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Ladder Balanced Hackmons

Rumors said:
Deo-S makes a really great lure for Bouncers if you put anything other than Moldy on it though.


Anyway, some gimmicky stuff I discovered that could have potential applications in the right teams/circumstances.

Nature Power changes type based on the terrain. Misty Terrain = Moon Blast. Grassy Terrain = Energy Ball. Electric Terrain = Thunderbolt. A Prankster NP set could use those terrains to change their coverage while providing team support (Misty is probably the best option there... probably). Or if you want to be really gimmicky, a set with NP/Misty/Grassy/Electric.

Also, Secret Power. 30% paralysis normally and under Electric Terrain. 30% Sp. A drop with Misty. But the real gem here is 30% Sleep with Grassy. Combine with Serene Grace and you have a 60% chance sleep that bypasses Bounce and Coat. Or Infiltrator for a 30% shot at sleeping stuff behind Subs.

Dragon Rush has perfect accuracy and double power if the opponent uses Minimize. So that's another way to smack people trying to abuse evasion boosts.

Hex also went up to BP 65. So that'd be BP 130 vs. statused targets. Shame it doesn't affect Gigas and the like, but I suppose you could always run Trick or Treat as well.

I don't know how this'll be implemented in the simulator, but as max recording Chatter is supposed to have 100% chance to confuse. (Last I tested it, it wasn't confusing at all so it might not have been implemented since the in-simulator text claimed 100% confusion). Combine with Gale Wings to induce rage upon your opponent.
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If you're wasting a turn setting up terrain, the terrain had better either be good on its own or you had better have a really, really good follow up. ATM, those things don't exist.

Also, please don't use Chatter Gale Wings anyone. Just be a good person and don't.
 
We should ban evasion on principle. It's not broken, but anything that adds too much luck to the game without significantly helping it in any other way is bad for the meta.

Accuracy reducing is bad too, but you can deal with that and confusion by switching out, which isn't luck based and can be done by any Pokemon at almost any time.

It would be a very easy addition to make to this metagame that newer players could understand. Evasion clause I mean.

I know that there are ways to beat evasion outside of luck as well, such as unawares, heart swap, perish song, etc etc. We aren't talking about whether or not it is imbalancing, we are talking about how it adds more luck to this metagame without adding much else. It is far from overpowered.

Discuss.
 
I say yes.

Also about chatter, Yveltal does that better w/ gale wings. I can see yveltal being the better defensive abuser of gale wings with oblivion wing/ chatter, roost, defog, and one of safeguard, parting shot, topsy, heart swap (to abuse the priority attack) or substitute.
 
I wouldn't mind an Evasion clause if just because it's, well, annoying. Non-threatening 99% of the time, but annoying to deal with.


ntiller said:
If you're wasting a turn setting up terrain, the terrain had better either be good on its own or you had better have a really, really good follow up. ATM, those things don't exist.

Also, please don't use Chatter Gale Wings anyone. Just be a good person and don't.
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Misty Terrain is actually pretty nifty. Aside from cutting the power of Dragon attacks in half, it also prevents status on both sides. Which means, for it's duration, you not only shut down the opponent's status abusers, but you also prevent them from triggering their Toxic and Flame Orbs for Poison Heal and Magic Guard.

Electric Terrain also isn't bad. Prevents sleep on both sides and also boosts Electric moves by 50%. Megantric and Zekrom would definitely love the boost there. Imagine a Parental Bond Bolt Strike boosted by Electric Terrain and possibly an item too.

Grassy Terrain is more iffy besides Serene Grace Secret Power abuse. 50% boost to Grass moves and also gives everyone lefties recovery. Fliers probably aren't used enough to justify giving your opponent free recovery.

The thing to keep in mind is that they only affect things on the ground. So Thunderous can't abuse Electric Terrain, for example.
 
If it's not broken, don't ban it. By doing so you essentially just kill baton pass (It's not "luck" if I get 5 times to sub) for no reason other than it can be frustrating not to hit.

