BH Balanced Hackmons Suspects and Bans Thread

[a loser]

So why was Contrary not a big deal previously? I still firmly believe it's Shedinja and Unaware walls becoming largely unviable. I mean, look at these Unaware calcs, using a Pokemon who was, at one time, hailed as "the best Unaware wall" but is no longer meta.

I didn't play BH before Gen 7, so I won't speak on previous gens, but I think that comparing something in the current meta to a past meta is kind of pointless. I can't think of a way to word this differently so that it doesn't sound kind of mean, so I apologize in advance.

Why are Shedinja and Unaware walls becoming largely unviable in the current meta? Because of the Sungeist Geyser trio. Cresselia and Giratina, two mons with excellent bulk, are now unviable as Unaware walls due to Moongeist Beam weakness and lack of resistance to Sunsteel Strike. Shedinja is pressured to scout every mon just in case the opponent slapped Photon Geyser on their Mega Audino.

The meta adapted to the moldy trio and Yveltal and Mega Gyarados became the go-to Unaware mons and then the Contrary users adapted to that and started running Fleur Cannon to 2HKO them anyway. So something like Psycho Boost, Moongeist Beam, Fleur Cannon, and Spore/Lovely Kiss on MMY has very few defensive checks due to its coverage and mold breaking ability. Even things like Unaware Chansey can lose on a 3 turn sleep. Or they get 2HKO'd by V-Create variants.

252 SpA Life Orb Mewtwo-Mega-Y Psycho Boost vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Chansey: 187-222 (26.5 - 31.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

Contrary alone can be walled by Unaware depending on the mons. Contrary + Sungeist Geyser changes the number of viable Unaware mons drastically. Add in sleep setting and you've got a whole other monster. At least 4MSS is a thing because that's the only downside I see to Contrary right now.

 

[Storm Eagle]

The problem with Contrary is that it lets you set up while using the attacks with the highest base power of all moves of that type. Not only does it remove the drawback of those moves, which is reducing the stats, but it makes them spammable by increasing them instead. This is a problem when walls aren't given an opportunity to recover. So ideally you'd go to a mon that has Unaware, but with Pokemon like Mega Mewtwo Y, there's no guarantee super-effective coverage won't do them in, and that's not talking about mold moves.

I get the idea that Rumors said that Contrary users have a more difficult time in the max EVs meta due to being able to score less KOs at full health, but I feel like he also forgot to mention that Contrary users can serve a purpose by picking off already weakened foes, either by revenge killing or by pivoting into something that has less than full health. This is really how Contrary can easily snowball games in the max EVs meta. The only practical ways to beat Contrary if you get revenge killed is to either revenge kill it by priority or attempt to force it out by Imposter. I'm against the idea that Imposter should be one of the only ways to check something.

But I should also mention that I feel like few people understand just how big of a boon Contrary has in the max EV meta. Let's start by going over the viable items:

• Life Orb scores additional koes on bulkier opponents and can start snowballing matches faster than other items can.
• Choice Scarf can be used on some Contrary users to aid in the duty of revenge killing.
• Plates make it easier to improof the Contrary Pokemon.
• Sometimes Spore is run on Contrary Pokemon, which means Safety Goggles helps tremendously.
• Wide Lens makes the normally 90% accuracy Contrary moves 99% accuracy instead.
• Leftovers improves longevity significantly depending on the set.

Leftovers may seem like a garbage item that's overlooked on Contrary Pokemon, but I feel like it is severely underrated. One thing V-Create is good for is not only because of it's absolutely ridiculous base power, but also because it raises Defense and Special Defense alongside raising Speed to make it more difficult to revenge kill. Using V-Create even once gives you a significant advantage because you're less vulnerable to Scarfers while being additionally bulky. So why does Leftovers have a factor into this? FakeSpeed and Scarfers are one of the premier ways of revenge killing. With a speed boost, Scarfers become irrelevant. With Defense and Special Defense boosts, you make FakeSpeed significantly less effective, if at all against the Contrary Pokemon.

So what ends up happening in a lot of scenarios where FakeSpeed is used to beat Contrary Pokemon with Leftovers? The -ate mon uses Fake Out which does about 33% damage if Showdown is particularly generous in the damage calc. Reduce that even more depending on your boosts. Obviously, the -ate mon has a choice, either use ExtremeSpeed and not 2HKO or switch out and try to hit with Fake Out again to hopefully get a KO the next time. With Leftovers, if the opponent hard switches out, then chances are, the replacement is going to die. So that's two turns of Leftovers recovery if the opponent's replacement mon dies. You go from 67% health to 85% health over the 3 turns. Add in another Fake Out and you're 58% health at the end of the turn. This is assuming the Contrary Pokemon did not use V-Create again. And now the -ate mon has to switch out again and something else dies until the -ate mon can eventually get within FakeSpeed range, but at that point the opponent is likely just going to switch out the Contrary Pokemon. You just lost at least two Pokemon and couldn't even revenge kill the Contrary Pokemon, which is inevitably going to come right back out later when the opponent sees an opportunity and then your team is going to continue to hemorrhage until the opponent's Contrary mon dies, if that even happens.

This scenario can happen decently often when the opponent tries beating you with an -ate mon and you're using a Contrary Pokemon with V-Create. The point is, Leftovers in tangent with V-Create is a viable set which can make you not only powerful but significantly harder to revenge kill, and the max EVs meta only amplified this.

One more thing: The fact that Contrary Pokemon have to run Plates to easily improof theirselves is proof that Contrary Pokemon (especially Mega Mewtwo Y) can nail every single thing in the meta and sets are optimized with things like V-Create and Leftovers to try and circumvent being revenge killed.

Anyways, those are my thoughts. I already know there's huge pro-ban support for Contrary, especially considering most of the DNB arguments for the Illusion suspect test tried redirecting the blame towards Contrary. All that's left is for a Suspect Test to happen, and I guarantee the moment a Suspect Test is announced, that is the final nail in the coffin for Contrary and it has no hope of staying in the meta. That's probably most of the reason as to why Flint hasn't really done anything yet.

