Ladder Balanced Hackmons

[Arcticblast]

Edit: Well Topsy being bounced back is a major loss. xD Arctic I don't think Magic Bounce sweepers will be able to sweep consistently because Parting Shot mons with Prankster will force the Bouncer to switch out.

I guess all I can say to this is "you win some, you lose some." Contrary sweepers love Parting Shot, Magic Bounce sweepers don't care about Topsy-Turvy, and Mold Breaker sweepers... might want to start running Substitute. Either way, there's no ability that would be "best" for a sweeper any more - each one has its benefits and drawbacks in this particular case.

 

[asterat]

I don't want to be disrespectful now, but for God's sake, STOP ASKING TO BAN THINGS! lol

Seriously guys, this metagame serves to a purpose, the purpose of being as versatile as it can with a few exceptions, and those exceptions are things that overcentralize the metagame.

Basically this metagame is Pure Hackmons (that allows EVERYTHING, so bans shouldn't be happening), but it restricts ONLY the broken top-tier things.

There are people here that wants to restrict mega forms to their megastones and/or only one mega form per team, but the only unique things on this metagame are Stats + Type, and if you guys look to most mega forms they don't even have unique type and their total stats are not even Uber-like. Really you want this banned?

What about banning Dark Void because it is luck-based? Let's ban Hydro Pump then, because Surf exists lol
I mean, Spore gen 5 was better, but it wasn't centralizing the game (well, it was, but not in a broken way) and it wasn't banned. Now Dark Void should be banned because it can MISS? It has absolute no sense at all, if you're affraid of missing attacks pick only the 100% accuracy ones, because the fact it can miss only makes it more far away from be banned, since this makes it less overpower.

About Mewtwo-X and Y, they're really strong, but they're not unstopable forces of the universe, guys lol
Everything will depend of what set they're using. Wants to stop Contrary? Unaware Cresselia. Wants to stop Mold Breaker Sweepers? Prankster Topsy-Turvy. Wants to stop Poison Heal? Probably Magic Bounce Cresselia or Lugia with Gastro Acid are good options. And so on.

I have to really disagree with this. You aren't following the logic behind other people's post, and judging by some of this post you haven't been playing the tier recently. Those threats were broken, and there is a very good argument to ban dark void.

 

[Vincent]

Well, then tell what's the logic behind those posts, because i see none.

Spore wasn't overcentralizing the metagame AND wasn't banned in BH gen 5. Dark Void is worse compared to that Spore, that's really plain and simple. Is the reason to ban Dark Void because you guys are doubtful to choose between Dark Void and Spore?

If you wanna hit choose Spore, if you wanna bypass Grass-types choose Dark Void, there is nothing compared to Shadow Tag or Wonder Guard (or other overcentralizing thing) in the middle of this dilemma.

 

[Adrian Marin]

Safe Sporers have always been somewhat unbalancing, Regigigas for example was used by almost all the top ladder players and required 2 counters just to stop the majority of them, a lot of people attempted to get passed their counters with simple coverage moves, and the worst part is that these so called counters need Entrainment/Simple Beam/Gastro Acid/Worry Seed. Countering Regigigas became mandatory and eventually, Magic Bouncers and other anti-sleepers that could beat Regigigas all suffered 4mss.

I don't see any valid argument against safe sporers being balanced, Spore was overall overcentralizing, all good teams back in gen 5 had a safe sporer. And now, Dark Void is the only thing stopping sleep from becoming balanced.

 

[Rumors]

Gen VI Dark Void is like Gen V Spore... except less reliable. I don't see the problem with Dark Void itself. If "safe sleeping" is the problem, then all sleep moves need to be properly examined (except Rest, for obvious reasons), not just Dark Void because it's slightly less accurate than Spore and happens to hit Grass types. Besides, the really silly thing is banning Dark Void when Hypnosis, Grass Whistle, Lovely Kiss, Yawn, Relic Song, and Sing are still things. And Psycho Shift + Rest + Sleep Talk if you're crazy enough to attempt that.

If sleep is a problem, then address sleep. If it's not, then leave things as they are. Banning just Dark Void would be like banning Hippodown and not Tyranitar from Gen V OU because it has both Sand Stream and an Electric immunity or something silly like that. Or, as said a few times, banning Hydro Pump because it has better OHKO abilities than Surf but can miss.

