I'm just trying to say, that your whole "the meta will adapt" argument is terrible, seeing that the types and range of counters you're suggesting are similar to they types of counters we would have to make for Kyogre.
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Baton Pass - its role in the metagame and possible solutions to nerf full Baton Pass chains
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I'm just trying to say, that your whole "the meta will adapt" argument is terrible, seeing that the types and range of counters you're suggesting are similar to they types of counters we would have to make for Kyogre.
I can see your point. But I think everyone is being a little harsh on the viable counters. Come suspect tests, I think we will see how bad Baton Pass performs against its weakness. It's literally the only style of play that has its entire tactic ruined by single moves.
Well, Gastrodon did become common in BW OU purely because of Rain. Remove the Rain and Gastrodon becomes far less viable. Needless to say, there were a lot of good players that wanted Rain gone, but we never got the chance to suspect it.
Comparing Ubers to playstyles isn't a perfect comparison, but the principle is still the same. You still have some very powerful element of the game (be it a playstyle or a single powerful Pokemon) that forces you to run obscure checks/counters in order to safely beat it. If you want to determine whether something is too niche, simply ask yourself: if this certain element of the game were removed, would this particular check/counter still have plenty of competitive value? For example, if Aegislash were banned, Mandibuzz (one of its better counters) would still be valuable for its great defenses, STAB Knock Off/Foul Play, access to Defog, and ability to check a large handful of offensive Pokemon. However, if Baton Pass were banned, things like Haze and Mold Breaker Roar would be practically worthless. This is what people mean when they say that a check is too obscure, niche, or downright unviable.
Because, as has been mentioned several times, BP teams are just one, big, powerful sweeper that can switch defenses and movesets at will. The reason we pretty much treat the most popular BP team as one Pokemon is that it behaves very much like one. After all, some Pokemon cannot touch a single part of it, while some can overpower all of it. the whole checks and counters notion can be applied to BP teams more easily than any other team. Honestly, I don't think there's ever been anything quite like BP teams before, since they share similarities with both entire teams and individual Pokemon but can't quite be considered to be either.
Some of the best matches I've ever had were Stall vs Stall. BP vs BP, on the other hand, is completely pointless and stupid.
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I Think It's clear BP Should only be on Less than half The team 3 or less baton Pass Users
I'll call it The baton clause Only half the team Uses Baton pass If copied By mimic used by Metronome, assist or the like It WILL ALWAYS FAIL don'st mean 3 pokemon baton team though
I'm trying to say is 1-3 pokemon should have baton pass Thats the baton clause
I'll call it The baton clause Only half the team Uses Baton pass If copied By mimic used by Metronome, assist or the like It WILL ALWAYS FAIL don'st mean 3 pokemon baton team though
I'm trying to say is 1-3 pokemon should have baton pass Thats the baton clause
Good post. Well said.
Mega Pinsir, Deoxys-S, Thundurus, Cloyster and Crobat are my favorite strong counters to Baton Pass. They would all remain very viable. Others may fall into your Gastrodon comparison.
Pinsir and Thundurus are correct, but I'm not quite sure how Deo-S can counter stall if Sylveon, who is a staple of BP teams, is one of the best counters to it in the metagame. Cloyster is pretty much walled by Vaporeon, and what exactly does Crobat do against BP?
Oh god, Assist can call Baton Pass!!
Do you guys think that would defeat the point of limiting the amount of pokemon knowing Baton Pass in a team?
(Because we are not going to tamper with battle mechanics, making copied BP fail. Sleep Clause was a unique modification.)
EDIT: The chance for calling BP on usage of Assist is 17% when used by a team with 24 moveslots, of which 3 are Baton Pass, 3 are Assist, 1 is Roar and 2 Protect/Detect.
Most definitely very low, but it's still something to think about.
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Deo-S with an offensive Life Orb set can be devastating. Taunt will lure Espeon, who dies to Knock Off. Smeargle dies to Knock Off and Taunt. Scolipede dies to Psycho Boost. With Sylveon can do well against it, but Deo-s can repetitively switch in and Taunt then switch out. Taunt, Switch out, Taunt, etc. This will force Espeon or a lack of stat boosts, who will then die to Knock Off (also outsped). Deo-S can also utilize recover to stay healthy, but more importantly is having someone to switch in once Sylveon is Taunted and deal significant damage to whatever gets hard switched in.
Cloyster can beat Vaporeon if Vaporeon doesn't lead. Same as Talonflame I guess, except Talonflame is shut down by Zapdos
Crobat has access to infiltrator Brave Bird to beat Scolipede and hurt Vaporeon. Also has a speedy haze and reliable recovery in the form of Recover.
edit: just because I know its coming, someone is going to say none of these are OU viable or they aren't practical. I'm not trying to find current OU counters, I am just looking at potential Pokemon that could gain in usage if Baton Pass isn't banned.
