Complex Bans

[MZ]

Why is NU allowed to ban Baton Pass + Speed boosts as a pretty obvious attempt to just nerf certain combinations of Speed Boost user + Baton pass + threatening sweeper, but PU can't do a less complicated complex ban to get rid of something that's already uncompetitive by consensus, not possibly broken? Now I don't know a ton about the surrounding OU baton pass stuff, nor do I know if this is broken in other cases, but so far speed passing has only been shown to be broken (or at least bad enough to suspect) when coming from Speed Boost baton pass users. But now we're nerfing things like Agility+Baton Pass Floatzel or whatever. Yes, I understand many top NU players have experimented with different ways of passing Speed, and all have been very effective", but Torchic? Surskit? If Golett is enough collateral damage in PU to not be able to ban No Guard+Dpunch, this doesn't seem entirely fair either, especially when you're complicating a ban for two tiers that's already so complex that people want to just outright ban BP.

That alone might be worth a post in the thread and not policy review, and it is reaching a bit. However, some of the reasoning presented does actually sound a lot like Dpunch.

If you genuinely feel that Combusken alone is the problem, you're probably best off voting no ban.

HOWEveR

Don't vote with only that assumption either. Test other strats (Ninjask, Agilipass, whatever) if you don't encounter them on the ladder (which you probably won't) before you choose not to ban it.

In PU's case, when people did say "go tell me that Golett and Machop are broken then we'll look back at this", we did.

I (and others) have been playing around with a Machoke + Machop + Golett Trick Room team, and I've actually been able to confuse my way through competitive players. Although the team is obviously flawed, it shows that despite the Pokemon, there is still an uncompetitive aspect to 100% accurate dpunch. Replays (in neither of the games does the confusion seem too crucial, but both definitely made an impact):
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-378860863
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-378938293
I haven't had much time to get replays (getting more isn't hard as there is an army of PU players willing to help), but I think they show that Machop and Golett have the potential to be uncompetitive. So if I get enough replays of Golett and Machop, and show dpunch + no guard is uncompetitive on both of them, can we ban it?

This was totally ignored even though it screwed with a bunch of the reasoning against the complex ban until Sam closed the thread. PU's top players have decided No Guard + Dpunch is suspect worthy. We've tested other strats to look at the pros and cons of a complex ban. I don't see why this complex ban of No Guard + Dpunch is any different than that complex ban of all Speed increasing moves/abilities + Baton Pass. In fact, it's less complicated than adding even more to an already existing clause which would only affect two lower tiers rather than just banning something pretty straightforward for one lower tier. Blast basically summed up my thoughts about the complex ban, as well as other PU players' in his post on the NP thread.

The reason I personally voted for a BP-related suspect was because I felt that it would be the least likely to leave negative after-effects on the tier (which is again subjective, but the majority of the council voted for a BP test too).

Oh, and also losing speed passers in PU would kind of suck, it's a legit strat and I brought a version of it in PUPL but it's nowhere near broken there although I suppose we can't do much about that.

 

[ryan]

Because the council believes banning Combusken would not fix the problem.

which is in the suspect thread.

and which is heavily insinuated in the post of mine you quoted.

also the Golett/Machop thing is a very small point. Machoke is broken. No Guard + Dynamic Punch makes it broken. In NU, a Pokemon passing Speed to a few different recipients is broken. Speed Boost + Baton Pass or Agility/Rock Polish + Baton Pass or Xatu or Malamar or (insert bulky sweeper with recovery) make it broken. There's no simple solution if you believe that Speed passing is a problem in the tier, which clearly enough people do since there's a suspect test for it.

 

[boltsandbombers]

Oh, and also losing speed passers in PU would kind of suck, it's a legit strat and I brought a version of it in PUPL but it's nowhere near broken there although I suppose we can't do much about that.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/transitivity-of-bans.3541269/

You don't have to ban the combination if the ban follows through.

 

[Kiyo]

minor thing but if we're being honest we're technically trying to make bp clause (an already in place complex ban) simpler as it applies to nu

i'll actually reply to this if theres anything left to say tomorrow

 

[Halcyon.]

