Baton Pass - its role in the metagame and possible solutions to nerf full Baton Pass chains

[trillyntruly]

Nothing. Thats why you dont lead with Ninjask if the opponent has a super effective priority. (Scolipede cant take a brave bird before at least one iron defense either)
252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ninjask: 160-188 (49 - 57.6%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Dragonite Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ninjask: 112-132 (34.3 - 40.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
If you dont have ice shard/t-flame on your team, Ninjask can still pass 1~3 speed under priority. The only difference is your lead loses more hp than normal and needs Vaporeon/whatever to boost def for your chain. Is this enough of a nerf?

honestly, i don't think it's enough of a nerf, no. but i will never contend the obvious fact that scolipede vastly outclasses ninjask. having said that, assuming they see t-flame on my team, who'd be their best lead, vaporeon? because i feel like that's easy taunt-flame bait.

 

[Slayer95]

I've seen people arguing for the merits of Ninjask like a thousand times in this thread and thought I should point out that one of the most commonly run Pokemon in OU right now (t-flame) is its worst nightmare. Essentially saying, stop bringing up Ninjask, unless you have proof that he's effective, because as far as I can tell, anybody opening with a t-flame will run Ninjask's shit, and that's common (especially if you have t-flame on your team and you see a ninjask BP team, t-flame is the obvious choice). Until I see evidence that Ninjask can effectively fill Scolipede's role in the team, we should ignore him and try and figure out the best way to fix the issue.

Of course Ninjask has merits lol. It has always performed its job well prior to Gen 6. However, what everybody admits is that Scolipede has more merits.
Since Ninjask has always performed well and it is just outclassed by Scolipede, it can be argued that the burden of the proof should lie on the side dismissing Ninjask, which implies that Ninjask cannot be dismissed before proof is given. Any side should post their proof to settle this down.

but i will never contend the obvious fact that scolipede vastly outclasses ninjask

Nobody does. People who propose banning Scolipede as a solution, get this in your head.

honestly, i don't think it's enough of a nerf, no.

This is the point, and we want to know whether we must agree on that or not.

EDIT: Better wording.

 

[Awagarb]

assuming they see t-flame on my team, who'd be their best lead, vaporeon? because i feel like that's easy taunt-flame bait.

Preferably Zapdos if they have it. Smeargle and Vaporeon may also work.
Easy taunt bait?
0 SpA Vaporeon Surf vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Talonflame: 288-338 (80 - 93.8%)

Talonflame is also Scolipede's worst enemy, by the way. You cant lead with him, you cant switch in after only +2 def, etc.
252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Scolipede: 366-432 (112.9 - 133.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Flare Blitz vs. +2 252 HP / 252+ Def Scolipede: 186-218 (57.4 - 67.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[trillyntruly]

Of course Ninjask has merits lol. It has always performed well its job prior to Gen 6. However, what everybody admits is that Scolipede has more merits.
Since Ninjask has always performed well and it only is outclassed by Scolipede, it can be argued that the burden of the proof should lie on the side dismissing Ninjask, which implies that Ninjask cannot be dismissed. Any side should post their proof to settle this down.

well, yeah, i know ninjask has his merits. i'm not disagreeing there. i also agree that banning scolipede isn't the best solution, and in fact ninjask can perform his role well enough for the problem to persist, at the very least in the lower tiers.

Nobody does. People who propose banning Scolipede as a solution, get this in your head.

i am a tad confused, are you referring to me? i'm far from proposing that as a solution.

This is the point, and we want to know whether we must agree on that or not.

well shit, why doesn't somebody who's better than me do some ninjask testing? there's only one way to objectively come to a conclusion as to whether or not banning Scolipede is enough.

EDIT: well, i don't necessarily want to get into this, it's a prediction thing. if they try to acid armor, taunt-flame works. if he surfs and i taunt, i'm fucked. if i predict surf and switch into a hard counter, i have momentum. if i predict surf and he acid armors, damn son.

 

[Slayer95]

well, yeah, i know ninjask has his merits. i'm not disagreeing there. i also agree that banning scolipede isn't the best solution, and in fact ninjask can perform his role well enough for the problem to persist, at the very least in the lower tiers.

i am a tad confused, are you referring to me? i'm far from proposing that as a solution.

No. That's why I generalize it, and quote you below as backup.
The reason of your confusion is that Ninjask merits are mentioned as arguments against the ban of Scolipede, and you tried to dismiss them for completely different reasons.

well shit, why doesn't somebody who's better than me do some ninjask testing? there's only one way to objectively come to a conclusion as to whether or not banning Scolipede is enough.

Probably because people think it's not worth the effort of testing, as they think they know that they are right or don't want to weaken their position by providing any unconvenient proof found.

EDIT: Analysis of context

 

[trillyntruly]

No. That's why I generalize it, and quote you below as backup.
The reason of your confusion is that Ninjask merits are mentioned as arguments against the ban of Scolipede, and you tried to dismiss them for completely different reasons.

makes sense, i don't support the scolipede ban, but still argued that ninjask can't be as effective as scolipede.

Probably because people think it's not worth the effort of testing, as they think they know that they are right or don't want to weaken their position by providing any unconvenient proof found.

