Obi's Stall and DT's Hail teams have rekindled my love of theme teams all over again and I've been thinking recently about a good, old niche to bring back up for discussion.
On Shoddy, it seems to me that very few people are abusing 'the most hated theme of ADV' in lieu of the simpler sweep or weather abuse. Additionally, I haven't seen any talk about Baton Pass in D/P for months. It seems to me that very little changed for BP, so why the lack of teams? Were they not seemingly everywhere not too long ago?...
First, I will try to cover what is left over from ADV BP and do a bit of refresh for anyone who missed ADV.
Then, I'll look for what is new in D/P BP and relevance to D/P changes in general.
Lastly, I'll see if I can come up a semblance of a DPBP team and request criticisms for this whole effort in general. Is it worth it? Is it still scary?
A quick list of pokemon that learn baton pass and are ~useful (please comment immediately if I missed anything in this integral step!):
ADV:
-Zapdos, Absol, Eeveelutions (seven in all), Mr.Mime, Celebi, Ninjask, Huntail/Gorebyss, Scyther/Scizor, Blaziken, Delcatty, Medicham, Mawile, Girafarig, Ariados, Smeargle.
D/P:
-Togekiss, Ambipom, Drifblim, Lopunny, Gliscor, Floatzel.
ADV.
ADV BP was marked by a team of effectively the same 6 pokemon: Ingrain Smeargle and/or Soundproof Mr.Mime to stop phazing, Ninjask, Scizor or Mawile for some semblance of physical bulk, Vaporeon for huge subs and more bulk, Celebi/Zapdos for stomping, and some generic BP recipient (hello there Medicham).
Ninjask subs, protects, or drypasses to the phaze stopper to get the ball rolling with some much needed speed boosts. If the phazer could not do it's job, a switch to bulk would counter the opponent's switch to some generic sweeper. Acid Armor, CM, or Iron Defense and a sub would be picked up along the path to put cloture to an opponent's sweep. Lastly, some Sword's Dances or CMs would be passed to the recipient of choice and the opponent would have to deal with a pokemon that would not die and was swinging off of usually in the upwards of 1000 attack. We usually saw Medicham, Marowak, something with Battle Armor to stop crits, or some generic sweep that just loved boosts (Heracross, Salamence, etc).
It was a bane. Not only was the whole process as predictable as a trainwreck, it required fairly specific counters to put the kibosh on the operation. The subs could almost never get broken and would protect the subees from every status imaginable. Worse yet, the pokemon passing were not terrible by any standards: Vaporeon, Celebi, Zapdos, Scizor, all fairly powerful in their own regard. The biggest ways to stop it were to take out the phaze-stopper, get an actual haze instead of a pseudo-haze, Psych Up, Perish Song, boost your own stats faster than the opponent, or encore/trickbanding the opponent on a stat-up.
For ADV, there's already an article written on it by Obi (I believe) which is much more articulate, more accurate, and more applicable than this once-over I'm giving. Hopefully with BP on the mind, let us go onwards to April 22 of this year.
D/P.
Immediately there is the business of new attacks, pokemon, items, and abilities to cover.
Aqua Ring, Nasty Plot, Charge Beam, Heart Swap, and Stockpile are all of immediate importance as they are the "new" SD and CM. Aqua Ring is helpful for making yourself more invincible, Nasty Plot makes all the difference in the world for people who want to BP a special sweeper, Charge Beam is a booster and attack that you can throw on something to help the chain and keep pressure on the opponent at once, Heart Swap could possibly mean the death of BP (though I do hope Manaphy goes and stays uber), and Stockpile is the new Cosmic Power that a ton of people have in their movepool.
The pokemon mentioned above are all a great boon to BP as well:
-Togekiss, the bulky special wall/sweeper that can pass Nasty Plot, heal itself, and flinchhax from here to Barcelona.
-Ambipom, the speedy physical/mixed sweeper with SD, Agility, and NP in addition to Technician.