Other tiers have a reason to ban it other than being "annoying" since the ways to beat it are limited and sub-par, BH can go along perfectly fine with evasion.

Might as well ban the aforementioned Gale Wings Chatter by your logic of "It's annoying".
 
I agree with Kl4ng that unless it's broken it shouldn't be banned. There is the standard Unaware to counter these evasion boosts but since most people don't run Unaware anymore a solid alternative is Whirlwind/Roar. Unlike Gen V, Whirlwind/Roar now cannot miss and could be implemented onto teams if they find dealing with Evasion is too much trouble. In addition there is Haze, Heart Swap, Topsy-Turvy and No Guard which will all deal with the evasion.
 
Kl4ng said:
If it's not broken, don't ban it. By doing so you essentially just kill baton pass (It's not "luck" if I get 5 times to sub) for no reason other than it can be frustrating not to hit.
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Baton pass is already dead, according to playful here:

Keep it Playful said:
Unlike Gen V, Whirlwind/Roar now cannot miss and could be implemented onto teams if they find dealing with Evasion is too much trouble. In addition there is Haze, Heart Swap, Topsy-Turvy and No Guard which will all deal with the evasion.
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According to him, baton pass won't be viable whether or not evasion is banned.

Might as well ban the aforementioned Gale Wings Chatter by your logic of "It's annoying".
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All in due time.
I thought I was clear:
Redless said:
Accuracy reducing is bad too, but you can deal with that and confusion by switching out, which isn't luck based and can be done by any Pokemon at almost any time.
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I think the issue with evasion is that if it is set up enough, and you have no counters, you lose. Now that doesn't seem like an issue, as sheddy is the same thing, but the things that counter sheddy are a lot more common than things that handle evasion. Whirlwind is only ever used w/ prankster and copycat (which is beaten by bounce anyways). Topsy is blocked by sub that will always be on BP teams, and heartswap (which is hardly ever used in part due to the death of prankster groudon, and in part due to being mostly outclassed by topsy turvy). And no guard sucks (well it doesn't suck, it's just that there's almost always a better option.)
 
Gale Wings Chatter is a perfectly legitimate strategy, imo. It's basically the better, balanced hackmons equivalent of Prankster Swagger Liepard in NU.
 
That kind of reminds me of my Para-flinch team from Gen V. Kind of similar, but pretty different too.


Anyway, Evasion isn't annoying in the same way as Gale Wings Chatter is. Evasion basically works like this.

Do you have a counter? If so, congrats, you win!

Don't have a counter? If so, sorry, you most likely lose!

Both running evasion? The match devolves into a RNG cesspool-filled PP stall war that never ends because both sides have like a 17% chance to hit the other and, since this is BH, they're probably running enough recovery to last for days. And someone help us all if both sides are running Harvest Leppa Berry in this situation.

Whereas Gale Wings Chatter (or Prankster Swagger/Confuse Ray/Teeter Dance/what have you) doesn't require a counter to beat, although having one helps a lot. And it doesn't devolve a match into degenerate play if one or both sides are running it without any opposing counters being available.
 
Rumors said:
Do you have a counter? If so, congrats, you win!

Don't have a counter? If so, sorry, you most likely lose!
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Erm...this applies to like every threat that has ever existed in the tier.

You don't jump into a match knowing you don't have an evasion counter the same way you don't jump into a match knowing that you have no counter to PH Gigas.

If you want to take the risk, so be it, but it's entirely your fault if you lose to it seeing as you didn't try to prevent it.
 
Most threats can be countered or handled in a variety of fashions, however. PH Gigas is tough, but I can't keep up with the number of methods to deal with it specifically. Not to mention it can be dealt with without having a dedicated counter on the team either way. In contrast, Evasion's impact on the game is much more binary.

