After getting reqs, I'm still not 100% on whether or not Skymin is ban worthy. While its high speed tier and 60% flinch rate combined with a powerful seed flare and coverage moves like earth power to hit Heatran or tailwind to help it keep the speed advantage that Skymin really needs to get that flinch chance makes it top tier, however you the only thing that would make it over the top is the 60% flinch chance from air slash. While a 60% percent chance to completly imobalize a pokemon for the turn is strong, it's only a chance, and you can't say it's gonna happen. Luck is not something that you can ban a pokemon off of, and for that reason I am leaning more towards no ban.
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np: Doubles OU Stage 3 - Hate to Love You - SKYMIN HAS BEEN BANNED
- Thread starter Arcticblast
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BreloomMyHomie
Golden State Warriors Bandwagon Fan
I got my COIL Reqs recently, so might as well make my post.
Shaymin Sky was probably suspected for the many positive aspects it has. With a high base speed stat of 127, it outspeeds most key pokemon to look out for in the Doubles OU meta, barring Deoxys Attack, Mega Gengar, and relevant scarfers such as Landorus T and Kyurem-B. I know some people may say that 60% chance to flinch with Air Slash is unreliable, but lots of players sometimes have to rely on that chance to flinch to win the game. That flinch chance just makes Shaymin Sky such an annoying pokemon to deal with.
One of the most effective cores with skymin in it is skymin+keldeo. With access to Quick Guard, Keldeo can cover up the priority weakness Skymin has. The grass water coverage is capable of hitting plenty of the tier, as this core tears up many holes in teams. Furthermore, only a few mons can stand in its way.
Grass-Flying hit's all types for neutral/super effective damage except steel, but that's why all Shaymin's run Earth Power, making it such competent pokemon when it comes to attacking and handling more pokemon on the field, which is why it's a threat on hyper offense. With Seed Flare having an 80% chance of lowering the opposing mon's special defense by two stages, Shaymin can break through spdef wall checks such as Cresselia.
While Skymin is incredibly fast, has amazing coverage, and a fantastic ability, it does have its weak points.
It's insanely frail. You might look at it's HP stat and think this thing has a chance at living hits on paper, but when in battle, you will realize that this thing dies so quickly, forcing it to run a focus sash. It's defensive typing is horrible, having 5 weaknesses with one being 4x weak.
Speed Control completely shuts it down, whether you're playing Trick Room or Tailwind teams, trick room being it's worst fear. Shaymin Sky can't prevent Trick Room going up, as it doesn't have access to taunt, which stinks cause it's high speed is one of the best things when using this mon. Thunderwave just cripples this thing to hell, and it doesn't have access to it's own priority which is a disappointment. Icy wind also slows this thing down, not to mention it does x4 damage. Furthermore, weather is also an issue to Skymin, as the Venusaur+Zard Y and Excadrill+Tyranitar cores completely check and demolish it.
Skymin is definitely one of few grass types that are viable in this meta. Amazing special attack and speed with a high chance to lower your opponents spdef, allowing it to wall break. However, with a defensive type that poor, relying on its speed to put in work, I am currently in the Abstain section.
Shaymin Sky was probably suspected for the many positive aspects it has. With a high base speed stat of 127, it outspeeds most key pokemon to look out for in the Doubles OU meta, barring Deoxys Attack, Mega Gengar, and relevant scarfers such as Landorus T and Kyurem-B. I know some people may say that 60% chance to flinch with Air Slash is unreliable, but lots of players sometimes have to rely on that chance to flinch to win the game. That flinch chance just makes Shaymin Sky such an annoying pokemon to deal with.
One of the most effective cores with skymin in it is skymin+keldeo. With access to Quick Guard, Keldeo can cover up the priority weakness Skymin has. The grass water coverage is capable of hitting plenty of the tier, as this core tears up many holes in teams. Furthermore, only a few mons can stand in its way.
Grass-Flying hit's all types for neutral/super effective damage except steel, but that's why all Shaymin's run Earth Power, making it such competent pokemon when it comes to attacking and handling more pokemon on the field, which is why it's a threat on hyper offense. With Seed Flare having an 80% chance of lowering the opposing mon's special defense by two stages, Shaymin can break through spdef wall checks such as Cresselia.
While Skymin is incredibly fast, has amazing coverage, and a fantastic ability, it does have its weak points.
It's insanely frail. You might look at it's HP stat and think this thing has a chance at living hits on paper, but when in battle, you will realize that this thing dies so quickly, forcing it to run a focus sash. It's defensive typing is horrible, having 5 weaknesses with one being 4x weak.
Speed Control completely shuts it down, whether you're playing Trick Room or Tailwind teams, trick room being it's worst fear. Shaymin Sky can't prevent Trick Room going up, as it doesn't have access to taunt, which stinks cause it's high speed is one of the best things when using this mon. Thunderwave just cripples this thing to hell, and it doesn't have access to it's own priority which is a disappointment. Icy wind also slows this thing down, not to mention it does x4 damage. Furthermore, weather is also an issue to Skymin, as the Venusaur+Zard Y and Excadrill+Tyranitar cores completely check and demolish it.
Skymin is definitely one of few grass types that are viable in this meta. Amazing special attack and speed with a high chance to lower your opponents spdef, allowing it to wall break. However, with a defensive type that poor, relying on its speed to put in work, I am currently in the Abstain section.
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partly yes but that's not relevant right now
On a more serious note, I'm not fully convinced as to whether or not either banning or keeping Skymin would be beneficial to the metagame, though right now I am leaning towards banning it. What I do have though is an issue with people saying that we shouldn't try to minimize the frequency of hax, as one of the core tenants of competition is that both sides are given equal footing and victory is given, for the most part, to whoever played the best. Saying "luck" shouldn't be a factor to banning Skymin ignores something that is a defining characteristic of it. A timely flinch can drastically change the course of the game, and Skymin is one of the few Pokemon in which the user can consciously roll for a flinch and be rewarded with one at a frequent of enough rate that it's become an issue. Audiosurfer has already extensively covered the concept of risk vs reward, but as it pertains to Skymin the question of whether or not the reward vastly outweighs the risk is something that should be looked at.
