On Bans

[shinyskarmory]

Evasion and Sleep Clauses are there for a reason.

We've spent so much time banning offensive mons that we've been ignoring defensive mons that can make even more of a difference to the game then offensive mons. If you have 3 mons left and your opponent's last one is a Skarmory, and none of yours is a special attacker, the Skarmory guy just won. Blissey against a team with only special attackers remaining=another instant win.

I'm not saying those two should be banned, but we need to think about whether a devasting sweeper or an unbreakable wall has more of an effect on the metagame.

 

[Stratos]

the thing is, in 90% of cases, walls don't win games. Yes, they can be annoying bitches some *read all* of the time, but they just sort of sit there. They don't actually do anything.

 

[2sly4u]

the thing is, in 90% of cases, walls don't win games. Yes, they can be annoying bitches some *read all* of the time, but they just sort of sit there. They don't actually do anything.

Agreed. If worst comes to worst and something totally walls you, you can always PP stall it.

@Shiny Skarmory: In both of your scenarios (Skarmory and Blissey) no good player would sacrifice his Skarmory counter once Skarm's been revealed, and walls usually get revealed pretty early. As for Blissey, no one in their right mind would ever use an all special attacking team. Both of those pokemon have a plethora of threats that can handle them just fine, and many that can take care of both *read: Infernape* Walls have a big effect on the metagame, but they don't have the game-ending potential that top-tier sweepers do.

 

[Dark Arceus]

Ok just giving my opinion so don't bite my head off.


I have been following the process of baning stuff (AKA move to ubers essentially for most (IE Blazikan but not Drizzle + Swiftswim)) and I have a hard time believeing some bans are necessary.

Take Garchomp for instance.
Yes no one can deny it's a good/ powerful pokemon. But instead people should be focusing on how to counter it. Just because in OU it's harder to counter than in Ubers dosn't mean it should be moved off to Ubers (even if it does pretty well).

Then there's Blaziken (Mispelled)
This one shocked me when I saw it. And while the moves help their is only one thing causing it to be Uber is the ability Speed Boost. From personally experience while the opponent Protects and waits for the speed boost you can switch in for example Politoed and screw up how effective Blaziken is. While true they can HJK but if they miss the take recoil and risk Scald/burn.

The only true things that deserve to be "Banned" in OU are Legendaries and for the obvious reason as to the mascots and few others would create a temendous advantage. I am not saying all. Stuff like Celebii, Mew, Victini, and etc. should be allowed to rome (Not the place but the action if mispelt) free because there are ways to counter them.

The only time anything should truely be moved up is if their are no sure fire "Counters".

 

[Stratos]

the ironic thing is that you spelled Blaziken correctly and not the word Misspelled

 

[2sly4u]

Ok just giving my opinion so don't bite my head off.


I have been following the process of baning stuff (AKA move to ubers essentially for most (IE Blazikan but not Drizzle + Swiftswim)) and I have a hard time believeing some bans are necessary.

Take Garchomp for instance.
Yes no one can deny it's a good/ powerful pokemon. But instead people should be focusing on how to counter it. Just because in OU it's harder to counter than in Ubers dosn't mean it should be moved off to Ubers (even if it does pretty well).

*snip*

The only true things that deserve to be "Banned" in OU are Legendaries and for the obvious reason as to the mascots and few others would create a temendous advantage. I am not saying all. Stuff like Celebii, Mew, Victini, and etc. should be allowed to rome (Not the place but the action if mispelt) free because there are ways to counter them.

The only time anything should truely be moved up is if their are no sure fire "Counters".

The issue is there aren't really any practical, surefire ways to counter Sand Veil Garchomp. It comes down to luck; you either hit him or you don't. Are there ways to stop him him? Technically yes; you could always run Aerial Ace or Swift on things to guarantee you hit. However, if you're forced to run highly situational moves with the sole purpose of countering Garchomp then it takes away variety from the metagame; it just isn't worth it.

Just because there are ways to stop a pokemon doesn't mean it isn't broken. For example, Primeape stops Darkrai cold. Does that mean we should bump him down to OU? I don't think so.

 

[Dark Arceus]

The issue is there aren't really any practical, surefire ways to counter Sand Veil Garchomp. It comes down to luck; you either hit him or you don't. Are there ways to stop him him? Technically yes; you could always run Aerial Ace or Swift on things to guarantee you hit. However, if you're forced to run highly situational moves with the sole purpose of countering Garchomp then it takes away variety from the metagame; it just isn't worth it.

