Yea bad matchups not autolose matchups. And we don't keep banning shit until it isn't broken that's horribly inefficient. Let's fix the problem not pussyfoot around it. I don't think you're going to be able to understand this point but I'll try ._.
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Baton Pass - its role in the metagame and possible solutions to nerf full Baton Pass chains
- Thread starter haunter
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As you said in the last bit, we need to get to the root of the problem. Scolipede is clearly not the root of it, neither is any singular Pokémon, ability, or move (yes, Baton Pass isn't the problem). It's the chain that causes the problem. That's why I think putting a limit on passers would be the best compromise for everybody. There are a fair number of people who would be angry if Scolipede or Baton Pass were banned because they use them outside of full BP teams. They're both viable things in the meta, & neither are unhealthy or broken on their own. What is unhealthy is the chaining, so limiting how many in your team can use Baton Pass directly addresses the problem. Banning Scolipede is a complete panic button, it wouldn't even solve the problem because people would just use Ninjask. I'm in favour of banning a singular Pokémon when almost everything it does is considering broken, Scolipede (or any other BP staple) is clearly not that.
I just feel like simple bans like "ban X" or "ban Y" don't fully address the problem in some situations. So a complex ban is, as implied, complex. It's also more fair & logical in some cases, this being one of them.
Except we keep banning stuff until the metagame isn't broken, that's what suspecting pokemon is all about (just look at UU right now). If a pokemon is broken we ban it, we don't care why it's broken. People say that Scolipede or Espeon aren't the problem, but without the move/ability combination they have, the BP strategy would fall apart. Pokemon are defined by their combinations of moves and abilities. You can try to conceptualize the interaction so "BP chains" become something unrelated with the Pokemon, but you're just stripping qualities from the pokes so you can keep them around.
If we don't pussyfoot around the issue, then we ban Baton Pass. You cannot claim to take the bold direction and scream collateral damage at every turn.
I think one thing that could give Baton Pass teams some trouble is powerful attacking leads with Agility or Rock Polish. If they lead with Scolipede you could set up an agility on the predicted first turn Protect and then smash it with an attack that outspeeds the Baton Pass or Iron Defense next turn. Modest Life Orb Porygon-Z with Adaptability and Life Orb Terrakion were the first ones to come to mind. Sylveon and Vaporeon beat these guys one on one (unless Vaporeon has no attacking moves) but they should be able to weaken them enough that Priority can finish them off and break the chain. I think Infiltrator pokemon can also cause substantial problems especially Crobat and Chandelure (Chandelure also resists Hyper Voice and can smash Espeon with Shadow ball) who can run Haze to stop baton pass in it's tracks.
I would like to keep the "full BP team" strategy, but agree it could be nerfed some. Here is what I would do:
Ban Ingrain + Smeargle --> Phazing becomes easier, especially with Mold Breaker
Ban Stored Power --> Unaware mons now can properly wall BP teams. You could ban Stored Power + Espeon to just focus on BP, but it's pretty brokenly strong in general
Ban Ingrain + Smeargle --> Phazing becomes easier, especially with Mold Breaker
Ban Stored Power --> Unaware mons now can properly wall BP teams. You could ban Stored Power + Espeon to just focus on BP, but it's pretty brokenly strong in general
Are we banning "uncompetetive" things, or broken things?
Baton Pass has been around for loads of generations. As a single move, it's relatively harmless. With the influx of priority, speed, and power, it's become harder to utilize a Pass + Receiver strategy (although Smashpass is legit with Dual Screens), but full baton pass is a thing. In general, baton pass is not widely distributed, so only select few mons can pull such a strategy off, making "full baton pass" pretty much the same team each time.
In a sense, it's not creative and unoriginal. However, it's completely viable.
Is it broken, though?
No, not really.
Yeah, players can use Ingrain and Magic Bounce users to combat common phasing tactics, but that's kind of like everything. I can run Defiant users to combat Defog; does that make Defiant broken? Hell no. Full BP teams look the same, but individually it isn't broken.