With Seed Flare, Skymin has an 80% chance to hit for a quite significant 120 BP attack but also a 64% chance to lower the opposing Pokemons Special Defense by 2 stages (factoring in accuracy). The risk of this is a 20% chance to miss, which is about the average risk for moves with that base power, the main difference being none of those other moves have anywhere near the same level of rewards for actually hitting them. With Air Slash the rewards are a meagre 75 BP attack and a 57% chance to stop any opposing Pokemon that is slower than it from moving for a turn, with the only risk being a 5% chance to miss. The only other Pokemon that offer any thing close to this are relatively slow Pokemon, such as Dunsparce, Blissey, or Togekiss, all of which lower the actual value of the reward as they have a much smaller pool of Pokemon that are slower than them. Other instances of risk vs reward scenarios, for example the Thunder Wave against Aerodactyl, the odds are still squarely in the opponents favour, even confusion is still a 50-50, but with Skymin the odds are in favour of the Skymin user.
There are of course other factors that need to be looked at, notably the fact that its moves are all single target, but the "luck" factor is the main issue. Fishing for flinches is nothing new and is an issue in all forms as it allows games that are completely one sided to become close wins for the flinch user (a notable example is the infamous TRC vs Benja game), but they can also turn relatively close games into completely one sided ones (an Air Slash flinch completely boned me vs Stratos today). There really isn't much counterplay to fishing for flinches, either you outrun the opponent or you just hope you don't get flinched, and I think that isn't a healthy situation to allow in the metagame.
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I got my reqs recently, so i'm making a post about my thoughts on skymin.
Skymin is really frail, that's why focus sash is often played on it to take a hit, even if he can be ko'd easily on one turn. But that rarely happen.
The problem of skymin is its offensive power, that is huge. It has a great speed that allows him to outspeed the majority of the metagame except scarfers. It has two stabs really strong : seed flare is very powerful, and has 80% to lower from 2 stages special defense, making it 2hko'd in majority of cases. Air slash, even if not that strong, is incredible because of the 60% flinch that makes it being unhealthy. Also skymin has earth power that make an almost perfect coverage, or tailwind a move that is one of the greatest support move in doubles. This two stabs make it being weak to few mons, mostly steel type that won't appreciate seed flare on the switch + earth power, even if some counter exists.
But the problem of skymin is that its great offensive power is coupled with a great luck power : seed flare spe def fell is insane, and the worst is air slash flinch. What should be considered as "haxx", is now common, and now air slash means flinch with skymin. In OU when you uses scald, you know you have about 50% burning in two scald, 66% in three, so when you stay on scald you are clearly risking the burn. Here there is no solution, because whatever you do, who ever you putting in you're taking the risk of flinch, that is even more probable, while you could switch on something that doesn't care about burn in OU. And the problem is that in doubles that's not possible putting a counter on a mon, since there are 2 mons on the field, and that makes flinch way more important. Also skymin coupled with a good offensive mon, like keldeo, is really threatening since with a flinch you can twist the end of the game, and thus skymin is unhealthy
That's why i'll probably vote Ban
Skymin is really frail, that's why focus sash is often played on it to take a hit, even if he can be ko'd easily on one turn. But that rarely happen.
The problem of skymin is its offensive power, that is huge. It has a great speed that allows him to outspeed the majority of the metagame except scarfers. It has two stabs really strong : seed flare is very powerful, and has 80% to lower from 2 stages special defense, making it 2hko'd in majority of cases. Air slash, even if not that strong, is incredible because of the 60% flinch that makes it being unhealthy. Also skymin has earth power that make an almost perfect coverage, or tailwind a move that is one of the greatest support move in doubles. This two stabs make it being weak to few mons, mostly steel type that won't appreciate seed flare on the switch + earth power, even if some counter exists.
But the problem of skymin is that its great offensive power is coupled with a great luck power : seed flare spe def fell is insane, and the worst is air slash flinch. What should be considered as "haxx", is now common, and now air slash means flinch with skymin. In OU when you uses scald, you know you have about 50% burning in two scald, 66% in three, so when you stay on scald you are clearly risking the burn. Here there is no solution, because whatever you do, who ever you putting in you're taking the risk of flinch, that is even more probable, while you could switch on something that doesn't care about burn in OU. And the problem is that in doubles that's not possible putting a counter on a mon, since there are 2 mons on the field, and that makes flinch way more important. Also skymin coupled with a good offensive mon, like keldeo, is really threatening since with a flinch you can twist the end of the game, and thus skymin is unhealthy
That's why i'll probably vote Ban
Thoughts on Skymin!
Upon speed reading most posts here, I realized that we were about hax, some frailness and stuff, and I'm sorry, but it might get repeated again here, bear with me.
I think Shaymin-S is not that bad (as in banworthy) of a mon. Few reasons are the following:
-It is frail. In other words, it is not a mon that expects to stay very long, and thus have a role of murdering things quick. This is hard to do on it's own, as in the doubles meta you have two pokemon to deal with at the same time. This leads to strategies like Quick Guard Keldeo etc etc, meaning you just sacrificed a team member's potentially important slow (view other better moves that can go here including various Hidden Power types and Icy Wind, depending on team). Unless you build an entire team solely around Shaymin-S, one is very unlikely to face problems with it, as usually it's an addition to a team to check certain mons, like how sometimes I use it for random bulky waters who might be problematic for M-Diancie, etc.
-It isn't that easy to find slots to let Shaymin-S switch in. It might sound hard, but you can block Shaymin-S from getting easy swap in into the game. Let's say opponent has a Shaymin-S at the back and is looking for a clean swap after an KO. The simplest method is to then slowly wear down the opponent and simultaneously getting something that stops Shaymin-S in, or stop the support mon for Shaymin-S. Basically, get the quick guard user out of the way and get your thundy-i/paralyzer in. Once that is established, it isn't hard to play around shaymin-s. Also, let it not be forgotten that Shaymin-S have no spread moves and can only target one mon at a time. If hax bothers you, I suggest considering two mons on the table -> one perhaps a lure and the other as the main killer, and play accordingly according to skill (which you need to assess)
And for the above reasons, I hope I've provided new insights to Shaymin-S!