Yes, and as soon as you mentioned that, I looked up dEnIsSsS's replays, and he lost his two most recent matches, which were against My name aint and Fuck toxcn. I'm not suggesting that BP does not need nerfing (I think it does), but it seems like many on both sides are using too much exaggeration, either calling BP a non-threat or overplaying just how powerful it is.
Agreed. This is why I don't think we should ban it right away. I think right now the biggest problem is only that people are unwilling to adjust their teams a little bit because it will make them lose more games then they are currently losing. To me, this suggests two things:
1. Baton Pass is going to continue to get better as people ignore it as a threat. More people will play it and then suddenly it will become a threat. At this point it will be worth it to invest in a Baton Pass counter, and Baton Pass teams will suck again.
2. Baton Pass will remain a small part of the meta, and standard teams will lose maybe 5% of their games due to Baton Pass. The best players will find a strategy for their team to win regardless (maybe they make a small change to aid in that process), and the bad players will continue to complain that Baton Pass is dumb (as they always have).
With suspect tests, Baton Pass will become over centralized in the meta, and people will run hard counter to it making the decision even harder. Yes baton pass can get destroyed easily with the appropriate counters, but do we want to have to use those counters? I would say yes, because I enjoy watching the meta evolve right before my eyes. Like I said before, I love the idea that a shitty little toad was one of the best pokemon in BW OU because of the unique playstyle it encouraged. Others will disagree, but we are all hear to voice our opinions. :)
See the thing is with many of the so-called "counters" that have been spewed up in this thread, ie MB Roar, Haze ect, is that they don't actually beat BP, they just stop boosts. The only reason why the opponent to a BP player would actually lose if someone used these strategies is by forfeiting, which isn't really beating someone.
Okay, I just want to say that Crobat is barely OU viable as is, so he doesn't want to worsen his 4MSS which is TERRIBLE already. Seriously, it just barely functions with what it commonly carries, and it's not even that good in UU either. Brave Bird, Taunt, U-Turn, Defog, Roost, Heat Wave, Super Fang, Cross Poison. And you want to fit Haze in there somewhere? ;_;
He's also weak to Stored Power, he's just not a counter at all.
He's also weak to Stored Power, he's just not a counter at all.
Thats the thing, even though there is no team that can beat everything, you can, against any other playstyle, have a fighting chance. Even in Gen5, where rain reigned supreme (heheh), you could beat Rain through good plays even though you didn't carry Gastrodon or Ferrothorn, you can't do that with BP.
Like I said a few posts before this, you're not beating anything by using Haze or MB Roar, you've just prolonged a frustrating and one-sided match.
Mega Pinsir and Thundurus can destory Baton Pass as is. Ditto is great with someone to break subs (Priority, Focus Sash, Sturdy). Stall teams can eventually beat Baton Pass with a combination of residual damage, seismic toss and haze. And I'm not sure why haze on a stall team is so opposed. It's a great option to stop setup sweepers trying to power through your walls.
"But Hiphiphooray, you only listed 2 actual 'OU viable' pokemon!"
- Yep. You're right. But I am not here to give you an indefinite list that you can refute one by one, I am just saying that Baton Pass can be beaten across all styles of play if they are prepared for it.
As far as the ability to beat Baton Pass without having to use 1 pokemon for insta win (which inherently will leave you weak to all other playstyles), I think that's something we should look into. Instead of simply posting replays of a rather exceptional player beating unprepared players, lets have some good Baton Passers play against a variety of good standard teams and see what all the fuss is about. Do Volt-Turn, Stall, and Balanced all really lose to Baton Pass at team preview? Is there no way to win by combination of smart play and prediction?
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Pinsir is iffy due to being beaten by specific members of BP and unable to beat anything once defensive boosts are obtained, Thundorus-I is only able to prolong the issue, not destroy BP, Ditto really has no business as it is mostly choice locked and very little can actually break a set up sub once Defensive boosts exist, Stall cannot do anything as 1, substitute stops any form of residual damage Stall can apply (apart from sand, which hurts stall arguably more than BP) and 2, Haze only prolongs the setup and has no use on Quag against anything other than BP. Haze is so opposed because the reason Quaggy/Clefable are even used is to stop setup sweepers in the first place, why would I waste a valuable slot to have a move that only helps against one thing (and even then "help" isn't the best term as haze only prolongs the fight).
