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) Why (Suspect Reasoning):Poison Heal (ph; pheal) has more than established itself as a staple in Almost Any Ability. It gives a wide variety of Pokemon passive recovery they might not have otherwise, notably creates a pseudo immunity to Non-Volatile Status Effects (which I'll refer to as "status" for the remainder of this), and "absorbs" moves like Knock Off which would otherwise cripple the user or its teammates. While there are certainly prominent users such as Garchomp, Snorlax, and Tapu Fini, in general Poison Heal can be used on virtually any Pokemon looking to bolster its overall utility. Protect scouting adds to this utility, making it extremely difficult to offensively deal with a Poison Heal user who is able to consistently check what move is being used [especially against Choice-locked opponents] and then switch to an appropriate answer. That being said, it's not as if Poison Heal is impossible to counter. Ability-changing moves such as Skill Swap, Gastro Acid, and Worry Seed, are temporarily able to prevent the passive recovery, and offensive pressure through hazards and high-damaging moves make it possible to keep specific Poison Heal users from gaining back too much health. Because Poison Heal creates a nearly irrevocable immunity to common methods of applying pressure over the course of a game and does not give much room for error on the part of the opponent, scrutiny in the form of a suspect test is well warranted at this time.
The primary reasons for any Pokemon to run Poison Heal are fairly straightforward: they gain access to passive healing (+12.5% every turn), an immunity to status effects once activated, and the ability to become a switchin to Knock Off users. In practice, this means would-be standard means of applying pressure like Lava Plume/Scald [burns] and status moves like Toxic or Will-O-Wisp lose a significant amount of their viability right away, making it extremely difficult to actively wear down a Poison Heal target over the course of any given game. The setup with most users is to run Protect, at least one STAB move, and then two coverage/utility options to round it off. This is where Garchomp in particular excels, because while it will pretty much always run Protect and Earthquake, it can choose between Swords Dance, Dragon Tail, Stone Edge, Facade, and even Stealth rock to fill up its last two slots—and it can pull every single one of them off. Snorlax is known for its Curse sets featuring Facade and usually either Darkest Lariat or Earthquake, with Heat Crash
So then, how is Poison Heal usually dealt with? As stated before, moves like Skill Swap, Gasto Acid, and Worry Seed are directly able to reverse the passive recovery from Poison Heal, and users such as Mew, Blissey/Chansey, and Toxapex are generally the ones dishing them out. In practice, Pokemon carrying ability-changing moves run defensive abilities like Dauntless Shield, Unaware, and Prankster so they can switch into phealers and hold them back for a time. The issue is that more often than not, these mons are switching into a phealer that has already boosted up to +1 or +2 in attack or special attack, meaning that they're actually able to offensively threaten their should-be "switchins" using Calm Mind boosted Moonblasts/Scalds or Curse/Swords Dance boosted Earthquakes and Facades unless they're all Unaware. As such, it's not always enough to be able to switch a Poison Heal user's ability to something else—there's always a cost in the form of health lost. Outside of "techs" like the ones mentioned previously, the other method is to attempt to pressure pheal mons with enough damage (or at least the threat of it) to both wear them down and prevent cycles of switching in and clicking protect to double the healing to 25% over the course of two turns. In practice, "regen pheal cycling" means that said pressure isn't ever realistically exerted—switching back and forth between regenerator Pokemon and a protect-scouting phealer(s) make it easy to deprive breakers of any chance at making meaningful progress in a game.
In essence, Poison Heal doesn't leave much room for counterplay outside of very specific examples—the majority of which end up struggling in practice or failing to break completely. It's for the reasons above and any others that might've been overlooked that Poison Heal more than deserves a suspect test at this point in time.
How (Suspect Details):
During a Suspect test, each player must climb the ladder until they've acquired the GXE necessary to participate in the voting. Primarily, everyone that participates needs to make an alt account following these guidelines:
- Every game must be played on the official Pokemon Showdown! site and on a new account (creation date no earlier than today, March 1) with "PHAAA [Nick]"--for example, I could create one called "PHAAA T" to ladder with.
- To qualify for voting, your alt must play a minimum of 25 games, and you must have a minimum GXE of 75.
- Poison Heal will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect
- The suspect test will go for two weeks and end on Monday, March 15th (11:59 pm CST)
- Upon meeting requirements to vote, post the proof in this thread. Feel free to also use this thread as a means to disseminate topical opinions regarding whether or not Poison Heal should be banned.
- It is mandatory to provide proof of ownership of the alt account as well. (Post a picture of your reqs with your smogon name featured)
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