Erm....I'm also registerd as Frontier Zachary...just to...point it out....yea.....
Proof: http://prntscr.com/8460j0
Upon speed reading most posts here, I realized that we were about hax, some frailness and stuff, and I'm sorry, but it might get repeated again here, bear with me.
I think Shaymin-S is not that bad (as in banworthy) of a mon. Few reasons are the following:
-It is frail. In other words, it is not a mon that expects to stay very long, and thus have a role of murdering things quick. This is hard to do on it's own, as in the doubles meta you have two pokemon to deal with at the same time. This leads to strategies like Quick Guard Keldeo etc etc, meaning you just sacrificed a team member's potentially important slow (view other better moves that can go here including various Hidden Power types and Icy Wind, depending on team). Unless you build an entire team solely around Shaymin-S, one is very unlikely to face problems with it, as usually it's an addition to a team to check certain mons, like how sometimes I use it for random bulky waters who might be problematic for M-Diancie, etc.
-It isn't that easy to find slots to let Shaymin-S switch in. It might sound hard, but you can block Shaymin-S from getting easy swap in into the game. Let's say opponent has a Shaymin-S at the back and is looking for a clean swap after an KO. The simplest method is to then slowly wear down the opponent and simultaneously getting something that stops Shaymin-S in, or stop the support mon for Shaymin-S. Basically, get the quick guard user out of the way and get your thundy-i/paralyzer in. Once that is established, it isn't hard to play around shaymin-s. Also, let it not be forgotten that Shaymin-S have no spread moves and can only target one mon at a time. If hax bothers you, I suggest considering two mons on the table -> one perhaps a lure and the other as the main killer, and play accordingly according to skill (which you need to assess)
And for the above reasons, I hope I've provided new insights to Shaymin-S!
Erm....I'm also registerd as Frontier Zachary...just to...point it out....yea.....
Proof: http://prntscr.com/8460j0
Just got my reqs and figured I would post as well about Skymin.
As much as how annoying it is to play against this thing especially when it can swing an entire game on its head, I don't think Skymin is worthy of banning because there are so many ways for various playstyles to beat it. If you're not building with Skymin in mind, I question why because it will run through your team if you don't have checks for it (similar to Kangaskhan, Landorus-T, Charizard Y, Diancie, etc).
I echo what ArthurZH says in that it's quite hard for Skymin to come in unless it gets a free switch, but that means losing a Pokemon. As others have said in this suspect thread, speed control is vital for a team to succeed in Doubles OU whether it would be Tailwind, Trick Room, etc. Pretty much all forms of speed control gives Skymin a really hard time.
As for the Keldeo-Skymin combo, I still think it's not gonna beat Thundurus simply because support Thundurus is bulky enough to take attacks from both and then choose to either Thunderbolt Keldeo for the KO or HP Ice the Shaymin to the sash (or knock out if there is prior damage). This also doesn't factor the potential ally next to Thundurus like Sylveon for example that can also tank the attacks pretty well. While this does open up the possibility for Air Slash flinches, it's a tough trade for the Skymin-Keldeo player to make against the Thundurus-Sylveon player that just has to press Hyper Voice and let Thundurus do what it wants.
As much as how annoying it is to play against this thing especially when it can swing an entire game on its head, I don't think Skymin is worthy of banning because there are so many ways for various playstyles to beat it. If you're not building with Skymin in mind, I question why because it will run through your team if you don't have checks for it (similar to Kangaskhan, Landorus-T, Charizard Y, Diancie, etc).
I echo what ArthurZH says in that it's quite hard for Skymin to come in unless it gets a free switch, but that means losing a Pokemon. As others have said in this suspect thread, speed control is vital for a team to succeed in Doubles OU whether it would be Tailwind, Trick Room, etc. Pretty much all forms of speed control gives Skymin a really hard time.
As for the Keldeo-Skymin combo, I still think it's not gonna beat Thundurus simply because support Thundurus is bulky enough to take attacks from both and then choose to either Thunderbolt Keldeo for the KO or HP Ice the Shaymin to the sash (or knock out if there is prior damage). This also doesn't factor the potential ally next to Thundurus like Sylveon for example that can also tank the attacks pretty well. While this does open up the possibility for Air Slash flinches, it's a tough trade for the Skymin-Keldeo player to make against the Thundurus-Sylveon player that just has to press Hyper Voice and let Thundurus do what it wants.
I came into this suspect not knowing anything about skymin, so I thought I wouldn't be able to decide whether or not I want it banned. After playing several skymkin on the ladder i quickly realized I'd like it to be banned for a few reasons.
- The most obvious one, skymin has serene grace which is absolutely crazy along with its stabs, air slash having the 60% chance to flinch which is ridiculous because you're able to beat mons that you wouldn't normally be able to beat. And seed flare has an 80% chance to lower special defense which combined with a 60% flinch chance allows you to beat most mons that you outspeed.
- Shymin has a very high speed which allows it to outspeed most of the meta, since skymin is so fast you're going to be able to outspeed a lot of mons and easily flinch them. Skymin also has a decently high special attack so it's able to hit hard as well.
- Skymin is able to run life orb which makes its attacks do even more damage or focus sash which allows it to endure a guy that would normally ko it. I feel like sash on skymin is incredibly good because you get an extra chance to flinch or ko something.
- Skymin has added to earth power as well which allows it beat most steel types so they aren't able to wall either.
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Okay, so I have finally decided to vote ban on this suspect test. I am a new doubles player, so I think I've made my previous posts incoherent, and not getting my points across correctly.
