np: UU Stage 4 - I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

[FlareBlitz]

I think the consensus is that it is pretty bad but I think what is more contestable about the combo ban is - other than preferring to not create such a complicated ban - is that there one very obvious abuser out there. Froslass is a cut above other abusers of Snow Cloak which makes it difficult IMO to really assess the situation. Stats speak for themselves when you only Lass and Swine make UU for snow cloak users.

Sure you'd hate to miss on Mamoswine, but as already mentioned earlier he's just plain good on every other aspect (making him quite UU and from stats OU worthy if the trend continues) so of course you'd want him dead, but again like other slower Snow Cloak users its an obvious gamble for them to hope for a Snow Cloak miss compared to Froslass who has a much better chance - and can even supplement that with TW and create a disadvantageous situation for the entire opposing team with spike support (in addition to being the spike blocker) and inadvertently yes paralysis support should it opt for that so as to increase likelihood of not hitting other Snow Cloak users. So I really find it hard to say whether that ban would be more appropriate given how she hogs the spotlight well in that regard.

I actually couldn't tell you whether I would prefer to miss against Froslass, Mamoswine, or Glaceon. Missing against Froslass usually means it get spikes up, yeah, but missing against Glaceon or Mamoswine usually means your check to those Pokemon will die, which opens your team up to a full sweep. This is especially the case if you rely on offensive checks instead of hard counters (like...every offensive team). Which of the snow cloak abusers is most dangerous really just depends on your team. People just focus on froslass more because she's way more common.

 

[Machi]

I actually couldn't tell you whether I would prefer to miss against Froslass, Mamoswine, or Glaceon. Missing against Froslass usually means it get spikes up, yeah, but missing against Glaceon or Mamoswine usually means your check to those Pokemon will die, which opens your team up to a full sweep. This is especially the case if you rely on offensive checks instead of hard counters (like...every offensive team). Which of the snow cloak abusers is most dangerous really just depends on your team. People just focus on froslass more because she's way more common.

Oh I don't like missing on any of them either - especially Mamoswine - it doesn't help either that Blizzard still has a 30% chance of freezing to screw you over if you're unlucky (while Mamoswine is Mamoswine). However, on Glaceon VS Swine its pretty clear why I'd rather not miss on Swine (because even my most reliable hail check such as Empoleon has to worry about EQ compared to Glaceon's coverage) sure Glaceon's blizzard hurts coming from its SpA but Glaceon being SR weak and relatively slower means I have a better chance at least revenging it or wearing it down compared to Swine who has the moves to threaten revenge killers and with the appropriate hazard damage (which Lass would provide) can even possibly take you down thanks to having a priority attack making him more deadly. Sides its much easier to check Glaceon compared to checking Mamoswine - again I do agree it is a pain to miss on either two but I don't find myself GG if I miss a hit on Glaceon compared to Mamoswine.

On the other hand missing on Lass and having her spike up or paralyze you is a disadvantage similar to Mamoswine in that it cripples you quite badly since its difficult to react against it as there are so very few countermeasures against it (spinning will be tough even more so if you get paralyzed you end up dead weight and Donphan well you get the picture). Your choices of dealing against Lass are even lesser than swine to an extent because she is faster and will generally be protected by a sub so that its much easier to create a situation for her to retreat safely or even buy herself additional time to continue her task of spiking up (Machamp doesn't have pursuit after all and common pursuit wouldn't want to get paralyzed - Dile is weak to Blizzard so~). Its clear as well she is common for her utility, part of which comes from her Snow Cloak abuse when in a hail team.

 

[Godsend]

Godsend, no one really wants to use little hippo though. He's bad and he makes Sand teams work harder for their wins. I think some people will still use it after we deal with Hail's dominance, but it really is telling that Sand teams dropped off of the face of the earth after we took out Hippowdon.

Also, how do you folks feel about Snow Cloak + Snow Warning?

From my experiences, Sand is not much worse and still dominates. The only difference is that Hippo has to be played a little more conservatively around other weather teams, that's it.

