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From the dex:
When this Pokemon switches in, it appears as the last unfainted Pokemon in its party until it takes direct damage from another Pokemon's attack. This Pokemon's actual level and HP are displayed instead of those of the mimicked Pokemon.
Illusion also causes Imposter to fail which has a very high impact on its success in BH
BH also allows the use of Illusion on mons which can turn into a different form such as through Mega Evolution or Primal Reversion, allowing them to maintain the effects of Illusion until they are switched out but make use of a different ability. Illusion is also not broken even if the mon is hit (after changing its form)
Here are some key tidbits from the above thread that reflect my feelings:
"While you can narrow down the abilities a Pokemon has at team preview, you definitely can't look at a Pokemon, say "Oh look, this is definitely Illusion" and play around it as such. Therefore, when the game starts, you're either forced to play under the assumption that every Pokemon that hasn't altered their HP can potentially be an Illusion Pokemon, or you're completely ignoring the possibility." - GL Volkner's Post
"The biggest drawback of illusion however, is the mind games that occur:
-before your big reveal as you may sometimes need to get the ohko before you get found out. Regenerator mons like Giratina, Pogre, and Zygarde can potentially scout illusion mons as well, avoiding ohkos from Specs sets and caring very little for moves that they can heal most the damage of.
-the countless predictions that follow since most of the time you are using the same move repeatedly, which usually has only 8 pp. ... Oh yeah and it's really annoying when you're not disguised as the right mon lol" - SomeIrish's Post
"Of course there is some counterplay to Illusion: get hazards up and look how much damage things take; scout the majority of their sets; get chip on things, to name a few, but all of these take time and will rarely help you for the first few turns. So here is the core of my argument: it's infeasible to play as if any mon you see could be any other member of their team until you are certain otherwise." - Willdbeast's Post
We will be using the new suspect process laid out by Zarel here(aka no COIL). I already did not support game limits so that shouldn't be an issue.
Therefore the requirements simply are 80 GXE with at least 35 games.
Do so by making a new alt with the sequence"ills" in it anywhere, but not separated.
I will also hold a mini contest, where the alt I like the most will also be given a shoutout during the final announcement in the BH Discord (and maybe even a custom role) and the voting thread on Smogon
I have several reasons: allows me to eyeball ladder/room for suspect activity for future suspect tweaks, lets people know who are participating in suspect/raises awareness, etc. However, the key one that should matter is that if you don't have an alt with one with reqs, you can't vote/I won't count your vote.
Where? You must post your proof of reqs in this thread and play your games on the main pokemonshowdown.com sim. A new Balanced Hackmons (suspect) ladder shall be created for this suspect. Illusion will be ALLOWED on the Suspect Ladder
Do:
Post your proof 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. I can't stress that last part enough. Refer to these examples of how to do this: example1example2example3
If you don't do at least the above, your vote won't be counted
Post in this thread if you have any questions about THIS SUSPECT PROCESS
Do NOT:
Post your stance in detail on the matter in this thread without proof. (Why? Post in the main suspect thread instead)
Post anything in this thread unrelated to this suspect (with or without proof)
When? This suspect period will last around 2 weeks, till 11:59PM August 5th (UTC -5). I will try to begin the voting immediately after confirming some other details on how it will be done.
I just don't see why this is what was put up for suspect when the other options were sleep, Contrary, and Dazzling/QM.
For Illusion to be effective, you must be choice locked for max power, play hazards/weather carefully, and wait for the right moment to strike and take full advantage of the ability without giving it away prematurely. I don't believe this ability is broken or banworthy. For Contrary, you mainly just click one move to reap instant gains. Also, Contrary users that set sleep are even more fun.
Hi, I don't have reqs (yet) but just want to give a friendly (and late) PSA to people, looking at the above post and its potential implications (i'm unsure if contrary actually influenced the end decision), that you should not consider other potential suspects when voting for this one.
This is a suspect for Illusion, not Contrary, DQM, MMX, SunGeist Geyser, Shell Smash, or anything else. There is no reason that any other suspect should influence your decisions such that you can "get to that suspect instead" or whatever the reason may be. If you think something else is broken and other people do too, then wait for that suspect to ban that thing, it's pretty self-explanatory. Save other potentially broken things for the general suspect thread and they may be addressed eventually.
i believe that illusion is not broken, and if i end up voting ban, it will be because it is uncompetitive.
in my opinion, the arguments for it being broken in the suspects/bans thread are kind of over-the-top. the thing with illusion is that it's best early-game, because your opponent likely doesn't know what to expect and you have several full-health options to disguise as. but at the same time, most opposing pokemon will be healthy around this time, so unless you can threaten to ohko their mon (like kartana vs xern), they don't have to switch out.
additionally, if illusion doesn't work it puts the user at a pretty big disadvantage, because it takes up the ability slot. for example, in this game where illusion didn't work, i was left with a game i should've lost. aerilate ray would have given me a much better matchup there.
