with a single Stone Edge user, then you must accept to lose one game out of five against it. I always try to build teams so that I don't have to rely heavily on inaccurate moves, and when I do,*I will never complain about my Fire Blast missing because taking this risk is a choice I and only I made, because I evaluated the reward to be worth it.

On the other hand, Brightpowder and Sand Veil introduce a completely different kind of luck : one that can't be avoided and introduce literally no "risk vs reward" choice. Sand Veil's boost comes with absolutely no downside, and there is literally no skill in dealing with it, because you can't : you just hope whatever you do won't miss and if it does, then you lose, assuming an even match-up. Still, even though Sand Veil and Brightpowder are of the same kind, the useless and never-seen one is banned, for the sake of it, while Sand Veil is being abused everywhere because we don't want to get rid of Garchomp. Well, I don't either, and that's why a Sand Veil + Sandstream ban looks like the optimal option.