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(banning) Dynamicpunch
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There is a lot of hax difference, a confusion means you aren't going to move for a turn half the time, a burn means you get warn down slightly faster. Whether it is fishing or not is irrelevant in this situation.
Is multiple pokemon the criteria for a move to get banned? What if in SUMO there is another relevant pokemon with 100% accurate dynamic punch, are we then allowed to ban it? And if we are, why couldn't we ban dpunch before, when there was only one less pokemon that had it?
burn can suck but it's not the same thing as confusion. zach once beat me in a doubles game where i had an overwhelming advantage because he brought double swagger and i hit myself 8/8 times. burn doesn't have that capacity to completely bullshit you.
the effect chance of the move inflicting the status is entirely irrelevant. the question is: is the status you're trying to inflict inherently uncompetitive? If yes, moves which serve no purpose except to inflict that status are obviously uncompetitive. My argument is that yes, confusion is inherently uncompetitive, so any move with no purpose except inflicting confusion (eg dynamicpunch) is as well.
Sure if you leave out the other effects of burn it doesn't sound bad. Let's not forget it halves your attack (so damage-wise you're attacking every two turns if you're physical), and also doesn't heal naturally over a few turns or if you switch out unlike confusion.
I agree burn has a lot fewer variables involved and is therefore less uncompetitive. My main point is that
is not a good reason to enforce a move ban seeing as something like Keldeo, which is used primarily for its offensive presence, chooses to run a move that is weaker than Surf for a move that, like dynamicpunch, only serves to fish for hax while dealing damage, and while many people want scald gone it's not happening anytime soon.
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But the thing is, even here, you're not saying that Dynamic Punch itself is the problem. You say "100% accurate dynamic punch". This implies that No Guard + Dynamic Punch is the problem. Vanilla Dynamic Punch is not a broken move. Just like many other cases where something was broken with something else, there have been complex bans. When baton pass dominated the ladder, baton pass was never banned outright. When Swift Swimmers in BW OU were a problem, Swift Swim wasn't banned outright. When endless battles were deemed an issue, Leppa Berry wasn't banned outright. It doesn't seem to me that Dynamic Punch in itself is a problem worthy of being banned.
To add to Stratos's discussion point - How is confusion any less 'uncompetitive' than paralysis or sleep? All 3 status conditions has a chance to immobilize the opponent in different ways. Of those three, Confusion & Sleep are temporary, although the latter guarantees that the afflicted mon cannot make a move for one turn and doesn't remain asleep for longer than 3 turns. Regardless of its permanence, all three status conditions put us at the mercy of RNG.
Personally, the RNG produced by these status conditions are acceptable. They only truly become disruptive when combined with priority / Speed. See Thundurus, which was banned in BW2 partly for its prankster Thunder Wave and continues to sway the outcome of VGC matches since its inception. See the Darkrai ban in OU and Gravity + Sleep ban in Doubles, due to Whimsicott + Skymin with Grasswhistle and Gengar + Darkrai with Hypnosis putting every mon to sleep before they can make a move.
See Prankster Swagger, which has led to the blanket ban on Swagger. I admit Swagger is more of an exception to the rule, because of it's enormous distribution and the doubling of Attack allowing otherwise harmless mons to wreck with Foul Play. However, the primary offenders were undoubtedly the Pranksters. Out of the 3 status conditions, confusion has more of a psychological impact, because you not only see your Pokemon immobilized, but it inflicts damage to your monster (which is exacerbated by Swagger's boost in Atk). However, non-Swagger confusion, with its limited distribution and no doubling in attack, is probably the least impactful & least consistent of the three RNG status conditions.
As for Dynamic Punch - it is obviously not banworthy, because of it's shaky 50% accuracy (which essentially equates to 50% chance to even inflict confusion). It is clear that the problem is attributable to Machoke. Without Machoke's relatively high Atk & tankiness (in PU's standard I assume), STAB, and most importantly No Guard, Dynamic Punch would be an irrelevant move.
Personally, the RNG produced by these status conditions are acceptable. They only truly become disruptive when combined with priority / Speed. See Thundurus, which was banned in BW2 partly for its prankster Thunder Wave and continues to sway the outcome of VGC matches since its inception. See the Darkrai ban in OU and Gravity + Sleep ban in Doubles, due to Whimsicott + Skymin with Grasswhistle and Gengar + Darkrai with Hypnosis putting every mon to sleep before they can make a move.