 

[asterat]

So hail has always been the awkward fourth weather, the odd one out. It generally lacks the ridiculous benefits that others can provide, making it much less easy to build a team around. It was also the last weather to receive an auto inducer, which was sort of hands down the worst weather starter until gen 5. The only type it truly benefits is ice, which are generally not the greatest pokemon. However gamefreak has been nice enough to implement some changes in their recent games that give hail a leg up. No it is not better than sand and rain, but these new changes allow it to compete if used properly. The first of these changes was in black and white kyurem, the box legendaries of white 2 and black 2. They were the first pokemon outside of Arceus to have a 700 BST. The result of this is impressive stats across the board, highlighted by 125 HP and 170 attack (black) and 170 SpA (white.) These pokemon made hail a real idea in balanced hackmons. White kyurem was the ideal snow warning pokemon with enough speed to underspeed Palkia and enough bulk and power to make most walls poop their pants. However it was still very difficult to design a team that used the hail well because in order to maintain real synergy pokemon that were not ice types are needed, which don’t enjoy hail. In generation six game freak took more steps towards making hail viable. They added a new snow warning pokemon for standard metagames to play with. They also changed the effects of weather so that it lasts for five turns instead of forever, meaning hail teams could use the weather as more of a disrupter than a strategy. This way pokemon that are hit by hail do not always have to deal with the effects. This also dilutes the overwhelming power of other weathers and their effects. A new item, safety goggles, was introduced. It blocks weather (hail!!) damage and spore and related moves. This is ideal for non ice hail pokemon that wants to run a defensive set such as heatran. Just to work this argument in as well game freak made grass types immune to all sleep moves except for dark void, buffed overcoat to have the same effects as safety goggles, and made grass types immune to spore and related moves. It’s almost as if they were trying to balance sleep because it’s a ridiculous mechanic, the only one to have a mechanic widespread across competitive pokemon. The very idea of sleep clause is enforced everywhere… except balanced hackmons. Balanced hackmons accepted the other core clause (OHKO clause) because it was ridiculous (and so is sleep). Game freak can’t really put clauses in VGC, so they did the closest thing they could think of, new buffs to block sleep. The only exception to this is Darkrai, who is only one pokemon, and he alone with sleep is not broken (dark void is banned from vgc/doubles iirc anyways). So this is my argument, sleep is absolutely ridiculous because of its decapitating effect and either sleep clause needs to be implemented in balanced hackmons or dark void needs to be banned. Anyways back to hail it unfortunately received no ridiculous mega evolution, but mega abomasnow is something to work with. Defog is interesting and could prove useful on remaining the terrible hazards for ice types. Overall the main hail buffs are the new mechanics of weather abilities and safety goggles, but I think they are enough to give hail some significant usage in balanced hackmons, thoughts? I’m sorry I went off on a limb with the sleep stuff, but it needs to get out there.

 

[Vincent]

If sleep is a problem, then Sleep Clause is the way to go, not banning Dark Void because it is not an unbalanced move.

But even Sleep Clause isn't necessary, there is Insomnia, Status Orbs, Magic Bounce, Aromatherapy, and son on to stop Sleep spreading as a disease.

 

[ntiller]

Yes, Vincent, there are counters. As I have said before, the issue isn't that Dark Void is too good (it's less good than Spore last gen) but that it makes the meta less defined, since Grass is an answer to one variant of sleep but not another, and introduces more variance, since it has 80 accuracy. This lowers the skill cap. I do not advocate outright banning anything other than pure/huge power and maybe trapping abilities, but I certainly think that Dark Void, among other things, should be suspected. If you disagree with banning it, then get a 2200 account (or whatever the cutoff is) and vote accordingly.

Also, comparing Dark Void to Hydro Pump is not a fair analogy, since sleep is binary. It either works or it doesn't. There aren't checks to it, only counters, so those counters should work for all variants. Yes, the logic that calls for DV banning also applies to Lovely Kiss. I am in favor of treating them the same, as far as legality is concerned.