 

[Pocket]

Honestly, I wouldn't care if Frosslas or Snow Warning + Snow Cloak gets banned. I am still opposed to banning Snow Warning, since other than Snow Cloak / Froslass, I haven't heard anything negative about Hail. I also rather ban Froslass than have a blanket Snow Cloak ban, which also imposes some movepool restrictions on Mamoswine, which is still arguable as to its "brokenness" with Snow Cloak.

EDIT: Err, right. Thanks, Leman :x So I guess I'm just against banning Snow Warning. I am also against banning / complex banning Sand Veil, which hasn't been a problem to begin with. Theoretical bans are dumb.

 

[Leman]

Mammoswine gets oblivious and will have no movepool restrictions.

 

[Forsety]

I'm straight up against a Snow Warning/Cloak ban, complicated bans are not healthy towards the game. Could you really in good conscience not laugh at the idea of Beartic being banned with Snow Cloak? Really?

Also Froslass loses Pain Split and Trick two of its best moves, I honestly don't think culling a mon of two of its best moves is a healthy ban. There is honestly the fundamental point of Froslass even without Snow Cloak is still a 110 speed mon with a strong movepool that can multi task at Spinblocking and Hazard laying.

My opinion right now is we could stand to seriously look into the idea of 'support' based bans in UU and Froslass would be a start. If there is one thing in UU that has not changed at all I find is that hazards still dictate entire matches forcing everyone to use bulky mons only.

Still haven't seen any of those Blizzard spamming teams I keep hearing about.

They don't really exist, I think the point people are trying to make when they mention 'Blizzspam' is that they've suddenly gained a free 120 STAB attack with a chance of freeze that nothing in the game is immune to.

This gives less pressure for an opponent to predict well because they know they'll pile on significant damage even resisted eitherway combined with hazards, hail etc.

 

[Razza]

I can't believe people are genuinely saying they DONT want to ban sand veil/snowcloak I mean do you guys like missing 100% accuracy moves on mamoswine/froslass and possibly losing games? Or do you just like robbing games you should have lost on ladder with these abilities .

I don't really think there's needs to be a technical justification of what evasion clause entails and why sandveil/snowcloak do and don't break it. I think it's fairly obvious that they break it and there is no need for complicated explanations of why, all that's necessary is a log of a battle where your scarfedkrookodile misses crunch on a frosslass on the battles last turn to explain why these abilities should be banned. This could also save froslass from a potential ban if we remove snow cloak out of the equation whereupon it jut becomes a perfectly viable pokemon in UU.


@ forsety,
I don't see how banning these abilities is a complex ban at all it just becomes a blanket ban on these abilities similar to the one on inconsistent in early bw ou

 

[Machi]

I do not believe Inconsistent/Moody really deserves to be considered a standard since that ability was just incomparably absurd since that was just badly imbalanced, its a free boost no matter how you look at it (as soon as you acquired a def/speed/evasion boost it would be easier to begin stalling out for the maximum boost). More importantly the evasion boost you received from moody would generally be a +2/+1 and both of which as noted earlier in the thread provide a higher evasion boost compared to what SC/SV provide. Even then arguably you'd still have to worry about the luck of the draw giving them a speed or an appropriate defense boost to help them stall out, evasion was just another factor to worry about. Of course in UBERS it was eventually placed under the evasion clause but that is because there is a more 'direct' way of boosting evasion intentionally - i.e. stalling - compared to the fixed SC/SV evasion boost hence chances of you hitting are still much better. I do not see how a ban of that ability should ever be considered a basis - it was really just an absurd ability.

Besides going again by your statement again I just see annoyance as a primary reason of course it will cost you a game, Mamoswine for just being itself and Froslass' full hazards and status crippling your entire team. However, I seriously do not see Beartic/Glaceon to be an issue with the ability. Yes missing Beartic/Glaceon can prove to be detrimental or disadvantageous, as it dispatches or badly damages your check, but I find it is still much easier to deal with the damage dealt by these two as compred to Mamoswine and Froslass simply because they do have more checks or countermeasures to work with which is probably why they're NU than UU (its not good to rely on them to evade). Mamoswine though as a whole is just a really great offensive Pokemon perhaps SC can push him over the edge but that is hard to say since its really quite good all around. Froslass on the other hand is a far more obvious offender using SC that rather than the ability being at fault its much more obvious that it is Froslass, only she has the speed and appropriate moveset as well as typing to utilize the ability in conjunction with her support capability in hail teams. Its quite easy to zoom in on her because she really stands out with the ability more so than the rest.