 

[Rumors]

Mind, when I bring up "Contrary wasn't broken previously", it's not to say "it's not broken now". It's rather an illustration that something changed between then and now that "broke" Contrary and that I simply believe Contrary's strength at the moment is a symptom of a problem rather than a cause. Again, if you guys really wanna suspect Contrary though, I won't really oppose it, even though I don't think it's the correct thing to tackle.

And I'm aware of stuff like LO, but that's a non-trivial opportunity cost since Contrary inherently lacks recovery, status protection, Imposter-resistance (unless you're doing like... what? Draco/Moongeist Contrary Maudino?), and increases vulnerability to priority users, especially if you don't use V-Create or Super Power.

btw if you use v create mmy can you actually quit mons please thanks

"Hello non-V-Create Contrary MMY. Its your old friends: Nuzzle, Glare, Focus Sash, and LO Fakespeed*. We hope you weren't trying to sweep. If you were... well, you're gonna have a bad time."

*among other varieties of speed control and priority and surviving to return a OHKO

 

[Storm Eagle]

Mind, when I bring up "Contrary wasn't broken previously", it's not to say "it's not broken now". It's rather an illustration that something changed between then and now that "broke" Contrary and that I simply believe Contrary's strength at the moment is a symptom of a problem rather than a cause. Again, if you guys really wanna suspect Contrary though, I won't really oppose it, even though I don't think it's the correct thing to tackle.

You've said this multiple times yet you fail to clarify what you mean. "Contrary is part of a bigger problem." is extremely vague and can lead people to assuming different things. What problem? Sungeist Geyser? Mega Mewtwo Y? I can't understand what you're trying to imply here.

I never got the implication from you that you thought it wasn't banworthy in Gen 7, so please don't assume I'm thinking that about your argument.

And I'm aware of stuff like LO, but that's a non-trivial opportunity cost since Contrary inherently lacks recovery, status protection, Imposter-resistance (unless you're doing like... what? Draco/Moongeist Contrary Maudino?), and increases vulnerability to priority users, especially if you don't use V-Create or Super Power.

Wallbreakers and cleaners don't need recovery. If your opponent is relying off Status to try and check your Contrary Pokemon, chances are they've already lost. Superpower isn't used on mixed attackers and V-Create is very common. MMX is the only exception for Superpower, I think. I personally disagree with sl42, I don't think V-Create Mega Mewtwo Y is too strange, the thing has a base 150 Attack which is higher than Mega Metagross, Mega Lucario, and Solgaleo. And the point of Contrary isn't that it's self-improof, it's that it can break every single possible threat in the metagame with little to no effort at all. If you use a Plate, you already have an opportunity for a solid improof.

 

[Rumors]

Mind, that post wasn't directed at you, specifically, but more in general to a few responses to me. I sometimes forget the Smogon community is extremely focused on using @ or quoting if their post isn't directly above yours or you're responding to several people, even if it the posts in question were recent.

As for "the problem". Well... that's complicated. If it was a simple "oh, the problem is right HERE", then we woulda already found it and we'd be feverently discussing... I dunno, species clause or something and the meta would be, if not significantly different, than at least noticeably so. A few months ago in the regular thread I tried to analayze and discuss "the problem" and found what I thought might be the issue. It's a bit of a read though, but if you wanna look at it, here you go. Oh, and there was a follow-up post too.

I actually have a small list of things I feel would need to be banned to fix it and then things that might need to be banned as well. But, it's a pretty extreme list and, while I'm happy to share, I'm not gonna do it in the suspect topic because I don't want anyone to think I'm proposing them all at once or something crazy like that. (Plus I have doubts the community would ever get behind the list anyway.) I'll post to the main topic or in a PM though.


...though yeah, Mewtwo probably does need to go sooner or later. Those two have been at the forefront of like... every other suspect since the start of Gen VI that didn't focus on Pdon. I mean really, why are they still here?


Anyway, for the other bits in your post, I disagree on a couple of notes. Like offensive mons don't need recovery, but it's hardly useless. When you're boosting defenses with V-Create, Leftovers, if you can keep a hold of them, can extend the usefulness of those defenses and helps your Pokemon last longer in the case of surprises. Plus, other offensive sets like Triage Mega-Ray or PH Sweepers and "softeners"* wouldn't be so daunting if they weren't constantly shaking off what damage you managed to cause them.

I can't think of a good Contrary set with a recovery moves offhand, but I'm sure it's out there. Maybe Draco and Oblivion on Mega-Ray? Eh, not the place to theorymon.

And status? I personally disagree. Getting a pre-emptive status on a Pokemon can cripple it, cut its sweep short, or even effective remove it from the game (and I'm not talking sleep or freeze.) With the popularity of items like Choice Specs and stuff, Lum Berries are pretty rare and most teams don't run a cleric because fitting one in this ultra-compressed-wall meta is hard. So as long as you don't get into the wrong match-up, you can bop a sweeper with the right status that'll stick all game. Just watch out for Gigas.

 

[xOliver]

What about banning Medicham/Mawile mega stones. shift gearing stats to them makes them devasting with their double attacking stats.

 

[ElMustacho]

What about banning Medicham/Mawile mega stones. shift gearing stats to them makes them devasting with their double attacking stats.

BH wise they are subpar. Any check to setup should adequately deal with them, not to mention the existence of imposter, which makes improofing extremely hard. Bulk wise they don't offer much; Mcham doesn't take anything remarkable, and while Steel-Fairy is great typing, Mmawile's bulk leaves much to be desired (50/125/95). Most if not all attackers can OHKO, spore, or boost better (follows a sweep) than them. Some of them are already stronger than whatever is allowed to run Huge Power.
Mega-Medicham vs Adaptability Mega-Mewtwo-X (using Manaphy as an example of 100/100/100 bulk, not because it has uses);
252 Atk Pure Power Medicham-Mega Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Manaphy: 258-304 (63.8 - 75.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Adaptability Mewtwo-Mega-X Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Manaphy: 276-326 (68.3 - 80.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Mega-Mawile vs Pixiliate Mega-Diancie (fairy) / Steelworker Kartana (steel) (using Mew for the same reason, avoiding using resists);
252 Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Mew: 201-237 (49.7 - 58.6%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Pixilate Diancie-Mega Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Mew: 253-298 (62.6 - 73.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Huge Power Mawile-Mega Sunsteel Strike vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Mew: 222-262 (54.9 - 64.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Steelworker Kartana Sunsteel Strike vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Mew: 249-294 (61.6 - 72.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

We can argue on the fact that Diancie is hitting with special attacks but there aren't many occasions where a physical fairy move would outperform -ate Boomburst (and even if we wanted to run physical fairy moves, an hypothetical -ate Head Charge from Diancie-Mega does more than Mega-Mawile). All of the attackers also have the chance of running items, for example a Choice Band, meanwhile Huge/Pure Power users cannot.

