There are over SIXTY pages of people complaining about how BP is easy to check. I said the same a while back, but I've since learned that BP sucks. It's a terrible strategy, requiring almost no effort, and can sweep against even the best player, making us run obscure "counters" like Haze Quagsire and Prankster/Taunt Sableye and the like, which makes it over centralizing, as far as I've seen. And you've a very rude and sarcastic tone that no one else needs here. I don't care what your reasoning behind being able to easily handle BP, because anything you have to say has either been discussed, thrown out, or both. Face it, something about BP is overpowering to this game, and we need to work together to solve it, whether everyone agrees or not. It's for the good of the game, so the complaining and flawed reasoning needs to end, so we can get to the root of the problem.
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Baton Pass - its role in the metagame and possible solutions to nerf full Baton Pass chains
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There are over SIXTY pages of people complaining about how BP is easy to check. I said the same a while back, but I've since learned that BP sucks. It's a terrible strategy, requiring almost no effort, and can sweep against even the best player, making us run obscure "counters" like Haze Quagsire and Prankster/Taunt Sableye and the like, which makes it over centralizing, as far as I've seen. And you've a very rude and sarcastic tone that no one else needs here. I don't care what your reasoning behind being able to easily handle BP, because anything you have to say has either been discussed, thrown out, or both. Face it, something about BP is overpowering to this game, and we need to work together to solve it, whether everyone agrees or not. It's for the good of the game, so the complaining and flawed reasoning needs to end, so we can get to the root of the problem.
Infiltrator Chandelure is a great idea. It can hold a powerful position on both BP and Anti-BP teams. I use it to counter both BP and Anti-BP teams since it has access to infiltrator, substitute, fire and ghost. It counters Mega Pinsir because of fire and Tailonflame after defensive boost. Its ghost typing gives it full immunity to most of Blisseys moves. Most importantly, it destroys unprepared BP teams. I use it instead of Smeargle because most of the time, Smeargle can only be used once. Here's a replay of the team in action.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-112497981
The replay above made me realize something...
There is another way that will force the opponent to break the chain that hasn't been mentioned: accuracy-reducing moves. They have extremely wide distribution (so you're not forced to run shitmons) and lower the one stat standard BP chains absolutely need and can't boost. If you can drop their accuracy 2 or 3 stages they'll most likely be forced to break the chain, especially if you run something that enjoys free turns, like Azumarill, Thundurus-I or Volcarona.
There is another way that will force the opponent to break the chain that hasn't been mentioned: accuracy-reducing moves. They have extremely wide distribution (so you're not forced to run shitmons) and lower the one stat standard BP chains absolutely need and can't boost. If you can drop their accuracy 2 or 3 stages they'll most likely be forced to break the chain, especially if you run something that enjoys free turns, like Azumarill, Thundurus-I or Volcarona.
True. That night daze gave me a rough time. If I would have missed anymore than I did, I might have lost the match. My Espeon couldn't hit mega gyrados and my Sylvion was poisoned. Priority moves, aggressive offensive boost/play, infiltrator and now accuracy reducing moves, seem to be the best answer to BP.
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If we're forced to use accuracy lowering moves on every team (which isn't even reliable anyway since it's beaten by Espeon and subs) then I think something is wrong. Similarly of we have no choice but to run Taunt on random mons that beat Espeon / Infiltrator on barely viable Pokemon like Chandelure just to stand a chance at beating BP I don't think it's healthy for the meta. Aggressive play doesn't even beat BP as it will just get set up on with the appropriate defense boosts and get beaten anyway
I have a couple concerns about accuracy-reducing moves too. While they have a wide distribution, most Pokemon would rather run other, better moves that aren't so luck-based and don't leave your opponent any chance for a free turn (which accuracy-reducing moves still do even at -6). Plus, the reason accuracy-reducing moves would be so effective against BP teams is because these teams revolve around "not switching out", in a sense. Any boosts, good or bad, get passed on with BP, and Magic Bounce mons are there to prevent getting forcibly switched out. However, most "normal" teams, if they can be described as such, don't have that restriction and will regularly switch to gain some other advantage, erasing any lowered accuracy you may have inflicted. I would argue that accuracy-reducing moves sound just as overcentralizing toward BP teams as the other strategies mentioned.
