np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)

[Pocket]

There is something tangibly different between Pokemon + Ability ban vs Pokemon + Move / Pokemon + Level bans. More specifically, moves and levels do not affect the identity of the Pokemon as drastically as Abilities.

Think of Magnezone, for instance. A Sturdy Magnezone would have its niche replaced from a Steel Trapper to an overshadowed Electric Powerhouse. Abilities change the identity of the Pokemon so drastically, that a Pokemon would be played differently (ie Protect on Blaziken to grab Speed boosts / Substitute on Garchomp to fish for misses). Some say that this is nerfing, but others see the same Pokemon with different abilities as separate identities altogether.

When it is so blatantly apparent that an Ability have warped the Pokemon's identity to such an extent to brokenness, I do not find it unreasonable to ban the Pokemon + Ability. Banishment from every tiers but Ubers is a harsh outcome, and I believe that certain Pokemon, like Blaze Blaziken and Rough Skin Garchomp are two good Pokemon that can enrich other tiers. Blaziken has a unique combination of Power and Versatility that other Physical / Mixed Fire Pokemon lack (Infernape hits softer; Arcanine, Emboar, and Darmanitan do not have STAB HJK). Garchomp has a distinguished Speed Tier, offensive and defensive characteristics that cannot make the game worse to say the last.

Pokemon + Move / Pokemon + Level, however, does not really change the identity of the Pokemon the way Abilities do. A Sand Veil Garchomp without a Swords Dance, is still played as a Sand Abusing Sweeper, but except now it is worse at its job. If anything should be called nerfing, it would be these types of bans.

To me, Pokemon + Ability ban does not seem such a far-fetched idea as Pokemon + Level / Pokemon + Move. I am not saying that we should do this for determining the tiering process of the lower tiers. Lower tiers are shaped solely out of the usage statistics of the Pokemon in the tiers above, so we don't need to change that. However, as something as big as banning a Pokemon from OU (and by extension all other tiers except ubers), I believe that Pokemon + Ability ban is not such an unreasonable suggestion.


PS - I guess the Pokemon + Ability ban may be considered for other tiers, namely UU (to banish monsters into BL) and LC metagame. However, this is arguably more relevant in OU than in any other tiers.

 

[Rosey Oak]

I don't think a suspect ladder would be a bad idea.

I mean it would give everyone a better insight on how Drizzle really effects the Metagame. Right now we can't really tell because the ladder is mostly dominated by weather wars.

A suspect ladder may not be full proof plan but at least we would be able to see two sides to the argument, instead of what we are forced to see at the moment.

 

[XienZo]

There is something tangibly different between Pokemon + Ability ban vs Pokemon + Move / Pokemon + Level bans. More specifically, moves and levels do not affect the identity of the Pokemon as drastically as Abilities.

Think of Magnezone, for instance. A Sturdy Magnezone would have its niche replaced from a Steel Trapper to an overshadowed Electric Powerhouse. Abilities change the identity of the Pokemon so drastically, that a Pokemon would be played differently (ie Protect on Blaziken to grab Speed boosts / Substitute on Garchomp to fish for misses). Some say that this is nerfing, but others see the same Pokemon with different abilities as separate identities altogether.

There are plenty of examples that go the other way though. Shell Smash on Cloyster completely changed its role from a defensive physical supporter to a potential sweeping threat, much more than Skill Link ever did.

Likewise, Volcarona's abilities play a far more minor role than Quiver Dance do, since the abilities may not even activate a single time in a match, but Quiver Dance pretty much defines why it's a threat.

Pokemon + Move / Pokemon + Level, however, does not really change the identity of the Pokemon the way Abilities do. A Sand Veil Garchomp without a Swords Dance, is still played as a Sand Abusing Sweeper, but except now it is worse at its job. I find these sort of bans as 100% intentional nerfing.

Bulky Phazer and SR user with enough offenses to scare away threats?

To me, Pokemon + Ability ban does not seem such a far-fetched idea as Pokemon + Level / Pokemon + Move. I am not saying that we should do this for determining the tiering process of the lower tiers. Lower tiers are shaped solely out of the usage statistics of the Pokemon in the tiers above, so we don't need to change that. However, as something as big as banning a Pokemon from OU (and by extension all other tiers except ubers), I believe that Pokemon + Ability ban is not such an unreasonable suggestion.