I don't see the point in banning something that's just going to effect one type of (relatively uncommon, except for those two or three players spamming that same team) playstyle, if you could even call it that.
I see no reason to make SmashPass and even simple PassReceiver tactics void all because of Full BP. Granted, I hate facing full BP, but Full BP has been around for a long time. Why didn't we ban it in BW1? Nothing has changed for the playstyle in Gen6, literally (Scolipede aside)! If anything, CB Talonflame is another threat they have to hope someone doesn't lead with (iirc, that should 2HKO Scolipede, even assuming it Iron Defenses after taking a hit from +0, and OHKO Ninjask).
It's annoying, uncompetetive, but it's been around since gen3 (iirc). Magic Bounce didn't make full BP broken in gen5; why is it broken now? Someone tell me what has changed in the last several years, please. Is Scolipede really breaking everything (the only thing that has changed)? I'm sure it hasn't -- full BP does not need Scolipede to function.
I'm leaning towards no ban. Let's use this suspect test to ban something productive, please. Full BP is not used often. I don't even think it was used in SPL (although I didn't watch all the rounds, admittingly).
(EDIT: Oh, and Sylveon, I guess, but while that is certainly saving Baton Pass from being Bisharp weak asf, it in itself isn't breaking BP either.)
Baton Pass has been around for loads of generations. As a single move, it's relatively harmless. With the influx of priority, speed, and power, it's become harder to utilize a Pass + Receiver strategy (although Smashpass is legit with Dual Screens), but full baton pass is a thing. In general, baton pass is not widely distributed, so only select few mons can pull such a strategy off, making "full baton pass" pretty much the same team each time.
In a sense, it's not creative and unoriginal. However, it's completely viable.
Is it broken, though?
No, not really.
Yeah, players can use Ingrain and Magic Bounce users to combat common phasing tactics, but that's kind of like everything. I can run Defiant users to combat Defog; does that make Defiant broken? Hell no. Full BP teams look the same, but individually it isn't broken.
I don't see the point in banning something that's just going to effect one type of (relatively uncommon, except for those two or three players spamming that same team) playstyle, if you could even call it that.
I see no reason to make SmashPass and even simple PassReceiver tactics void all because of Full BP. Granted, I hate facing full BP, but Full BP has been around for a long time. Why didn't we ban it in BW1? Nothing has changed for the playstyle in Gen6, literally (Scolipede aside)! If anything, CB Talonflame is another threat they have to hope someone doesn't lead with (iirc, that should 2HKO Scolipede, even assuming it Iron Defenses after taking a hit from +0, and OHKO Ninjask).
It's annoying, uncompetetive, but it's been around since gen3 (iirc). Magic Bounce didn't make full BP broken in gen5; why is it broken now? Someone tell me what has changed in the last several years, please. Is Scolipede really breaking everything (the only thing that has changed)? I'm sure it hasn't -- full BP does not need Scolipede to function.
I'm leaning towards no ban. Let's use this suspect test to ban something productive, please. Full BP is not used often. I don't even think it was used in SPL (although I didn't watch all the rounds, admittingly).
(EDIT: Oh, and Sylveon, I guess, but while that is certainly saving Baton Pass from being Bisharp weak asf, it in itself isn't breaking BP either.)
i think baton pass teams should be banned because of how it defines the battles outcome: if you have a baton chain counter, you win; if not, you lose. given that the baton chain counters are very limited and often times are really bad or inviable, it should really be banned.
the biggest matter is how we should ban it. baton pass itself is arguably not a broken/uncompetitive move, there are a lot of creative, viable strategies including baton pass, so we should avoid a baton pass ban. the mons used in baton chains are also not broken or kinda viable; scolipede alone is actually a good pokemon, i wouldn't like to have it banned; espeon is a very bad mon, i see no point in having it banned; so it goes.