Edit: Which is why over all I find it much harder to merit for a complex ban of SC & SV + appropriate weather since its far too specific to the niche of a certain Pokemon, namely Froslass, really abusing the evasion than all holders as a whole - you could argue Mamoswine but again he's a whole other mess that needs to be scrutinized further (but alas fell under the radar when he was about to because of the drop downs from OU that time). While for SV I'm really still wondering because I just never had issues with anything abusing it since standard sand team didn't really have much room for Cacturne/Gligar (as evidenced by the stats). Given that the idea behind the first complex ban - SW+Drizzle - was to save entire play styles and incidentally several pokemon I do not see much merit to a complex ban with too specific an abuser in mind (Froslass) and too few possible abuse offenders (Mamoswine/Gligar - still not seeing how Gligar was an issue) when a normal ban works just fine given the numbers so that it is plausible to examine them.

 

[Scoopapa]

Blizzspam really sucks. While Blizzard is a great boon to hail teams, strategies based around breaking your opponent with repeated Ice attacks just aren't good. Too many Fire-type Scarfers, fast mons who outspeed Scarf Glaceon, and defensive Hail teams around to really make this strat work. Hail teams really need their 1 tree 1 ghost 1 abuser and 3 defensive coverage mons formula to work. If you want to win with 5 Choiced Ice-types and 1 Dugtrio I'm afraid you have play in DPP UU. Let's all take a moment of for the glory days, when a strategy as one dimensional as blizz spam was totally shocking and produced emotions of denial and anger. These days, such cheesy play is almost par for the course.

I also want to note that Gligar has Hyper Cutter and would suffer no movepool restrictions without Sand Veil.

 

[alexwolf]

Ability bans are dangerous.
While now we don't have such a matter imagine a pokemon in 6th gen being released,and having only the ability snow cloak for example,getting banned only because we have a blanket ban on this ability.
Or if we had banned swift swim in OU,and we also ban snow cloak Bearctic would be in Ubers.
I think that ability bans should only be made when it is clear as water that everything that gets them is broken and/or uncompetitive.

I think that a combo ban of snow cloak + snow warning and sand veil + sandstream would be the ideal solution!
This way Froslass remains as a good UU poke,that cannot abuse Hail to ridiculous levels anymore and we avoid making an ability ban,which i explained why i dislike.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

IMO complex bans are the best way out. Froslass doesn't need Hail to function and Hail doesn't need Froslass as well. There is no clause saying that you need to run Froslass if you run Abomasnow.

Froslass = not broken
Hail = not broken
Froslass + Hail = broken
Hence, the best solution is to ban SW+SC

While I'm not a fan of complex bans, I think this one is really needed. I don't see why Abomasnow has to take the fall of Froslass's shenanigans, and why Froslass must be banned if it is (at least what I'm seeing) broken when used alongside Abomasnow.

 

[D4RR3N]

IMO complex bans are the best way out. Froslass doesn't need Hail to function and Hail doesn't need Froslass as well. There is no clause saying that you need to run Froslass if you run Abomasnow.

Froslass = not broken
Hail = not broken
Froslass + Hail = broken
Hence, the best solution is to ban SW+SC

While I'm not a fan of complex bans, I think this one is really needed. I don't see why Abomasnow has to take the fall of Froslass's shenanigans, and why Froslass must be banned if it is (at least what I'm seeing) broken when used alongside Abomasnow.

well i'd say juz ban snow cloak, cuz if your opponent has a froslass in his team and you're using hail, it's still gay.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

well i'd say juz ban snow cloak, cuz if your opponent has a froslass in his team and you're using hail, it's still gay.

True that, but its now your discretion as to whether you want to bring in Abomasnow or not.