Because the council believes banning Combusken would not fix the problem.

which is in the suspect thread.

and which is heavily insinuated in the post of mine you quoted.

also the Golett/Machop thing is a very small point. Machoke is broken. No Guard + Dynamic Punch makes it broken. In NU, a Pokemon passing Speed to a few different recipients is broken. Speed Boost + Baton Pass or Agility/Rock Polish + Baton Pass or Xatu or Malamar or (insert bulky sweeper with recovery) make it broken. There's no simple solution if you believe that Speed passing is a problem in the tier, which clearly enough people do since there's a suspect test for it.

Then you could have banned Baton Pass itself and gotten the same result.

I'm so sick of people tip-toeing around the issue here. Banning a move with certain conditions is no worse then PU trying to ban Machoke+certain conditions. Baton Pass causes a certain strategy to be broken. Dynamic Punch causes a certain Pokemon to be broken. We ban the broken element, not a combination that suites our liking. Both Machoke AND Baton Pass should have been banned in their respective instances. But if you're going to say that Speed Boosts + Baton Pass is broken and nerf Baton Pass as a whole to keep it, then how is that any different from PU wanting to ban Dynamic Punch in order to keep Machoke, an otherwise healthy mon?

 

[jrp]

Then you could have banned Baton Pass itself and gotten the same result.

I'm so sick of people tip-toeing around the issue here. Banning a move with certain conditions is no worse then PU trying to ban Machoke+certain conditions. Baton Pass causes a certain strategy to be broken. Dynamic Punch causes a certain Pokemon to be broken. We ban the broken element, not a combination that suites our liking. Both Machoke AND Baton Pass should have been banned in their respective instances. But if you're going to say that Speed Boosts + Baton Pass is broken and nerf Baton Pass as a whole to keep it, then how is that any different from PU wanting to ban Dynamic Punch in order to keep Machoke, an otherwise healthy mon?

Baton pass has been the most danced around subject that I've ever seen in my time active on this site. Aldaron's proposal back in BW was supposed to be some unheard of concept, and the consensus seemed to be that it was such an extreme solution that a complex ban on its scale wouldn't be repeated any time soon.

Now we have like 7 different restrictions on baton pass and the move is still considered to be broken.

Just ban the move. It's proven time and time again that it's banworthy.

Same with Machoke. If Dynamicpunch is ONLY broken when machoke is using it, it's pretty clear that machoke is the problem here

 

[Saria]

In PU's case, when people did say "go tell me that Golett and Machop are broken then we'll look back at this", we did.

This was totally ignored even though it screwed with a bunch of the reasoning against the complex ban until Sam closed the thread. PU's top players have decided No Guard + Dpunch is suspect worthy. We've tested other strats to look at the pros and cons of a complex ban. I don't see why this complex ban of No Guard + Dpunch is any different than that complex ban of all Speed increasing moves/abilities + Baton Pass. In fact, it's less complicated than adding even more to an already existing clause which would only affect two lower tiers rather than just banning something pretty straightforward for one lower tier. Blast basically summed up my thoughts about the complex ban, as well as other PU players' in his post on the NP thread.

Because those replays not only are cherry picked, but they are also mediocre and prove nothing.

Replay 1:

- Carbink sets up SR, TR and does 80% to Camerupt
- Machop kills Camerupt
- CB Machop does 67% to the 0/0 Machoke, which hits itself in confusion. Machop KOs next turn [literally the only "troublesome" part of the game]
- Rotom OHKOs Machop
- Beheeyem scares Rotom away, setups TR, OHKOes Vullavy, 1v1s Snover
- Rotom revenge kills Beheeyem. Machoke switches in and scares Rotom away, despite the fact it wasn't going to have any chance to switch in again.
- Gourgeist dodges Gunk Shot, setups TR and kills Arbok with Explosion. Machoke finishes off the Rotom

What did that prove exactly? The match was won by the TR setters, not Machop killing one Pokemon

Replay 2:

- Carbink setups TR and booms on Servine
- Beheeyem freely setups TR later on
- The team with 5 Pokemon OHKOed by strong fighting moves easily loses to strong fighting moves; this surprises no one.