IMO, it's hardly clear-cut, since there are quite a few examples where moves, and not the abilities, make or break the pokemon.

 

[IcyMan28]

If the species has a single pokedex number, it is the same pokemon. The only exceptions are the formes, which are formally recognized even by the Pokemon Company itself.

Just because a pokemon with two abilities plays differently doesn't mean we should consider it an entirely different pokemon. 4th Gen UU Yanmega ban, for example. Tinted Specs is what got it banned, but you didn't see them rioting to keep Speed Boost Yanmega around.

 

[TheValkyries]

I said we needed a suspect ladder months ago, as our intended goal was a more desirable meta-game, yet we've never allowed ourselves to view the meta-game we're creating until after we've created it.

 

[IcyMan28]

The main selling point, IMO, is that it would finally end the speculation about Sand and Sun would become broken. That's a big argument regarding Pro-Drizzle right now and we need to assess it.

 

[Pocket]

Alright, good counter examples and points, XienZo and IcyMan28.

[QUOTE="IcyMan28']Ideally, we would wait until Thundurus' fate is sealed next round (it will either go or stay), and not reintroduce Manaphy and Thundurus until results are conclusive, since we don't want any variables other than Drizzle involved in the test. It would literally be OU, without Drizzle, but with the same pokemon allowed.[/QUOTE]

Wouldn't you agree that a Drizzle-less metagame would eventually have Manaphy (and perhaps Thundurus) in it? If that's so, why not have them in the Suspect Ladder to have a real picture of a Drizzle-less metagame? I feel like this at least warrants a vote. Arguably, Manaphy and Thundurus are effective Pokemon by their own merit, Drizzle or no Drizzle, but from last round's nominations it seems like people believe that Manaphy is OU material without Drizzle (albeit we weren't able to figure this out, because Drizzle stayed).

It just feels deceptive, making people play a Suspect Ladder with 2-less threats that arguably should exist. This can significantly change people's decision on the matter.

 

[IcyMan28]

Alright, good counter examples and points, XienZo and IcyMan28.



Wouldn't you agree that a Drizzle-less metagame would eventually have Manaphy (and perhaps Thundurus) in it? If that's so, why not have them in the Suspect Ladder to have a real picture of a Drizzle-less metagame? I feel like this at least warrants a vote. Arguably, Manaphy and Thundurus are effective Pokemon by their own merit, Drizzle or no Drizzle, but from last round's nominations it seems like people believe that Manaphy is OU material without Drizzle (albeit we weren't able to figure this out, because Drizzle stayed).

I would definitely agree that Manaphy is a factor. However, if we want to see if Drizzle is broken, we cannot introduce any other factors. Manaphy, for example, could lessen the impact that, say, Infernape would have, or it might bring Latias furthur up than it currently is, or significantly affect the usage of Sand and Drought (against which Manaphy fares well). We wouldn't be able to attribute that solely to Drizzle, then, especially if Manaphy helps reduce the increased presence of Drought and Sand that a Drizzle ban might cause.

We differ in opinion because I think you are supporting the suspect ladder to see what a metagame without Drizzle would look like, and that we should vote based on preference, whereas I'm interpreting the suspect ladder as a way to assess Drizzle's strength while also determining whether or not the other weathers (no pun intended) will become too powerful.

If it is decided that non-Drizzle is the way to go, then I would be more than happy for Manaphy to return (it is my current position regardless).

 

[Pocket]

That's the thing, though - not having Manaphy and Thundurus would affect the metagame. If we want to compare our current metagame to the one without Drizzle, shouldn't all the eligible mons in a Drizzle-less metagame be present for an accurate representation?

My argument would be moot if the majority voted Manaphy (and maybe Thundurus) to stay in Ubers even without Drizzle. There should be a vote imo.

 

[IcyMan28]

True. I think that if this suspect ladder becomes a reality, we should just let PR decide whether or not they want an identical ladder minus Drizzle, or if they want a full metagame comparison.

Manaphy is solidly OU without Drizzle, IMO. Thundurus is, too.

You're all implying as if an ability represents a whole Pokemon. If my Garchomp were to have Rough Skin in the future, would it have Sand Veil at the same time? No, that's downright stupid. If Speed Boost Blaziken was Uber Material and Blaze Blaziken was UU Material, then Blaze Blaziken doesn't gets banned along with Speed Boost Blaziken. Get your brains out of your dumpster and realize this.