i agree with the idea of limiting the number of baton pass users per team; like, making a baton pass clause where you can only have up to 3 baton pass users on the same team imo is the best idea.
the biggest matter is how we should ban it. baton pass itself is arguably not a broken/uncompetitive move, there are a lot of creative, viable strategies including baton pass, so we should avoid a baton pass ban. the mons used in baton chains are also not broken or kinda viable; scolipede alone is actually a good pokemon, i wouldn't like to have it banned; espeon is a very bad mon, i see no point in having it banned; so it goes.
i agree with the idea of limiting the number of baton pass users per team; like, making a baton pass clause where you can only have up to 3 baton pass users on the same team imo is the best idea.
jukain is trying to make it so that it is not as many people are angered and so that baton pass can still be used effectively but not in an unfair way such as BP teams
its kind of like a gun you see.... we need to get just the right shot to please evryone and make it so baton pass is still viable and can work well but so its not unfairly over powered
what we DONT want to do is fire random rounds at things and think that will solve the problem their will be too many problems in the after math of it so we are trying to make it fair and not cause too many casualties which is why making it so that we ar elimited to 3,2 or 1 BP pokemon per team is the most rationalidea we can come up with for now
Baton Pass not being a legit playstyle is a completely subjective claim, and nothing is to be gained from responding to your post's content. In my posts I do not at all try to prove whether Baton Pass is a healthy playstyle; I try to prove that it's a manageable one, or that there are ways to at least attempt to make it so. I know that a large number of posters would like to see full Baton Pass teams go once and for all, and all I hope to show is that first seeing if the strategy is indeed as problematic as people claim it to be, then seeing if hampering its playability as opposed to killing it entirely, is a much more reasonable approach.
How can one claim that limiting the number of Baton Passers is the best compromise for everybody if it renders an entire playstyle unusable? Even if a majority of voters decides that full Baton Pass teams are unhealthy and need be rid of entirely, the choice to not recognize full defensive Baton Pass as a valid playstyle is a subjective one, and is literally the worst possible outcome for the supporters of the strategy.
mr mime i do understand how you feel and i felt the same way but then i realised that perhaps putting limits on passers will be the best solution for now
i do realise that this strategy is loved by many but it is very foggy at the momment and perhaps for now we should try limiting them JUST TRY for a while and then see where it goes
i understand that the strategy is going bye bye when we do this but i think its a risk we need to take right now and hope for the best
I see that now. While I reckon the efforts to make the OU format friendly for everyone, choices that aim to please are hardly the best way to build a respectable meta.
To me it's clear that either 1) Baton Pass is not broken nor uncompetitive so it remains as it is, or 2) we ban Baton Pass.
BP is the true source of any issue, and while we lose some nice interactions like avoiding Pursuit and short-passing, at least the message is clear. OU shouldn't try to fine tune the meta by adding complex bans into the mix, it's a bad principle that will turn the game into a popularity contest instead of aiming to allow every competitive strategy around. Ban the source of the issue and keep fine-tuning for the alternate meta forums.
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You're brilliant, this is the best solution I've read by far (as far as solutions for a broken BP team go, I stand by my position that it's not a problem).
UU is going to a completely different process than OU, in fact it's pretty much diametrically opposite (retest hastily offhand banned stuff and see, if it's healthy in UU). And looking at Baton Pass chains, as if it were just the six components, is missing the exercise of baton pass teams, which all act as one unit. These are not "minor interactions", by which the components work - you can't make Scolipede alone into a juggernaut, just as you can't ask one gear to make a clock go. The problem is the everything in a BP team, taken in as a whole.
And again, there will always be replacements for banned components, just as happened in Gen 5. There are more than one Pokemon with speed boost+BP and magic mirror+BP. Banning the compnents doesn't solve the many fundamental problems of BP teams.