-Drifblim, the odd-typed, semi-defensive ghost with an AMAZING ability and subs bigger than the Grand Canyon.
-Lopunny, faster than base 100s, immune to trickbanding (and can do some of her own), encorer, and agilipasser.
-Gliscor, a physical wall that can stop Heracross! God damn! Comes equipped with great type and stats and can SD or Agility.
-Floatzel, lolKristyHaruka<3. BU passer and generally amazing sweeper with Taunt on the side.
-And two new Eeveelutions, namely Leafeon who can take a few physical hit and pass a SD or Glaceon who can scare off anything that doesn't resist her Ice Beam.
Focus Sash deserves a BOOK for all its uses in DPBP and elsewhere. Imagine a hold item that promises your Smeargle will always get that Ingrain off or that your Ninjask can pass a boost without fear. Just in general, Focus Sash adds a whole new level of flexibility to the BP chain and removes a large part of the risk. Everyone here is painfully aware of Focus Sash's utility by now so I'll leave it at this. Expert Belt and Life Orb allow your attackers to keep more pressure on the opponent while still allowing for stat-ups and BP. Shed Shell allows you to avoid whatever traps your opponent may have left.
Lastly, Filter makes Mr. Mime ~more tanky, Unburden makes Drifblim fly, Klutz was already mentioned for Lopunny, Magic Guard could potentially give you a Clefable that is immune to poison and leech seed, Bibarel's Simple AND Unaware have their own can of worms for BP, and Super Luck could dent through your armor. Sometimes I wonder if Gamefreak knew how powerful BP teams are.
TEAM.
First and foremost, let me express my concern for why DPBP is on the decline. Nowhere up above did I mention Blissey, Cresselia, or Skarmory. BP's number one concern in my eyes is that, outside of Celebi, Vaporeon, and Gliscor, there is a painful lack of defense on both the physical and special fronts. That's not to say that it wasn't the same case in ADV, only that with a lot of the new sweepers (and most importantly, the new MIXED sweepers), it is made painfully more obvious.
The emotion is dour but must be ultimately ignored if any progress is to be made in this venture. Luckily, there are new tricks that remedy the defensive situation enough to make it manageable (hello Focus Sash, hello Stockpile, hello Roost).
So what does BP need? Let's use the ADV formula and see how far it gets us in the form of roles. Well, first decide if you want to go physical or special, here I'll be using physical.
Ninjask (Sub, Xscissor, SD) is still around and is a very popular lead. Jolteon is likewise a very common lead that can pass a sub or some speed. Neither will betray the BP secret and both can dent the opponent pretty well. Ambipom is a pretty terrific starter as well and can get the party started with SD. I enjoy Ninjask not just for passing speed and SD better than everyone, but for drawing out the common phazer switch.
Ingrain Smeargle with Focus Sash (Ingrain, Spore, Endeavor) remains the best bet to stop phazing and provide some much needed healing to the team. Assuming the opponent switches to their phazer on the same turn you switch to Smeargle, the opponent is left with the same painful dilemma as in ADV. If you stay in to kill him, you risk his ingrain and his subsequent BP down the chain. Therefore you must be able to 2HKO and be faster than him, not exactly common among phazers. If you switch, he can Spore and get an ingrain for free (worst bet by far). For the purposes of this mental exercise, I'll make him the first actual member of the team.
Soundproof Mr.Mime got a hit in D/P with Skarm gaining Whirlwind. Stopping Perish Song is still nice and considering most PSong users still hit on the Special Defense side (Celebi, Mismagius, Lapras). Luckily, Obi is the only person I've seen actually use PSong, so for now I'm safe.
Taunting Floatzel is another alternative to stop phazers (or a secondary alternative).
For the position of bulk, a few names immediately spring up. Scizor is still steel-type as always and can pass his Iron Defense, SD, or Agility. Gliscor has amazing defense and immune to bolt/eq and can pass his SD or Agility. Gorebyss can Barrier or Amnesia (though her survivability is questionable). Vaporeon can Acid Armor and Aqua Ring (oh my).