Just because there are ways to stop a pokemon doesn't mean it isn't broken. For example, Primeape stops Darkrai cold. Does that mean we should bump him down to OU? I don't think so.

I am not necessairly saying Sand Veil Garchomp has well defined counters (AA Scizor maybe (?)) JK.

But like I said some pokemon can be bumped to ubers (aka ban) if they are hard to counter with what is available. Just because Heracross Sleep Talk should do reasonably well against Darkrai doesn't mean we are going to bump anything down. What is currently used has to be taken in to consideration when finding counters for any pokemon considered to be over powered.

 

[Thorhammer]

Regarding Gen 5 bans, it seems to me the bans haven't always been happening the same way. From the start, we banned the 670+ BST Pokemon and their ridiculous 150+ stats backed up by 90+ in everything else, capable of steamrolling teams on those stats alone. After Round 1, we banned Deoxys and Deoxys-A, both of which have 150+ in all three offensive stats, Darkrai, which was almost as ridiculous of a special attacker with actually passable defenses and Dark Void, Shaymin-S, which had its insane Serene Grace STABs and is to date the only Pokemon to be banned unanimously, and Moody, which was so insane it's been banned in Ubers. Today, I don't think anyone who really understands each of those bans would so much as question any of them.

After this, it stopped being so simple. A lot of people didn't like certain Pokemon in Drizzle, a lot of people didn't like Speed Boost Blaziken, a lot of people didn't like Sand Veil Garchomp, but I don't think there was ever so much consensus on any one particular issue, let alone how to handle it. A post some time ago in PR noted that as long as people have the option to change a metagame, they'll want to adjust it to be whatever they want it to be and not be happy with other options, that we should just pick something that works and run with it, letting people adapt themselves rather than making the metagame adapt to them. Their proposal to use the VGC tiers seemed a bit arbitrary, since it would result in banning important Pokemon for basically no reason, but the metagame as of the end of Round 1 seems much more viable for that. I mean, looking at the past few testing periods, we had people arguing Blaziken vs. no suspects, then Garchomp vs. no suspects, then Thundurus vs. no suspects. And if this round had run on time, Thundurus probably would've been banned, too. But when the metagame was left as is for a few months, with no option of bans, people stopped needing them. People have long since demanding Thundurus banned; they've stopped demanding anything banned. Does this mean we've really reached the right place in the metagame, the perfect "no suspects" stage? Maybe, maybe not. We don't know if this is any better than the other rounds would've been if they were left alone.

It seems like a worthwhile test - maybe as a separate server, maybe as a lasting Suspect tier on the Smogon server. Just take the metagame from the end of Round 1, with the BST 670+ Pokemon, Deoxys, Deoxys-A, Darkrai, Shaymin-S, and Moody banned, and maybe those additions to the Evasion Clause because no one likes Evasion, and just leave it like that for a few months or more, without any possibility of bans, and see what happens.

 

[windwolf777]

That is a horrible criteria for banning a poke. Let's say, you have a mascot legendary with slow start, would you still ban it? Or how about truant?

Cold, I only meant an AVERAGE cover legend. Like one without a crippling ability. Gigas nobody cares about as he can't learn protect.

 

[shinyskarmory]

Agreed. If worst comes to worst and something totally walls you, you can always PP stall it.

@Shiny Skarmory: In both of your scenarios (Skarmory and Blissey) no good player would sacrifice his Skarmory counter once Skarm's been revealed, and walls usually get revealed pretty early. As for Blissey, no one in their right mind would ever use an all special attacking team. Both of those pokemon have a plethora of threats that can handle them just fine, and many that can take care of both *read: Infernape* Walls have a big effect on the metagame, but they don't have the game-ending potential that top-tier sweepers do.

Walls are the ultimate "win condition pokemon". Thanks to Team Preview, you can see everything on the opposing team that can threaten a certain wall. Then, you eliminate those and send in your wall of choice, winning the game because it can stall everything the opponent has left. With the right wall, and all of the counters on the opposing team eliminated, you can be down 1-3 and still pull out the game. Effectively, that pokemon had the power of 3 opposing pokemon. How is that not "game ending potential"?