On the other hand, Baton Pass is not like Swagger, and it's not even quite like Drizzle. It has plenty of use outside of this one degenerate team type, grants so many more niches, yet one or even two baton passers will not motor an entire team. It is much more controllable in isolation.
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This is not up for discussion. Baton Pass teams can use virtually any boosting move to power up Stored Power. We should be banning not just Iron Defense and Amnesia, but also Calm Mind, Acid Armor and Quiver Dance, all of which are fairly common on full Baton Pass chains.
Slight misplays as seen here -> http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-110056808 mean that even the strongest pokemon get walled by iron defense and passing.
Ban stat-boosting moves? What? That would be like saying we should ban Secret Sword on Keldeo or Thunder Wave on Thunderous so we don't ban them (assuming they get a suspect, I don't think their broken, but you get the point). There is such a thing as "too complex." You have to know where to draw the line.
Of course, Smogon doesn't have any lines. We simply aren't allowed to Complex Ban anything, even if justified (goodbye Swagger, RIP). So this option is out of the question.
EDIT: I'm not sure about the 2-3 mons only cap, but I'm am COMPLETELY against banning the move Baton Pass at all. Either a cap (maybe) or not at all, imo.
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Baton Pass - a move that passes everything to another pokemon that the pokemon using that move has, good or bad.
But is smogon the one who is passing on something, or the pokemon themselves?
To me, this isnt a problem of calcs, or results, or logical arguments for or against baton pass. I think that the site itself is the one who needs the complex ban.
I dont know why smogon insists on banning everything, and i dont know if it only distrubs me but, do you think we are jumping the gun with this? Shouldnt we wait to see if the ingenuity that has been so shirked in the past, will come through like it always does? Why is the first thing we decide to do is ban something when things get tough? You know, when we wanted to go to the moon and we found out it was hard to do we didnt just complex ban gravity so we could just jump to the fucker. We powered through it, and planted a flag on that motherfucker.
I can remember a time when smogon was shooting for higher quality. Badges used to be hard to get. Bans were few and far between, and none of them were complex, you were either banned or not. You didnt get a cute little ladybug for correcting a sentence on a smog article nobody will read, you had to do more. But now I think smogon has gone soft,
Stallion and C_M is right, if we can innovate to the point where we can use mold breaker mega gyara with roar, a pokemon that has NEVER been thought of, what could we do with the other 718 pokemon?
I speak as someone who has qualified for a suspect vote
But is smogon the one who is passing on something, or the pokemon themselves?
To me, this isnt a problem of calcs, or results, or logical arguments for or against baton pass. I think that the site itself is the one who needs the complex ban.
I dont know why smogon insists on banning everything, and i dont know if it only distrubs me but, do you think we are jumping the gun with this? Shouldnt we wait to see if the ingenuity that has been so shirked in the past, will come through like it always does? Why is the first thing we decide to do is ban something when things get tough? You know, when we wanted to go to the moon and we found out it was hard to do we didnt just complex ban gravity so we could just jump to the fucker. We powered through it, and planted a flag on that motherfucker.
I can remember a time when smogon was shooting for higher quality. Badges used to be hard to get. Bans were few and far between, and none of them were complex, you were either banned or not. You didnt get a cute little ladybug for correcting a sentence on a smog article nobody will read, you had to do more. But now I think smogon has gone soft,
Stallion and C_M is right, if we can innovate to the point where we can use mold breaker mega gyara with roar, a pokemon that has NEVER been thought of, what could we do with the other 718 pokemon?
I speak as someone who has qualified for a suspect vote
again i know i already responded to this ill say it again THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN stat boosting moves are one of the meta games most basic forms of strategy
think of the meta game as a child
you teach the child to read and write so it can live in society BUT think of stat boosting moves as reading
your literally taking a HUGE chunk out of the child spotential to function well in society
getting rid of stat boosting moves will cause a hell of a lot more problems then solve (if it even solves anything at all!)