Finally, I am going to point out that banning should not generally be a matter of "Is this broken?" but rather "Would the meta be more competitive with or without this?"

 

[Rumors]

Note: Grass types, Overcoat, and Safety Goggles are only immune to Spore, Sleep Powder, and maybe Grass Whistle (I've not tested the latter either way and haven't heard of anyone trying it). They are still vulnerable to Dark Void (80% acc), Lovely Kiss (75% acc), Hypnosis (60% acc), Yawn (100% acc, 1 turn delay), and Relic Song (10% proc, 20% with Serene Grace). And Psycho Shift, but that's gimmicky for even a gimmick when it comes to sleep.

I don't see what banning just Dark Void it's supposed to accomplish. Gen V, Spore is considered to be "just fine" even though it functions exactly like Dark Void does in this Gen. Except it's 100% accurate instead of 80% accurate. And in Gen V, the sleep counter resets on switch, so Gen VI Dark Void is weaker than Gen V Spore even if it had 100% accuracy. I'm really failing to see why Gen VI Dark Void is bad but Gen V Spore was perfectly fine.

To me, the "more variance" argument falls flat when the player should be taking accuracy into consideration when picking Dark Void over Spore. They chose to risk the 20% chance to miss. And if the player on the receiving end has counters for Spore but not Dark Void, then that's their own fault (especially since the same stuff that counters Dark Void also counters Spore). In a meta without Sleep Clause, you either prepare for sleep or be a victim of it in all of its forms.

And if you're not going to take Hydro vs Surf as a counter-arguement, then I present to you Toxic and Will-o-Wisp. Do we ban these too because they're less accurate than Psycho-Shifting from a status orb and get around counters to Psycho-Shifting statuses, such as Knock Off and Trick? Or what about Evasion? While there's plenty of ways to stop it (just like there's plenty of ways to stop sleep), there's nothing stopping someone from sticking Bright Powder on a mon and spamming Simple + Minimize. And seriously, evasion spam adds a heck of a lot more variance to the game than sleep ever will.

Let's be honest. This isn't something like chess. Pokemon has variance (and quite a bit of it). And I don't think using Dark Void adds "too much variance" when things much haxier things like someone getting a lucky freeze from Ice Beam on the opponent's cleric can determine an entire match right then and there.

And that post got a lot longer than I anticipated. Yay!


Edit: All that said, just like last gen, I would be in favor for sleep clause.

 

[Arcticblast]

Yes, Vincent, there are counters. As I have said before, the issue isn't that Dark Void is too good (it's less good than Spore last gen) but that it makes the meta less defined, since Grass is an answer to one variant of sleep but not another, and introduces more variance, since it has 80 accuracy.

Dark Void's accuracy is absolutely irrelevant to the Spore vs. Dark Void discussion. 80% accuracy does not add more variance to the metagame. Dark Void itself adds this variance. If Dark Void had 100% accuracy than sure, we would be using Dark Void all the time, but that would have happened last gen too. Spore is one form of sleep that is stopped by certain Pokemon and abilities. Dark Void is another form of sleep that can be stopped by any Pokemon 20% of the time.

Also, if we're going with this argument, take Body Slam versus Thunder Wave on Jirachi and Togekiss in BW OU. Thunder Wave is the more consistent option with 100% accuracy, but is stopped by Ground-types. Body Slam is an alternative that can hit Ground-types, although it is stopped by the rather rare Ghost-types and only has a 60% activation chance (with Serene Grace). Isn't this pretty much the same deal? Yes, there are differences, and the difference between BH sleep and Jirachi/Kiss is somewhat pronounced, but isn't this basically what it boils down to?

For what it's worth, I would not be opposed to Sleep Clause in BH, nor would I be opposed to a lack of Sleep Clause.
I also don't use Spore on my better teams because I need all of my moveslots instead of using a sleep move and potentially limiting my coverage and/or having it backfire horribly.
#2good4sleep

 

[ntiller]

Dark Void's accuracy is absolutely irrelevant to the Spore vs. Dark Void discussion. 80% accuracy does not add more variance to the metagame. Dark Void itself adds this variance. If Dark Void had 100% accuracy than sure, we would be using Dark Void all the time, but that would have happened last gen too. Spore is one form of sleep that is stopped by certain Pokemon and abilities. Dark Void is another form of sleep that can be stopped by any Pokemon 20% of the time.