 

[marilli]

Walls are the ultimate "win condition pokemon". Thanks to Team Preview, you can see everything on the opposing team that can threaten a certain wall. Then, you eliminate those and send in your wall of choice, winning the game because it can stall everything the opponent has left. With the right wall, and all of the counters on the opposing team eliminated, you can be down 1-3 and still pull out the game. Effectively, that pokemon had the power of 3 opposing pokemon. How is that not "game ending potential"?

Umm... but that still allows you to make some plays. You are allowed to outplay a defensive team. I think one of the major reasons why there has been no clear defensive suspects ever. (maybe bar Chansey in BW UU) Especially now with the team preview, you'll probably realize that in order to break, for example Blissey, then you'll need your physical attackers healthy. Say you have only one dedicated physical attacker, for example Conkeldurr, that's strong enough to pull through Blissey. Your other members lose 1 vs. 1 to her. Then it's totally your fault that you let your Conkeldurr die.

This, of course, is a simplified example. Most cases, you'll at least have 2-3 mons in your team that can somehow bypass each walls on the opposing team (say, your team might have both a conkeldurr and a cm reuniclus that can beat blissey) If you intend to sac one of them, or you got outplayed and lost one already, then you just have to remember you can't let the other one get wore down. Even the most dominating defensive teams allow you to legitimately play for a while, especially if you have a mon that the opposing core is weak to. This means that you can at least try to outplay them. On the other hand, offensive suspects tend to be of the type 'there's no solid checks to this ever" a la Shaymin-s.

 

[shinyskarmory]

I think the idea of a defensive suspect is more important then ever now, especially with all the teams running around with Ferrothorn+Rain, SkarmBliss in the sand, and Reuniclus in general. With offensive pokemon, you nearly always have the option to revenge kill or cripple with status. Defensive pokemon, because of their bulk, can't reliably be revenge killed, and the best ones (most notably Blissey+Chansey) don't mind status at all. Powerful offense is always easier to beat then defense.

 

[2sly4u]

Walls are the ultimate "win condition pokemon". Thanks to Team Preview, you can see everything on the opposing team that can threaten a certain wall. Then, you eliminate those and send in your wall of choice, winning the game because it can stall everything the opponent has left. With the right wall, and all of the counters on the opposing team eliminated, you can be down 1-3 and still pull out the game. Effectively, that pokemon had the power of 3 opposing pokemon. How is that not "game ending potential"?

Because the opponent has team preview too. For example, if a good opponent sees a Ferrothorn, they'll keep their Fire-type alive at all costs. Also, walls are usually pretty easy to PP stall, and many are setup fodder as well. In addition, walls are much more prone to crit and status hax. When something is out for a bunch of turns, it's only a matter of time before you get frozen/burned/taken out with a crit. I'm not trying to bash walls here; my most successful teams are usually Stall. They can checkmate opponents, but the conditions need to be right like you said, which means they aren't broken (besides Giratina and Lugia).

In your other post, none of your examples are broken. Ferrothorn is very bulky in the rain, but must rely on Leech Seed or Rest for recovery, and is easily set up on if the opponent has Substitute or doesn't mind paralysis/Leech Seed (Conkeldurr says hello). SkarmBliss is defeated by some Fighting types and basically every mixed attacker ever, and Reuniclus is hard countered by Scizor and anything with a physical SE attack. Besides, Reuniclus is a set-up sweeper/tank, not a wall.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

I mean, looking at the past few testing periods, we had people arguing Blaziken vs. no suspects, then Garchomp vs. no suspects, then Thundurus vs. no suspects. And if this round had run on time, Thundurus probably would've been banned, too. But when the metagame was left as is for a few months, with no option of bans, people stopped needing them. People have long since demanding Thundurus banned; they've stopped demanding anything banned. Does this mean we've really reached the right place in the metagame, the perfect "no suspects" stage? Maybe, maybe not. We don't know if this is any better than the other rounds would've been if they were left alone.

This just means this round doesn't have a figurehead; people still think of banning Thundurus, Excadrill, Deoxys-S, what have you, it's just that they still don't talk about it endlessly in the suspect thread. But yes, this suspect round being extended has done wonders to the suspect process, as people could look into ways of adapting or dealing with a pokémon rather than outright banning it.