In conclusion, not banworthy.

 

[Rumors]

I'd support a ban on those stones and a few others for rule consistency sake, since they let you loophole into using otherwise banned abilities. But from a power perspective... yeah, most aren't broken. Gengarite, Kangaskhanite, and Red Orb are the biggest offenders in terms of actual balance, with Gengarite already having been dealt with, but Kanga and Red Orb are definitely still arguable from a "broken" perspective.

(And before anyone says anything, I'm not intending to imply broken or not broken on those two.)

Historically though, we've not taken them out to make things consistent, despite multiple attempts, so I wouldn't get your hopes up unless Flint suddenly has a change of heart.

 

[Storm Eagle]

Kangaskhan literally just got nerfed with the last suspect test. No Illusion really hurt its viability. Red Orb Groudon is great but not fantastic. Medicham is just a worse version of Mega Mewtwo X. Mawile is amazingly good but it suffers from one problem: It can't self Imposter-proof as it doesn't gain Speed upon Mega Evolving. Ultranecrozium Z wasn't mentioned but it's a semi-viable set for Necrozma-DM and it does better than Mega Mawile.

Kangaskhan and Red Orb Groudon aren't broken by any means. Medicham is bad. Ultranecrozium Z Dusk Mane is a better version of Mega Mawile. Mega Medicham and Mega Mawile sound frightening in theory but in practice not only do they have nearly zero usage, they simply aren't good for the aforementioned reasons.

None of these Pokemon are broken at all. There are banworthy things in Balanced Hackmons, but form changers aren't one of them.

 

[Rumors]

This is more of an explanation than an argument, but the "ban those stones" request isn't (or shouldn't) be based on brokeness, since they're not. They're loopholes and inconsistent with the rules. Ultra Bursting Dusk Mane/Dawn Wings are excluded since neither Ultra Necrozma nor Neuroforce are banned, so there's no loophole. But Red Orb, Mawilite, Medichamite, Kangaskhanite, and, in the past, Gengarite were all requested to be banned since they did let you bypass the rules and use Pokemon or abilities that are banned and inherently against the rules. The argument "they're not broken as a loophole so they're fine" doesn't hold water since we're not allowed to use banned stuff on non-broken Pokemon as is, such as Shadow Tag Gothitelle or Huge Power Azumarill. Neither would be broken since those Pokemon suck pretty hard in a BH environment, but they can't access their abilities that make them usable in standard.

Or basically, the point is: "These things are banned, even if you want to use them on things that naturally have them. Oh, but they're perfectly legal if you use this item to bypass the rules on these specific Pokemon. Which is inconsistent with the fact that they're supposed to be outright banned." Alternatively, imagine if standard was like "Drought is banned. You cannot use it, ever. Unless you use Mega Charizard Y. That's okay. But otherwise no Drought ever!"


Again, this is just an explanation, not an argument. I'm not pursuing that suspect/ban since Flint nor Verbatim ever showed interest, that I'm aware of, in closing the loophole since I first brought it up back early in X/Y. So, feel free to agree/disagree with that line of thought. Just thought I'd clarify it since you brought up Necrozma.

 

[ElMustacho]

This is more of an explanation than an argument, but the "ban those stones" request isn't (or shouldn't) be based on brokeness, since they're not. They're loopholes and inconsistent with the rules. Ultra Bursting Dusk Mane/Dawn Wings are excluded since neither Ultra Necrozma nor Neuroforce are banned, so there's no loophole. But Red Orb, Mawilite, Medichamite, Kangaskhanite, and, in the past, Gengarite were all requested to be banned since they did let you bypass the rules and use Pokemon or abilities that are banned and inherently against the rules. The argument "they're not broken as a loophole so they're fine" doesn't hold water since we're not allowed to use banned stuff on non-broken Pokemon as is, such as Shadow Tag Gothitelle or Huge Power Azumarill. Neither would be broken since those Pokemon suck pretty hard in a BH environment, but they can't access their abilities that make them usable in standard.

Or basically, the point is: "These things are banned, even if you want to use them on things that naturally have them. Oh, but they're perfectly legal if you use this item to bypass the rules on these specific Pokemon. Which is inconsistent with the fact that they're supposed to be outright banned." Alternatively, imagine if standard was like "Drought is banned. You cannot use it, ever. Unless you use Mega Charizard Y. That's okay. But otherwise no Drought ever!"


Again, this is just an explanation, not an argument. I'm not pursuing that suspect/ban since Flint nor Verbatim ever showed interest, that I'm aware of, in closing the loophole since I first brought it up back early in X/Y. So, feel free to agree/disagree with that line of thought. Just thought I'd clarify it since you brought up Necrozma.

Rules that way would be needlessly long. Even if we allowed stuff that would be AG legal it doesn't mean it would necessarily usable in BH. An hypothetical legal Huge Power Azumarill would still have no place in BH. But it is far easier to code "no Huge Power" than "no Huge Power except on Azumarill, Marill, Azurill, Bunnelby, Diggersby and Mega-Mawile". Why should the BH rules coder be worried about Mega-Medicham? It's not breaking the game.

And let's not use the "fix loopholes at any costs 'cause inconsistency" mentality, as we can derail into ridiculousness pretty fast. Such as all the following.

