One of the most frustrating ones is Ninjask, which has legitimately no viability outside of SD Speed Boost Subpassing. If it gets behind a sub, even for one free turn of setup, it can go for Swords Dance, have its sub broken, protect, sub, protect, and in combination with Leftovers, be able to get up a fair few Speed Boosts. It can pass 4 or more speed boosts and a Swords Dance with just one free turn. I agree with the suggestion above that only one type of stat boost should be Baton Passed, or a similar complex ban-maybe ban Speed Boost+Baton Pass, or Geomancy/Shell Smash+Baton Pass
No no no, no, no no, no, simply no.
Ninjask isn't even in my top five baton passers, let alone remotely broken, here's why.
1. He gives out free turns out the wazoo. His infamous protect-sub combo only gives speed, at +1 per turn, and nothing else. He has absolutely nothing to prevent setup sweepers from setting up in front of his face.
2. If you try to SD or lolharden, you are incredibly vulnerable to even the weakest attacks, meaning that you can only setup in front of the most passive of pokemon.
3. Even if you do somehow manage to get a free turn to ninjask via memento spam or screens, he can only give +2 atk and +1 speed or +1 defense and +1 speed. For the former, you are literally better off just sending out a DDer and using DD twice. For the latter, +1 defense means very little.
Now for intelligent posts that actually matter...
I've posted a long while ago on why I think a complete blanket ban on the move Baton Pass is necessary if you really want to do something about it instead of some other complicated ban bullshit you guys are suggesting. Here was my post on VR:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/tiering-thoughts-until-oras.3517181/page-2#post-5828347
We should
NOT ban Espeon, because there are other incredibly dangerous sweepers after innumerable boosts. In fact, here are two replays where the BP user used a Mega Latias instead of Espeon and had similar results.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/orasou-176005903
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/orasou-175994864
Also, if you ban Espeon, you could just as easily replace that with Xatu, who also gets Magic Bounce and Stored Power.
We should
NOT ban either Smeargle/Scolipede or any other pokemon that can set up boosts and then Baton Pass, for example Gorebyss. The issue is that these pokemon aren't broken. In the replays I've shown, Smeargle wouldn't have been able to set up at all because of its severe fraility if it didn't have screens support, tailwind support, and memento support. Similarly, nor would Scolipede or any other pokemon that can boost. These pokemon generally have subpar stats so it's hard for them to boost without tremendous team support, which is why they shouldn't be banned.
Obviously, this only leads us with one choice, and that is to ban Baton Pass in its entirety. (Or do nothing, thats the other option)
too lazy to post shit about other suspects lel
Like you, I have been against any kind of complex bans since before BP clause 1. However, I do not think that a blanket ban on BP is the correct course of action.
I also agree that banning espeon is pointless. Anything would be broken after receiving the boosts that Smeargle and Scolipede provide. Espeon is just slightly more broken then most.
However I disagree that Smeargle and Scolipede are not broken. If a pokemon can provide support so powerful that you can literally sacrifice half of your entire team and still sweep the enemy team, that mon is broken. We ban pokemon based on their best sets, even if they have other legitimate uses.
Smeargle is uncompetetive not because of BP alone, but because he can boost to absurd levels in an incredibly short amount of time while at the same time prevent other mons from setting up alongside him. It's not different then the MegaKahn era where if you weren't prepared to sac half your team, you either needed to run cofag, sableye, or crap like rocky helm garchomp.
TL;DR Just because a mon requires support does not make it not broken.
This next post is a long one, so I'll break it up a bit.
Hai :3 As seen from my low post count, I'm new here. I would like to discuss the move Baton Pass and why I think it deserves to get a suspect.
Baton pass is the most stupid, and brainless strategy out there today. BP is extremely match up reliant, and if your team doesn't have anything to beat it, you auto lose right from the start. This isn't like anything else where if you dont necessarily have a counter to it, you can still beat it by playing well and not allowing it to set up or pressuring it everytime it comes in. Baton pass is different, you either lose or win right from team preview. BP takes no skill to use at all. People with no knowledge of the metagame can easily ladder up to 1800+ with the standard BP team if they dont get haxed. Smogon is supposed to be competitive, which means that the better player is supposed to win the majority of the time. Baton pass completely invalidates this because it allows bad players to beat good players. A good player who has a bad match up because he can't beat BP will automatically lose,simple as that. So why are we still allowing this bullshit?
You know what else allows bad players beat good players? Literally every broken mon ever. The only difference is that your average broken mon happens to be much easier to fit onto a team then a broken passer, and that good players tend to have fewer qualms about abusing broken sweepers then they do with abusing BP. I'm sure you remember the brief time Mega Mence was in OU, yes? It was literally run CB ice shard mamo, run scarfed ice beam, or die.