Not that I don't want that shitass Excadrill booted from OU but eh, I survived Celebi and Jirachi in ADV so...

 

[Dark Arceus]

Really most bans come down to what people "like" and "dislike". The only problem is people can't seperate personal feelings when thinking what will be good for the meta.

Perfect example is anyone who has gotten swept by Garchomp might dislike garchomp and want it gone. Even though counters do exist everyone focus's on how much they dislike being beaten by a pokemon and sugest bans from there.

Really though people get worked up over losing to certain pokes and think "Oh overpowered! To Uber with you!" Perfect example of this is how many thought Excadrill was Uber worthy due to Sand Rush and good attack. Again counters exist and can defeat it. The only difference between this and Garchomp is that Excadrill counters are more easy to come by.

 

[Furosuto]

Personally, I think we should think rationally before banning things. For example, banning blaziken. Sure we could just ban blaziken, but some of us (me included) want to use blaziken in our teams. a combo ban such as option #2 would be the best. If I can't use speed boost on blaziken, he isn't as powerful as before. But I can still use him in OU then, which makes me happy, even if i can't abuse SB. Now, thinking rationally, we should take some time before banning something. We all had our thoughts when gen 5 came out. We immediatly took to the skies saying something would be "broken" because of what it had. But it turned out to not be so good. Remember haxorus? We thought it would be the most broken creature in the game because of 147 base attk. But it isn't "broken" now is it? Now, what is broken exactly in this metagame? I think we should do a suspect testing round and bring back all of the "UBER" non legendaries back into OU, and see what they've got now. Are they still pliable? Or will the pressure be too much for them? We know what pokemon can wall different things, and counter stuff like blaziken, so we should use them. We need to adjust to the metagame.

 

[shinyskarmory]

@Master Win: Exactly. Blaziken was in the middle of UU without Speed Boost. Therefore, even if Speed Boost+Blaziken is OP (which I don't think anyone can seriously deny), Blaze Blaziken should at least get a suspect test. In this era of multiple abilities per pokemon, there's no reason that both abilities should get a separate suspect whenever a pokemon's balance in the metagame is in doubt.

I propose that for the next suspect test, we vote on everything in the top 20 in the OU metagame, as well as dropping down Rough Skin Garchomp and Blaze Blaziken. These ballots are obviously too large for a thread, so the eligible voters should PM their ballots to a designated, trustworthy administrator or moderator. Then, the administrator will post the tallied results in another thread, along with the actual PMs. This prevents the vote counter from rigging the suspect.

Anything that gets a majority will be split by ability for the next suspect round, to see if the suspects are balanced with one ability and overpowered with the other. Any pokemon+ability combination receiving a majority will be banned.

inb4MakeMewtwolegalinOUwithTackle: I do not support the banning of pokemon+move combos. Pokemon+Ability, Move, and Ability bans are the only bans I support.

 

[pharaohcalvin]

I Highly disagree with the whole complex ban deal. One, Blaziken is Blaziken no matter if it has or does not have SB. It is the same thing and should be treated so. When you start making exceptions for one pokemon or ability, you open the door for far more complex things. I am sure no one wants a meta game that you can be allowed to use x if it doesn't have x. That is far to many rules considering the 600 plus pokemon. In fact the ban of SS and Drizzle should go as well (IMO), there is no reason to have it. All we need to do is chose what do we want SS, Drizzle, or Kingdra and co?

 

[2sly4u]

Really most bans come down to what people "like" and "dislike". The only problem is people can't seperate personal feelings when thinking what will be good for the meta.

Perfect example is anyone who has gotten swept by Garchomp might dislike garchomp and want it gone. Even though counters do exist everyone focus's on how much they dislike being beaten by a pokemon and sugest bans from there.

Really though people get worked up over losing to certain pokes and think "Oh overpowered! To Uber with you!" Perfect example of this is how many thought Excadrill was Uber worthy due to Sand Rush and good attack. Again counters exist and can defeat it. The only difference between this and Garchomp is that Excadrill counters are more easy to come by.

The difference is that Excadrill never got banned. Why? Because surefire counters exist. The issue with Garchomp wasn't that people got upset he beat them, it's that there's no way to beat him for sure thanks to Sand Veil. If pokemon that should be stopping it cold, such as Mamoswine and Weavile, are getting beaten because of miss hax, then that's overpowered.