We should restrict abilities all mega evolution may gets, because beware running Mold Breaker twice and Ampharosite Ampharos, that's a loophole. Same goes for changing forms pokemons. And well you can't run Red Orb Groudon, because you can run 6 of them, and that is 4 Desolate Land over the limit. Poor Kyogre faces the same fate. Want to limit them to *not six*? Well, say hello to the newborn clause.
Either Imposter/Transform is banned or we effectively lower the ability clause to 1, because copying the opponent ability is a loophole to get an ability more than twice. Oh, and because of that and the first, all of the abilities of the megas must be used one less time, because (example) legit mbounce + bh magic bounce + (possible) imposter is 3 times! That means they have to be banned, because 1-1 is 0. Not to mention we'd lose a lot of the good abilities (-ate, prankster, magic bounce) that way. Raise the ability clause to (actual) 3? 3 PH, 3 Regen teams will be extremely hard to take down. All the tricks to change abilities needs to go.
We can break the Comaphaze with Sketch, you need to copy the opponent using Sleep Talk as a Comatose Pokemon but it's techinically doable. C'mon how is that thing relevant? It isn't, but we are fixing loopholes, aren't we?
Sand Attack, Smoke Screen, Kinesis, Flash, Detect, Camouflage, Lucky Chant, Magnet Rise needs to go, as their Z-move effects give +1 evasion. All the moves that lower evasion must be banned, because Contrary turns them into boosts. That would remove Defog (with no mbounce, -ate spin and defog, hazards are pretty much going to stay in). Acupressure violates Evasion, it must be banned.
We can actually break all the moves bans with Own Tempo Articuno running Fling, Recycle, Mimic/Copycat, Sketch with Leppa Berry vs anything with Damp, Purify, Heal Pulse, Trick-or-Treat (or level 99 without Articuno tbh) and Metronome; all you need is enough time and OHKO moves/chatter/evasion boosters will eventually show up. Also, when you manage to Sketch a OHKO move, all the team gets to use it with Assist.

So, in 30 minutes of brainstorming I broke 2 bans (OHKO and chatter) and violated 3 clauses (ability, comaphaze and evasion). I don't even know if this was everything possible.

But c'mon ElMustacho, what you produced up there is ridiculous. There must be some kind of line where the meta works well and the rules aren't loophole-proof yet fine. Well we have that line, and is exactly here; even if it is technically possible to pull off OHKO moves, nobody cares; even if Huge Power Azumarill ends up banned, it's not like you can break the meta with it being allowed, nor it would be relevant.

Edit: autocorrect sucks.

 

[Ren]

Rules that way would be needlessly long. Even if we allowed stuff that would be AG legal it doesn't mean it would necessarily usable in BH. An hypothetical legal Huge Power Azumarill would still have no place in BH. But it is far easier to code "no Huge Power" than "no Huge Power except on Azumarill, Marill, Azurill, Bunnelby, Diggersby and Mega-Mawile". Why should the BH rules coder be worried about Mega-Medicham? It's not breaking the game.

And let's not use the "fix loopholes at any costs 'cause inconsistency" mentality, as we can derail into ridiculousness pretty fast. Such as all the following.

We should restrict abilities all mega evolution may gets, because beware running Mold Breaker twice and Ampharosite Ampharos, that's a loophole. Same goes for changing forms pokemons. And well you can't run Red Orb Groudon, because you can run 6 of them, and that is 4 Desolate Land over the limit. Poor Kyogre faces the same fate. Want to limit them to *not six*? Well, say hello to the newborn clause.
Either Imposter/Transform is banned or we effectively lower the ability clause to 1, because copying the opponent ability is a loophole to get an ability more than twice. Oh, and because of that and the first, all of the abilities of the megas must be used one less time, because (example) legit mbounce + bh magic bounce + (possible) imposter is 3 times! That means they have to be banned, because 1-1 is 0. Not to mention we'd lose a lot of the good abilities (-ate, prankster, magic bounce) that way. Raise the ability clause to (actual) 3? 3 PH, 3 Regen teams will be extremely hard to take down. All the tricks to change abilities needs to go.
We can break the Comaphaze with Sketch, you need to copy the opponent using Sleep Talk as a Comatose Pokemon but it's techinically doable. C'mon how is that thing relevant? It isn't, but we are fixing loopholes, aren't we?
Sand Attack, Smoke Screen, Kinesis, Flash, Detect, Camouflage, Lucky Chant, Magnet Rise needs to go, as their Z-move effects give +1 evasion. All the moves that lower evasion must be banned, because Contrary turns them into boosts. That would remove Defog (with no mbounce, -ate spin and defog, hazards are pretty much going to stay in). Acupressure violates Evasion, it must be banned.
We can actually break all the moves bans with Own Tempo Articuno running Fling, Recycle, Mimic/Copycat, Sketch with Leppa Berry vs anything with Damp, Purify, Heal Pulse, Trick-or-Treat (or level 99 without Articuno tbh) and Metronome; all you need is enough time and OHKO moves/chatter/evasion boosters will eventually show up. Also, when you manage to Sketch a OHKO move, all the team gets to use it with Assist.

So, in 30 minutes of brainstorming I broke 2 bans (OHKO and chatter) and violated 3 clauses (ability, comaphaze and evasion). I don't even know if this was everything possible.

But c'mon ElMustacho, what you produced up there is ridiculous. There must be some kind of line where the meta works well and the rules aren't loophole-proof yet fine. Well we have that line, and is exactly here; even if it is technically possible to pull off OHKO moves, nobody cares; even if Huge Power Azumarill ends up banned, it's not like you can break the meta with it being allowed, not it would be relevant.

This is a good reply, but I think a more concise way of summarizing this is you can't put Huge Power, Pure Power etc. on a Pokemon at the teambuilder level. You can gain it in battle, and that's fine because you're not bringing anything illegal. Medichamite isn't Huge Power, it's a way to gain it in-battle, and those aren't prohibited at all. It's not that it's broken or anything, it's that they're separate components from the banned abilities entirely, and will be dealt with as such.

 

[Rumors]

Again, this is just an explanation, not an argument. I'm not pursuing that suspect/ban since Flint nor Verbatim ever showed interest, that I'm aware of, in closing the loophole since I first brought it up back early in X/Y. So, feel free to agree/disagree with that line of thought. Just thought I'd clarify it since you brought up Necrozma.