This is true, i forced myself to play infiltrator substitude chandelure for those team although it can also work against other teams but i'm force to take toxik instead of calm mind/ will o wisp / pain split and even infiltrator instead of flash fire (even if chandelure resist fire attacks, he can't stand repeated fire attacks you know) and there is not much prediction to do, thats a bit against the competitivity to be honest : Where people use already viable and strong pokemon like rotom / heatran / tyranocif for countering this thing named Talonflame, they dont use it only for the purpose of talonflame but for their overall utility also not like when people would run choice band azumarill in 5th gen in order to counter blaziken/excadril (which became uber ) with its strong aqua jet which ohko them.
Oh God. It's like a whole new group of players all decided to start posting without reading any of the thread
TheNextDimentions , I agree with your statement about speed boost, but could barely read your long post because it actually suggested to use baton pass, and suggested that it was our fault if we used stall and couldn't exert offensive pressure to stop the defensive boosts.
Moneyminty , your post about it being our fault to prepare for everything gave me a good long laugh. You try making a team that is prepared for everything and let me know how that goes.
SagMyPants , I agree with the ideas about complex bans, but the bp clause you proposed changes game mechanics, which is a no-no
Krysco , you clearly haven't read, any of my posts, and saying again why scolipede is ban worthy, despite not being broken on its own would be redundant.
Rotosect , you're not new, so you should know better than to post stuff like accuracy decreasing moves
TheNextDimentions , I agree with your statement about speed boost, but could barely read your long post because it actually suggested to use baton pass, and suggested that it was our fault if we used stall and couldn't exert offensive pressure to stop the defensive boosts.
Moneyminty , your post about it being our fault to prepare for everything gave me a good long laugh. You try making a team that is prepared for everything and let me know how that goes.
SagMyPants , I agree with the ideas about complex bans, but the bp clause you proposed changes game mechanics, which is a no-no
Krysco , you clearly haven't read, any of my posts, and saying again why scolipede is ban worthy, despite not being broken on its own would be redundant.
Rotosect , you're not new, so you should know better than to post stuff like accuracy decreasing moves
Guys, please stop looking for counters to BP. Just because you can list stuff like haze quagsire (useless against normal teams. Really.) doesn't mean BP shouldn't be banned. In fact, that is precisely the reason why it should be banned. The fact that the community actually list down counters, most of which can be played around (magic bounce ftw) shows that BP teams don't really have surefire ways to stop it. Btw, people seem to be forgetting perish song, altho walled by soundproof, is quite unexpected and goes through sub/protect :) (totally not mentioning a counter)
As for people who still think BP shouldn't be banned, most of them claim that BP is manageable and a legal strategy. Out of all the stuff banned from OU , are there really any one of them that are uncounterable? Is there any Pokemon that's uncounterable for that matter? I don't think so and that shouldn't be a point in deciding whether something should be banned or not. The point here, is that baton pass is a click and win strategy which requires minimal skill and beats a majority of teams, even in high level play. What this means, is that if you want to beat a BP team, you need specific moves/pokemons. This shows that BP teams are having an unhealthy influence on the metagame, killing versatility and forcing people to run retarded sets (haze friggin quagsire wtf. Go back to UU).
As for BP teams being a viable strategy, then why bother banning anything from OU huh? All of the previous bans were viable pokemons, so why ban them? I admit that we are talking about a strategy instead of a Pokemon this time, but there really isn't much difference. BP is getting overpowered, and forcing the metagame into a rock-paper-scissors standoff (Dedicated BP counter haze, roar perish song etc > BP teams > balanced teams >dedicated BP counter) which is definitely not the way to go.
As for suggestions, I am in favour of a complex ban rather than a blanket ban. Altho pass bans were in a way blanket-y (blaziken banned instead of speed boost etc) it'd be fairer if complex bans were implemented. Options include:
set limits for BP users, ban combination of magic guard/speed boost + stored power/subs etc, or perhaps ban number of stats passable? ( say max 2 boosted stats? Who uses gorebyss anyway)
PS. to certain people, please please pleasee read the previous posts before posting. It is a tad bit frustrating when I see questions and reasons that have been already answered. Thanks.