I would like to add my few points to the discussion.
I ended up 8th (if I remember correctly) on the last Swagger suspect ladder and what struck me most that there were quite a lot of people laddering with full Baton Pass teams instead of said Swagger.
My fist thought was: cheap bastards :D haha but let's get to the point.
My team for the ladder was SD Aegislash, BD Azumarill,LO Roost Hydreigon,DD Mega Gyarados, Sash Mamoswine and Curse Steelix.
When played against Baton Pass team, I automatically considered the second half of my team WORTHLESS.
Iron Def Sco+ AA Roar Vaporeon bla bla I don't have to explain.
I usually led with Azumarill against their Scolipede The best scenario for me would be like this:
I weakened their Vaporeon but it still did its job pHazing me out
If I lead with SD Aegislash (I switch between many sets but I like it the most) Smeargle could just come and Spore (or even Encore) the fuck out of me thanks to its Sash. Many times the win was dependant on sleep turns. Sacred Swords hurts anything but Blade Forme can't take boosted Moonblast or Stored Powers. Both Sylveon and Espeon at +6 def (even +4) felt comfortable to set up.
Third lead - Hydreigon
Sylveon can come in at any time take less than 50 % from obvious Life Orb Flash Cannon, and obliterate me (force me out). More than always they start CMing in my face as I run away (or even if stay in)
without Sylveon and without Dazzling Gleam on Espeon, Roost Hydreigon can slowly chip health off entire Baton Pass team .
As you see, you can't have something for Baton Pass that isn't soft on a team like this. I can't afford Haze Quagsire as it kills the entire momentum I need to have for playing against other playstyles. People say 'You're ruining the Baton Pass, entire playstyle', whereas no one cares about all other playstyles that require some sort of skill, Balanced Offense, stall or whatsoever. Roar Mega Gyarados haha, people never see the Roar on regular Gyara (which is good by itself but can't roar Espeon)
The sad truth is that I felt disappointed battling many of these guys with their regular teams afterwards - they weren't in control this much. I mostly won such normal vs normal matches. The conclusion is that I had no damn idea how good the battler really was when he didn't suck at his Baton Pass (a five year old kid would do well enough). I consider it uncompetitive, advantageous of the distribution of support moves in the game (Haze Aegislash anyone), and LUCK BASED, seeing as its users fled like crybabies after getting struck by a critical hit, OMG.
some important equations:
sub + speed + baton pass = CONTROLLED METAMORPHISM
BATON PASS TEAM = 6*POKEMON*(BP + SUB +2*X) = 1* POKEMON with (24 - 12) = 12 free moves !!!!
PS I might run a Banded Super Luck Honchkrow lol.
I ended up 8th (if I remember correctly) on the last Swagger suspect ladder and what struck me most that there were quite a lot of people laddering with full Baton Pass teams instead of said Swagger.
My fist thought was: cheap bastards :D haha but let's get to the point.
My team for the ladder was SD Aegislash, BD Azumarill,LO Roost Hydreigon,DD Mega Gyarados, Sash Mamoswine and Curse Steelix.
When played against Baton Pass team, I automatically considered the second half of my team WORTHLESS.
Iron Def Sco+ AA Roar Vaporeon bla bla I don't have to explain.
I usually led with Azumarill against their Scolipede The best scenario for me would be like this:
I weakened their Vaporeon but it still did its job pHazing me out
If I lead with SD Aegislash (I switch between many sets but I like it the most) Smeargle could just come and Spore (or even Encore) the fuck out of me thanks to its Sash. Many times the win was dependant on sleep turns. Sacred Swords hurts anything but Blade Forme can't take boosted Moonblast or Stored Powers. Both Sylveon and Espeon at +6 def (even +4) felt comfortable to set up.