Not to be rude but... clear enough?


But worth noting OHKO moves fail to trigger when called by Metronome due to OHKO clause, similar to how sleep clause in other metas will literally prevent a Pokemon from falling asleep. At least, last when I rolled one when Metronome battling friends using the BH format before the Metronome battle format existed. Chatter and evasion might also be affected too, but I've not successfully pulled them in a Metronome in BH to confirm. Either way, the coders are already one step ahead of you on at least one of those. :p

 

[ShedMiddleFinga]

Hey all, I'm just gonna completely change the topic, because I'm good at that.

So I've been away for a while, and I am kind of appalled nothing has been fixed. So lets talk about the things needing fixing. I am going to talk about two things: sleep and dqm. So originally I believe I made the case for banning spore. I've changed my mind. I'm aiming for the ban of all sleep now.

So when we look at sleep we hear that there are counters and walls to it such as: poison heal, goggles, bounce, comatose. This in my opinion, is patently false. There are NO true walls to sleep because a mon running spore can run any moves it wants to let it get around that counter. Poison heal mons can be OHKOd by contrary running spore, goggles can be knocked off fairly easily in a several hundred turn game etc and etc. When this happens you will likely then lose to a luck based move that grants free turns. Remember, if sleep is garunteed there is no downside to using it. Even one turn sleep is still breaking even. Furthermore, the more and more you try to set up your team to stop spore, the worse it'll fare against the normal meta, because almost all anti sleep abilities are subpar. I didn't say unusable, I said subpar. They become even more subpar when you run multiple or have to wall specific things: like pH xern with lovely kiss quiver and mag storm and moonblast.
Lovely kiss is an abomination against nature with its resistance to goggles and frankly, I'm sick of running goggles or bounce on 2 mons per team. So when you take all of this into account, even if you dedictate 1 mon slot to stopping sleep, you still have far too high a chance of losing to it. The simple fact that it is not truly wallable is an issue that can only be remidied by a complete ban on sleep. I cannot stress this enough. As I remember, pdon was banned on the grounds of being impossible to truly wall. I would argue that sleep is every bit as over centralizing and bannable as don.

Now getting into DQM. Dqm is a big problem because you can't run turvy, you can't run espeed revenge kills, and you can't run prankster as easily. Smash has just become this huge problem because of powertrip, sungeist, and lack of priority killing. Does everyone else actually want to face teams of 6 shell smashers? I mean really? Either large boosting moves like smash and tail glow and drum have to go or DQM does. I mean one should not be able to run 6 smash mons and win. The ladder should reflect skill, and I would argue that a team like that in no way reflects skill (same for sleep). I see no positive balancing aspect that dazzling brings to the meta. Ate was already nerfed since last gen. It was a long time ago but I remember haylighters razzle dazzle team brought him all the way up to 1800. It just doesn't seem right that a click to win team should allow you to get that high. If you really want to run fast non ate sweepers immune to priority, run kings shield.

Sorry for any grammar errors, I was on a phone.

Edit: here's a battle from today just as an example https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-836916248

And don't try to pull a fast one on me and be like oh it's just cuz u played bad, team build and play better. I just joined this meta yesterday and I'm already First place. There was simply no way for me to win.

 

[tzop]

It s useless to speak about sleep they Will never add a sleep clause or ban sleep

 

[ShedMiddleFinga]

I know everyone is talking about trapping right now but its going to be banned by a landslide vote so I dont feel much of a need to weigh in.

I'm gonna talk about spore
Honestly, spore is something that wasn't really much of a problem in gen 6, sorta like how ev limit removal exacerbated the issues gengarite created.
It was completely fine when you could waltz in with your 2 poison heals and two goggles and between 2/3s of your team find a check to spore. Poison heal is kind of bad now. Not like it's horrible, but definitely sub par on non fairies. And things can knock off goggles. ANYONE WHO IS RUNNING SPORE AND IS SEMI INTELLIGENT IS ALSO RUNNING KNOCK OFF. During a 150 turn battle goggles are less of a check and more of a, "lol, did u expect that to stop me?" Spore has "checks," but the problem is is they can all be overcome. Goggles can and will be knocked off. Your poison heal can be core enforced, and your bounce is now asleep because mold breaker dont care and honestly, who the fck uses grass types in BH. I don't hear anyone saying we should unban chatter because soundproof exists. The problem with chatter isn't that it is like an instant OHKO to your mons, but the fact that it takes the emphasis of the match away from skill and is infinitely splashable. Spore is the SAME DAMN THING. You can put it on whatever the hell you want. I've met teams in the 16 and 17 hundreds with 4+ mons with spore. That is f****** ridiculous. How is that not a problem?

So here is my solution.

I've heard alot of people calling for a sleep clause, but I don't think that is really necessary. It would certainly solve the problem but I dislike clauses in general because they seem to overarching for me. Banning spore would fix the problem nicely honestly. Lovely kiss has 25% less accuracy and the moment you aren't netting 1-3 free turns with NO INHERENT DOWNSIDES is the moment you aren't running sleep.




If you are too lazy to read this the basic point follows as, goggles don't work, other checks are worse, why the hell is this a thing. Ban spore because it's infinitely splashable and last I checked is

• "A move (attack or status) that removes the emphasis on skill, planning and/or preparation and moves the outcome to forces not in control of the player e.g. Chatter"

.Lovely kiss has 75% accuracy, that is manageable.

So I'm going to repost a few things that I posted, I kid you not, a freaking year ago, that somehow are still relevant. (Dammit ban page). Everything I said is still relevant except I want all sleep banned now instead of just bannong spore and letting lovely kiss reign free. Also going to repost a comment on shell smash, again, from a year ago. Why has it taken so long to address this???

sorry for double posting but I just wanted to bring up an old post I made which some of u might not of seen (albeit with a couple of edits)

I honestly don't think belly drum/shell smash were anywhere near bannable in gen 6. Let me go over what changed.