Also, Grassy Terrain isn't coded to change Secret Power's effect yet. D:
 
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Rumors said:
Most threats can be countered or handled in a variety of fashions, however. PH Gigas is tough, but I can't keep up with the number of methods to deal with it specifically. Not to mention it can be dealt with without having a dedicated counter on the team either way. In contrast, Evasion's impact on the game is much more binary.

Also, Grassy Terrain isn't coded to change Secret Power's effect yet. D:
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Dealing with PH Gigas without a dedicated counter is like playing BH without a BH team. I honestly think that the terrains aren't very good with Secret Power, they all seem to be easily dealt with orb users. I can see Galewings Chatter being successful, i'm not a fan of luck based strategies but Galewings Chatter can easily work with Yveltal or something.
 
You literally cannot have a dedicated counter to every threat in the meta. I mean, there's Imposter Chansey, Sheddy, Drizzle Specs/Scarf Palk, Deo-S, PH Gigas, Drought Specs/Scarf Reshy, Contrary Kyu-W, Refrig KyuB, Protean X/Ytwo, Psycho Shifting Orb users, Normalize Mega Gengars, Magic Bounce Xerneas, Gale Wings Yelvetals, Parental Bond Banded Mega Blazikens, Prankster Ferrothorns, Magic Guard Megadactyls, and so on and so forth that can destroy teams is left unchecked. If you can fit a dedicated counter for all those, plus every common variation of those, and the dozens or so things that I didn't mention plus their variations, all on a single team, then you win BH forever.

I can't really test Secret Power in the capacity that I like right now, so it's hard to say if it's "useful" or "too gimmicky" at this stage. Although when discovering Grassy doesn't work, I did Paralyze a whole team (though Nuzzle would work better for that except vs Ground types and Volt Absorb/Motor Drive/Lightning Rod). I want to try it when Grassy is interacting with it properly.
 
Rumors said:
You literally cannot have a dedicated counter to every threat in the meta. I mean, there's Imposter Chansey, Sheddy, Drizzle Specs/Scarf Palk, Deo-S, PH Gigas, Drought Specs/Scarf Reshy, Contrary Kyu-W, Refrig KyuB, Protean X/Ytwo, Psycho Shifting Orb users, Normalize Mega Gengars, Magic Bounce Xerneas, Gale Wings Yelvetals, Parental Bond Banded Mega Blazikens, Prankster Ferrothorns, Magic Guard Megadactyls, and so on and so forth that can destroy teams is left unchecked. If you can fit a dedicated counter for all those, plus every common variation of those, and the dozens or so things that I didn't mention plus their variations, all on a single team, then you win BH forever.

I can't really test Secret Power in the capacity that I like right now, so it's hard to say if it's "useful" or "too gimmicky" at this stage. Although when discovering Grassy doesn't work, I did Paralyze a whole team (though Nuzzle would work better for that except vs Ground types and Volt Absorb/Motor Drive/Lightning Rod). I want to try it when Grassy is interacting with it properly.
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Offensive threats in BH fall into like 5 categories.
Things that get impostered but have really big numbers (nukes, Refrigerate Kyu B/W, Contrary, etc)
Poison Healers(and other nontransitive safe sporers such as Magic Guard or Safety Goggles)
Judgment
Shedinja
Things that Imposter can't always switch into but can check (Mold Breaker, frail scarfers, etc)


Defensive mons fall into like 5 categories also:
Imposters
Shedinja
Magic Bounce
Poison Heal
Prankster

To put it bluntly, if something loses to imposter, it loses to imposter, and it doesn't matter really what else it beats because in this meta, everyone should be running imposter.
 
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Has anyone ever considered opening a format for doubles? And perhaps a completely unrestricted format with CAP in it? That would be totally fun and I would like to try it with my friends some time.
 
Alterations to the Hackmons metagame have been considered in the past. The reason we haven't split the metagames is because of the affect on the ladder. While still competitive, the split between Balanced Hackmons and Hackmons has situated both at the lower end of the PS tiers insofar as usage is concerned. Doing something that would further split them would not be productive to our ability to maintain a competitive ladder. Under the original wording of Balanced Hackmons CAP doesn't make sense since you couldn't physically add a CAP Pokemon to a game via a commercial alteration device. With the absence of an open source alteration device for XY (this isn't a bad thing) we are following the precedents set in BW2.
 