As for people who still think BP shouldn't be banned, most of them claim that BP is manageable and a legal strategy. Out of all the stuff banned from OU , are there really any one of them that are uncounterable? Is there any Pokemon that's uncounterable for that matter? I don't think so and that shouldn't be a point in deciding whether something should be banned or not. The point here, is that baton pass is a click and win strategy which requires minimal skill and beats a majority of teams, even in high level play. What this means, is that if you want to beat a BP team, you need specific moves/pokemons. This shows that BP teams are having an unhealthy influence on the metagame, killing versatility and forcing people to run retarded sets (haze friggin quagsire wtf. Go back to UU).
As for BP teams being a viable strategy, then why bother banning anything from OU huh? All of the previous bans were viable pokemons, so why ban them? I admit that we are talking about a strategy instead of a Pokemon this time, but there really isn't much difference. BP is getting overpowered, and forcing the metagame into a rock-paper-scissors standoff (Dedicated BP counter haze, roar perish song etc > BP teams > balanced teams >dedicated BP counter) which is definitely not the way to go.
As for suggestions, I am in favour of a complex ban rather than a blanket ban. Altho pass bans were in a way blanket-y (blaziken banned instead of speed boost etc) it'd be fairer if complex bans were implemented. Options include:
set limits for BP users, ban combination of magic guard/speed boost + stored power/subs etc, or perhaps ban number of stats passable? ( say max 2 boosted stats? Who uses gorebyss anyway)
PS. to certain people, please please pleasee read the previous posts before posting. It is a tad bit frustrating when I see questions and reasons that have been already answered. Thanks.
There's always Gastro Acid and Worry Seed. Most BP people will forfeit if you get rid of Magic Bounce on Espeon. Or use your prediction skils and Disable BP/main boosting move/etc. You just need to cut off the plant at the roots, and there are many ways to do that, but people don't like to use unconventional strategies. If you insist on muscling through BP with power, then you'll have to dig for the right mons. Or just, you know, run Unaware Clefable or Quagsire.
4 things that can happen to BP:
1.Nothing: In the end BP may be considered unbroken with a good counter found
2.Nerfing: Like limiting number of baton passers per team/Limiting stats passed on by BP
3.Complex ban: Like BP + [stat raising move]
4.Worst case scenario:Banning of BP
1.Nothing: In the end BP may be considered unbroken with a good counter found
2.Nerfing: Like limiting number of baton passers per team/Limiting stats passed on by BP
3.Complex ban: Like BP + [stat raising move]
4.Worst case scenario:Banning of BP
These terrible generalizations aren't helping your pro-ban position at all. We aren't forced to used moves like those. If we want to be realistic, it's mainly balance and stall teams that have difficulty with BP, and balance teams have a number of strategies like VoltTurn which can do well against it as was shown a few pages back. With offense, you can just blast away with your Mega Pinsir or whatever you have, and wreck face with Thundurus-I, who is on virtually every HO team anyway, so saying most teams have to go out of their way to beat it is a bit of a stretch, since offense is more common than the other two playstyles and they shouldn't really be having any troubles with it. If your HO team can't muscle past the generally inherently weak mons on the BP teams, then shit, you should be having an even harder time against stall teams, and nobody is is crying about those.
The main reason I'm apprehensive about essentially banning playstyles is that the game was becoming pretty damn 1-dimensional before Swagplay and Baton Pass started catching on, you basically had just 3 playstyles to choose from and they were all, in essence, the same type of style, just lying in a different part of the spectrum; offense, balance and stall. All stall did was try and counter offense, offense just tried to beat the shit out of everything as usual and balance was basically just a hybrid of the other two. There were practically no alternate means of playing the game, it was just the same old stuff day in day out. I personally wish a lot more things were viable, like having an item to extend Trick Room to 8 turns, and same for Tailwind etc so that we could mix things up a bit more, because without alternate styles, things can start to become pretty stagnant and we see less and less viable pokemon and it just becomes a Charizard-X, Keldeo and Thundurus fest.
I first lurked in this thread when there were like 15 maybe 20ish pages of posts. I got up to about page 10 and took a break. I come back and there are now 60+ pages so yeah, sorry for if I say something someone else has said but that's a lot of catching up I would have to do :/. The fact that people can bring up things like Haze Quagsire (or Haze on anything really) and accuracy lowering moves to counter BP shows that there are answers to it (Heck what about confusion? 50% chance of them doing anything and if they raise Attack first then it's like Swagger). Every counter argument to these is 'that Pokemon has better things to be doing with its moveset' or something similar. If BP teams are a big threat now why not gear at least 1 of 4 moveslots out of 6 of your Pokemon to deal with BP teams? I see where the majority of views and opinions are but with so many ways to 'deal' with Baton Pass I find it hard to believe that it's truly broken.