1) Mons get full evs. I've heard that this "weakens" shell smash but anyone with any brains can see it really doesn't. If something can't tank power trip, it isn't gonna tank it after 252 evs. defense evs aren't gonna stop 1000 atk. they just aren't. If something CAN tank it, it would already have 252 evs in hp and defense anyway probably. It is true that these extra Evs can possibly help a mom tank a hit but In my experience the thing that benifits most from evs is the smasher itself. because the shell smash/belly drum mon has 252 evs, extreme speed/other priority usually does a pitiful amount of damage, almost always <50%. That means u can't always revenge kill it. Remember if you fail to revenge kill it that often means you lost the game. Because of these Evs it is now very hard to put pressure on smash mons. If I have a regenerator with spectral thief often the smash mon will just beat the crap out of me with whatever stab moves it has and then smash on the forced switch. Both pdons and ray can take about 6-8 spectrals from weak regen Mons like zy and audino which is no where near enough to put pressure on the opponent

2) Priority Attacks is weakened. This happened in several different ways. First, gale wings was nerfed. For me that means no more d-ascent, which could normally take out 90% on most mons. This leaves espeed. As you guys know, ate was nerfed from gen 6 and mons have more defense, and the damage usually isn't sufficient to kill. I've seen damage as low as 30% taken on an espeed. not even enough to kill drummers. In addition, priority has a general bad time of it because of new abilities like queenly majesty phazing them out and making them far less common. Even if you do happen to have one, it doesnt matter much because the opponent will usually have dazzling or terrain up. So basically this check, which SINGLEHANDEDLY put smash in its place in gen 6, doesn't really exist. I cannot emphasize this enough dazzling is extremely toxic to the meta and in my opinion is almost as bad as smash

3) Prankster was nerfed. This means no more encore on dark types and dqm. That REALLY HURTS. that was another of my go-to stops for setup in gen 6. Even without spectral thief/haze the extra turns were still enough to let me get around the threat. well that doesn't really work anymore. D-Bond was nerfed. As someone who doesn't use d-bond too much I'm not at liberty to say much here, except I imagine it can be annoying, especially without the threat of encore looming. Topsy turvy can't manage stuff anymore. This is pretty big. Topsy turvy was a big hit to setup and you can't really use it anymore because of targeting. And because you can't put any pressure at all on smashers they are free to batter away at you till they stall recover/ outpredict your switch and smash= u lose another mon. and once they stall out recover (which they will if they made the mon halfway decently) you most likely lose your whole team. Anyway you have to stay in to keep the "threat" of haze alive while your opponent either kills you or they switch and the momentum goes to the opponent.

4) Unaware isn't actually that good. People seem to think unaware is some magic answer but it really isn't. First off smashers are usually powerful enough to 2 hit or 3 hit (2 hit especially if it's a subpar wall like gyarados) So switching in often ISN'T an option. That means you lose 1 more mon. This is especially true if there is either hazards up, or your wall has taken ANY previous damage. It's important to note that without any passive healing it's almost impossible to maintain a wall at 100% (you can't run leftovers because spore) so you really have to run multiple walls. One for actually walling stuff, and one for stopping stuff like shell smash. Along with the fact that these walls have pretty short lifespans in general, there are new moves like sunsteel and moongeist to give them grief. This rules out notable walls such as Tina, audino, and solgaleo, and reduces many to subpar options like gyarados. It is nearly impossible to keep an unaware non at full health because they lack passive regeneration and they are fairly easy to break with HO teams.



5) Chansey didn't really get nerfed in any big way but it is very difficult to beat smashers because some have unburden and you usually have to sacrifice a mon anyway to get chansey in. Also, because of defense debuffs, many can outdamage or kill chansey anyway. In my opinion, chansey is just worth more than smashers and I don't regard that as a very even trade. So basically when looking at chansey, you're often looking at best a 1-1 +heavy damage on one of your most valuble mons and at worst a 6 mon sweep.

6) Innards Out is banned. God rest it's soul.

Because I know you guys like hard examples ima give u some.


Player A has a MMX and Player B has team made to defeat smash and a regen Zygarde out at 20%
MMX uses simple shell smash and zygarde switches to fur coat tina
MMX uses stored power
Tina dies
Regi switches in and hazes
Regi dies to close combat.



MMX has taken 0 damage and killed 2 mons. Its sash is unbroken.

lets imagine that they switched into a different check to MMX, something you would never normally do if you donț already know mmx is simple. That mon is unaware zygarde. Now usually with smash teams, terrain is usually up

252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-X Stored Power (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Unaware Zygarde-Complete in Psychic Terrain: 589-694 (92.6 - 109.1%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
zygarde is in all probability dead given the difficulty of keeping mons at 100%.

Ok kids! that didnt work so lets try gyarados. That will work for sure!

252+ Atk Mewtwo-Mega-X Close Combat vs. 242 HP / 252+ Def Gyarados-Mega: 390-462 (99.7 - 118.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

Rip gyarados is dead now.

How about chansey?

+4 252- SpA Mewtwo-Mega-X Stored Power (260 BP) vs. -2 252 HP / 252 SpD Mewtwo-Mega-X in Psychic Terrain: 3079-3624 (431.2 - 507.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Today is not ur lucky day. Rip chansey (yes i made it the correct HP, but i did ignore eviolite cuz at 500% who cares) even if chan wins the speed tie it dies cuz sash!

You send out aerilate Ray, but since psychic terrain is gay and terrain extender exists, ray is now an endangered species

Notice I have taken 1 mon. Matched it up against ALMOST EVERY SINGLE COUNTER NAMED and won with 3! moves.

That is one mon. The team built specifically for checking Bullshit is now gone because of ONE switch. Talk about a stakeout that continues until everything is dead.

Lets imagine regi has destiny bond and i know that.

Regi used destiny bond!
Mewtwo X used Encore!

rip regi.

Even if regi uses haze, he still dies to subsequent close combats.

If anyone who says that shell smash has checks stopped to think for 5 seconds, they would realize it really doesnt. I can overcome every single damn wall you name with a smasher that would take only a few seconds to think up. I just proved that by taking out a whole team that would have annhilated smash in gen 6. Im not sure why I have to spell it out but shell smash and drum really need to go.

I know this is a hypothetical situation but I have seen the mon described used under conditions similar to this with the same basic results.