For secondary bulk, Drifblim makes him appearance being able to Stockpile, Sub down to a berry boost, and baton pass the sub/berry/cm/stockpile with his unburden boost. Togekiss can take quite a few special attacks and Roost them off, put up a light screen, and buff your offense.
As of right now, Gyarados, the dragons, Weavile, Gengar, T-tar, Heracross, and Infernape are the offensive front of nearly every team and my most immediate worry. Vaporeon is the perfect bulky water for the job with Acid Armor, Surf, Ice Beam here along with Gliscor with SD, Roost, and EQ, the two covering each other's weaknesses very well.
The only thing lacking is sp.def and resistances which can be helped by a CM Celebi (CM, Energy Ball, Psychic) best.
Lastly, there needs to be a recipient. Electivire is a decent choice thanks to its ability to hit nearly everything SE. Anything with Battle Armor or something that blocks crit gets a definite nod. Cradily or Octillery can remove the need for ingrain at the end. Clefable can be immune to all side-damage and carry Boltbeam for those inclined. Most of the time, it will not matter who you put here since it will ideally be invincible and with an attack through the roof.
Medicham, Marowak, Azumarill, and Bibarel stand out for the very specific reason of getting huge really fast. Simple Bibarel in particular, for the reason that after one SD he has 1180 attack (that's a truism) and that a part of everyone wants to sweep with a Bibarel. He's easy to set up (one Acid Armor and he has ~700 or more defense) and double STAB Waterfall/Return is not resisted. Hyper Fang on switches so you don't have to worry about a Water Absorb or a Normal Resister is another amazing ability. And best of all, you can run Taunt as his last ability to stop Perish Song. What can I say, this set is the reason I wanted to make this whole... damn... thread. <3
Alright Smogon! There's more I want to cover but anymore and I risk the three people still reading to finally leave. Please comment away and end this wall-text madness.
tl;dr: Baton Pass teams in the realm of Hail, Sand, Stall, and Trick Room? Anything new in D/P or is it the same old stuff from ADV? Did he just say sweep with a Bibarel?
On Shoddy, it seems to me that very few people are abusing 'the most hated theme of ADV' in lieu of the simpler sweep or weather abuse. Additionally, I haven't seen any talk about Baton Pass in D/P for months. It seems to me that very little changed for BP, so why the lack of teams? Were they not seemingly everywhere not too long ago?...
First, I will try to cover what is left over from ADV BP and do a bit of refresh for anyone who missed ADV.
Then, I'll look for what is new in D/P BP and relevance to D/P changes in general.
Lastly, I'll see if I can come up a semblance of a DPBP team and request criticisms for this whole effort in general. Is it worth it? Is it still scary?
A quick list of pokemon that learn baton pass and are ~useful (please comment immediately if I missed anything in this integral step!):
ADV:
-Zapdos, Absol, Eeveelutions (seven in all), Mr.Mime, Celebi, Ninjask, Huntail/Gorebyss, Scyther/Scizor, Blaziken, Delcatty, Medicham, Mawile, Girafarig, Ariados, Smeargle.
D/P:
-Togekiss, Ambipom, Drifblim, Lopunny, Gliscor, Floatzel.
ADV.
ADV BP was marked by a team of effectively the same 6 pokemon: Ingrain Smeargle and/or Soundproof Mr.Mime to stop phazing, Ninjask, Scizor or Mawile for some semblance of physical bulk, Vaporeon for huge subs and more bulk, Celebi/Zapdos for stomping, and some generic BP recipient (hello there Medicham).
Ninjask subs, protects, or drypasses to the phaze stopper to get the ball rolling with some much needed speed boosts. If the phazer could not do it's job, a switch to bulk would counter the opponent's switch to some generic sweeper. Acid Armor, CM, or Iron Defense and a sub would be picked up along the path to put cloture to an opponent's sweep. Lastly, some Sword's Dances or CMs would be passed to the recipient of choice and the opponent would have to deal with a pokemon that would not die and was swinging off of usually in the upwards of 1000 attack. We usually saw Medicham, Marowak, something with Battle Armor to stop crits, or some generic sweep that just loved boosts (Heracross, Salamence, etc).