So my first argument was that Skymin loses to pretty much all forms of speed control, which exist on literally every team. Yes that's true but if every team didn't have a way to deal with Lando-T then it would be pretty broken too. But broken is quite the different term than it is in singles. Nothing is completely impossible to deal with in a doubles format. So I'm gonna try to split up the reasons why it should be banned in the main areas that doubles pokemon cover:
Offense:
So, overall, I can say that there's plenty of pokemon that have their positives outweigh their negatives, but in Skymin's case, it's all of that AND the power to turn RNG heavily against you opponent, a function that's supposed to be a random blessing throughout the battle. I hope that makes more sense than some of my previous posts. :]
So my first argument was that Skymin loses to pretty much all forms of speed control, which exist on literally every team. Yes that's true but if every team didn't have a way to deal with Lando-T then it would be pretty broken too. But broken is quite the different term than it is in singles. Nothing is completely impossible to deal with in a doubles format. So I'm gonna try to split up the reasons why it should be banned in the main areas that doubles pokemon cover:
Offense:
- Ridiculous mix of 120 base SpAtk with 127 base Speed. Hits hard and fast, one of the reasons why speed control exists.
- Grass/Flying/Ground coverage is resited by 2 relevant mons in doubles, Thundurus and Zapdos.
- Makes a great revenge killer without priority, gets around Quick Guard and stuff.
- More than likely to halve a target's SpDef and make easy KOs for teammates.
- Air Slash flinches more than half of the time, so it, in theory, your opponent has a 60% chance that they only get half a turn. When making a crucial plays, a flinch will potentially screw you over, and force you into bad situations when you have to take out Shaymin to stop it from dismantling your team.
- Usually running a Sash, it requires two hits to take down. Combined with Air Slash, it relieves a lot of stress for it's teammate, even if for only one or two turns.
- Serene Grace heavily pushes luck in your favor, lowering the skill margin.
- Pretty much the only area where Skymin falls short, with a crappy defensive typing, but 100/75/75 defenses makes it not paper thin.
So, overall, I can say that there's plenty of pokemon that have their positives outweigh their negatives, but in Skymin's case, it's all of that AND the power to turn RNG heavily against you opponent, a function that's supposed to be a random blessing throughout the battle. I hope that makes more sense than some of my previous posts. :]
Well, I got reqs on the third day of the suspect test, buuut I've been busy with Summer classes, so I haven't really had time to sit down and write anything out. But now that my finals are over, I'll get to this.
So during the time playing the suspect ladder and actually looking deeply at Shaymin in the meta and not bypassing it as just another common OU threat, I was able to give it a good look over. Personally, I still don't think it needs to be banned. Let's look at it's toxicity before its shortcomings.
Now, the cons:
Now looking at this, to me it seems Shaymin's cons outweigh its pros. It may be able to tear apart bulkier teams and disrupt them heavily with its flinches and stat drops, but it suffers from things that any common HO mon suffers from. Lack of switch in potential, death by Yellow Magic, cannot handle speed control whatsoever, a clutch flinch falling through ruining you, and inability to deal with heavy offensive pressure. I feel it'll always make a name for itself in heavy offense and a bulk/balance checker, but will never truly be an overly-imposing force like any ubers before it. Feel free to debate me on this though. ^_^
Proof of Reqs. (Grand Empress, obviously)
So during the time playing the suspect ladder and actually looking deeply at Shaymin in the meta and not bypassing it as just another common OU threat, I was able to give it a good look over. Personally, I still don't think it needs to be banned. Let's look at it's toxicity before its shortcomings.
- Amazing 127 Speed Tier. in a class of it's own and able to outpace lots of threats that aren't augmented via choice scarf or other forms of speed control.
- The Grass/Flying typing. Giving it pretty decent offensive coverage throughout the meta, letting it hit on a lot of things at least neutrally and muscle past bulky waters such as Suicune and Wash Rotom. Also, Flying type grants it immunity to Earthquake, one of the most common and annoying mves in the meta.
- Access to the Serene Grace Ability. The most annoying thing about this Pokemon. Coupled with Air Slash, this thing can hit for pretty solid damage and the very high 60% chance to flinch, making it a very disruptive Pokemon to common balance teams.
- Seed Flare. THis highly powerful Base 120 power Grass type move i Shaymin's most powerful attack. And coupled with an 80% chance to drop Special Defense by 2 stages can make things that would otherwise tank or resist its blows no problem get completely leveled next turn or support an incoming special move by its partner if doubling up on the enemy.
Now, the cons:
- Grass/Flying Typing. While giving it immunity to Earthquake, Rage Powder, and the oh so annoying Spore, this typing also hinders it in the form of its x4 weakness to Ice, weakness to fire, weakness to Rock, and and weakness to Flying in the form of the ever so threatening Priority Brave bird from good ol' TalonSkill.
- Weakness to the most common of spread moves [barring Earthquake]. Icy wind, Heat Wave, Rock Slide, Diamond Storm, Blizzard. Easily thrown at Shaymin and it's powerless to defend itself against them.
- No way to handle Speed Control. Any form of speed control will ruin this thing's momentum. Icy Wind dropping its speed by 1 stage will let it get outsped by the majority of the un-augmented metagame. And with Shaymin's fragile defenses, it's not taking any good hits very well whatsoever from anything neutral. Tailwind isn't as heavily jarring on it, but letting things outspeed it and get around its disruptive Air Slash flinches is quite clutch and will vastly null it's threat level. At least for the 4 turns it's up.
- Trick Room and Yellow Magic! These two things completely stop Shaymin in its tracks. Trick room turns it's amazing speed tier from an incredible asses to a damning hinderence. Even the slowest of mons will be outpacing and shredding it to ribbons like nothing once the win button has been pressed. And Thunder Wave will achieve the same result permanantly while also having the added chance to not allow it to attack at all on some turns. Being this slow, Shaymin will lose all momentum and any level of threat it has will be null and void for the time being.
Now looking at this, to me it seems Shaymin's cons outweigh its pros. It may be able to tear apart bulkier teams and disrupt them heavily with its flinches and stat drops, but it suffers from things that any common HO mon suffers from. Lack of switch in potential, death by Yellow Magic, cannot handle speed control whatsoever, a clutch flinch falling through ruining you, and inability to deal with heavy offensive pressure. I feel it'll always make a name for itself in heavy offense and a bulk/balance checker, but will never truly be an overly-imposing force like any ubers before it. Feel free to debate me on this though. ^_^
Proof of Reqs. (Grand Empress, obviously)
I think shaymin-sky should be banned due to its combination of high speed, insane power, hax factor, and constantly making the game a luckfest which is uncompetitive.