So to conclude, every possible check to smash/drum has been crippled and this has created a perfect storm in which a centralizing move can be slapped on to most anything and can still be expected to win. Smash comes with no warning, and is not perdictable. Before the ev limit was lifted it was possible to spectral every deoxys you saw and get away with it, but now we have spectral dealing ~20% to possible smashers and that is just not enough to put any pressure on them, especially since these prospective smashers have 3 attacking moves to choose from while they batter away at you. Any of the ways I listed for dealing with smashers either ends up in your mon dead or momentum going to the opponent (except for chansey) how is that ok? Basically, it's far too hard to deal with, and we shouldn't have to deal with it anyway. Thanks for your time and please please please ban shell smash and/or belly drum.

 

[cityscapes]

Everything I said is still relevant

not gonna lie i don't really think this is very true. even ignoring the mentions of psychic terrain in your post (it's banned now), the meta has changed and can now handle smash better. for example, prankster giratina is a new set that can handle pretty much every dazzling smash user bar gengar, which isn't too hard to prep for by itself. scarf imposter is a lot better now. mega diancie and other priority is heat, you just need a guy for dazzling and you're set. mega gyara is pretty much not used, but more because it's a pretty bad mon even outside of handling setup. same for unaware (no priority on recovery means it gets pressured more easily). in practice, setup mons almost never have space to run crippling moves like encore or taunt.

as for the example replay you gave, i don't mean any offense here but on your team it's like you're not even trying to prep for sleep. all the mons are slow, and your only sleep protection is goggles. it's like the squad is just asking to get rolled by ph xern or something. i could get #1 on ladder with some team that loses to mega garchomp, but that doesn't mean the mon is broken. i agree that sleep deserves a suspect at least, but this isn't very good reasoning for it at all.

i'm just saying, the best way to convince others that something is broken is to build with it and beat people with it. make some matchup hyper offense or some spore spam that all the top players hate playing against and use it for yourself, then draw your own opinions from there.

 

[ShedMiddleFinga]

Two things. I hear what you're saying about prankster Tina but am not sure it is valid for 2 reasons.(assuming youre Tina is haze/uturn/recover/bond) Literally any smash mon could out damage tinas recover just by slapping something like ice shard (it's just an example, it goes for any super effective move) on. Bond isnt going to cut it because HO teams run multiple smashers. If it runs core then obviously this is only relevant for fairies. Also I could get around this with encore or taunt smash though admittedly Im the only person that I know of that has run that.Two, mons don't have to be dazzling to run smash. The very presence of dazzling is enough to dissuade one from clicking encore or espeed or whatever. Things can definitely destroy tina that arent dazzling. magic guard diance with smash is not going to be stopped by tina. It is also not going to be stopped by ray speed or diancie speed. Again these are just examples of mons that get around specific "checks." I feel like this is fair because HO teams usually want to run multiple answers to "checking" walls and if your name isn't Anna says hi, then you usually can only devote 1 or 2 spaces to stopping smash.

Two. I hear what youre saying about my team being weak to sleep. You're absolutely right, I am only running 2 goggles and no defensive sleep stopping ability (which isn't THAT unprepared come to think about it) I do have a team with mb zygarde but I'm almost cetrain that team would have lost too due it getting nuked by sceptile's dragon attacks. The point isnt that my team was the most sleep ready team ever created. The point of the replay was to show that goggles really don't work in a game situation against an experienced opponent. The point was that there was absolutely no counterplay for me when I ran a team slightly prepared for sleep against a skeep spam team (I mean I got it 1 hour after I made that post, what do you expect? I'm sure better examples will come along soon enough) I do not think you should be forced to run several PH mons on one team just to check sleep. And PH mons often will have a tough time checking sleep anyway. Almost no PH mons perform well against contrary. Almost no PH mons defeat spore smashers on the switchin. And you really do have to calculate for the switchin otherwise you risk losing 3 turns and that's a big risk!


I cannot break it down more simply than this. The core of my argument is that there are no inherent checks to either dqm, spore, and smash. Because of their splashability every set that checks one spore or smash set can lose to another. Spore and smash in paticularge are problematic because it leaves the offensive mon 3 other moves and an ability to get around your "check".

 

[a loser]

I've already talked about sleep and other things recently here so I won't go into that again but I agree that something needs to happen. I think a sleep ban might be a little much but I'd be interested in a suspect ladder with a sleep clause.

As for DQM, I don't see it being banworthy right now. I agree with Gurpreet Patel (Sent you a Friend Request) about Prankster Giratina handling most smashers (Scarf imposter too) but I can see how Taunt and Encore could be problematic for Pranksters. But you don't see many set-up sweepers running these moves because there usually isn't any room for them. Running them means they probably lose to Shed or lose needed coverage. Taunt is nice for stall breaking but it seems hard to fit in over other moves.

Also, DQM is useful on balanced teams for fitting some defensive utility on an offensive mon. Fast mons like MMX, MMY, and Sceptile can run DQM without boosting moves to serve as an offensive -ate check.

 

[SuperSkylake]

I agree we need to do something about sleep. I think that, contrary to what a previous poster said, we should be suspecting lovely kiss, instead of spore. Though spore does have 100% accuracy, it's a lot easier to deal with via safety goggles, or just using a grass type. If a countermeasure can stop lovely kiss, it can stop spore; the converse is not true.

For an idea of what I mean about the total uncompetitiveness of lovely kiss look at this replay. My ferrothorn set is tailor-made to beat PH Xerneas, but thanks to Lovely Kiss I was simply made a fool of for most of the game. It's true that substitute was a niche pick on the xerneas set, but the real culprit was Lovely Kiss, because if the opponent had ran Spore instead, the Xerneas would have made minimal headway. Yes, switch one move and you turn the matchup on its head. My team is quite sleep resistent, with goggles giratina and PH Fini and Ferrothorn able to block spore.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-837962024

Another replay, this time in a mirror matchup. The game is decided as early as turn 4, when the bottomside player gets their Xerneas set up. A few lucky lovely kiss roles later, Bottom-side has slept the PH counter, and Top Side hasn't even activated Poison Heal on his own Xerneas.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-837974472

Edit: I add that it took almost no skill to click lovely kiss, and then just sub as soon as I broke the sub, or to click sub/lovely kiss during the second replay. Only one time did that fail because of a lovely kiss miss, and the opponent simply switched the xerneas out and brought it back in again. If you don't have a poison heal mon of your own that can boost up faster, or a mon that is faster than the xerneas at +1 that is already statused and can remove the Poison Heal (very very rare), or you somehow manage to land a critical hit, you lose in the long run. Some Magic Bouncers are available to resist the sleep, but they can easily be defeated by coverage moves. Sure you can force the poison healer out, but you will probably get put to sleep doing it, and then you have to hope you can have some free turns to wake your counter up in the meantime. It's just a very uncompetitive situation because the counterplay is limited.