No, we aren't implying it. We are downright stating that an ability is part of a package as a whole.

"Blaziken" is basically an acronym for the following:

-Specific Movepool
-Blaze/Speed Boost
-Specific Stat Spread

This has been explained countless times and it seems as though people still aren't getting it because their vision and thought processes are clouded by the "starter pokemon" stamp.

If Speed Boost Blaziken was Uber Material and Blaze Blaziken was UU Material, then Blaze Blaziken doesn't gets banned along with Speed Boost Blaziken.

We have stated time and again that a pokemon is judged when used to its fullest potential. Using the standard conventions of the English language should make it clear to you that, based on that sentence, it is irrelevant what lesser uses of the pokemon can achieve.

UU didn't ban Tinted Lens + Yanmega last gen.
OU didn't ban Choice Specs + Latios last gen.
OU didn't ban Sand Veil + Garchomp this gen.
OU won't ban Speed Boost + Blaziken this gen.

As much as it makes sense to you, it isn't happening and if you don't like it, go start your own process, make your own rules, and set up a community to play by those if they so please.

At its best, Blaziken is broken. Blaziken is thus banned.

EDIT: The post was deleted, but this should clearly delineate Smogon's thought process regarding the issue for future challengers of how the ban went down.

 

[SJCrew]

Yeah, Thundurus is OU without Thunder.

+2 Thunderbolt on Sp. Def Rotom-W: 88.2% - 103.9%

+2 Focus Blast on WishbBliss: 71.4% - 84%

+2 Thunderbolt on Sp. Def Jirachi: 69.8% - 82.4%

The only thing Thunder did was make him safer on the revenge if he didn't get a Nasty Plot. This is what we're looking at for standard Rotom-W: 85.7% - 101.1%. You really don't need to use Thundurus on a Rain team, and a lot of people don't as it is. He'll still be Thundurus if Drizzle leaves.

 

[Rosey Oak]

The main selling point, IMO, is that it would finally end the speculation about Sand and Sun would become broken. That's a big argument regarding Pro-Drizzle right now and we need to assess it.

I'm against Drizzle but I also feel that Drought is of an issue. On the whole I think that people are underestimating it due to the fact that the dominant weathers in OU at the moment i.e Drizzle and Sandstorm are superior and therefore Drought hasn't had it's chance to shine yet. (In my opinion I think that Drought would become the new Drizzle if we didn't get rid of it too.) On the other hand, I do not feel that sandstorm is broken as a weather but I feel that the main sand abuser Excadrill is an issue.

In my opinion if we were to do a suspect ladder I think we should get rid of both Drizzle and Drought because both effect the Metagame in similar ways. I also think that without Excadrill over powering sand this suspect ladder could truly demonstrate the benefits of a 'weatherless' Metagame.

 

[TheTraininator]

Just on the topic of Thundurus - I think it is in fact ban worthy, for its ability to provide support, get free setup, and outspeed almost anything without a scarf in the metagame is definitely ban worthy. When nyou get to the point that you think, "I should run a scarf just to outspeed a Thundurus," then you know there is trouble. And it's not like speed is a matter anyway. Priority Taunt shuts down a lot of its would-be checks and counters, and makes it able to support a team in conjunction with Thunder Wave. I don't think we need to fret over its banning, though - we still have Tornadus guys, who is just worse enough compared to Thundurus to stay OU. Hurricane tears apart the metagame, and he also gets a priority Taunt, which helps. I think we should separate the brothers so one can be used in one tier and the other can be used in the other. Plus, I like Tornadus a LOT, and I think he needs some more respect. Banning infinite weather does not seem to be the issue for me - its banning the individuals who can abuse it to the point of the extreme. If you want to play in a metagame without weather, go down a few tiers.

 

[shrang]

When nyou get to the point that you think, "I should run a scarf just to outspeed a Thundurus," then you know there is trouble..

Heard of Jolteon or Raikou, Aerodactyl, Deoxys-S or even Starmie? While the lower end of the speed tiers have gone up (Base 100 isn't high any more), the top end has shrunk dramatatically. In gen 4, we had Aerodactyl and Jolteon with base 130 Speed and was quite commonplace. Now, the fastest commonly seen Pokemon is Thundurus with 111. What happened?