I'm not saying that BP is unbeatable by any means whatsoever. I don't wanna suspect BP because its necessarily broken, I want it gone because its uncompetitive. It's literal cancer everytime you play it. Yeah, anyone can 6-0 BP by using shed shell amoongus, but who gives a shit? That doesn't make it any less competitive. It's a horrible strategy that lets shitty ass players beat good players, and we should not be promoting that as a community. UU has done a stupid move imo by banning geomancy because the smeargle + espeon combo was too powerful for the tier. In a similar vein, venomoth is banned from UU because of its "broke quiverpassing bullshit." UU didn't have to ban geomancy; they could've put a blanket ban on the move baton pass and have that shit all over with. If UU isn't allowing BP why should we? It's still cancer and uncompetitive BS no matter what tier its in.
Every broken mon has counters. We could allow Kyogre into OU too, and everyone would respond by running Gastrodon. You need to do more to distinguish why BP is any different from your average broken sweeper. "It needs support" doesn't cut it. Sand Rush Excadrill in gen 5 needed sand support to be an effective sweeper. That didn't stop us from banning him because he was totally overpowered.
For all these reasons, I would like to support a blanket ban on the move baton pass. That's what we shouldve done right from the start, but we didn't. Instead we did a complex ban, and where did that lead us? Nowhere. We soon arrived to the conclusion that BP is still broken, and did yet another complex ban. And look where that leaves us now. Fuck all the complex ban BS, just ban the move. For example, if you ban geomancy, people will still figure out ways how to abuse the shitty strategy that is BP. Scoli + CM espeon will still be cancer to face, or people will use other shit like venomoth + espeon, which is why a complex ban wont suffice. Just suspect the move please. Honestly, theres no lateral damage involved anyway except for BP celebi, but who gives a shit? If we had a blanket ban on the move Swagger than Baton Pass should be banned in its entirety as well.
Right back at ya. Who gives a crap about Scolipede and Smeargle? They are nothing more then a pair of BL mons that rarely get used in OU outside of BP. Agreed that complex bans are dumb. There is no collateral damage for banning the two broken passers while keeping BP in the meta.
Agreed that complex bans are BS though.
And before you guys go, "oh, no tour players use BP and ladder is shit anyway so idgaf about BP", something doesn't have to be common in order for it to be banned. In gen 4, wobbuffet was barely used at all (it was like #50 in usage), but after user: imperfectluck got all 5 of his alts in the top 5 of the ladder, wobb was deemed too uncompetitive for OU, and thus it was banned. Usage does not indicate brokenness. Another thing, the Official Ladder Tourney was created to restore the prestige of the ladder and to promote overall ladder quality. When two (im sure there's a little more than 2 but im not completely sure) of the people who qualified already got to the top 8 spot, how in the hell is that "promoting overall ladder quality"? If anything, it shows you how much ladder is a joke because you don't need to be good at the game or have any knowledge of the metagame whatsoever, you can just abuse cancer strategies to get a high ranking. Baton pass is significantly lowering the overall quality of the ladder, and im sure its one of the reasons why many established players consider ladder a joke.
Agreed, but that's not a good reason to ban BP over banning overpowered passers.
I'd like for you guys to imagine a scenario I'm sure for some is all too familiar. You're grinding on the ladder one day for the OLT, and get to lets say, 1940, high enough for you to secure the #6 spot, so you stop for the night. Next day, you decide to just play one game so you don't decay and lose points. You're matched up with some no name player using a BP team, and an instant feeling of dread fills you as you realize you have a bad matchup and will probably lose unless you get super lucky. You play as well as you can, but the combination of screens, memento, and tailwind support prove to be too much for you as now you cannot prevent smeargle from setting up circles around you. Seconds later, espeon sweeps your team, and your rating drops 32 points, into the 1900s. Suddenly, you find yourself at #10, missing the cutoff for OLT playoffs. And all this because some shitty player thought it'd be funny to troll the ladder with a BP team.
I'm sure a lot of you guys have experienced this. I know Valentine, a very good player, was something like 21-0 on the ladder, and then his first loss was to a BP team. I'm positive that many other good players have experienced this as well. It's stupid why its still allowed, and we have nothing to lose from just outright banning the move.
This situation can apply to any broken sweeper.
As a final point, I know many of you are probably thinking "Baton pass wasnt a problem for earlier gens so i dont see why we should ban it now". Fact is, baton pass WAS a problem in earlier gens. Its just as match up dependent, just as skill less and brain dead to use, just as cancer, just as uncompetitive, and anybody who used it was immediately seen as a joke. So why is it only addressed this gen?
[citation needed]
It's because a lot of new players are using it and spamming the ladder with it. They saw some "ladder god" (i really don't wanna say that ladderers are bad, but when you're ranked high with no knowledge of the metagame, theres a problem) peak #1 with it for numerous months and thought, "oh hey, i could totally copy this guy's team and peak #1 too!" because thats what new players do: they steal teams from other people and try to copy them. And in doing so, spamming the ladder with BP has made laddering much less interesting for many individuals.
Suspect baton pass pls, thnx n_n
So, a guy made a decent team abusing not one, but two potentially broken mons and drew attention to them, therefore ban BP? I don't buy it.
Banning BP because it breaks a couple of otherwise trash mons is like banning u-turn because it breaks Genesect. We don't ban moves to preserve pokemon.
Here is a post detailing my views and why I believe the way I do:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...tagame-discussion.3528675/page-4#post-6023344