Also, if we're going with this argument, take Body Slam versus Thunder Wave on Jirachi and Togekiss in BW OU. Thunder Wave is the more consistent option with 100% accuracy, but is stopped by Ground-types. Body Slam is an alternative that can hit Ground-types, although it is stopped by the rather rare Ghost-types and only has a 60% activation chance (with Serene Grace). Isn't this pretty much the same deal? Yes, there are differences, and the difference between BH sleep and Jirachi/Kiss is somewhat pronounced, but isn't this basically what it boils down to?

For what it's worth, I would not be opposed to Sleep Clause in BH, nor would I be opposed to a lack of Sleep Clause.
I also don't use Spore on my better teams because I need all of my moveslots instead of using a sleep move and potentially limiting my coverage and/or having it backfire horribly.
#2good4sleep

I would be okay with Dark Void if it had 100% accuracy. Spore was not broken last gen, and slightly reducing the PP of Gen 5 Spore is a perfectly good nerf. What I don't like is the subgame of "Should I prepare for Spore, or for sleep in general?" and "Should I use Dark Void or Spore?" Here's why:
(Arcticblast: removed line breaks for easier viewing)

http://notepad.cc/share/wOzvxtH6mw

This is a table of your expected payoffs based on comparing your anti sleep provisions to your opponent's sleep moves. In constructing the chart, the following assumptions were made:
1. Having a grass type takes up less "team space" than using an ability to deal with sleep. That is why there is a worse payoff for answering spore with a dedicated anti sleep mon than there is with a grass type. Yes, I know some teams would rather have a Poison Heal mon than a grass type. That's fine, this chart isn't for those teams. This chart is for the teams that would rather run a grass type, since those are the teams that would be affected by the guessing subgame that Dark Void introduces.
2. There are no "special cases". This chart is not meant to cover the situations where a sleep mon loses to a mon that cannot switch into sleep repeatedly, such as a Prankster with Substitute and Baton Pass.

Payoffs:
The variable s is the value of the team space lost by "over answering" your opponent's sleep. Since it is assumed that grass types take up less space than anti sleep abilities, using an anti sleep mon when your opponent has no sleep moves is over answering them by two levels rather than 1. Hence, the value of -2s.

-1 is the payoff you get if your opponent can spore you with impunity. -.8 is the payoff you get if your opponent can dark void you, since dark void has a .8 chance of working.

Lastly, it is very important to note that -s is much smaller than -.8, the highest payoff you can get when you under answer your opponent's sleep. -.8 is enough to lose you the game unless you are lucky or have a serious advantage elsewhere. -s puts you at a minor disadvantage.

The Problem:
Running an anti sleep mon gives you the highest average payoff: -s. This means that it is a better option than the other 2. However, it is not the best option against spore. This means that it is often correct to run spore, which means people might start running... grass types. It introduces a complex game of RPS to BH without actually adding much or any strategic depth. Furthermore, this is a guessing game unlike many of the others in Pokemon, because it takes place during teambuilding. You are guessing against everyone you will ever play against all at once, and you cannot win all those guesses.

I make different predictions versus good players than I do versus bad players. Forcing me to make a prediction for all matchups all at once robs me of that chance to demonstrate skill.

This removal of an opportunity for skill, combined with the fact that it will increase the overall usage of lower accuracy moves (thus increasing in-battle variance) makes me think that Dark Void both lowers the skill cap and makes battles less competitive. The meta is better off without it.

 

[Imanalt]

wait ntiller are you really saying we need to get rid of dark void because it makes the metagame less centralized... i dont even know what to say to that...

 

[Vincent]

the issue isn't that Dark Void is too good (it's less good than Spore last gen) but that it makes the meta less defined, since Grass is an answer to one variant of sleep but not another, and introduces more variance, since it has 80 accuracy. This lowers the skill cap.

But this metagame ban things based on their brokeness, it doesn't ban because things define more or less the metagame. By the way, a less defined metagame is a less overcentralized metagame, so by extension it is much less close to be broken than defining things are.

