Suspect BH Suspect #1: Poison Heal

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What?
Based on council discussion and community feedback, the BH Council is going to suspect test Poison Heal. If implemented, Poison Heal will be banned from Balanced Hackmons. If not, Poison Heal will remain in the metagame.

Why?

Despite being a premier ability, Poison Heal was quite balanced in gen8 balanced hackmons. However, now in gen9 it has started to show signs up being potentially unhealthy and overbearing to prep for. The main cause for this is the loss of Core Enforcer, Topsy-Turvy, Anchor Shot, and Purify, the addition of Victory Dance and Terrastalize, and the nerfing of recovery moves from 16pp to 8pp. Core Enforcer was used on a myriad of pokemon to suppress the ability of poison healers, and cause them to begin taking damage. Topsy-Turvy was used to to check many of the Dragon Dance and Quiver Dance users and allow ample time to re-heal, along with being effective at pp stalling. Anchor Shot allowed ability suppressing pokemon to force out poison healers, by threatening to trap them, suppress their ability, and allow the effects of toxic to wear out their health. Although more niche, Purify was able to "heal" poison heal users of their toxic after knocking off their toxic orb and cripple them. The addition of Victory Dance has given physical sweepers a new dimension, as boosting their defense allows them to more effectively tank physical counter play. Terrastalize has shown to be extremely effective at allowing poison healers to be self improofed, and the ability to change types to resist offensive counter play is extremely effective. The nerfing of recovery pp from 16 to 8, means that poison healers can more quickly beat defensive counter play by slowly witling them down, while the Poison Heal user is able to "infinitely" heal.

However, we are not without defensive counter play. Entrainment and Worry Seed are still able to change the Poison Healer's ability. Phazing moves such as Whirlwind, Circle Throw, and Dragon Tail can force out boosting Poison Healers. One of the most effective ways of beating Poison Heal users, is Toxic Orb imposter (Blissey / Chansey). Their bulk allows them to check many of these common Poison Heal users and break through ones that are setting up (which are generally more difficult to improof). We still have Spirit Shackle available to threaten Poison Healers with a trapping + ability changing combo, however it's pp is half of Anchor Shot's (16 instead of 32), and it can't trap Normal or Ghost pokemon (it doesn't hit ghost pokemon strongly enough to force them out generally). Although extremely passive, Haze and Parting Shot spam can also be used to pp stall out Poison Healers.

However, when equipped with Taunt, which many Poison Healers are, they are able to beat nearly all viable counter play. They can stop Entrainment + Worry Seed, deny healing, and stop offensive boosting counter play. Because of this, it is nearly impossible to comfortably check Poison Healers throughout the course of a drawn out game. Additionally, the variety of different Poison Heal sweepers is VERY numerous, each often requiring different counter play to beat them short term (most will win long term). Games at times have devolved to "I have to win before the Poison Heal sweeper sets up and wins" and can result in match up fishy and uncompetitive gameplay.

To some, Victory Dance + Quiver Dance, Terrastalize, or Taunt are potentially what drive Poison Heal over the edge, however the root cause, which allows a pokemon to fully use all these tools to its fullest potential seems to be the ability Poison Heal. Additionally, none of the aforementioned moves / gimmicks have shown to be conclusively broken on other pokemon. As a result, the Balanced Hackmons council has decided to suspect test Poison Heal. For a more in depth discussions I implore you to read these forum posts: "The Set-Up Problem", "Poison Heal Set-Up Taunt are broken?", "On Poison Heal", Survey results on how the community wants to tier Poison Heal

Additionally, I have provided here, a pokepaste of common poison heal users, so that you can use them, and see the diversity in sets available: https://pokepast.es/f753884723caf3ad

Also! Samples are now updated, so hop over to the BH9 forum to grab a team to ladder with if you don't have any!

How?
  • We will be using the new suspect process laid out by Zarel here (aka no COIL).
  • The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 78 with at least 25 games played.
  • Do so by making a new alt with the prefix “Bheal”. For example I could register the alt "Bheal lazzer"
  • The alt must have a creation date on or after December 20, 2022
Where?
You must post your proof of reqs in this thread and play your games on the main pokemonshowdown.com sim.

Poison Heal will be allowed in the ladder for the duration of this suspect; I would recommend using them as much as you can to get a feel of how they are in the meta and have a good idea of if they are broken/unhealthy or if they are perfectly manageable after all.
Do:
  • Post your proof of reqs and, if you wish, your stance on the matter briefly, in this thread. Read the following CAREFULLY on how to do so:
    • you MUST FIRST AND FOREMOST PROVIDE AN IMAGE OF THE ALT WITH PROOF OF OWNERSHIP. We can't stress that last part enough. Refer to these examples of how to do this: example1 example2 example3
    • If you don’t do at least the above, your vote won’t be counted. We will be very strict about this.
  • Post in this thread if you have any questions about THIS SUSPECT PROCESS.

Do NOT:
  • Post your stance on the matter in this thread without proof of requirements (This should be posted in the main thread instead)
  • Post anything in this thread unrelated to this suspect (with or without proof)

When?
This suspect period will last until January 7, 2023, 11:59 pm GMT-5. We will try to begin the voting process immediately after and post the Voter ID Thread similar to past suspects.