 

[tzop]

All the spore spam have knock off so safety googles is useless
ferro is the only grass (kartana can't switch on nothing)

 

[ShedMiddleFinga]

I'm going to agree with tzop on this one. It's all or nothing honestly. Goggles dont work for shit. There never really was a good reason to allow sleep in the meta anyway.

 

[Champion Leon]

I'm going to agree with tzop on this one. It's all or nothing honestly. Goggles dont work for shit. There never really was a good reason to allow sleep in the meta anyway.

Misty and Electric Surge support enable teams to not waste item slots on Safety Goggles, and prevent sleep as a status completely. Misty has the added luxory of preventng Toxic Orb from activating which prevents your foe from setting up, as now they cannot Spore your Eviolite Imposter.

I think No Guard Sing, for its ability to bypass Substitute is probably the biggest threat unless you carry Soundproof, sure it requires an Ability slot, but given to fast Pokemon like MMY, and you suddenly have free turns, and the foe knows that its other Pokemon are vulnerable, regardless of items and most abilities. Packing Soundproof allies allows you to Imposterproof these sets, and is an ability not uncommon on teams these days.

I think Sleep, while requiring team support to prevent/cure, is not the domineering force, its how quickly a defensive core can respond to the set-up that sleep affords. I believe that there are enough counter-measures, its just deciding which 1 or 2 suit your team.

Personally, I find Misty Terrain to do the trick, as it enables your Imposter to not fear Spore, shuts down PHeal strategies, and allows your entire team to use more suitable items than Safety Goggles, and more universally necessary defensive abilities than Magic Bounce or Comatose such as Prankster (Haze support), Unaware, etc.
Misty might not be common, but if you need Sleep prevention, as a whole, it's probably your safest bet, barring your Flying-types.

 

[Rumors]

There's no reason to suspect specific sleep moves, IMO, if the problem with them is the sleep status. That's what Sleep Clause is supposed to handle and there's a reason almost every other singles meta has it versus bans on specific sleep moves. Banning Lovely Kiss won't do much good because people will run Hypnosis. Which is objectively worse than Lovely Kiss, but it'll still be ran, it'll still bypass Safety Goggles and Grass-types, and it'll still make you rage at RNGesus, perhaps even more since now you'll scream obsceneties when a 60% chance puts most of your team to sleep without missing.

So just do Sleep Clause. We've been bringing it up off and on since Gen V, so it's really about time. Or an outright sleep ban, but that might be a bit much.


As for Sashsmash and DQM, I still stand by that certain moves that allow attackers to bypass defensive abilities completely are the problem there.

 

[ShedMiddleFinga]

OK so I'm going to tackle why I think sleep clause would be a mistake over a solution like banning sleep.

When we look at BH compared to other metas that use sleep clause we can see some stark differences. First and foremost, there are no restrictions on what mons can run sleep. This obviously makes sleep far more powerful, but this is far less important than the second difference (imo).

In BH a team must function as a single cohesive unit to a far greater extent than other metas. This is for a variety of reasons but mostly due to the emphasis on switching moves, recovering walls, and improofing chansey. In most metas we talk about "revenge kills" but this is simply not the way BH is structured. Revenge kills are extremely rare in high ladder BH just because BH has access to better walls than any other meta, and instead of staying in to be revenge killed most players switch out. Almost all kills are usually netted by either chip damage to a wall (achieved by volt turn, other attacks, rocks etc) complemented by a nuke (such as boomburst), a straight foward nuke to a non resistant and often weak mon (fairy boomburst against tina), or just straight out chip damage over the course of the game. This playstyle encourages the useage of slower walls pivoting to get a players sweepers in a favorable position. In other metas (such as OU) we see much more emphasis placed on momentum, revenge kills, and just battering the opponent (you attack their mon and they attack yours and whoever out damages wins that matchup)

Every mon in BH usually has its own dedicated purpose such as putting pressure on opponents walls, chansey proofing, walling specific things, etc (I'm not saying this isnt true in OU, just less relevant for the reasons I already outlined). In paticular chansey proofing is one of the most obvious ways we can see a team acting as a cohesive unit (that is not present in other metas). I have played many a game where I took out an opponents steel type check and proceeded to sweep their whole team with their own Diancie. (Through imposter) Losing an imposter proof can be devestating and can often lose you the game or the use of your once proofed sweeper.


I know that this was all a very long winded discussion but I'm arriving at my point now. Because BH is structured differently from other metas with the focus shifted towards powerful walls and more incrementally gained kills, I do not believe we should base our rules off other, different metas with different playstyles. Because a BH team depends on its teamates to win, and because every pokemon plays an essential role in each game, I would still regard the ability to sleep one mon at a time uncompetitive. Which one should you choose, the Frail sweeper that might be KO'ed before it wakes up, or the wall that allows you to chansey proof your own team and wall theirs? The point is, even if we decided on a sleep clause we would still be in the same position as we are now. People would still have to prepare for sleep (and run useless items like goggles) and would even then run the risk of losing to something that is, when you break it down, a RNG based move.

Tl;Dr sleep clause wouldn't solve the problem because the importance of team unity in BH is so high that sacrificing a mon to sleep could and probably would eventually lose you the game against an experienced player. There is absolutely no reason to allow sleep in the meta anyway as it doesn't improve it in a single way. And finally, we would all still have to prepare for sleep anyway or risk losing to it (so like almost exactly the same as the current situation)