To start off with shaymin's speed, it has base 127 which is higher than pretty much the whole unboosted metagame barring anomalies like scarf landorus-therian and some rarer megas like mega gengar and the unseen manec/aerodactyl. It's base 127 speed allows it to run modest with minimal drawback, I have no idea why the analysis and everyone in this thread claims timid is mandatory when it really isn't and hits nothing relevant barring a speed tie. With modest you outspeed max 110's, tie with 111's and there is nothing in that whole 112-127 benchmark that is remotely relevant in the metagame bar skymin itself. and the extra power is nice as a whole. The only real things that deal with shaymin sky are prankster thunder wave, tailwind, and arguably trick roomand also geopass. I'll go into each of these below.
Prankster thunder wave is mostly seen on thundurus-i but that isn't a big deal because no competent player would let their skymin get paralyzed by a thundurus-i for free, so I don't see why they see thundurus-i as this end all answer to skymin when it's a deterrent at best. Tailwind is mediocre in general due to very few viable users outside talonflame and arguably latios and hydreigon, the former of which is the only one that can set it up due to gale wings. Again with speed being such a key asset, it is essential to stall out tailwind turns with protect, redirection, fake out, etc, and 3 turns is not a lot to stall out so Ifeel this is overexagerated. Trick room is in a similar vein to tailwind, in that you must stall it out, and due to how skymin has minimal redeeming qualities without its speed to back it up, it's essential to keep skymin out of TR (I don't get why you're all so insistent that skymin will try engaging in battles when TR is up) but when TR is down, skymin gives TR users hell trying to set up so TR is far from reliable since it's difficult to set up due to skymin, and when it does go up, skymin has no reason to stay in.
Shaymin-sky has insane power with 120 base SpA backed up with spammable stab moves, both of which have secondary effects that push skymin over the edge. 120 SpA backed up with a 120bp stab move that has a 68% to half special defense is absurd and makes skymin have zero safe switchins outside of thundurus and talonflame (both of which take massive damage on the switch) since the halved special defense makes picking off threats easy due to air slash immobolizing and doing huge damage to a -2 target, in addition to it being strong as fuck by itself. Air slash is ridiculous due to it's 57% of flinching the target and often can completely chip a target to death while also freeing up time for your partner to rampage on your opponent. Then you throw on w/e coverage moves are needed and you have a deadly mon in itself.
Due to this combination of power, constantly making the game a luckfest, I feel skymin is banworthy.
Also, for all those that say that shaymin-sky is wrecked by priority, consider it in a similar vein to deo-a where you should not be letting skymin take those super powerful priority attacks and rely on partners to help deal with them so it can put in work, or better yet don't use skymin when after mentioned threats are in play. Skymin has far too easy a time swinging the momentum in the user's favor and thus should be banned.
To start off with shaymin's speed, it has base 127 which is higher than pretty much the whole unboosted metagame barring anomalies like scarf landorus-therian and some rarer megas like mega gengar and the unseen manec/aerodactyl. It's base 127 speed allows it to run modest with minimal drawback, I have no idea why the analysis and everyone in this thread claims timid is mandatory when it really isn't and hits nothing relevant barring a speed tie. With modest you outspeed max 110's, tie with 111's and there is nothing in that whole 112-127 benchmark that is remotely relevant in the metagame bar skymin itself. and the extra power is nice as a whole. The only real things that deal with shaymin sky are prankster thunder wave, tailwind, and arguably trick room
Prankster thunder wave is mostly seen on thundurus-i but that isn't a big deal because no competent player would let their skymin get paralyzed by a thundurus-i for free, so I don't see why they see thundurus-i as this end all answer to skymin when it's a deterrent at best. Tailwind is mediocre in general due to very few viable users outside talonflame and arguably latios and hydreigon, the former of which is the only one that can set it up due to gale wings. Again with speed being such a key asset, it is essential to stall out tailwind turns with protect, redirection, fake out, etc, and 3 turns is not a lot to stall out so Ifeel this is overexagerated. Trick room is in a similar vein to tailwind, in that you must stall it out, and due to how skymin has minimal redeeming qualities without its speed to back it up, it's essential to keep skymin out of TR (I don't get why you're all so insistent that skymin will try engaging in battles when TR is up) but when TR is down, skymin gives TR users hell trying to set up so TR is far from reliable since it's difficult to set up due to skymin, and when it does go up, skymin has no reason to stay in.
Shaymin-sky has insane power with 120 base SpA backed up with spammable stab moves, both of which have secondary effects that push skymin over the edge. 120 SpA backed up with a 120bp stab move that has a 68% to half special defense is absurd and makes skymin have zero safe switchins outside of thundurus and talonflame (both of which take massive damage on the switch) since the halved special defense makes picking off threats easy due to air slash immobolizing and doing huge damage to a -2 target, in addition to it being strong as fuck by itself. Air slash is ridiculous due to it's 57% of flinching the target and often can completely chip a target to death while also freeing up time for your partner to rampage on your opponent. Then you throw on w/e coverage moves are needed and you have a deadly mon in itself.
Due to this combination of power, constantly making the game a luckfest, I feel skymin is banworthy.
Also, for all those that say that shaymin-sky is wrecked by priority, consider it in a similar vein to deo-a where you should not be letting skymin take those super powerful priority attacks and rely on partners to help deal with them so it can put in work, or better yet don't use skymin when after mentioned threats are in play. Skymin has far too easy a time swinging the momentum in the user's favor and thus should be banned.
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I originally thought that Shaymin-Sky was not banworthy; however, I am starting to sway a little bit towards the pro-banner side.