EDIT: Analysis of context

times like this i wish i had been playing competitively for longer than 4 months, i'd test myself if i was confident that my games meant a damn thing.

 

[jbtc10]

Today I saw something that will give my nightmares this night:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-116133693

Someone on the high ladder decided to make the standard bp team better. And give it some actual early game offensive power.

...

And they did it.

It had already been made better. Mr. Mime has been horrible for ages now and Smeargle, while certainly having a great niche in Spore, QD and a few other gimmicky tricks, has next to zero bulk, hence in many games it can't contribute as much as something like Scizor or Mew can, so there's no surprise people have been exploring other options and replacing the weaker links. Zapdos is almost too good not to use because of his excellency in countering a pretty big weakness the normal core suffers (among other reasons), and other things like Scizor and Mew are rightfully becoming more commonplace. One nice trend we're seeing is having an attacking move on most members instead of the usual 2, so that way it makes it much easier to handle things like Taunters and always being able to immediately put your attack boosts to use and be a constant offensive threat if need be.

 

[Ninja Charizard]

It had already been made better. Mr. Mime has been horrible for ages now and Smeargle, while certainly having a great niche in Spore, QD and a few other gimmicky tricks, has next to zero bulk, hence in many games it can't contribute as much as something like Scizor or Mew can, so there's no surprise people have been exploring other options and replacing the weaker links. Zapdos is almost too good not to use because of his excellency in countering a pretty big weakness the normal core suffers (among other reasons), and other things like Scizor and Mew are rightfully becoming more commonplace. One nice trend we're seeing is having an attacking move on most members instead of the usual 2, so that way it makes it much easier to handle things like Taunters and always being able to immediately put your attack boosts to use and be a constant offensive threat if need be.

Another thing I'm seeing is people actually leading with things that check my Gardevoir once they see it on team preview, instead of cluelessly leading with Scolipede and following the manual. I've had 3 losses in a row since that. It's harder to stop BP if they start with the type advantage.

 

[Waxcode]

How about a ban where you may only have x amount of Pokes with Baton Pass on your team. Banning Magic Bonce + Baton Pass I think is a little to much, because many Espeons run BP even though no other Poke on there team does, just for switch advantage, an I don't see anything wrong with that. Banning multiple instances of Baton Pass 100% shuts down the strategy for good.

 

[trillyntruly]

How about a ban where you may only have x amount of Pokes with Baton Pass on your team. Banning Magic Bonce + Baton Pass I think is a little to much, because many Espeons run BP even though no other Poke on there team does, just for switch advantage, an I don't see anything wrong with that. Banning multiple instances of Baton Pass 100% shuts down the strategy for good.

also avoiding pursuits.

 

[anubite]

Nothing has changed from this gen and the last gen in regards to BP besides Scoliopede getting SpeedBoost.

If we're really going to have a 95 page thread on a mechanic which has been fine for as long as we've had SR, just ban Scoliopede w/ SpeedBoost. The end. Scrubs can quit whining and the rest of the players who want to use BP can. Then, once this FOTM phase is over, we can unban Scoliopede and Swagger (because neither breaks OU at all).

 

[Eievui-Nymphia]

Absolutely nothing is broken about baton pass. Nothing. It's stopped by SD Pinsir/Talonflame/SD+Sacred Sword/Prankster taunt/Haze/Perish Song/Red Card/Ditto/Prankster Encore. If you can't be bothered to run ANY of those things that isn't BPs fault, it's yours. This is obviously one of those "I don't use it so I want it banned in order to have one less threat" mentalities. Facing Baton Pass=free win.

SD Pinsir. Baton pass teams can use Zapdos totake care of Priority Flying. There are others like Mega Mawile.

SD + Sacred Sword: The SD + King Shield Aegislash set has a lot of problems (a heavy 4MSS to start) that is little seen in the higher leader.

Prankster traunt is mainly seen on Thundurus, who may not have a slot for it, and Sbaleye and Whismicott which have little viability.

What team uses Haze since early Gen IV?
Perish Song was only used in Politoed and Celebi in Gen V: Two pokemon with ower usage this gen. Also, blocked by Mr Mime.

If Red Card has to be used in something else that a dedicated hazard setter, there's a big problem.

Ditto can use Imposter against Substitutes,a nd those are very common. Also, the standard set has Scarf and may not have offensive move or have the appropiate resist.

Prankster Encore is only used on Whismicott as far as I remember.

If foir defeat your strategy you need obscure counters that works bad everywhere else the strategy is uncompetitive.

I give an example of a broken strategy: Mega Gengar alone causes Chansey to be unvuable in Ubers. If MGengar didn't exist, Chansey could be one of the best non-native Ubers in the tier. They have o use the "in Ou inferior" Blissey, AND has to use an item named Shed Shell to be viable, really missing Leftovers.

Right now I dodn't even surprised if Gengarite went the Moody treatment.

An o course, my idea is to ban Scolipede with Baton Pass It's a complex ban but I think this is a special case because Scolipede is an average pokemon outside Bp teams (it's not S or A+ rank, for example). Scolpede has another sets that don't use Baton Pass and they aren't broken.