 

[Moo]

IMO complex bans are the best way out. Froslass doesn't need Hail to function and Hail doesn't need Froslass as well. There is no clause saying that you need to run Froslass if you run Abomasnow.

Froslass = not broken
Hail = not broken
Froslass + Hail = broken
Hence, the best solution is to ban SW+SC

While I'm not a fan of complex bans, I think this one is really needed. I don't see why Abomasnow has to take the fall of Froslass's shenanigans, and why Froslass must be banned if it is (at least what I'm seeing) broken when used alongside Abomasnow.

Hail is broken because Snow Cloak is basically the reason that Hail is so popular. It was the same situation for Sand, one Pokemon kinda pushed it over the edge. Without Stoutland, it really wasn't a problem. And I think the same course of action would be best here. If Abomasnow was banned, Snover would be so shit that nobody except dedicated hail users would use it, and we don't have to resort to complex bans. Seriously, complex bans are god-awful imo.

 

[alexwolf]

What IceBeam said.
If we make the combo ban people will stop abusing the strategy with Froslass.
Also people may stop running sub and T-Wave,now that they can't abuse Snow Cloak,so even if a Froslass happens to be in hail,chances are it won't be designed to abuse Snow Cloak.
What always annoyed me about evasion raising abilities is that people are abusing it.
It is so fucking annoying to see a Froslass user mindlessly spamming sub to get a miss,and it is another thing for a miss to happen against a Froslass that is not designed to whorespam sub...

 

[Steamroll]

I am seriously against complex bans for the fact that it confuses newer users and creates problems among the PO community. You do not want to know how many reports I've gotten of people using smashpass in NU/RU and I still get reports of people using DrizzleSwim in OU. It isn't healthy for the community as a whole and confuses everyone who isn't up-to-date with all the bans and clauses.

 

[Razza]

Besides going again by your statement again I just see annoyance as a primary reason of course it will cost you a game, Mamoswine for just being itself and Froslass' full hazards and status crippling your entire team. However, I seriously do not see Beartic/Glaceon to be an issue with the ability. Yes missing Beartic/Glaceon can prove to be detrimental or disadvantageous, as it dispatches or badly damages your check, but I find it is still much easier to deal with the damage dealt by these two as compred to Mamoswine and Froslass simply because they do have more checks or countermeasures to work with which is probably why they're NU than UU (its not good to rely on them to evade).

A few weeks ago whilst playing ou on the beta server i came up against a hail team with a beartic. After successfully removing all the fire resists/immunities on the team I began to sweep the remainder with my scarfed darmanitan. I had the game won at this point, unfortunately i missed a flareblitz on snow cloak beartic which koed back with stone edge. Annoying but no worries my last mon is a cb scizor, oh wait, bullet punch misses and beartic koes back in return... GG???

What pisses me off is that if that battle had been the finals of smogon tournament there would have been a huge outcry made and a policy review thread would have instantly been made about banning these abilities, but it was just another pair of scrubs battling on the ladder so no one cares.

Also on the topic of potentially banning a 6th gen poke, we ban things based on our current metagame and how to keep it balanced, i couldnt care less about some theoretical 6th gen poke being banned or even beartic for that matter, we are here to make UU a fun and fair metagame and to achieve this something must be done about sv and sc whether that is a complex ban or blanket ban doesnt really matter to me.

 

[Pocket]

Hail is broken because Snow Cloak is basically the reason that Hail is so popular. It was the same situation for Sand, one Pokemon kinda pushed it over the edge. Without Stoutland, it really wasn't a problem. And I think the same course of action would be best here. If Abomasnow was banned, Snover would be so shit that nobody except dedicated hail users would use it, and we don't have to resort to complex bans. Seriously, complex bans are god-awful imo.