Anyway, why do you think a "less defined" metagame lowers skill cap?

"Less defined" means more versatility, which means more skillful thoughts to counter or check a larger spectrum of things. On the other way around we have a more centric metagame, which revolves around the same strategies mostly.

Finally, I am going to point out that banning should not generally be a matter of "Is this broken?" but rather "Would the meta be more competitive with or without this?"

If by your definition "competitive" means a much more playable and skillful metagame (at least my definition is that one), then asking if something is broken is the same as asking if that something take competitiveness away. So if "no" is the answer to one of those questions, then it is the answer to both.

 

[Rumors]

You are guessing against everyone you will ever play against all at once, and you cannot win all those guesses.

This is team building in a nutshell for both competitive and non-competitive play and for every meta out there, official, standard, or otherwise. Well, unless you only directly challenge specific players with teams built specifically for them.

Also, even after reading your explanation, that chart really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I guess it's trying to say it's more "profitable" to run anti-Spore over anti-sleep, which can cause you to lose .8 (80%?) of the games against Dark Void so therefore Dark Void is bad for the meta? Unless you run PH because the chart apparently doesn't apply to people who use PH (and a lot of players do) or you choose not to run a Grass-type because it only applies to teams with Grass-types? I don't know, I've spent a good ten minutes trying to make heads or tails of that thing and your explanation and I'm still confused.

 

[ntiller]

This is team building in a nutshell for both competitive and non-competitive play and for every meta out there, official, standard, or otherwise. Well, unless you only directly challenge specific players with teams built specifically for them.

Also, even after reading your explanation, that chart really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I guess it's trying to say it's more "profitable" to run anti-Spore over anti-sleep, which can cause you to lose .8 (80%?) of the games against Dark Void so therefore Dark Void is bad for the meta? Unless you run PH because the chart apparently doesn't apply to people who use PH (and a lot of players do) or you choose not to run a Grass-type because it only applies to teams with Grass-types? I don't know, I've spent a good ten minutes trying to make heads or tails of that thing and your explanation and I'm still confused.

The payoffs are abstract, there are no units and it's all relative. I am simply saying that having no Dark Void answer is .8 times as bad as having no Spore answer. Also, this is not teambuilding in general- most decisions add a lot more depth. This doesn't. Also, the chart only applies to people who, if Dark Void were not a move, would opt to run a grass type over a Poison Healer.

 

[Redless]

wait ntiller are you really saying we need to get rid of dark void because it makes the metagame less centralized... i dont even know what to say to that...

What ntiller is referring to when he says variance is the fact that there are two outcomes to a particular situation that aren't dependent on skill. If one player uses dark void and the other has a Pokemon out that is susceptible to it, then there are two possible outcomes (sleep or miss) and which one happens is not determined by skill any sort of skill, it is determined by luck, which runs counterintuitive to how ntiller thinks the game should play. He thinks that who wins any given match should be determined by the how the teams match up against each other and how well the players play. He advocates for minimization of luck because it adds an element that is neither skill nor matchup.

Now, that is not to say that luck is bad, luck is one of the things that keeps the game interesting, and so he doesn't think that luck should be removed entirely, only minimized where possible.

"Wait!" I hear you cry "Look at moves like Hydro Pump and Fire Blast! Shouldn't we ban them too?" No. The argument of luck alone is not enough to ban anything that is not only luck. In addition to its chance of missing, Dark Void is also a potent status inducer. The argument has been made that Spore was not banned during fifth generation balanced hackmons. Had the metagame lasted four months longer, I think it would have been. The ability to buy a mold breaker sweeper set up turns by forcing an opponent to go to a sleep absorber was a bit too powerful in a metagame known for its long thinking games rather than quick set up sweeps. In addition to that, we had things like Poison Heal Regigigas. [insert everything Adrian just said about gigas and safe spore here] I think that in the end, spore would have been banned in at least one form. At that point, dark void, the next most accurate sleep move, would rise to prominence. It is like spore, but with a 20% chance (based on luck) of failing. That is still a bit too good, so I think we would have banned all sleep moves except relic song, rest, and psycho shift. In sixth generation, Dark Void is exactly like gen 5 spore, except it misses 20% of the time. In other words, it is exactly like gen 5 Dark Void, which, as I explained above, would have been banned anyway. Luck is a big part of why Dark Void is bad, but it is not the only part.