All playstyles inherently are at a disadvantage against BP from the get-go. Volt-Turn cannot hope to do anything as the momentum that they obtain from Voltturning cannot break a sub, see above for stall, balanced is iffy as well, and only has a small 3 turn window to do anything and even then it is difficult to do anything. Like many have said, including myself, the only time "smart" play occurs is on turn 1 (and that's only if you have Talon or Mega-Pinsir). Also there is no such thing as predicting against a BP team. Sure, you know what they're going to do, but does that matter? They get switch initiative to nullify any sort of prediction.
Come on guy, lets be a little reasonable here... Even PRO BAN arguments are agreeing that Thundurus and Mega Pinsir are extremely good against Baton Pass. Ditto is also amazing. Choiced lock should never be a problem, since you can simply come in on a revenge kill and gg. Breaking substitutes is easy with priority, espeically if they try to sweep with Sylveon or Espeon, who are naturally frail on the physical side. 1 or 2 priority hits even at +6 def will break those Substitutes! But this isn't the argument here, my real argument with your line of thinking is from below:
If Baton Pass is so good, it will be used a lot. If it is used a lot, then running counters to it will help a lot. End of story. You don't think Haze works well enough, then pick your other counter, because there are many and everyone in this thread can agree on that. (Yes, the majority of the best counters are obscure!)
The real question is, should we have to run these types of counters or not?
Some people oppose the use of these counters by saying that some styles of play will NEVER be able to add a Baton Pass counter and still be effective in the meta game.
So again, my argument is this: Where is the proof that these styles of play cannot adapt a counter and still be effective? Has anyone tried?
No one can predict what the meta will be like if Baton Pass becomes as popular as Rain in BW. But what I can say is that unlike rain, Baton Pass is a competitive style that has extremely hard counters (however obscured they may seem at the time)
nigga pls look up the definition of "overcentralizing" and see where we come from
That's a good way to view it as well. This is a much better PRO BAN argument than "THERE ARE NO COUNTERS! I LOSE AT TEAM PREVIEW." ... so tired of that one...
Can we start a suspect test for something soon? Because all theorymon does at this point is prove that if both players are retroactive, omniscient deities than my obscure NU counter to your obscure RU counter to my UU Pokémon loses to your FEAR Pikachu that you brought in to take out my counter-SwagPlay Spinda. Quite frankly, at some point we need to just get thousands of videos of players at all skill levels fighting normal teams, BP teams, and counter-BP teams against each other to see if it's significantly different from a rock-paper-scissors. Get some data, do some statistics, and get back to arguing now that we're no longer dealing with theory.
Sorry about being snarky there. I understand that there's a lot to be gained from discussion. But when people are arguing about whether every team needs a Ditto only a few pages after people seriously suggested Imprison Musharna as an OU Pokémon, at a time when people are listing counters in their signatures, it's time to stop listing Haze Quagsire, NP Taunt Thundurus, Mega Pinsir, Haze Greninja, kill Baton Pass chains NOW with this one weird NU trick discovered by a noob, et cetera, and get some actual data we can discuss on a more competitive level than "Is this broken?" "Here are the counters." "Are those enough counters to keep it from overcentralizing stuff?" "(3 pages of discussion, followed by people leaving the thread in a huff)" "Hey, guys, I think this might be broken" ad infinitum.
This post is likely far too accusatory, but hey, I'm not the one throwing around the racial slurs, so I doubt this'll get modded overnight.
Sorry about being snarky there. I understand that there's a lot to be gained from discussion. But when people are arguing about whether every team needs a Ditto only a few pages after people seriously suggested Imprison Musharna as an OU Pokémon, at a time when people are listing counters in their signatures, it's time to stop listing Haze Quagsire, NP Taunt Thundurus, Mega Pinsir, Haze Greninja, kill Baton Pass chains NOW with this one weird NU trick discovered by a noob, et cetera, and get some actual data we can discuss on a more competitive level than "Is this broken?" "Here are the counters." "Are those enough counters to keep it from overcentralizing stuff?" "(3 pages of discussion, followed by people leaving the thread in a huff)" "Hey, guys, I think this might be broken" ad infinitum.
This post is likely far too accusatory, but hey, I'm not the one throwing around the racial slurs, so I doubt this'll get modded overnight.
As I mentioned earlier, I think it would also be extremely useful to have a lot of actual testing of nerfed versions of BP. There are lots of different ways to nerf BP short of completely destroying it that have been seriously considered (the most prominent ones being limit to 4 BPers, limit to 3 BPers, or ban some subset of Espeon/Magic Bounce and Scolipede/Speed Boost from BP teams), but only a couple people have actually made any serious attempt to test which (if any) of these nerfs would best make BP competitive.
OK, sorry. I agree that we need to test various different things. Obvious choices are limits on BP users, Magic Bounce, Speed Boost, can have either but not both, et cetera. Good luck to everyone whenever the testing starts!