For one thing, both sides are theorymonning a lot; I haven't actually seen any replays in this thread and have also seen a lot of anti-ban arguments. There is one reason for this:
| 67 | Shaymin-Sky | 2.56841%
If Skymin was used more then you can bet that more people would be pushing for its ban. Shaymin is just really unhealthy for the meta at the moment, the combination of Serene Grace, two moves that perfectly abuse it, a blistering Speed stat, good Special Attack, and good coverage is just ridiculous. In the hands of good players, Shaymin can do a lot of damage to most teams. Skymin + Keldeo is easily one of the most potent cores in Doubles right now, and it's easy for Shaymin to just switch out or flinch its way through its counters. Even Talonflame and Thundurus don't completely stop it, as you can just pair Skymin with a Rage Powder or Wide Guard user.
However, I do honestly feel like people are hyping it up too much. The team I'm currently trying to get reqs with naturally has answers to Skymin, such as TFlame, Landorus, Kangaskhan, and Sylveon, not because of Skymin, but because they fit with the team. Skymin is also really weak to all forms of speed control, including Tailwind, TR, Twave, and Icy Wind. I also saw a post about how Skymin can deal with weather because they usually only have 1 abuser. That'sabsolute bullshit not true, all of the weather teams I've seen on the ladder have had (and should have) 2+ abusers.
Overall, though, I'm kinda leaning towards banning Skymin. It restricts teambuilding a little too much for my liking and is generally unhealthy for the metagame, although I could still be swayed either way. Might post again once I play a bit more on the ladder.
For one thing, both sides are theorymonning a lot; I haven't actually seen any replays in this thread and have also seen a lot of anti-ban arguments. There is one reason for this:
| 67 | Shaymin-Sky | 2.56841%
If Skymin was used more then you can bet that more people would be pushing for its ban. Shaymin is just really unhealthy for the meta at the moment, the combination of Serene Grace, two moves that perfectly abuse it, a blistering Speed stat, good Special Attack, and good coverage is just ridiculous. In the hands of good players, Shaymin can do a lot of damage to most teams. Skymin + Keldeo is easily one of the most potent cores in Doubles right now, and it's easy for Shaymin to just switch out or flinch its way through its counters. Even Talonflame and Thundurus don't completely stop it, as you can just pair Skymin with a Rage Powder or Wide Guard user.
However, I do honestly feel like people are hyping it up too much. The team I'm currently trying to get reqs with naturally has answers to Skymin, such as TFlame, Landorus, Kangaskhan, and Sylveon, not because of Skymin, but because they fit with the team. Skymin is also really weak to all forms of speed control, including Tailwind, TR, Twave, and Icy Wind. I also saw a post about how Skymin can deal with weather because they usually only have 1 abuser. That's
Overall, though, I'm kinda leaning towards banning Skymin. It restricts teambuilding a little too much for my liking and is generally unhealthy for the metagame, although I could still be swayed either way. Might post again once I play a bit more on the ladder.
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So I've been laddering now for a good time without Skymin, with different build to have a clear idea on how Skymin affects teambuilding and the different way to deal with it.
So at first Skymin is not really different than any other offensive threats, you basically just need something outspeeding it to achieve your goal and not to be annoyed a lot by it.
I have to admitt I have been kinda surprised on how "easy" (it was not easy like "oml i'm god it has been as effective as a caterpie !", Skymin was just not giving trouble) to beat Skymin.
There is actually a plenty of way to deal with it, even if some of them are harder to set-up (Tailwind and Trick Room) due to flinching factor, but with some predictions you can easily avoid this situation, at least in early game. There is also scarfed users or even faster threat, in particular Mega Gengar or Blaziken, maybe the 2 best things I've been using against Skymin.
I think Skymin is the scariest thing when it comes to end game to be honest, where you sometimes lack your weapons to beat it (or where they are damaged too much to take hits), and where it has maybe an easier time to plan the end game to be the most effective as possible. But it's not as easy as it seems to be, especially when Tailwind and Trick Room are involved because Skymin simply can't switch in when he wants and there will often be a way to effectively put him down.
And sometimes, especially when I was playing him, Skymin was a deadweight if Tailwind or Trick Room was up. When Skymin does not hit in first he looses a lot of its potential, especially in Trick Room where he usually hits in last. And that's assuming he did not die before.
Not always because there is still battles where Skymin will have a chance to do its job, but it will have a lot of trouble to. Skymin actually forces people to play carefully, not mindlessly throwing their mons because some of them will be needed in end game to face Skymin.
Because I really think Skymin has been overrated by some people all around (including myself) on the fact it was able to give the win to an underserved player by just flinching everything when it is not the case, considering its high Speed combined to a decent SpAtk giving it the need of a LO to be very threatening in terms of damages, considering LO is a risk because you'll lack the Focus Sash allowing you not to die against every faster threats or against a slower one not getting flinched, considering a really good grass/flying/ground coverage being unresisted making it really hard to deal with on a defensive aspect, considering the pressure it puts on battles, especially by the end comes.
I think Skymin is a really great mon in the current metagame (and even a major threat) but is neither broken or unhealthy to deserve a ban.
So at first Skymin is not really different than any other offensive threats, you basically just need something outspeeding it to achieve your goal and not to be annoyed a lot by it.
I have to admitt I have been kinda surprised on how "easy" (it was not easy like "oml i'm god it has been as effective as a caterpie !", Skymin was just not giving trouble) to beat Skymin.
There is actually a plenty of way to deal with it, even if some of them are harder to set-up (Tailwind and Trick Room) due to flinching factor, but with some predictions you can easily avoid this situation, at least in early game. There is also scarfed users or even faster threat, in particular Mega Gengar or Blaziken, maybe the 2 best things I've been using against Skymin.
I think Skymin is the scariest thing when it comes to end game to be honest, where you sometimes lack your weapons to beat it (or where they are damaged too much to take hits), and where it has maybe an easier time to plan the end game to be the most effective as possible. But it's not as easy as it seems to be, especially when Tailwind and Trick Room are involved because Skymin simply can't switch in when he wants and there will often be a way to effectively put him down.
And sometimes, especially when I was playing him, Skymin was a deadweight if Tailwind or Trick Room was up. When Skymin does not hit in first he looses a lot of its potential, especially in Trick Room where he usually hits in last. And that's assuming he did not die before.
Not always because there is still battles where Skymin will have a chance to do its job, but it will have a lot of trouble to. Skymin actually forces people to play carefully, not mindlessly throwing their mons because some of them will be needed in end game to face Skymin.