It was a bane. Not only was the whole process as predictable as a trainwreck, it required fairly specific counters to put the kibosh on the operation. The subs could almost never get broken and would protect the subees from every status imaginable. Worse yet, the pokemon passing were not terrible by any standards: Vaporeon, Celebi, Zapdos, Scizor, all fairly powerful in their own regard. The biggest ways to stop it were to take out the phaze-stopper, get an actual haze instead of a pseudo-haze, Psych Up, Perish Song, boost your own stats faster than the opponent, or encore/trickbanding the opponent on a stat-up.
For ADV, there's already an article written on it by Obi (I believe) which is much more articulate, more accurate, and more applicable than this once-over I'm giving. Hopefully with BP on the mind, let us go onwards to April 22 of this year.
D/P.
Immediately there is the business of new attacks, pokemon, items, and abilities to cover.
Aqua Ring, Nasty Plot, Charge Beam, Heart Swap, and Stockpile are all of immediate importance as they are the "new" SD and CM. Aqua Ring is helpful for making yourself more invincible, Nasty Plot makes all the difference in the world for people who want to BP a special sweeper, Charge Beam is a booster and attack that you can throw on something to help the chain and keep pressure on the opponent at once, Heart Swap could possibly mean the death of BP (though I do hope Manaphy goes and stays uber), and Stockpile is the new Cosmic Power that a ton of people have in their movepool.
The pokemon mentioned above are all a great boon to BP as well:
-Togekiss, the bulky special wall/sweeper that can pass Nasty Plot, heal itself, and flinchhax from here to Barcelona.
-Ambipom, the speedy physical/mixed sweeper with SD, Agility, and NP in addition to Technician.
-Drifblim, the odd-typed, semi-defensive ghost with an AMAZING ability and subs bigger than the Grand Canyon.
-Lopunny, faster than base 100s, immune to trickbanding (and can do some of her own), encorer, and agilipasser.
-Gliscor, a physical wall that can stop Heracross! God damn! Comes equipped with great type and stats and can SD or Agility.
-Floatzel, lolKristyHaruka<3. BU passer and generally amazing sweeper with Taunt on the side.
-And two new Eeveelutions, namely Leafeon who can take a few physical hit and pass a SD or Glaceon who can scare off anything that doesn't resist her Ice Beam.
Focus Sash deserves a BOOK for all its uses in DPBP and elsewhere. Imagine a hold item that promises your Smeargle will always get that Ingrain off or that your Ninjask can pass a boost without fear. Just in general, Focus Sash adds a whole new level of flexibility to the BP chain and removes a large part of the risk. Everyone here is painfully aware of Focus Sash's utility by now so I'll leave it at this. Expert Belt and Life Orb allow your attackers to keep more pressure on the opponent while still allowing for stat-ups and BP. Shed Shell allows you to avoid whatever traps your opponent may have left.
Lastly, Filter makes Mr. Mime ~more tanky, Unburden makes Drifblim fly, Klutz was already mentioned for Lopunny, Magic Guard could potentially give you a Clefable that is immune to poison and leech seed, Bibarel's Simple AND Unaware have their own can of worms for BP, and Super Luck could dent through your armor. Sometimes I wonder if Gamefreak knew how powerful BP teams are.
TEAM.
First and foremost, let me express my concern for why DPBP is on the decline. Nowhere up above did I mention Blissey, Cresselia, or Skarmory. BP's number one concern in my eyes is that, outside of Celebi, Vaporeon, and Gliscor, there is a painful lack of defense on both the physical and special fronts. That's not to say that it wasn't the same case in ADV, only that with a lot of the new sweepers (and most importantly, the new MIXED sweepers), it is made painfully more obvious.