Third lead - Hydreigon
Sylveon can come in at any time take less than 50 % from obvious Life Orb Flash Cannon, and obliterate me (force me out). More than always they start CMing in my face as I run away (or even if stay in)
without Sylveon and without Dazzling Gleam on Espeon, Roost Hydreigon can slowly chip health off entire Baton Pass team .
As you see, you can't have something for Baton Pass that isn't soft on a team like this. I can't afford Haze Quagsire as it kills the entire momentum I need to have for playing against other playstyles. People say 'You're ruining the Baton Pass, entire playstyle', whereas no one cares about all other playstyles that require some sort of skill, Balanced Offense, stall or whatsoever. Roar Mega Gyarados haha, people never see the Roar on regular Gyara (which is good by itself but can't roar Espeon)
The sad truth is that I felt disappointed battling many of these guys with their regular teams afterwards - they weren't in control this much. I mostly won such normal vs normal matches. The conclusion is that I had no damn idea how good the battler really was when he didn't suck at his Baton Pass (a five year old kid would do well enough). I consider it uncompetitive, advantageous of the distribution of support moves in the game (Haze Aegislash anyone), and LUCK BASED, seeing as its users fled like crybabies after getting struck by a critical hit, OMG.
some important equations:
sub + speed + baton pass = CONTROLLED METAMORPHISM
BATON PASS TEAM = 6*POKEMON*(BP + SUB +2*X) = 1* POKEMON with (24 - 12) = 12 free moves !!!!
PS I might run a Banded Super Luck Honchkrow lol.
BATON PASS IS NOT BROKEN!!
everybody says stall is an autolose to BP if you dont have a haze quagsire or some stupid shit like that. This is NOT true. in fact, here's a replay. This is me beating Denissss, the #1 guy on the OU ladder, with my stall team. As you can see, i dont even carry haze quagsire or CM clefable or any of that shit, cuz its not necessary and BP is soooo easy to beat. Hell, only two of my pokes in that team are OU, and the rest are lower than OU, which goes to show how even shitty mons can beat BP with no problem whatsoever. And also, i am a consistent person on the top 10 of the OU ladder, so i am definitely able to pull my weight against most non BP teams as well.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-110056266
jk baton pass is broken af and stupid as shit and needs to be nerfed in some sort of way ASAP.
everybody says stall is an autolose to BP if you dont have a haze quagsire or some stupid shit like that. This is NOT true. in fact, here's a replay. This is me beating Denissss, the #1 guy on the OU ladder, with my stall team. As you can see, i dont even carry haze quagsire or CM clefable or any of that shit, cuz its not necessary and BP is soooo easy to beat. Hell, only two of my pokes in that team are OU, and the rest are lower than OU, which goes to show how even shitty mons can beat BP with no problem whatsoever. And also, i am a consistent person on the top 10 of the OU ladder, so i am definitely able to pull my weight against most non BP teams as well.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-110056266
jk baton pass is broken af and stupid as shit and needs to be nerfed in some sort of way ASAP.
perhaps you are right i only agree to only 3 BPers a team idea cuz i was tryng to make a simmilar statement but everyone just didnt want to think of a strategy except a select few it seemed im on board with you and although i will go with the 3 BP rule if all else fails im sure if we do try hard enoguh and put our heads together we can find something
Refer to my other two paragraphs if you think boosting moves shouldn't be touched.
Anyways, what the original poster meant was that moves that increase defenses greatly are actually what makes BP teams so effective at tanking everything. If your opponent cannot run Iron Defense and it's forced to run, Bulk Up or whatever, you can use Swords Dance and outrun the boosts they get. These moves are quite useless outside Baton Pass.
Banning Stored Power follows a similar reasoning, but it doesn't actually take away the tankiness of the Chain -or it's ability to be built efficiently-.
i have 2 small details for you
1. banning stored power isnt nuts but it certainly isnt the real base of the problem and im sure we can work around it
2. many strategys run off stat boosting moves that dont even need BP such as curse snorlax or shell smash cloyster with a white herb
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