Because I really think Skymin has been overrated by some people all around (including myself) on the fact it was able to give the win to an underserved player by just flinching everything when it is not the case, considering its high Speed combined to a decent SpAtk giving it the need of a LO to be very threatening in terms of damages, considering LO is a risk because you'll lack the Focus Sash allowing you not to die against every faster threats or against a slower one not getting flinched, considering a really good grass/flying/ground coverage being unresisted making it really hard to deal with on a defensive aspect, considering the pressure it puts on battles, especially by the end comes.
I think Skymin is a really great mon in the current metagame (and even a major threat) but is neither broken or unhealthy to deserve a ban.
Came back to smogon mostly because I saw that there were a lot of misconceptions that made almost everyone start to say that Skymin is nowhere near banworthy which I will blatantly say is wrong.
Now this is an announcement to all people saying that Hyper Offense will still be as consistent in a meta game without Skymin. SPOILERS: that's more remote from correct than anything said in this thread. Skymin can't be so easily replaced by Serperior or Sceptile or some other weird grass shit that beats Mega Diancie, because they'd literally just be some fast grass shit that beats Mega Diancie and Keldeo and pretty much nothing else.Serperior by no means OHKOs Suicune unless you're at +2 and nothing has managed to killed you yet, and unlike Skymin it doesn't just completely shit on Breloom. It also doesn't create free switches to things with fast Air Slash flinches, as the 56% chance to flinch with Air Slash is much higher than whatever the hell Serperior has, the best it has is either Swagger or Glare and neither of those are even close to a Serene Grace Air Slash flinch. Finally, I've never seen a fast grass not named Skymin that has a good matchup against Steels.
Weakness to common spread moves: Blizzard is only used on Abomasnow, which gets brutally fucked by Keldeo's Secret Sword as well as Skymin's Air Slash. Any other Blizzard users are usually noticeable (for instance, seeing Greninja on a hail team should be a red flag), and they sorta get fucked hard by Seed Flare, Air Slash, or Secret Sword. Diamond Storm only comes from Mega Diancie which just gets straight OHKOd by Seed Flare and can't switch into Keldeo or Skymin at all. Icy Wind is most definitely not a common spread move, and Heat Wave only comes from Charizard and Heatran, one of those two gets fucked by Secret Sword from Keldeo and both of those two lose hard to Mega Diancie, and one of those two loses hard to Mega Kangaskhan while the other has big issues.
No way to handle Speed Control: Air Slash flinches? OHKOing Suicune and Breloom? Having Bisharp as a partner probably 60% of the time? Having Hoopa-U as a partner the other 40% of the time? OHKOing Jellicent as well as using a Seed Flare+partner's attack to potentially KO a Trick Room/Tailwind setter? Protect Stalling? My, what a speed control weak Pokemon........
Trick Room and Yellow Magic: Trick Room definitely has issues with both Skymin and Keldeo as the two relevant Fake Out users lose to Keldeo brutally and Skymin has nice access to a 56% chance to flinch. You should only say, when discussing Skymin, if Trick Room goes up, Skymin could potentially lose if the user of Skymin doesn't do things such as Protect stall or bring in something like Mega Diancie, Kangaskhan, Bisharp, or Hoopa-U to deal with the Trick Room that's up, or even Kyurem-B having the ability to stall out Trick Room with Substitute, which is kind of great for the Skymin user considering there's only a 44% chance to actually even set up Trick Room, unless you just want to sack your Fake Out user and target Skymin over Keldeo. As for Yellow Magic, if it's Quick Guard Keldeo (which it likely is if it's Kangaskhan>Diancie, if not then have fun thunder wave spamming), you won't have fun against Skymin.
Now I did say a brief thing about Diancie just getting most of Skymin's checks. The thing is that Diancie just destroys all of Skymin's checks, but there are definitely variants of Hyper Offense that are successful even without Diancie. How? Because all of Skymin's checks are anally fucked by strong fast rock moves. Landorus-T and Diancie are the best examples. Aerodactyl serves as a secondary option to defeat Talonflame but not Thundurus. Of course, finally's HO Sun has Rhyperior - mainly significant because it resists Brave Bird, has great defense and HP, redirects Thunderbolt and Thunder Wave, and of course has amazing access to Rock Slide.
One final note: if Hyper Offense were just the nature of 2v2 meta games, how is Hyper Offense so easy to take down in VGC??? Making a comparison to VGC fits for once, because they are completely different meta games yet still share the idea of 2v2. Hyper Offense is in no way a stellar archetype there despite being a 2v2 meta game, and Defensive teams as well as bulky offense teams actually work there and don't work here. It is not the nature of 2v2 meta games, it's the nature of a game centralized around by far the best supportive attacker DOU has ever seen.
Overall what we have here is a Pokemon that overcomes its weaknesses easily when given the right partner, and excels against anything it's not weak to while only being considerably good against a team with lots of checks to it. Remember that Hyper Offense will be far less amazing than it is right now without Skymin and will be by no means a great archetype when you make your vote.
Basically all of these things are pushing teambuilding to a screeching halt to the point where something in Tier 1 is just getting pushed down to Tier 1.5 in Rotom-Wash, purely because it's a sack of shit against hyper offense teams unless you run Trick+Scarf, and while it's not all Skymin, it is one part of hyper offense as a whole just tearing apart poor Rotom. 127 Speed is not contested for anything other than other Skymin, and of all things ranked on the viability rankings, very few things (Aerodactyl, Deoxys-Attack, and Mega Gengar - Mega Manectric is just pure shit) naturally outspeed it, and each one takes heavy amounts of damage from a Seed Flare/Air Slash on switch-in. Of the two things that use priority to beat Skymin (aside from things you are forced to run in order to beat Skymin that would really just be terrible outside of a Skymin meta game, such as Ice Shard on Mamoswine/Weavile), only Thundurus is that reliable. Quick Guard from Keldeo stops Talonflame completely, and Air Slash gets a straight 2HKO on Talonflame. It doesn't enjoy switching into a Hydro Pump from Keldeo either. Thundurus even has plenty of issues. It has to kill a Keldeo first before even attempting to Thunder Wave, because if it just Thunder Waves emptily into a possible Quick Guard it has not only wasted a turn but let the Skymin do something very important. Even if you have Thundurus which is just a great threat to Keldeo+Skymin, ORAS brought Mega Diancie to eternally fuck things like Thundurus, Aerodactyl, and Mega Gengar as well as Talonflame. The best checks to a Keldeo+Skymin core aren't even full stops which is just outright stupid, and lots of common partners for this two mon core are full stops to the checks.