I sincerely hope you did not use the same rational when you decided to ban Hippowdon. If Stoutland is the problem of sand, ban Stoutland, not Hippowdon. The paragraphs submitted primarily emphasized Hippo's bulk to check Stoutland counter, rendering it "too strong" for UU. I begin to agree with Godsend's conclusion that Stoutland should have been banned. Stoutland was really the main issue of Sand, not Hippo's bulk, which can be found in other tank mons, like Chansey, Tangrowth, Slowbro, etc. Hippodown being broken for his bulk and supplying sand for Stoutland to abuse never clicked for me. Returning UU back to status quo where Hail plagued the UU was not what we desired, imo. I believe we could have checked Hail usage by keeping Hippo in UU as a legitimate weather competitor.

For the reason I outlined, banning Abomasnow would be dumb when Snow Cloak is the only aspect of Hail that is messing with us. I frankly hope you re-consider your philosophy of banning threats, Moo.

 

[FlareBlitz]

I sincerely hope you did not use the same rational when you decided to ban Hippowdon. If Stoutland is the problem of sand, ban Stoutland, not Hippowdon.

That's not how it works. We didn't say "if spikes breaks moltres ban moltres, not roserade". Is stoutland broken outside sand? Obviously not. So it must be sand that breaks it. Big hippo and little hippo both provide sand, but big hippo also provides massive amounts of team support, just like how Deo-S and Deo-D both provide spikes but Deo-S does a much better job of it. It made sense to ban big hippo.

In this case though, I would say it makes more sense to ban snow cloak than it does to ban abomasnow, just because I don't think hail is inherently broken.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

That's not how it works. We didn't say "if spikes breaks moltres ban moltres, not roserade". Is stoutland broken outside sand? Obviously not. So it must be sand that breaks it. Big hippo and little hippo both provide sand, but big hippo also provides massive amounts of team support, just like how Deo-S and Deo-D both provide spikes but Deo-S does a much better job of it. It made sense to ban big hippo.

In this case though, I would say it makes more sense to ban snow cloak than it does to ban abomasnow, just because I don't think hail is inherently broken.

But the trouble is that you CAN use Froslass outside of Hail. Just because Froslass is broken inside of hail doesn't mean that we have to blanket-ban Froslass for its shenanigans inside Hail.

somehow, i feel annoyed because just about almost every argument i see is on how complex bans suck or how Froslass is/not broken inside of Hail, but what about Froslass outside of hail?

 

[Machi]

A few weeks ago whilst playing ou on the beta server i came up against a hail team with a beartic. After successfully removing all the fire resists/immunities on the team I began to sweep the remainder with my scarfed darmanitan. I had the game won at this point, unfortunately i missed a flareblitz on snow cloak beartic which koed back with stone edge. Annoying but no worries my last mon is a cb scizor, oh wait, bullet punch misses and beartic koes back in return... GG???

What pisses me off is that if that battle had been the finals of smogon tournament there would have been a huge outcry made and a policy review thread would have instantly been made about banning these abilities, but it was just another pair of scrubs battling on the ladder so no one cares.

Sure its bad but its still not particularly representative - it is a horrible experience that stuck on you with how the ability can screw you over at times - much like how we'd have people in earlier threads using Froslass and subbing down three times and still not acquiring any hax misses (none of which were against Machamp) and using that as 'proof' of how unreliable Snow Cloak is. Or constantly using Scald and not getting any burns after like 6 consecutive hits, my experience.

Doesn't really change the fact that its still much easier to get back on the match if you somehow get unlucky against Glaceon/Beartic in comparison to Mamoswine/Froslass. As it is still much easier to revenge kill the former compared to the latter. This makes quite the difference at why Froslass/Mamoswine are more dangerous threats to consider when accounting for a miss as compared to the former. In the end its still not fun to miss but an unlucky match isn't exactly representative - especially in comparison to much more extensive testing and testimonies of consistency in Froslass hax as compared to Glaceon/Beartic. This is why I'd rather not see a complex ban since again Froslass is the most specific target of the complex ban - the rest are pretty arguable - so much so that I'm seeing the ban to save Froslass than actually preserving a play style, hail in general.