The emotion is dour but must be ultimately ignored if any progress is to be made in this venture. Luckily, there are new tricks that remedy the defensive situation enough to make it manageable (hello Focus Sash, hello Stockpile, hello Roost).
So what does BP need? Let's use the ADV formula and see how far it gets us in the form of roles. Well, first decide if you want to go physical or special, here I'll be using physical.
Ninjask (Sub, Xscissor, SD) is still around and is a very popular lead. Jolteon is likewise a very common lead that can pass a sub or some speed. Neither will betray the BP secret and both can dent the opponent pretty well. Ambipom is a pretty terrific starter as well and can get the party started with SD. I enjoy Ninjask not just for passing speed and SD better than everyone, but for drawing out the common phazer switch.
Ingrain Smeargle with Focus Sash (Ingrain, Spore, Endeavor) remains the best bet to stop phazing and provide some much needed healing to the team. Assuming the opponent switches to their phazer on the same turn you switch to Smeargle, the opponent is left with the same painful dilemma as in ADV. If you stay in to kill him, you risk his ingrain and his subsequent BP down the chain. Therefore you must be able to 2HKO and be faster than him, not exactly common among phazers. If you switch, he can Spore and get an ingrain for free (worst bet by far). For the purposes of this mental exercise, I'll make him the first actual member of the team.
Soundproof Mr.Mime got a hit in D/P with Skarm gaining Whirlwind. Stopping Perish Song is still nice and considering most PSong users still hit on the Special Defense side (Celebi, Mismagius, Lapras). Luckily, Obi is the only person I've seen actually use PSong, so for now I'm safe.
Taunting Floatzel is another alternative to stop phazers (or a secondary alternative).
For the position of bulk, a few names immediately spring up. Scizor is still steel-type as always and can pass his Iron Defense, SD, or Agility. Gliscor has amazing defense and immune to bolt/eq and can pass his SD or Agility. Gorebyss can Barrier or Amnesia (though her survivability is questionable). Vaporeon can Acid Armor and Aqua Ring (oh my).
For secondary bulk, Drifblim makes him appearance being able to Stockpile, Sub down to a berry boost, and baton pass the sub/berry/cm/stockpile with his unburden boost. Togekiss can take quite a few special attacks and Roost them off, put up a light screen, and buff your offense.
As of right now, Gyarados, the dragons, Weavile, Gengar, T-tar, Heracross, and Infernape are the offensive front of nearly every team and my most immediate worry. Vaporeon is the perfect bulky water for the job with Acid Armor, Surf, Ice Beam here along with Gliscor with SD, Roost, and EQ, the two covering each other's weaknesses very well.
The only thing lacking is sp.def and resistances which can be helped by a CM Celebi (CM, Energy Ball, Psychic) best.
Lastly, there needs to be a recipient. Electivire is a decent choice thanks to its ability to hit nearly everything SE. Anything with Battle Armor or something that blocks crit gets a definite nod. Cradily or Octillery can remove the need for ingrain at the end. Clefable can be immune to all side-damage and carry Boltbeam for those inclined. Most of the time, it will not matter who you put here since it will ideally be invincible and with an attack through the roof.
Medicham, Marowak, Azumarill, and Bibarel stand out for the very specific reason of getting huge really fast. Simple Bibarel in particular, for the reason that after one SD he has 1180 attack (that's a truism) and that a part of everyone wants to sweep with a Bibarel. He's easy to set up (one Acid Armor and he has ~700 or more defense) and double STAB Waterfall/Return is not resisted. Hyper Fang on switches so you don't have to worry about a Water Absorb or a Normal Resister is another amazing ability. And best of all, you can run Taunt as his last ability to stop Perish Song. What can I say, this set is the reason I wanted to make this whole... damn... thread. <3
Alright Smogon! There's more I want to cover but anymore and I risk the three people still reading to finally leave. Please comment away and end this wall-text madness.
tl;dr: Baton Pass teams in the realm of Hail, Sand, Stall, and Trick Room? Anything new in D/P or is it the same old stuff from ADV? Did he just say sweep with a Bibarel?