See Prankster Swagger, which has led to the blanket ban on Swagger. I admit Swagger is more of an exception to the rule, because of it's enormous distribution and the doubling of Attack allowing otherwise harmless mons to wreck with Foul Play. However, the primary offenders were undoubtedly the Pranksters. Out of the 3 status conditions, confusion has more of a psychological impact, because you not only see your Pokemon immobilized, but it inflicts damage to your monster (which is exacerbated by Swagger's boost in Atk). However, non-Swagger confusion, with its limited distribution and no doubling in attack, is probably the least impactful & least consistent of the three RNG status conditions.
As for Dynamic Punch - it is obviously not banworthy, because of it's shaky 50% accuracy (which essentially equates to 50% chance to even inflict confusion). It is clear that the problem is attributable to Machoke. Without Machoke's relatively high Atk & tankiness (in PU's standard I assume), STAB, and most importantly No Guard, Dynamic Punch would be an irrelevant move.
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I'm just going to pop my 2cents here because OU had a ton of these similar sort of discussions in the past.
I think this is the key quote in the thread. I'm not going to wade into the confusion vs uncompetitive thing which IMO has derailed this thread slightly, and focus on that quote. The above quote states that at least some members of the council consider Machoke uncompetitive because confusion grants a 50/50 shot at losing to it. I can understand this, and I can understand why people might want to keep it around. Without much personal knowledge of the tier it appears to be one of the pillars of a tankier team. Your issue though, is No Guard + Dynamic Punch which means that your option is pretty much let it go, or ban Machoke.
-I think I legit just paraphrased like half the thread but whatever, agreeing with MDragon and AM
I think this is the key quote in the thread. I'm not going to wade into the confusion vs uncompetitive thing which IMO has derailed this thread slightly, and focus on that quote. The above quote states that at least some members of the council consider Machoke uncompetitive because confusion grants a 50/50 shot at losing to it. I can understand this, and I can understand why people might want to keep it around. Without much personal knowledge of the tier it appears to be one of the pillars of a tankier team. Your issue though, is No Guard + Dynamic Punch which means that your option is pretty much let it go, or ban Machoke.
-I think I legit just paraphrased like half the thread but whatever, agreeing with MDragon and AM
^but by saying youre not going to wade into it, you actually stated your case on it. If confusion is always uncompetitive, then confusion is the problem -> ban dynamicpunch is the obvious answer. If confusion is not uncompetitive, only broken when combined with machoke's other traits, then machoke is the problem -> ban machoke.
You're making the mistake of thinking that just because something sucks ass, it's not uncompetitive. But in the past we've banned Lax Incense—an item which absolutely sucks ass—for being uncompetitive under evasion clause. As for sleep, the comparison is interesting until you remember that Sleep is actually so uncompetitive (in singles at least) that we break game mechanics to nerf it. Paralysis still has an expected value in favor of the victim, but Confusion's 50/50 ability to grant free turns can easily remove your ability to play around it with just a bit of bad luck, and doesn't have any "legitimate" effects like paralysis does to compensate for it. It's just bullshit.
At least use the OU Tiering Policy here if you're really going to divert the attention from Dynamicpunch to Confusion.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ous-tiering-policy-framework-read-and-understand-this.3552154/
Yes it's actually a thing and was made for reasons like throwing buzzwords around.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ous-tiering-policy-framework-read-and-understand-this.3552154/
Yes it's actually a thing and was made for reasons like throwing buzzwords around.
"In relation to the latter part, "too much" also refers to factors that nearly completely take a game out of the player's hands and turn the PRIMARY point of the game to wait for the RNG."
id say that describes confusion pretty well. your only options are switch or flip a coin, and if you switch, they can just confuse you again and turn it into switch or flip a coin. so you're waiting for the 50/50 rng to go in your favor.
id say that describes confusion pretty well. your only options are switch or flip a coin, and if you switch, they can just confuse you again and turn it into switch or flip a coin. so you're waiting for the 50/50 rng to go in your favor.
The criteria for a move to get banned is it being broken on every mon it is used on. This is how Chatter and Moody were able to get banned and why Dynamic Punch won't be banned.
Mechanically, swagger was the exact same on Sunkern as it was on anything else. Dynamic Punch is NOT the same on Machoke compared to other mons. If we ban a move for uncompetitiveness, it is because the mechanics of the move are wholly uncompetitive. Is Dynamic Punch uncompetitive on every mon? Is Dynamic Punch uncompetitive when it is 100% accurate? Is Dynamic Punch uncompetitive when it is 100% accurate and used by Machoke? The reasons for wanting to ban Dyanmic Punch are because it is uncompetitive when 100% accurate and used by Machoke. In this case, Machoke is what needs to be suspected, not Dyanmic Punch.