If Huge/Pure Power gets banned, do you guys think that Parental Bond will be viable? It's like Adaptability for all of your attacks and it breaks through substitutes.
 
I've not done extensive comparisons yet, but, AFAIK, Parental Bond seems to outclass a lot of the direct damage-boosting abilities. It's effectively an extra 50% damage (about the same as an Adaptability boost) but can break Subs and also has a double chance to fling a status effect on the opponent. It's only draw back is it triggers contact abilities and items twice (if the move makes contact), such as Rocky Helmet or Iron Barbs.

Kind of disappointing to me in the sense in that Gen V, we had a number of direct damage-boosting abilities each with their pros and cons (Adaptability, Sheer Force, Drizzle/Drought (sort of), and Tinted Lens off the top of my head). But if Parental Bond > all of those, then that reduces variety.

...though Guts and Flare Boost might still have some utility it being Imposter resistant.

Note I'm not including Simple or Contrary in the class of "direct-damage boost" abilities as they impact your stats boosts rather than factoring directly into the damage calculation.


Offensive threats in BH fall into like 5 categories.

Defensive mons fall into like 5 categories also
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If only things were that simple...

...actually, no. I'm glad things aren't that simple. This game would be boring if it was.

But your list is already forgetting things such as Imposter-immune boosters, Prankster Offense, Unaware Defense, Unaware Offense, Para-flinch, Para-fusion, sub-protect stall, and several others (there was like three or four more that eluded me the moment I wrote that sentence).

But really, this is BH. You're pretty much limited to your creativity in what kind of offensive, defensive, or dare I suggest it, hybrids mons you can come up with. Sure, there's a lot of effective cookie cutter builds out there that you can expect to encounter, and those with slight adjustments, but there's still plenty of other options and strategies to explore.
 
Do Clear Body and White Smoke prevent Topsy-Turvy from working? If so, would those be good abilities for boosting sweepers/baton passers?

Virizion Mega-Venusaur@Mental Herb
Ability: Clear Body
Nature: +Defense
- Baton Pass
- Spore
- Quiver Dance/Cotton Guard/etc.
- Ingrain/Secret Sword Giga Drain

An example I thought of off the top of my head. The idea is to boost up with whatever while firing off Spores without fear of Magic Bouncers. Ingrain gives you pseudo leftovers recovery, and prevents you from being forced out, but without Giga Drain you are horrible taunt bait, though Mental Herb can somewhat remedy this.

Also, because of changes to critical hit mechanics, it is now possible to get a 100% critical hit rate. With that in mind, would it be viable to run a set like...

Resharam@Razor Claw
Ability: Contrary
Nature: +Speed
- Focus Energy
- Overheat
- Draco Meteor
- Leaf Storm/V-Create/Sleep Talk

After a Focus Energy, all your hits shall be crits, and because of that, if you are hit by Topsy-Turvy, your Sp Atk drops won't factor into the damage calculations. And if you aren't, then you are still doing 50% more damage than otherwise, so it's still good. Overheat and Draco are a great STAB combo, resisted only by Azumaril, Rock/Fairy types, and Steel or Fairy types with Flash Fire. Leaf Storm is an option for the last slot, because it hits everything that naturally resists it for SE damage. Alternatively, V-Crate can help you sweep by boosting your speed and bulk, and Sleep Talk helps you deal with Prankster sleepers.

What do people think about these?

Edit: It seems that Topsy-Turvy ignores Clear Body, so my first set won't work. Magic Bounce is the best replacement I can think of, with either black sludge or mail as the hold item.
 
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It is most definitely a good idea, but I don't know if that's how Clear Body works. I also really like the Reshiram set.

By the way, for the people talking about Parental Bond, it also pretty much outclasses Serene Grace.
 
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