the illusion mon is really hard to get in in practice. the best way to get it in is on a double switch, but if the opposing mon uses an attack, the game's up. slow pivoting is also good, but if you do something like pivot in mmx as mmy on a registeel, it's pretty suspicious. leading with illusion rarely works, because if you see a big scary mmx on the other team, you're probably not going to lead registeel. you also get forced out if the opponent leads imposter or another fake out user.
hazards are also a huge issue for illusion teams. all the good "illusion wallbreakers" (kartana, mmx, mray) take abnormal damage from rocks. even if you get mmx as mmy in on spikes or something, the 50/50 aspect is taken away as soon as you click cc.
an exception to a lot of these problems is kangaskhanite kangaskhan, which can break pretty much any wall even if you mispredict. but i think this is more kanga itself being broken.
so basically, illusion is risky to face, but also risky to use. because of this, i don't think it gives an unfair advantage to the player utilizing it. it should only be banned because of the uncompetitiveness of the 50/50 aspect.
if we keep it though can we get ps to manage the opponent's health bars better? i don't wanna keep track of how much hp the illusion dude is at.
tbh I feel like illusion isn't worth ban, team preview and hazards just make it too obvious and use illusion mean it's over a better ability like adapt/tough claws or even simple
BAN. Easily an overpowered ability, and it will take a lot to convince me otherwise.
I've heard a lot of Do Not Ban arguments here. I'd like to give my side of the argument here. Do I think Illusion is overpowered? No. It's not. It's a weak ability, as it doesn't provide power to any moves like Adaptability, Tinted Lens, or Technician does. It doesn't give you any defensive utility like Fur Coat, Unaware, or Poison Heal does. It doesn't give your teammates any sort of utility either like Weather abilities do. By all accounts, it's not overpowered because it doesn't boost anything.
However, we must remember that a Suspect Test does not only aim to see whether something is overpowered, it also seeks the community's opinion and most importantly, whether something is uncompetitive. I am extremely confident that Flint would not have done this Suspect Test if he didn't believe Illusion was uncompetitive.
Let's take a quick moment to compare this Suspect Test to the recent Gothitelle and Gothorita Suspect Test that Ubers had. Gothitelle and Gothorita were very weak Pokemon in the tier respectively, however Nayrz suspected them because he believed that they had an unhealthy presence in the tier due to their trapping capabilities. Even though we're talking about Balanced Hackmons, I felt like I should have mentioned this because these are two very similar scenarios. Gothitelle and Gothorita ultimately didn't get banned disappointingly even though they could trap something passive and set up on it until it struggles or Gothitelle/Gothorita get to max boosts. The reasoning people did not ban it was because they felt it didn't have a big enough presence in the tier and that they were weak Pokemon on their own. I hope that the same scenario does not happen here, as even though Illusion may not be inherently powerful or used often, it's still a problem in that it can eliminate checks to specific Pokemon without any sort of counterplay.
Anyways, let me go ahead and refute some common Do Not Ban arguments that I've been seeing.
Team Previews let you see if there's a common Illusion Pokemon on the enemy team.
You cannot identify Illusion at Team Preview like you can normally as it's Zoroark's signature ability. Most of these Pokemon like Mega Gengar have quite a few sets and it's impossible to tell without finding out in battle whether the opponent has Illusion or not.
Hazards let you see whether a Pokemon has Illusion or not.
This is more difficult if you run Spikes which is in my opinion the superior choice for hazards. This also doesn't prevent someone from leading with an Illusion Pokemon and in my honest opinion someone shouldn't have to feel obliged to run Imposter Chansey to scout for Illusion. Currently with the amount of bugs regarding Illusion (the opponent having 8+ moves after a while, a 7th Pokemon slot appearing, and the incorrect Pokemon being shaded below the avatar once the Pokemon faints), it's difficult and annoying to have to micromanage someone's health. It was better in Gen 6 when a lot of walls ran Status moves like Will-O-Wisp to deal with Shedinja but now it's different and those Status moves aren't as common. I simply don't believe someone should have to micromanage health bars to avoid one of their Pokemon being knocked out due to said bugs.
Running Illusion makes your Pokemon significantly weaker than running other abilities with the same sets.
This is false. You can run a Choice item to make up for the lack of power and tricking your opponent into switching out and getting a free hit because of it is often more beneficial than if you ran the same set without Illusion. Not to mention Mega Evolutions and Red Orb Groudon benefit from it immensely. Next to nothing can take a Nature's Madness and Night Shade from Mega Kangaskhan while you never know if it's really Mega Kangaskhan until the moment it Mega Evolves. Red Orb Groudon can Shell Smash and a +2 V-Create basically OHKOes any non-Flash Fire/Unaware wall in the tier except for Zygarde-Complete, which Groudon just runs Ice Beam or Icicle Crash and that's gone anyways. All the while Imposter Chansey can not Transform into them.
I think Illusion isn't as big of a problem as other things right now and banning other things may make Illusion balanced.