Personal feelings have nothing to do with it. I dislike getting beaten by a lot of things, but that doesn't mean I want them banned. For instance, I hate Jirachi. However, that doesn't mean I think it should be banned. If it bothers me so much and it beats me, it's my own fault for not packing Magnezone or Inner Focus users; there are ways to beat it. With Garchomp, the issue is that I could literally be packing six Ice types with Choice Scarves and 'Chomp could still win.

 

[Disposable Puppets]

My personal philosophy is a rather simple one. I believe that you should look at each pokemon when it is operating at it's maximum potential, when it's running the best moves, the best of it's abilities, natures, etc. The minute you start trying to neuter a pokemon just to have it stay in the tier, I feel that poses serious questions about whether the pokemon should stay in the tier.

I believe that a pokemon is a pokemon, it doesn't suddenly become a new pokemon just because it's using a different ability. I don't believe in neutering pokemon just to have them in the tier

 

[StallMandibuzz]

My personal philosophy is a rather simple one. I believe that you should look at each pokemon when it is operating at it's maximum potential, when it's running the best moves, the best of it's abilities, natures, etc. The minute you start trying to neuter a pokemon just to have it stay in the tier, I feel that poses serious questions about whether the pokemon should stay in the tier.

I believe that a pokemon is a pokemon, it doesn't suddenly become a new pokemon just because it's using a different ability. I don't believe in neutering pokemon just to have them in the tier

That's true. If people start saying "You can't use Excadrill with Sand Rush", then it's sort of neutering what made Excadrill a Pokemon, and then you have all these neutered Pokes in different tiers. When ST Chandelure is finally released, it would be smarter to just completely ban Chandy if it's such a threat. If one concept of the Pokemon makes it "broken", then it's only fair to ban the whole Pokemon, and not make all of these complex bans that make the metagame more confusing to play.

 

[windwolf777]

@Master Win: Exactly. Blaziken was in the middle of UU without Speed Boost. Therefore, even if Speed Boost+Blaziken is OP (which I don't think anyone can seriously deny), Blaze Blaziken should at least get a suspect test. In this era of multiple abilities per pokemon, there's no reason that both abilities should get a separate suspect whenever a pokemon's balance in the metagame is in doubt.

I propose that for the next suspect test, we vote on everything in the top 20 in the OU metagame, as well as dropping down Rough Skin Garchomp and Blaze Blaziken. These ballots are obviously too large for a thread, so the eligible voters should PM their ballots to a designated, trustworthy administrator or moderator. Then, the administrator will post the tallied results in another thread, along with the actual PMs. This prevents the vote counter from rigging the suspect.

Anything that gets a majority will be split by ability for the next suspect round, to see if the suspects are balanced with one ability and overpowered with the other. Any pokemon+ability combination receiving a majority will be banned.

inb4MakeMewtwolegalinOUwithTackle: I do not support the banning of pokemon+move combos. Pokemon+Ability, Move, and Ability bans are the only bans I support.

I actually agree with this entirely. Because I actually have used blaze Blaziken and it's good, however infernape outclasses it. So please give blaze ken a chance.

 

[Stratos]

that way overcomplicates the world.

 

[StallMandibuzz]

They could have just said "Use Chomp only with Rough Skin, or Use Blaziken only with Blaze", but instead, they banned the entire Pokemon. It neuters the Pokemon to use it with complex bans on it, and it makes the metagame more complicated, IMO. If the Pokemon is broken in one aspect, it's broken period.

 

[2sly4u]

They could have just said "Use Chomp only with Rough Skin, or Use Blaziken only with Blaze", but instead, they banned the entire Pokemon. It neuters the Pokemon to use it with complex bans on it, and it makes the metagame more complicated, IMO. If the Pokemon is broken in one aspect, it's broken period.

Totally agree. Once we start saying "Blaziken is okay, but only with Speed Boost" and such it opens the floodgates for too many unnecessary bans. Should we allow Heatran in UU if it uses Flame Body? Would we tier every pokemon once for each of its abilities? Where do you draw the line? There would be so many bans and the tiers would get so massive that nobody could keep track of anything.

On the smaller scale, letting Blaze Blaziken out of Ubers is good for the chicken's fanboys (as I said earlier), but now that I'm looking at the big picture I just can't support it.