You are correct. Simply using Roar or Haze or any other move does not guarantee a win against Baton Pass teams. But what makes a Baton Pass team so dangerous? The ability to pass stat boosts from one Pokemon to another while accumulating more, gradually working up to become damn near impossible to KO.
However, if you disrupt the Baton Pass chain, if you force your opponent to reset and start building his boosts again, or better yet, don't allow them to build up in the first place by applying pressure from turn 1, then you are at an advantage. Granted, I completely agree that this is not a game-winning advantage. But you can wear the Baton Pass team down if you can negate what gives them an advantage- the passing of multiple stat boosts. Please keep this is mind during any eventual suspect testing.
Hiphiphooray
Dude, my eyes are permanently stuck rolled back, BECAUSE YOU STILL HAVEN'T GIVEN US ANY REPLAYS!
We're discussing things that almost all the top players agree on, and then you come in and make us explain things that even I understood pretty instantly. Since the people that matter most as far as smogon is concerned (see the switch to 1760 stats discussion) are the ones who picked on BP's terrible potential effect (and current effect) on the meta, you're the one who needs to give proof.
You've been at this for 12 pages, and all you've succeeded in doing is making this baton pass business even more miserable than it has to be. Until I see replays, I'm going to assume you haven't been on the ladder (I looked up Hiphiphooray, and it has an ELO of exactly 1000, so I desperately hope that's not you), so I'll let you in on a secret, EVERYBODY HATES BATON PASS! Forget all that pointless discussion about auto-losses and counters and crap, if something makes the game less fun to play, why would we keep it? This is our meta game, our rules, and our time that we're devoting to it, so I don't think we really should need a reason to ban it.
Now I can imagine the response I'll get for that, but I really don't have much to add besides, nobody (intelligent) claims BP has no counters, it just has so few OU viable counters, that people won't consider limiting their team building options just to take care of BP. This allows poor players to rank rather easily, which is of course unacceptable. But now, thanks to this thread and the general attention BP has gotten, more people are using it, and more people are forced to use counters, or teams less susceptible to BP, and they're losing to people who are equal skill level, but haven't compromised their team for BP. A metagame that is decided less by decisions you make and more by the lucky match up* sounds terrible.
*note, I'm not trying to suggest that it's an auto loss, just significantly less competitive than the accepted meta game.
Now, onto something I'm less frustrated with.
Dude, my eyes are permanently stuck rolled back, BECAUSE YOU STILL HAVEN'T GIVEN US ANY REPLAYS!
We're discussing things that almost all the top players agree on, and then you come in and make us explain things that even I understood pretty instantly. Since the people that matter most as far as smogon is concerned (see the switch to 1760 stats discussion) are the ones who picked on BP's terrible potential effect (and current effect) on the meta, you're the one who needs to give proof.
You've been at this for 12 pages, and all you've succeeded in doing is making this baton pass business even more miserable than it has to be. Until I see replays, I'm going to assume you haven't been on the ladder (I looked up Hiphiphooray, and it has an ELO of exactly 1000, so I desperately hope that's not you), so I'll let you in on a secret, EVERYBODY HATES BATON PASS! Forget all that pointless discussion about auto-losses and counters and crap, if something makes the game less fun to play, why would we keep it? This is our meta game, our rules, and our time that we're devoting to it, so I don't think we really should need a reason to ban it.
Now I can imagine the response I'll get for that, but I really don't have much to add besides, nobody (intelligent) claims BP has no counters, it just has so few OU viable counters, that people won't consider limiting their team building options just to take care of BP. This allows poor players to rank rather easily, which is of course unacceptable. But now, thanks to this thread and the general attention BP has gotten, more people are using it, and more people are forced to use counters, or teams less susceptible to BP, and they're losing to people who are equal skill level, but haven't compromised their team for BP. A metagame that is decided less by decisions you make and more by the lucky match up* sounds terrible.
*note, I'm not trying to suggest that it's an auto loss, just significantly less competitive than the accepted meta game.
Now, onto something I'm less frustrated with.
I've already done testing on all 3, and before discussing further, I'd like to establish what the goal of the testing should be. I tested with the goal of finding the one that best promotes skill, but other options are for the healthiest metagame, and the least broken BP, and so on.
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I see no reason for you to apologize. You made a valid (and very true, if not somewhat exxagerated) point in your post, and the other dude offered a suggestion on how to go about the suspect process. I see nothing wrong here :p.
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Kairyu_Gen1
Yay, another tester (the more the merrier). I think that is a very good goal to have.
For the record, parting shot can phase espeon even with ingrain and subs up, and is otherwise a fantastic move. Too bad the only two users of the move are pretty bad. It says a lot when smeargle of all things is the most viable user of any given move. (In OU at least, I still have hope that pangoro will find a home in RU, but that's off topic).
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