 

[Dan Dan]

In my opinion if we were to do a suspect ladder I think we should get rid of both Drizzle and Drought because both effect the Metagame in similar ways. I also think that without Excadrill over powering sand this suspect ladder could truly demonstrate the benefits of a 'weatherless' Metagame.

It would be best to just change one variable at a time, that is the best way to get a look at what is having the most 'negative effect' on the game. It may take longer but it would be thorough and we probably wouldn't have to go too far before some sort of stability is reached. That would mean 5 more ladders to compare against the control, our current ladder. You could run multiple ladders alongside the current one, but then the number of players spread across the ladders wouldn't be enough to draw any real conclusions from.

The last page (once past the Blaziken banter) has been really positive compared to the last few, and I think the idea of a Drizzle-less ladder run alongside the current one is a good idea, but I fear the outcry if Drought, Sandstorm and inevitably Hail don't get their own test... by then Grey will probably be out and Kyurem will have a new alternate forme which get's Clear Skies and a new awesome typing which says FUCK YOU to everything.

 

[phoenixflamexxx]

I think sandstorm is more broken but thats just me and i play usually all pokemon but not legendaries so i don't really care.

 

[Meru]

Heard of Jolteon or Raikou, Aerodactyl, Deoxys-S or even Starmie? While the lower end of the speed tiers have gone up (Base 100 isn't high any more), the top end has shrunk dramatatically. In gen 4, we had Aerodactyl and Jolteon with base 130 Speed and was quite commonplace. Now, the fastest commonly seen Pokemon is Thundurus with 111. What happened?

Hyper offensive pokemon like Jolteon, Azelf, and Aero kind of got shafted by Excadrill, Chlorophyll pokes, and sweeper Deoxys-S.

 

[SJCrew]

Partially right. Those Pokemon were ousted from the metagame for their vulnerability to its biggest threats, but more defensive than offensive. Azelf without NP and Grass Knot have trouble with TTar, Jolteon can't beat Ferrothorn, Aerodactly gets checked pretty hard by Ferrothorn and Scizor, while sometimes giving Excadrill free turns, and none of those Pokemon can switch into much.

Pokemon like Landorus, Terrakion, Thundurus, and Virizion are more consistent, effective, and prone to sweeping weakened/unprepared teams, not to mention bulkier. 5th gen is well and beyond dominated by bulky offensive Pokemon, and sadly, the day and age of frail and moderately fast sweepers has died out (sorry, Lucario).

 

[Mario With Lasers]

The problem with a Swift Swim ban is that it assumes that all the pokemon will have an alternate ability, which won't always be true.

Let's say, for instance, that Sand Veil/Snow Cloak is also banned. If we ban Swift Swim, we'd end up completely banning Beartic of all things, which is clearly inconsistent with what the bans should do, banning broken pokemon.

Beartic has Snow Cloak; Swift Swim is its DW ability.


Banning Swift Swim is the best course of action: no silly precedents, no sentiment of weather nerfing, no waste of time testing non-broken swimmers based on white guilt, and no soft bans. Unless, of course, Drizzle is broken. Then, Swift Swim would come back.

 

[Pocket]

I'm against Drizzle but I also feel that Drought is of an issue. On the whole I think that people are underestimating it due to the fact that the dominant weathers in OU at the moment i.e Drizzle and Sandstorm are superior and therefore Drought hasn't had it's chance to shine yet. (In my opinion I think that Drought would become the new Drizzle if we didn't get rid of it too.) On the other hand, I do not feel that sandstorm is broken as a weather but I feel that the main sand abuser Excadrill is an issue.

In my opinion if we were to do a suspect ladder I think we should get rid of both Drizzle and Drought because both effect the Metagame in similar ways. I also think that without Excadrill over powering sand this suspect ladder could truly demonstrate the benefits of a 'weatherless' Metagame.

Let's actually test out the suspect material rather than other extraneous stuffs. Everyone is bickering about Drizzle, not Drought or Sandstream. We will deal with either weather when any one of them prove itself to be overpowered.

The only reason why Drought and Sandstream was even nominated last round was because of a handful of "all-weather nominations." The other weather-summoning abilities really should not have been nominated, since the majority of the reasoning was largely based on theorymon that a weather-less metagame provides balance. The vote results say it all.

The last page (once past the Blaziken banter) has been really positive compared to the last few, and I think the idea of a Drizzle-less ladder run alongside the current one is a good idea, but I fear the outcry if Drought, Sandstorm and inevitably Hail don't get their own test... by then Grey will probably be out and Kyurem will have a new alternate forme which get's Clear Skies and a new awesome typing which says FUCK YOU to everything.