252+ Atk Choice Band Machop Dynamic Punch vs. 180 HP / 0 Def Solrock: 222-262 (68 - 80.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Machoke Dynamic Punch vs. 180 HP / 0 Def Solrock: 256-303 (78.5 - 92.9%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

Assume Machop got absolute maximum roll against 180 HP Solrock (doubt it had exactly that much HP, but I'm fine with calcing "worst case scenario" for Machoke) and Machoke OHKOes with a good roll. Replace Dynamic Punch with CC and Machop alone has good chances of winning that match with just TR support.

The confusion chance wasn't gamechanging in either of the cherrypicked replays. They didn't "screw up" anything and contributed nothing to the discussion; that's why they were ignored.

 

[MZ]

Yeah that's my bad for not actually watching them. Here's a couple from Haund winning an official roomtour where there's relevant cases of Machop and Golett actually killing things when they never should, and there's more but nobody seems to be on right now. Either way the point is people have been experimenting with these strats so we should theoretically be able to suspect this for the same reasoning assuming the NU suspect is fine and not another ridiculous way to skirt the problem.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-378787299 would have lost if Armaldo didn't hit itself
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-378938293 would've been much worse if solrock didn't hit itself and just OHKOed Machop
e: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-379045941 2xthetap gave me another one of machop's confusion letting him get up TR to win, not as bad as the others but more examples are good

@ below I don't know how much more you want than "hey look you can cheese through something that should OHKO you with a Machop" but alright then

 

[Alfalfa]

Yeah that's my bad for not actually watching them. Here's a couple from Haund winning an official roomtour where there's relevant cases of Machop and Golett actually killing things when they never should, and there's more but nobody seems to be on right now. Either way the point is people have been experimenting with these strats so we should theoretically be able to suspect this for the same reasoning assuming the NU suspect is fine and not another ridiculous way to skirt the problem.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-378787299 would have lost if Armaldo didn't hit itself
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-378938293 would've been much worse if solrock didn't hit itself and just OHKOed Machop
e: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-379045941 2xthetap gave me another one of machop's confusion letting him get up TR to win, not as bad as the others but more examples are good

The second replay is one of the two replays you mentioned before that Hikari labeled as "mediocre" and "cherry-picked".

 

[Sam]

Complex bans aren't straight up never allowed, but to me they're pretty much a solution needed to salvage a metagame (and by salvage I mean 'the meta is literally unplayable without this ban'), or special circumstances. When the complex ban for baton pass was instituted, it was viewed as something necessary to salvage ORAS metagames. It's something already in place and something I think is going to be treated differently than something like Dynamic Punch in PU because it has been argued and actual things have been implemented to at least see the effect. NU banned Combusken, UU banned Venomoth and Smeargle, etc. I would not be opposed to allowing a No Guard + Dynamic Punch ban, but it's not something that can just be done from the start. Suspect Machoke first, and if the problems still persist then the discussion can be on the table. A handful of replays isn't going to cut it here.

 

[g]

Hello, I dont think this issue is related with the Dynamicpunch issue at all and the only complaint I have is that, if the ban goes through, I would like PU to keep the current Baton Pass Clause that allows the use of Speed Boost + Baton Pass Ninjask since it is clearly not broken here.

If we get to make another note custom BP clause as well it would work I guess

And also Sam yeah we are probably going to suspect Machoke regardless before S&M

 

[Magnemite]

If we get to make another note custom BP clause as well it would work I guess

Throwing my support behind this, I don't have a huge issue with with this since it's clearly a different thing from our Dynamicpunch scenario but it would be nice if we could also modify our current baton pass clause to be more lenient as we'd probably go back to the much less complex solution of just having shell smash + baton pass (or possibly that in addition to a limit to 2 bp users per team just to make sure we never have any issues with mr. mime + ninjask + etc bp chains).

As far as I'm aware this is something we could already do because transitivity was broken but I'm just making this post to be sure there wouldn't be any objections.