You should focus on the meta as it currently is, not the future meta.
Illusion is hardly used at all.
Usage is never an argument to vote Do Not Ban. This very same conflict came up with the Gothitelle Suspect, which is another reason I mentioned it.
Illusion is only a problem once in battle.
I've seen some confusion here. Illusion re-activates if the Illusion Pokemon switches out and switches back in. The problem is that the Illusion Pokemon can then be disguised as a different Pokemon after that. You can disguise as Registeel at first, but later in the battle they could be a Primal Kyogre, for example.
That answers that. So why do I think Illusion is banworthy? Well, imagine this. You can control who your Illusion Pokemon is disguised as, right? Well, you can disguise your Pokemon as a Mega Diancie in battle. The opponent will switch out and you have a free turn to do whatever you want. You can use a Choice Specs Mega Gengar with Moongeist Beam and then the Mega Diancie check will be in a pinch. Let's say it's Registeel. Their Registeel is at low health and if it's not Prankster, the opponent has to choose between sacking their Registeel or switching out again. If they sack their Registeel, then chances are you win solely because you can mow your opponent down with Mega Diancie because they lost their Diancie check. If they switch out, then chances are they're gonna end up taking huge damage on another Pokemon.
Let's look at this the other way. You could also disguise yourself as a passive mon like Registeel. The opponent will predict you will U-Turn or the like, and they'll play accordingly. Then you have another advantage because the opponent can't make a counterplay.
Illusion is ridiculously effective and is banworthy because of this. You can disguise as a specific Pokemon and then use a highly offensive Pokemon like Mega Gengar to eliminate checks for the Pokemon that you're disguising as. If Mega Gengar is disguised as Mega Diancie and hits the opponent's Registeel with a Specs Moongeist Beam, their Mega Diancie check is in huge danger at that point. This ends up significantly leaning the odds of winning in your favor as if the opponent can't check your Mega Diancie, Mega Mewtwo Y, Mega Rayquaza, or whatever mon, then they will get swept by those mons. Likewise, if an Illusion Pokemon disguised as Registeel knocks out the opponent's Mega Mewtwo X, they're gonna have a more difficult time taking out your Registeel.
I hope that anyone who initially wanted to vote Do Not Ban will reconsider based on my arguments.
illusion is not a broke ability but its a really uncompetitve ability which can easily turn the tides from turn 1 or turn 5 weather its killing a shed counter or kill its wincon.
also i dont know why people keep saying guess illusion off team preview you cant do that they have so many sets that would lose you a mon or two if you had to scout
I am disappointed to know that this is what is being suspected over contrary or even a sleep clause in the meta.
Being an avid player of BH and user of Illusion, I've seen no good reason why its being suspected. I strongly believe it brings back the unpredictability that I had grown to love about this meta. I'm not in a position currently to post something meaningful to lean some of you into not banning the ability but I'll attempt to do that when I'm home.
I am disappointed to know that this is what is being suspected over contrary or even a sleep clause in the meta.
Being an avid player of BH and user of Illusion, I've seen no good reason why its being suspected. I strongly believe it brings back the unpredictability that I had grown to love about this meta. I'm not in a position currently to post something meaningful to lean some of you into not banning the ability but I'll attempt to do that when I'm home.
Friendly reminder that just because this does not seem like as big of an issue as Contrary or a Sleep Clause is not a reason to vote Do Not Ban. If you truly feel those are problems then you can post about them in the Bans thread. We should focus exclusively on Illusion right now and I feel like redirecting the attention towards things that appear more broken at first glance is not something we should do in this thread.
I use Illusion too and I know the ability is broken first-hand. If you need an argument, go ahead and read my initial post on the matter. Illusion can be used to eliminate checks to the thing you are disguising as, as you can use a strong Pokemon like Mega Gengar and you can pick what you disguise as, then you can force the opponent to switch (as no one will stay in on a -Ate Mega Diancie with most Pokemon) and you have a legitimate chance at 2HKOing most things in the tier due to this, and when your opponent's Mega Diancie switch-in is damaged severely, it'll likely just fall to a FakeSpeed combo or a Boomburst and then the odds of winning are on your side.
Contrary is difficult to improof and there are abilities and other means to prevent Sleep. Illusion does not have a drawback at all. It even prevents Imposter from transforming into your Pokemon so it makes for a ridiculously easy improof with Red Orb Groudon.
Here is my vote: Ban Illusion, due to the functionality of Pokemon Showdown's revealing multiple moves from the original/s (multiple of same species on 1 team), and multiple Illusion Pokemon. Hard to tell when someone will run out of PP, etc.
Here is my vote: Ban Illusion, due to the functionality of Pokemon Showdown's revealing multiple moves from the original/s (multiple of same species on 1 team), and multiple Illusion Pokemon. Hard to tell when someone will run out of PP, etc.
Why would you want to ban something solely on the fact that the game simulator doesn't show something right? It seems like that is something you'd want to take up with Showdown, not the BH meta.
