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
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:
- 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!
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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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