GLHF!
---
TLDR?
  • 78 GXE after 25 games with a new alt
    • “Bheal” alt with image proof IN THIS THREAD
  • Poison Heal is ALLOWED on ladder
  • DEADLINE: January 7, 2022, 11:59 pm GMT-5
  • This suspect test counts toward the Tiering Contributor badge!
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Tagging Kris to setup suspect and announcement on PS ladder games. Thank you!
 
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Tea Guzzler

forever searching for a 10p freddo
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first reqs ez
still torn, leaning ban but could maybe switch. i mostly play offense so everything is either fur coat, ice scales, or a target, but even then generally pheal feels like you take 6 thousand years for the optimal counterplay or you force it out with prank entrain and try to out-offense it.
 
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Laddered with my sample and managed to do pretty well, although poison heal is always terrifying to face since there isn't really any counterplay to the wrong matchup of taunt/sub or type effectiveness against your setup control options, especially with tera to boost them.
As such, I'm leaning towards ban, especially since I think with the current prevalence of ground types and covert cloak, nuzzle spam won't become a major issue without PH. Although I fear knock off will become extremely spammable.
 

RoFnA

Vegan funktioniert ned
is a Top Tiering Contributor
confirming as Bheal RoFnA3

I threw a lot of games, other games (like 3-4games) I lost Zacian to a stupid destiny bond and then got swept. I didn't want to create another account so I just kept going :D
I used the sample of Tea Guzzler and modified a bit. https://pokepast.es/ae85893855ee2a89
All in all its a very fun meta. I think I will vote BAN on Poison heal because there are just too many ways to set up with a PH Mon. And because of the Recover nerf and tera PH abusers have it way easier now to set up.

Edit: proof for the new account
 

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Storm Eagle

Banned deucer.
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I'm leaning ban here. After having gotten enough experience with the meta, I've come to realize that while PH in a vacuum isn't that bad, people have been making creative sets that are nearly impossible to check. Almost anything sufficiently offbeat is going to be a good wincon, meanwhile it's increasingly hard to try and play around said mons. Specific Arceus formes can easily end a game shortly after coming in even with modest setup counterplay. But it's not just limited to Arceus. Almost anything can utilize PH to a reasonable extent. Some more defensive, sure, but many pokemon can still be a frightening wincon with limited checks in the right hands.
 

RoyalReloaded

n_n
is a Top Tiering Contributor
MPL Champion


it took a lot of tries but we finally made it. I had a lot of fun. many of my runs were ended by Leon6 using some stall team that made me want to delete the account on team preview. gonna vote dnb, probably in the minority here but its ok. imo there are many other things that are infinitely more unfun than poison heal is
 
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I have the reqs. I will vote Ban, if you want to know why I have already explain why I think PH is a problem in BH in the main thread.
I ran a PH Groudon with Tidy Up and no Taunt and still be hard to deal for my opponent even with Imposter Toxic Orb (because the tera improof it).

A quick Edit : Also I want to talk about the Slaking QB, because the PH set was too powerful... If PH got banned the council will quick unban Slaking? I don't know if the council thinked about it already or not, so I want to propose that.
 
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Teams I used to ladder:
Balance Featuring Poison Heal ️Belli️Bolt, Poison Heal Zacian-Crowned, and Gorialla Tactics ️Breloom: https://pokepast.es/e99f70023540c8ed
Standard Balance Featuring Poison Heal Arceus-Normal and Poison Heal ️Belli️Bolt: https://pokepast.es/685205b260cfa6c9
Secret Santa Poison Heal Spam featuring Orichalcum Pulse Arceus-Fire and Poison Heal Arboliva: https://pokepast.es/8323e44bf7d9289d

I'll be voting do not ban. I believe that although Poison Heal is extremely strong in the metagame, I feel as if its presence is one which creates a competitive and fun metagame. The gameplay revolving around positioning your own poison healer to win vs. preventing your opponent's poison healer from winning I believe is quite fun and competitive. The use of phazing, prankster, and/or Poison Heal imposter to slow down opposing Poison Healers, while trying to win with your own is awesome! After having done a fair bit of laddering, I'd also like to look at Terrastalize before banning Poison Heal, because I believe that Terrastalize is what creates the more uncompetitive scenarios (although Terrastalize might be balanced w/o Poison Heal or still broken & vice versa, but convo for another time). Also, for those who used Tea Guzzler's team and are leaning ban, I'd urge you to strongly look at how the gameplay revolving around that team worked, because while Tea would be leaning Ban, that team doesn't have any Poison Heal user, and in general, not incredible Poison Heal counter play. Yet, it has seen really good success on ladder which I believe says something. Just food for thought.

Also, the teams I used were quite Poison Heal centered, and throughout my time laddering I really felt the drawbacks behind it, because I had a lot of difficulty beating teams with raw immediate Power Output, fast set-up, Toxic Orb Imposter, random techs such as Sub pass and Normalize, because my Poison Heal teams had difficulty fitting in counterplay to all. I think this can be seen in my 2nd and 3rd team.
 

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