We don't really care about whether you like our tiering system or not. As stated in the OP of this thread, this is not the place to complain about our banning philosophy. It's also stated in my opening post that you're required to have actual knowledge of competitive Pokémon at a high level of play in order to post here. If you think that SwagPlay was a legit strategy, then you clearly don't fulfill that requirement.
Because of BP I can't use Deoxys-D the way he's meant to be used. (Also, excuse the rank, I was actually testing viable baton pass counters on the high end of the ladder so my ranking took a significant hit. Found none really.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-112547352
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-112547352
Baton pass is pretty much 100% matchup based and it is pretty much just the same thing every match. I do agree with the players who say that baton pass is currently bad for the development of the metagame. I think the last suspect test really showed how annoying 6-mon BP chains can be. I'd bet that anyone who have played the ladder lately can agree that BP teams should receive a nerf of some sort. And before you post, haze quagsire is dumb and redundant.
I think a complex ban is the only way to go, because none of the abusers are broken on their own and baton pass itself is not broken. Well, what kind of ban would be fitting then?
Let's look at Aldarons proposal which banned two very important aspects of a broken strategy from being used together. You could still use drizzle teams and you could still abuse swift swim, but both in a more managable form. I think we need to do something similar here.
My idea is: Ban speed boost+baton pass AND magic bounce+Baton pass on the SAME team.
This would mean that you could still use speed boost scolipede with baton pass and espeon with baton pass, but not together on the same team. The combination of espeon with bp and scoli with bp is only meant for full BP teams. If we ban these two very important aspects from being used together, we effectively nerf baton pass to a much more managable form. BP teams can still function, as you could use agility on a scizor to pass speed etc. but BP teams as a whole would be managable for standard teams.
I think a complex ban is the only way to go, because none of the abusers are broken on their own and baton pass itself is not broken. Well, what kind of ban would be fitting then?
Let's look at Aldarons proposal which banned two very important aspects of a broken strategy from being used together. You could still use drizzle teams and you could still abuse swift swim, but both in a more managable form. I think we need to do something similar here.
My idea is: Ban speed boost+baton pass AND magic bounce+Baton pass on the SAME team.
This would mean that you could still use speed boost scolipede with baton pass and espeon with baton pass, but not together on the same team. The combination of espeon with bp and scoli with bp is only meant for full BP teams. If we ban these two very important aspects from being used together, we effectively nerf baton pass to a much more managable form. BP teams can still function, as you could use agility on a scizor to pass speed etc. but BP teams as a whole would be managable for standard teams.
Its broken on baton pass. The reason people don't see it this way, is because high level players simply don't consider baton pass a viable strategy, so Espeon's usage in baton pass is rather limited. If there was no stigma around baton pass, and it was found on like 30% of teams or some shit then people would undoubtedly cry that Espeon was broken.
You're making a ban unnecessarily complex just to avoid collateral, which isn't what we do. A Magic Bounce + Speed Boost ban makes infinite more sense than this one, but even that one's meh because the 3 root problems that could be banned are BP itself, Scolipede, and Espeon. I've already explained why no other Speed Booster is worth a dime, and banning Espeon wouldn't solve the problem (here), so I'm going to focus on a clause to limit the number of BP abusers per team, or some ban of Scolipede on BP teams.
He meant competitive, that should have been obvious. Because its success depends completely on having opponents that can't exert offensive pressure (assuming it lacks the broken elements like scolipede), it's not even considered a strategy but a cheap gimmick by many high level players (Jukain described it best earlier in the thread).
Baton Pass isn't exactly a gimmick, but it does share a key quality of one, in that it has an unfavorable match-up against the most common high-level playstyle (offense), and will definitely lose to it more often than not. Offense is meant to have many things which apply immediate and powerful offensive pressure, which simply causes BP teams to fold up because they can't handle that amount of force without multiple boosts, which the constant barrage of powerful hits prevents. BP is in many ways built to capitalize on the inability of other teams to apply the level of immediate offensive pressure that is required to prevent setting up the defensive boosts and then passing them on. In theory, there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's definitely not "noncompetitive", because it's merely using an inherent weakness of certain playstyles to its advantage, which is what games in general revolve around. Whether you consider it 'healthy' for the metagame is one thing, but it's certainly getting more flak from more directions than it should be, and we need to cut the crap from those directions.