On the topic of just banning Snow Warning while I'm not a fan of the weather I don't really see much reason to compare Abomasnow support to Hippowdon support. Since as mentioned earlier there is no particular synergy like Hippowdon+Stoutland that arose which Abomasnow can capitalize on - at best we tend to have Abomasnow+Froslass but they're not exactly covering each others weaknesses or trying to help the other make its purpose any easier as Hippowdon would do in eliminating checks/counters of Stoutland. At best it provides weather but using a weather ability wasn't exactly what was argued with the Hippowdon+Stoutland combo as much as the synergy the two produced as a Defensive+Offensive core.

Edit: Mishra brings a great point about standard conditions in that it I find you need to consider them at where they're normally found but unlike SS+Drizzle we have a considerably far less number of SC abusers to consider that it is feasible to test them and with a very specific Pokemon in mind that won't be easily replaced by next user of ability. It helps even more that each SC user is quite distinct from one another in their movepools, typing, and strategies as compared to STAB abuse by SS.

 

[Mishra]

But the trouble is that you CAN use Froslass outside of Hail. Just because Froslass is broken inside of hail doesn't mean that we have to blanket-ban Froslass for its shenanigans inside Hail.

somehow, i feel annoyed because just about almost every argument i see is on how complex bans suck or how Froslass is/not broken inside of Hail, but what about Froslass outside of hail?

I really don't want to play that game, and I assume others don't as well otherwise a complex ban would be the obvious fix. All pokes moved to uber/BL could make that argument in some way or another: What about Garchomp/Excadril outside of sand? What about Espeon without Shell smash/BP? What about Blazeken without Speed boost?

Bottom line, we can pick at every single pokemon in their less than standard condition, and the odds are, that poke would probably be fine.


Off topic: I have had a load of sucess with Hariyama on the ladder. He is one of those bulky sweepers that I feel is just what the meta needs, and I only have two issues with him: Like Alakazam's new condition, Hariyama has its own called One-Ability Syndrome. Both Thick Fat and Guts are hugely relevant in this meta, but I use Guts because I see all of these Sableye's running around spamming will-o-wisp.

The other issue I have with Hariyama is his coverage move. I am running Earthquake right now mainly because Chandelure and Victini give me a headache. I am not sure if I want payback, or one of the elemental punches (Ice punch for Gligar, or Zapdos or thunder punch for bulky waters) or even stone edge.

 

[breh]

froslass is indeed usable outside of hail (only spinner with spikes and ghost type), but I think that it can wait until the next DW expansion. I don't feel it will be a terribly long wait, tbh. snow cloak pushes lass over any sort of edge; playing hail-less lass is definitely unbroken due to its relative lack of bulk (hey, it did live scarfraptor BB, though!).

banning Snow Cloak will make Mamoswine not reliant in the slightest on BS and will soft ban froslass instead of an entire playstyle. If you're going to ban anything, ban snow cloak.

 

[Byrn Dragonstone]

That's not how it works. We didn't say "if spikes breaks moltres ban moltres, not roserade". Is stoutland broken outside sand? Obviously not. So it must be sand that breaks it. Big hippo and little hippo both provide sand, but big hippo also provides massive amounts of team support, just like how Deo-S and Deo-D both provide spikes but Deo-S does a much better job of it. It made sense to ban big hippo.

In this case though, I would say it makes more sense to ban snow cloak than it does to ban abomasnow, just because I don't think hail is inherently broken.

We didn't ban Tyranitar because Exacadrill was broken. Exacadrill was far from broken outside of sand. Comparatively he was even less "Broken" outside of sand then Stoutland would be. If the opoinions of the council to ban Hippodown were based on the fact that STOUTLAND is broken, why the heck did you ban Hippodown? If Stoutland is the broken one, ban the broken part. Sand is far from dangerous, even with Hippo around.

 

[SJCrew]

I've been thinking about Hariyama and have put him on the backburner for a while. I'm just not open to the idea of using a Fighting-type so thoroughly and consummately walled by Slowbro, especially when I understand that other Hail teams could be using him.

That's actually one of the things I hate most about Regenerator Pokes. They're too hard to kill, impossible to wear down, and if something on your team is completely walled by it, plan on having it be useless any time that key Poke shows up. Nevermind the fact that he can get free subs and Bulk Ups on Froslass; what the fuck is he gonna do about Slowbro?