This is not a discussion about the competitiveness of confusion. If you would like to make such a thread go ahead. This discussion about Dynamic Punch has a few more nuances to it then just a blanket "is confusion competitive or not" to say that is the entire point of the discussion.
theres no reason to use dynamicpunch on machoke except confusion, literally none. I think that it is mechanically the same on every Pokemon. There's no reason to use it on Machoke except to fish for confusion, and theres no reason to use it on, idk, Tyranitar, except for to fish for confusion. It's just as uncompetitive on any other Pokemon as on Machoke, just worse. Same as Swagger being just as uncompetitive on Sunkern as Klefki, just worse. You can't say that a +1 prio confusion move and a +0 prio confusion move are mechanically identical any more than a 100% and 50% accurate one.
Except banning Dynamic Punch would take something like a 100 BP Fighting Type move (it has Hammer Arm but that lower speed, so Dynamic Punch is objectively superior) from Golett. Similar for other mons, except obviously they don't use it due to the accuracy. Banning Dynamic Punch has actual competitive implications. Banning Swagger didn't.
for what it's worth golett is about as irrelevant to PU as you can get, it has absolutely zero impact on the tier and therefore i'd strongly argue that it isn't a legitimate casualty at all and shouldn't be considered if the only concern is competitive impact, if the concern is that it's legal at all with 100% accurate dynamicpunch then fair enough.
I do think it's worth noting that while dynamicpunch isn't broken on everything that gets it, it is broken on everything that is viable with it, which is a definite distinction when making the comparison to swagger.
I do think it's worth noting that while dynamicpunch isn't broken on everything that gets it, it is broken on everything that is viable with it, which is a definite distinction when making the comparison to swagger.
This is just another instance of the narrow vs. broad banning issue that always pops up. I've always supported narrow banning within reason. If it's one easily discernible thing that breaks a pokemon, just do a narrow complex ban. It keeps maximum diversity within the tier while removing small breaking issues. I'd love to see a move forward in banning policy to be more pragmatic with our bans rather than hold an inflexible stance because "slippery slope".
What I think separates this issue from say "banning dragon moves on dpp mence" or something in that vein is that we're looking at a very unique set of circumstances that results in this one move being busted on this one (or two) Pokemon. It seems to make more sense to just remove that minor issue than remove a (from what I gather healthy addition to the tier) Pokemon from a tier.
What I think separates this issue from say "banning dragon moves on dpp mence" or something in that vein is that we're looking at a very unique set of circumstances that results in this one move being busted on this one (or two) Pokemon. It seems to make more sense to just remove that minor issue than remove a (from what I gather healthy addition to the tier) Pokemon from a tier.
i don't think smogon tiering should support nerfing pokemon to maintain balance. banning moves should be reserved for very extreme cases, mons should be banned in other circumstances. literally only one pokemon uses the move to a degree that would make people consider a ban while many others have access to it and choose not to use it. machoke is an overpowered abuser of the move, the move itself is not overpowered.
Dunno if there's any gen 6 competitive implications but Dynamicpunch is a legitimate coverage move in Gen 2 on mixed attackers, and especially on Gengar who otherwise is heavily checked by Tyranitar. This raises the implication of possibility that Dpunch has actual use outside of confusion whoring.
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The negative competitive impact of banning dpunch (in PU) is pretty much nonexistent compared to the positive impact of removing the layers of uncompetitiveness involved. Two reasons: 1. The users aside from Machoke have absolutely no competitive relevance in PU (and for this reason, this pretty much makes the concern about legitimate casualty moot), and 2. Those same users only use it with the sole intention of relying on guaranteed (100%) confusion hax, and/or forcing the opponent to make a suboptimal switch out of fear of said confusion hax. This is what adds unnecessary layers of uncompetitiveness in battle, which is something that I think it's best avoided if it can be helped among the competitive tiers.
I also don't see why Scald is being compared to Dynamic Punch. Unlike Scald, the secondary effect is not RNG-related but instead guaranteed outside of niche abilities or items. So, in this case, it's not "fishing" for confusion, it's essentially using it in the form of an attack. I argue that to be even worse than Confuse Ray because while you're primarily focusing on confusing stuff with that too, you're actively inflicting damage on the opponent as well. This is all ignoring the fact that losing turns to confusion is much more volatile than being worn down with your Attack being halved.