That's Hyper Offense, something that is widely accepted to be able to beat Baton Pass. However, what about Stall? Bulky Offense? Semi-stall? They cannot reliably beat it. Sure, if everyone ran HO teams, Baton Pass would die. But is that healthy for the metagame? Should everyone be forced to run a certain strategy? Arguments against nerfing Baton Pass seem a lot like those against Mega Kangaskhan. If you ran a Stall team with most of Sableye, Gourgeist-XL, Cofagrigus, Garchomp, and Ferrothorn, you were guaranteed to beat it. But, should you be forced to run the same Pokemon on every team? Not running certain Pokemon on a certain playstyle should not give you an automatic loss. Unless you are running a HO DeoSharp team with Talonflame, Staraptor, or Pinsir, you don't get lucky with crits, you don't use an obscure counter that fails against everything else, and everyone plays intelligently, you can't beat Baton Pass.
I'm personally not saying it's a gimmick, I think it's a valid playing style that's just fine, except right now it has all the tools it needs to be a pain in the donkey and should be nerfed.
and Shurtugal ,
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No amount of checks, no amount of replays, no amount of bullshit will change the fact that BP is match up based, and forces the people who don't run favorable match ups (i.e., not HO) to use inferior sets that lessen their effectiveness against legit teams. This has been overdiscussed to a painful degree. If you disagree, whatever, but unless you have something new, learn to recognize when the (informed) public disagrees.
Allow me to explain the problem with these. . .
Red Card doesn't activate if you faint. Which, nine times out of ten, the person won't attack until they're stupid high in boosts and a stored power Takes it out.
+6 252 SpA Espeon Stored Power (460 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Deoxys-D: 769-906 (252.9 - 298%) -- guaranteed OHKO
That's two Acid armor/Iron defense, and 6 quiver dances, or speed boosts + calm minds, which, in my experience with this, isn't hard to build up as long as you know what you're doing.
I don''t see how you even considered this a stop. A hyper voice at +4 decimates Thundurus. . . And it's not difficult to get to +4.
This is about the only set that I can consider viable. . . Simply because, BP players don't typically foresee a Bisharp using taunt.
But just because you found a core that, slightly deals with people because it surprises battlers, doesn't mean it isn't a noncompetitive strategy.
So, is it my fault that I don't carry this core? Or should we just do one of the several possible bans or nerfing the amount of pokes.
I'll tell you, the ladder.
Granted, DeoSharp is pretty common, but that's besides the point.
Red Card doesn't activate if you faint. Which, nine times out of ten, the person won't attack until they're stupid high in boosts and a stored power Takes it out.
+6 252 SpA Espeon Stored Power (460 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Deoxys-D: 769-906 (252.9 - 298%) -- guaranteed OHKO
That's two Acid armor/Iron defense, and 6 quiver dances, or speed boosts + calm minds, which, in my experience with this, isn't hard to build up as long as you know what you're doing.
I don''t see how you even considered this a stop. A hyper voice at +4 decimates Thundurus. . . And it's not difficult to get to +4.
This is about the only set that I can consider viable. . . Simply because, BP players don't typically foresee a Bisharp using taunt.
But just because you found a core that, slightly deals with people because it surprises battlers, doesn't mean it isn't a noncompetitive strategy.
So, is it my fault that I don't carry this core? Or should we just do one of the several possible bans or nerfing the amount of pokes.
I'll tell you, the ladder.
Granted, DeoSharp is pretty common, but that's besides the point.
It is if the HO player isn't retarded. NP Thundurus is always a problem for BP. He's infinitely better if he carries Taunt, but he doesn't absolutely need it in order to put it a lot of work against BP.
If it carried taunt, I could see it, since it isn't exactly common anymore. But, as soon as it starts NP'ing someone in their right mind would switch into their attacker, and stop it. You literally have to be at minimum competent, to stop Thundy before he fires off a +6 TBolt.
Magic Bounce + Baton Pass seems to be the issue. You can usually beat BP with status. It's true that Scolipede is the reason BP became popular, but without Magic Bounce you can:
- Use Taunt
- Phaze
- Use Haze
- Use Perish Song
- Use Curse
- Status