Before my post ends, a disclaimer:

I do not endorse the immediate banning or even suspecting of any move besides those already banned. Every argument made here assumes that after the 1-2 months that the metagame will need to develop before banning can be considered, the situation relating to Dark Void will not change.
​

We should probably wait until after the 1-2 month grace period before even discussing bans, but eh... It's fun.

 

[Vincent]

I agree with you Redless about the development of the metagame, and about discuss bans anyway because it is fun and it's a good mind work.

Now coming back about the ban discussion:

I still don't understand what luck/miss chances had to do with Sleep, if the problem is both Dark Void or Spore putting everything to sleep, then use some Sleep Counter or a Sleep Clause should be added. If the problem is Dark Void missing, then the guy who wants to abuse Sleep Inducing Moves should be worried about that, not the guys who complain about how much Sleep is bad to the metagame.

You said:

"Luck is a big part of why Dark Void is bad, but it is not the only part."

The other part is its Sleep Inducing Effect, right?

But then, what luck are you talking about? The 20% chance of that Sleep Inducing Effect miss? Since when this kind of "luck" is bad to the metagame? It is bad to the one who are trying to abuse Dark Void and its unbalanced Sleep Effect, so all the problem here is the unbalanced Sleep Effect itself, not its Miss Chance, not Dark Void's other variables (20% miss chance in this case), only the Sleep spreading as a disease is bad to the metagame (well, i don't think it is bad, but this is another subject), not the one trying to spread this disease and failling because he missed.

 

[Rumors]

Mind, if luck is the problem, then really sleep itself is far more guilty than Dark Void. When something is put to sleep, you never know if the victim will stay asleep for one, two, or three turns. And I'm sure we all have had at least a few matches, BH or otherwise, that got decided because of how quickly or how slowly something woke up. Outside of crits, that's one of the biggest luck-based mechanics in the game.

 

[ntiller]

Yes, Pokemon would be a much better game if sleep told you how many turns of it remain. Honestly, given how much hidden info and double blind situations there are in Pokemon, very little, if any, randomness is needed to keep it from being chess. It has WAYYY more randomness than it needs, which is probably why a significant portion of the community is constantly complaining about it.

 

[MJB]

Yes, Pokemon would be a much better game if sleep told you how many turns of it remain. Honestly, given how much hidden info and double blind situations there are in Pokemon, very little, if any, randomness is needed to keep it from being chess. It has WAYYY more randomness than it needs, which is probably why a significant portion of the community is constantly complaining about it.

Go play chess then

 

[ntiller]

Go play chess then

Yes, Pokemon would be a much better game if sleep told you how many turns of it remain. Honestly, given how much hidden info and double blind situations there are in Pokemon, very little, if any, randomness is needed to keep it from being chess. It has WAYYY more randomness than it needs, which is probably why a significant portion of the community is constantly complaining about it.

 

[Monte Cristo]

Why are we literally discussing something that is almost as strong as gen 5 spore, you all really sound crazy to me, the fact that gen 5 spore didn't even have a discussion already was a fucking bullet through my brain, but since it's "OP-ness" was found late into BW and near XY, I forgave that part of gen 5 BH. But seriously? Are we seriously discussing something such as sleep a possibly unblockable (Mold Breaker beats bounce, and if you want to talk about status orbs than you are completely contradicting yourself since status orbs literally exist because of sleep, only showing it's true over centrelization) accesable on EVERY SINGLE POKEMON with little to no skill cap and no guerenteed number of sleep turns.

This all just makes me sick honestly, I don't know what to say, this is fucking hackmons, yes, the tier with the least restrictions, but remember, this is BALANCED hackmons. And we haven't even agreed that sleep is broken yet, are you fucking kidding me.

If you didn't get it yet, sleep is broken, but we want to keep it because it's such a big part of our metagame, but what's the point of keeping it if it just makes the metagame be more about cheapness than skill (sleep isn't even luck, it's pure cheapness, it takes 0 skill but at the same time it's not even reliant on luck) and just makes the metagame worse? THere I said it, sleep makes the metagame trash, I have never faced something as stupidly easy to use and in general so stupidly over centralizing as BH sleep, anyway, I'm going to go play some mega man n shit, have a good time BH comm.