Banning Machoke is an option, but the council had already cleared out valid reasons for why banning Machoke would only be more of a negative thing than a positive one, and I believe it's perfectly reasonable to prioritize on what's best for the tier.
About Chatter, even with Chatot being the only Pokemon with the move, much of the same logic about competitive implications applies. It's Chatot's only decent Flying STAB move, but with the addition of the guaranteed confused chance. I don't see how Machoke with Dynamicpunch is any different, and unlike Chatot in this instance, Machoke actually has alternate options that provide no collateral damage to its viability.
What if we were to make this suggestion a little more complex and disallow No Guard + Dynamicpunch? Reasons 1 and 2 in my first paragraph can pretty much conclude that dpunch IS uncompetitive when it is 100% accurate, rather than simply on Machoke (especially when Anty can win room tours by spamming Trick Room Dynamicpunch teams w/ machop + machoke + golett and getting lucky hue). This complex ban also readily addresses the issue without extra collateral damage (no one's going to use it regularly due to low accuracy, and nobody's going to use Golurk/Machop to solely rely on hax anymore).
I also don't see why Scald is being compared to Dynamic Punch. Unlike Scald, the secondary effect is not RNG-related but instead guaranteed outside of niche abilities or items. So, in this case, it's not "fishing" for confusion, it's essentially using it in the form of an attack. I argue that to be even worse than Confuse Ray because while you're primarily focusing on confusing stuff with that too, you're actively inflicting damage on the opponent as well. This is all ignoring the fact that losing turns to confusion is much more volatile than being worn down with your Attack being halved.
Banning Machoke is an option, but the council had already cleared out valid reasons for why banning Machoke would only be more of a negative thing than a positive one, and I believe it's perfectly reasonable to prioritize on what's best for the tier.
About Chatter, even with Chatot being the only Pokemon with the move, much of the same logic about competitive implications applies. It's Chatot's only decent Flying STAB move, but with the addition of the guaranteed confused chance. I don't see how Machoke with Dynamicpunch is any different, and unlike Chatot in this instance, Machoke actually has alternate options that provide no collateral damage to its viability.
What if we were to make this suggestion a little more complex and disallow No Guard + Dynamicpunch? Reasons 1 and 2 in my first paragraph can pretty much conclude that dpunch IS uncompetitive when it is 100% accurate, rather than simply on Machoke (especially when Anty can win room tours by spamming Trick Room Dynamicpunch teams w/ machop + machoke + golett and getting lucky hue). This complex ban also readily addresses the issue without extra collateral damage (no one's going to use it regularly due to low accuracy, and nobody's going to use Golurk/Machop to solely rely on hax anymore).
More complex just seems like trying to dodge the issue. No Guard + Dpunch isn't a problem (unless the whole Machop part was actually serious), its a problem when an already good pokemon has that and it makes it too good. How can we apply this here, but not apply this in cases like Speed Boost + Blaziken.
The uncompetitive element is something that would allow that, but I'm not completely convinced that an 8 PP move on one pokemon should be considered uncompetitive, especially when the effects reset once you switch out. At least Chatter and Swagger you could spam without worrying about pp.
The uncompetitive element is something that would allow that, but I'm not completely convinced that an 8 PP move on one pokemon should be considered uncompetitive, especially when the effects reset once you switch out. At least Chatter and Swagger you could spam without worrying about pp.
I mean, from what I have gathered from this thread, people are arguing that a complex ban is too much since not all pokemon who carry dpunch are broken with it, nor are every combo of dpunch + no guard broken either since there are some shitty pokemon who learn it.
But then what we're left with is, from what I can tell, an impossible situation standpoint in terms of the PU council and I can empathize with the decision that has to be made here. Because machoke on its own is not a broken pokemon, it is very viable, it's very consistent, it has a lot of checks and counters.
However, if you consider confusion in this scenario, then a pokemon providing confusion as a way of breaking past its walls and counters because they are unable to hit them back, allowing free switches for your team and forcing switches at the same time, this pokemon may seem quite unhealthy for that reason. But from my perspective, machoke is a very healthy pokemon for PU to have in the tier for what it does outside of confusion chance.
Now from what I gather, it is not the move nor the pokemon here that is broken, but confusion in general that needs to be gone here. Moves that 100% confuse the opponent with no risk of a miss or setback, with move combinations such as dpunch + no guard and confuse ray are what takes the competitive element out of it.