If we decide to take this path, we will simply test Drought and other supposedly broken elements of the game like we have been doing. The only difference is that we have two ladders for comparison. It's unlikely that we will have a separate suspect ladder for every Suspect Round anyways (maybe for Drought). There should not be any extraneous Hail or Sand Stream Suspect ladder unless we honestly feel that they are unhealthy for the metagame. This is not prolonging the Suspect process in any way (except maybe the extra round for testing Drizzle again).

 

[Mario With Lasers]

...Oh yeah, I'm in for a Drizzle-less suspect ladder. But maybe only once we have no suspects besides Drizzle.

 

[XienZo]

Beartic has Snow Cloak; Swift Swim is its DW ability.

Yes, and...? I was saying that if another ability ban, a Snow Cloak/Sand Veil ban, was implemented, implementing a Swift Swim ban alongside it would end up banning Beartic altogether.

My point is that ability bans in general are faulty because they assume the pokemon always has some "other" ability to use, whereas Beartic only has access to two abilities, both of which would be likely targets of ability bans.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

...Oh ok I completely overlooked that. The only problem is that there's no reason to ban Sand Veil / Snow Cloak except for Evasion Clause, meaning they would be banned in every metagame in every generation (since Evasion Clause is "the same" since RBY) and people surely won't want to ban Cacturne, Froslass and most importantly, Garchomp from DPPt Ubers; that is, we can pretty much establish Beartic has only one "suspect" ability, as the other would impact other pokémon and we can be sure it won't happen.



If we do, however, I'll say fuck all and ask for a SwSw ban with Beartic being the exception. Fuck you Beartic you're useless and sure as hell won't stop my perfect plan of getting rid of this complex ban why weren't you Ice/Fighting aaaaaaaaaa

 

[XienZo]

I honestly don't think it would be that bad if we "wasted" time just testing each of the weather abusers, though.

I mean, if we didn't "waste" the time, what'd we do instead? Test something else anyway. We're going to spend the time testing either way, and I'd rather spend that time on something major like weather abusers than stuff like BrightPowder/Lax Incense a while back.


Not to mention, ability bans have too many problems with their implementation:

1. Missing some threats- Thunderous/Starmie/nonSwSw abusers lol because they don't get touched at all.

2. Hitting some non-threats- Stuff like Qwilfish get randomly nerfed in lower tiers that they were being fine in.

3. Aforementioned Beartic problem.



I mean, by normally testing each of the weather abusers, we avoid pretty much every single problem except:

1. We could potentially "waste" time.

But as mentioned above, we weren't necessarily going to use the time effectively anyway. Not to mention that if only the top 2-3 abusers get banned, there's hardly any time wasted.

2. We could potentially ban every single SwSw anyway because they somehow are all broken under Drizzle.

This is definitely a long shot simply because it assumes that when we ban Kingdra, a new "Kingdra" would take it's place, and same with Kabutops and Ludicolo. A lot of these abusers have specific traits that other inferior abusers don't have/can't abuse as well, (Dragon STAB, HUGE mixed movepool), and Kabutops and Ludicolo in particular were never sure-fire bans in the first place.



So looking at all this, individually testing the abusers seems to be the most effective choice, since both potential problems are only, well, potential, and at the same time, we avoid the restrictions that surround other potential solutions (Alderon's-complex ban, Drizzle-kills rain stall and who the hell knows if it'll fix weather wars,SwSw ban-the problems explained above)

We'd essentially ban only what is broken, and leave everything else completely intact, and I don't see how any of the other solutions's advantages can match the precision that we get with this solution.

 

[Joel]

I keep seeing the SwSw abillity, versus the abusers of SwSw arguement, and it really is blwoing my mind.

On one hand, you have people saying ban Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops. On the other, people are saying just ban the ability.

Really people???

Think about it this way. If you are going to build a competitive team, are you seriously going to consider using Pokes such as Luvdisk, Floatzel, and (god forbid) a Magikarp on your teams? No, you probably aren't. So why exactly would it matter if Smogon just blanket banned SwSw to Ubers?

No, personally, I don't want SwSw banned, but iff it is, should we really be spending extra time that could be spent on something else voting weather or not somethin like Luvdisk is Uber?