 

[Arcticblast]

Hide

Why are we literally discussing something that is almost as strong as gen 5 spore, you all really sound crazy to me, the fact that gen 5 spore didn't even have a discussion already was a fucking bullet through my brain, but since it's "OP-ness" was found late into BW and near XY, I forgave that part of gen 5 BH. But seriously? Are we seriously discussing something such as sleep a possibly unblockable (Mold Breaker beats bounce, and if you want to talk about status orbs than you are completely contradicting yourself since status orbs literally exist because of sleep, only showing it's true over centrelization) accesable on EVERY SINGLE POKEMON with little to no skill cap and no guerenteed number of sleep turns.

This all just makes me sick honestly, I don't know what to say, this is fucking hackmons, yes, the tier with the least restrictions, but remember, this is BALANCED hackmons. And we haven't even agreed that sleep is broken yet, are you fucking kidding me.

If you didn't get it yet, sleep is broken, but we want to keep it because it's such a big part of our metagame, but what's the point of keeping it if it just makes the metagame be more about cheapness than skill (sleep isn't even luck, it's pure cheapness, it takes 0 skill but at the same time it's not even reliant on luck) and just makes the metagame worse? THere I said it, sleep makes the metagame trash, I have never faced something as stupidly easy to use and in general so stupidly over centralizing as BH sleep, anyway, I'm going to go play some mega man n shit, have a good time BH comm.

holy shit dude cool down

That said I think it's kind of funny that the actual discussion we're having is even dumber than the one you're responding to...

Moving away from the sleep discussion, what do people think of Aegislash's signature ability, Stance Change? Sure it's not always better than an ability like Magic Bounce, but Aegislash might be one of the few Pokémon in BH to actually benefit from its signature move and ability better than any other Pokémon could. With Stance Change and King's Shield it effectively has 60/150/150/150/150/60 stats, in addition to underspeeding almost all common BH Pokémon. While Steel/Ghost would have been cooler last gen, it's still a solid defensive typing, and it fucks over a lot of Crunch users with King's Shield. Sadly its signature move doesn't block Spore or Dark Void, but it still seems very useful. It's also perhaps the only Pokémon to ever make good use of Hammer Arm ever, as it doesn't need to be fast and it already beats up on Regigigas.

Aegislash @ Lum Berry
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: you know the drill
Adamant / Brave Nature
- King's Shield
- Meteor Mash
- Hammer Arm
- Shadow Sneak / Shadow Force / Swords Dance / something else

 

[Rumors]

I suspect it might be better if Magic Guard triggers Stance Change, at least in some circumstances. But, either way, it does have some potential (at least in my mind it does).

You could also use special attacks on it, like Aura Sphere, Secret Sword, Focus Blast, Shadow Ball, Flash Cannon, and Judgement since its Attack is the same as it's Special Attack.

 

[Pikachuun]

You could also use special attacks on it, like Aura Sphere, Secret Sword, Focus Blast, Shadow Ball, Flash Cannon, and Judgement since its Attack is the same as it's Special Attack.

Anti-Imposter Aegislash go go goat!

Aegislash @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: Check Route 10.
IVs: 0 Spd
Quiet Nature
- King's Shield
- Judgment
- Secret Sword / Focus Blast / Aura Sphere
- Nasty Plot / Other Fillers

The traditional Aegislash set, now almost completely Imposter-proof and using the Special side instead of Physical to wreck stuff (almost because Spooky Plate Chansey is a great bluff). King's Shield allows it to switch to its defensive state whenever needed, bolstering its 150 base Defenses like a pro. Judgment is obviously to deal with Imposters which don't carry Spooky Plate as well (That's what King's Shield is for :V). Secret Sword is to deal with any normal types that have bolstering Special Defense, but if you don't want to deal with Fur Coat shenanigans use Focus Miss or Aura Sphere instead. The last move is filler, but I prefer Nasty Plot for moar Special Attack. After all, 150 base Special attack is just too small for the BH meta.