Using confuse-ray purely as an example here in this replay: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-nu-155213 nupl week 5
it shows that you do not need to try and outpredict your opponent, you can sit there and click prankster confuse ray + twave and you'll win the match up 75% of the time. Confusion inducing moves (excluding outrage and water pulse etc etc) like no guard dpunch, chatter, confuse ray, swagger etc provide nothing but a coin flip in terms of competitive play. If by not banning dpunch + no guard / other confusion inducing move combinations isn't a step in the right direction for improving competitive play, then I just disagree. I appreciate my post is a little jumbled in terms of the points i'm making, but it's late so fuck it.
my point is that banning the pokemon won't solve the issue that confusion inducing combinations such as no guard + dpunch + moves such as confuse ray or swagger produce in our games, i think that by banning them or at least suspecting them, it's a step in the right direction for producing a more satisfying and competitive battling experience.
tl;dr banning 100% confusion chance is a good thing
But then what we're left with is, from what I can tell, an impossible situation standpoint in terms of the PU council and I can empathize with the decision that has to be made here. Because machoke on its own is not a broken pokemon, it is very viable, it's very consistent, it has a lot of checks and counters.
However, if you consider confusion in this scenario, then a pokemon providing confusion as a way of breaking past its walls and counters because they are unable to hit them back, allowing free switches for your team and forcing switches at the same time, this pokemon may seem quite unhealthy for that reason. But from my perspective, machoke is a very healthy pokemon for PU to have in the tier for what it does outside of confusion chance.
Now from what I gather, it is not the move nor the pokemon here that is broken, but confusion in general that needs to be gone here. Moves that 100% confuse the opponent with no risk of a miss or setback, with move combinations such as dpunch + no guard and confuse ray are what takes the competitive element out of it.
Using confuse-ray purely as an example here in this replay: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-nu-155213 nupl week 5
it shows that you do not need to try and outpredict your opponent, you can sit there and click prankster confuse ray + twave and you'll win the match up 75% of the time. Confusion inducing moves (excluding outrage and water pulse etc etc) like no guard dpunch, chatter, confuse ray, swagger etc provide nothing but a coin flip in terms of competitive play. If by not banning dpunch + no guard / other confusion inducing move combinations isn't a step in the right direction for improving competitive play, then I just disagree. I appreciate my post is a little jumbled in terms of the points i'm making, but it's late so fuck it.
my point is that banning the pokemon won't solve the issue that confusion inducing combinations such as no guard + dpunch + moves such as confuse ray or swagger produce in our games, i think that by banning them or at least suspecting them, it's a step in the right direction for producing a more satisfying and competitive battling experience.
tl;dr banning 100% confusion chance is a good thing
there's enough support for a confusion ban to justify the creation of a separate thread. it's a much bigger issue with farther reaching implications and should be discussed in detail on its own. someone in the pro-confusion ban camp should spend some time thinking through the talking points and post something to get us started.
I can move posts from this thread to the new one upon request once the thread is up
I can move posts from this thread to the new one upon request once the thread is up
Teddeh, that replay was a poor show-casing of the "adverse" effects of confusion. HJAD barely even capitalized on the free turns created by parafusion b/c his team is so defensive / passive, outside of Archeops (which he never brought in on a confused foe). The only reason Shake lost was because he was cockblocked by Throh after his Xatu ate a Knock Off from Liepard, Scyther ate an Acrobatics from Archeops (predicting an Earth Power I guess), and Torterra died prematurely to Wood Hammer recoils. The only meaningful damage inflicted by confusion was to Torterra, which scraped away merely a quarter of its health while HJAD roosted his Volbeat & Encore trapped him into Stone Edge. It was definitely a momentum suck, but hardly a game-defining turn in contrast to the loss of Xatu and Scyther, which were NOT due to confusion.
Also, this kinda falls back into the issue of priority paralysis + confusion spam as opposed to parafusion itself. Without Prankster abilities, Volbeat & Illumise could not have applied as much pressure as it has and would've simply been Scyther meat. I don't even play this tier, so tell me if I am missing something, but it looks pretty clear to me that confusion didn't take away excessive amount of player control in this game.
replay: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-nu-155213
Also, this kinda falls back into the issue of priority paralysis + confusion spam as opposed to parafusion itself. Without Prankster abilities, Volbeat & Illumise could not have applied as much pressure as it has and would've simply been Scyther meat. I don't even play this tier, so tell me if I am missing something, but it looks pretty clear to me that confusion didn't take away excessive amount of player control in this game.
replay: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-nu-155213
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