Actually, Speed Boost is a ability that has abig effect on almost any pokemon and causes a lot of problems in the metagames. The ability doesnt have problems on Ninjask because it's already very fast and it's very frail. It's not uncompetitive on Yanmega because it has no suport movepool, and has the bad Bug/Flying typing. Same with Sharpedo which is very frail. But it brokes the pokemon by his own (Blaziken) or by support of the team (Scolipede).

Banning Speed Boost would be a bad idea because destroy Sharpedo viability in OU/UU and a big part of Yanmega viability in UU.

 

[Mango Smoothie]

Nothing has changed from this gen and the last gen in regards to BP besides Scoliopede getting SpeedBoost.

If we're really going to have a 95 page thread on a mechanic which has been fine for as long as we've had SR, just ban Scoliopede w/ SpeedBoost. The end. Scrubs can quit whining and the rest of the players who want to use BP can. Then, once this FOTM phase is over, we can unban Scoliopede and Swagger (because neither breaks OU at all).

No see the reason we have to go to page 95 because people aren't reading the thread, and are just hopping in and making us repeat everything over and over again. Literally everything you said about 'just set hazards' and 'scolipede+speed boost ban' have been discussed. Even the changes have been stated 3-4 times already.

Seriously guys read the thread, it saves everyone a ton of time.

 

[Eievui-Nymphia]

Because I saw popping up...

The fact that Kyogre has checks in the Ou metagame doiesn't mean it's not Uber. Having to use Gastrodon or Kingdra all the time to check itn while everything else is OHKo by him makes that Kyogre is still broken.

Same with other Ubers.

If a single pokemon is capable of counter/check a Uber it doesn't make the pokemon OU.

If a single pokemon is capable to check/counter various Ubers at oince doesnt mean that those Ubers are ine in OU.

Unless the list of checks is really high (Kyurem-B) and it's not uncompetitive to use (Shaymin-Sky) there's no reason to allow it in OU.

if the pokemon is useul dealing some Ubers, this pokemon can be used in the Uber tier. Ferrothorn,Aegislash, Deoxys-S, Landorus-T.

However, it has to not be outclassed by another pokemon to do his goal, like Florges*

*And you say, "but Forges is already unviable in OU, there's not need to mention it in Ubers because Florges sucks". Florges doesnt suck in Ubers, however Sylveon is again overahadowing it even in that tier (and Sylveon IS Uber viable).

 

[matimooo]

Wy is the thread going on still? I said for many pages ago that everything has been lade on the table, and already then so many things are discussed over and over again. I havent posted in threads before so i dont know how this is suposed to proceed, but we do need some sort of voting of the nerfs that are thought possible. I dont know who is supposed to do this voting but the one that does it shud do ot now coz this thread is going nowhere atm...

 

[Srn]

Speaking of pokemon like Zapdos, megazor, and Mew filling in the weaker links of the baton pass, i can really advocate for mew. Why? There's only one reason:

Amnesia+Baton pass

Thanks to this, a lot of the problems that baton pass normally has with special attackers are partially eliminated. Amnesia boost sp. def sharply, and even better, mew has roost. This allows mew to take on several special attackers of the tier (with full special bulk ofc), and can really make baton pass's life easier:

Before Amnesia:
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew in Sun: 226-267 (55.9 - 66%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 165-195 (40.8 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 165-195 (40.8 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 205-243 (50.7 - 60.1%) -- 86.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 193-228 (47.7 - 56.4%) -- 28.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Thanks to the speed boosts you recieve from scoli/ninjask, you take the hits above, and then use amnesia. The opponent's attack after amnesia...

252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. +2 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew in Sun: 114-135 (28.2 - 33.4%) -- 91.9% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. +2 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 83-99 (20.5 - 24.5%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. +2 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 84-99 (20.7 - 24.5%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. +2 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 103-123 (25.4 - 30.4%) -- 0.9% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. +2 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 97-115 (24 - 28.4%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

As you can see, only char-y even has a chance to break through. All you need to do instead is stall out all the sun with scolipede before passing to mew, if you're THAT concerned.

From there, you roost, baton pass to another poke, and win :]

TL; DR
Mew should be on every baton pass team for amnesia :]

 

[Valmanway]

If I Perish Song and he switches in Mr Mime and I somehow didn't see it coming he gets one turn to do a stat boost, meanwhile I bring in durant and entrain if he tries to BP next turn.... worst case scenario is I just sit there with Politoed and just Perish Song when he BPs.

Someone can Baton Pass into Espeon so she can come in on Entrainment, bounce it back, give Durant Magic Bounce, and Choice Scarf would lock you into the move, so you'd be at a disadvantage. And even if Espeon switches, and if for whatever reason you decide to stay in, you'd just be giving something else Magic Bounce, not Truant.

 

[haunter]

I think we're done discussing here. Arguments have been going in circles in the last two days. Thanks to anyone who's made this thread interesting to read, I'm quite satisfied with the overall quality of the posts.

The OU Council will take into consideration the many good arguments presented in this thread and then make a decision on the topic of full Baton Pass teams.