Now this is an announcement to all people saying that Hyper Offense will still be as consistent in a meta game without Skymin. SPOILERS: that's more remote from correct than anything said in this thread. Skymin can't be so easily replaced by Serperior or Sceptile or some other weird grass shit that beats Mega Diancie, because they'd literally just be some fast grass shit that beats Mega Diancie and Keldeo and pretty much nothing else.
Grass/Flying typing: I see no Ice types in this meta game that are remotely relevant aside from Abomasnow, which is rarely used (until we started suspecting Skymin..............) and Kyurem-B, which definitely loves facing a Keldeo/Diancie/Kangaskhan. The only Flying type moves come from Talonflame (which I have addressed as nowhere near a counter to Skymin+Keldeo) and other Skymin, but ignoring other Skymin since we are debating Skymin's brokenness, it only comes from Talonflame. Weakness to Rock I can agree with - Landorus-T Rock Slides beat Skymin, however I wish you luck getting the wanted flinches on Keldeo.
Weakness to common spread moves: Blizzard is only used on Abomasnow, which gets brutally fucked by Keldeo's Secret Sword as well as Skymin's Air Slash. Any other Blizzard users are usually noticeable (for instance, seeing Greninja on a hail team should be a red flag), and they sorta get fucked hard by Seed Flare, Air Slash, or Secret Sword. Diamond Storm only comes from Mega Diancie which just gets straight OHKOd by Seed Flare and can't switch into Keldeo or Skymin at all. Icy Wind is most definitely not a common spread move, and Heat Wave only comes from Charizard and Heatran, one of those two gets fucked by Secret Sword from Keldeo and both of those two lose hard to Mega Diancie, and one of those two loses hard to Mega Kangaskhan while the other has big issues.
No way to handle Speed Control: Air Slash flinches? OHKOing Suicune and Breloom? Having Bisharp as a partner probably 60% of the time? Having Hoopa-U as a partner the other 40% of the time? OHKOing Jellicent as well as using a Seed Flare+partner's attack to potentially KO a Trick Room/Tailwind setter? Protect Stalling? My, what a speed control weak Pokemon........
Trick Room and Yellow Magic: Trick Room definitely has issues with both Skymin and Keldeo as the two relevant Fake Out users lose to Keldeo brutally and Skymin has nice access to a 56% chance to flinch. You should only say, when discussing Skymin, if Trick Room goes up, Skymin could potentially lose if the user of Skymin doesn't do things such as Protect stall or bring in something like Mega Diancie, Kangaskhan, Bisharp, or Hoopa-U to deal with the Trick Room that's up, or even Kyurem-B having the ability to stall out Trick Room with Substitute, which is kind of great for the Skymin user considering there's only a 44% chance to actually even set up Trick Room, unless you just want to sack your Fake Out user and target Skymin over Keldeo. As for Yellow Magic, if it's Quick Guard Keldeo (which it likely is if it's Kangaskhan>Diancie, if not then have fun thunder wave spamming), you won't have fun against Skymin.
Now I did say a brief thing about Diancie just getting most of Skymin's checks. The thing is that Diancie just destroys all of Skymin's checks, but there are definitely variants of Hyper Offense that are successful even without Diancie. How? Because all of Skymin's checks are anally fucked by strong fast rock moves. Landorus-T and Diancie are the best examples. Aerodactyl serves as a secondary option to defeat Talonflame but not Thundurus. Of course, finally's HO Sun has Rhyperior - mainly significant because it resists Brave Bird, has great defense and HP, redirects Thunderbolt and Thunder Wave, and of course has amazing access to Rock Slide.
One final note: if Hyper Offense were just the nature of 2v2 meta games, how is Hyper Offense so easy to take down in VGC??? Making a comparison to VGC fits for once, because they are completely different meta games yet still share the idea of 2v2. Hyper Offense is in no way a stellar archetype there despite being a 2v2 meta game, and Defensive teams as well as bulky offense teams actually work there and don't work here. It is not the nature of 2v2 meta games, it's the nature of a game centralized around by far the best supportive attacker DOU has ever seen.
Overall what we have here is a Pokemon that overcomes its weaknesses easily when given the right partner, and excels against anything it's not weak to while only being considerably good against a team with lots of checks to it. Remember that Hyper Offense will be far less amazing than it is right now without Skymin and will be by no means a great archetype when you make your vote.
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Just picking this apart for the free likes and of course to make sure that new people don't get the wrong ideas about DOU
YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO
Hyper Offense will suffer slightly without Shaymin Sky, but that again has nothing to do with whether or not it's broken.
I think you would benefit enormously from watching and listening to the game/chat around you before you post.
Even if this were true, the viability of Rotom-Wash couldn't have less to do with whether or not Shaymin Sky is too powerful. Like literally 0. Pokemon shifting in viability is the sign of a healthy and fluid meta-game, not a cause for alarm. In case you care, while Shaymin-Sky is partially responsible for the decline of Washtom, the real thing pushing down the viability of the defensive teams that Washtom works best on is Kyurem-B.
Shaymin Sky has a really high speed stat. This is true, but again not something that makes a Pokemon broken. There will always be a fastest Pokemon, and because faster Pokemon are generally frail they tend to not switch well into many attacks. You could flip your point around and say the exact same about Shaymin-Sky, it switches in to almost nothing without taking a huge chunk of damage and when you do switch in you lose your Focus Sash. You also completely forgot Talonflame.
I don't know why the phrase "YOU GET A PARTNER TOO" is lost on so many people. Is it really incomprehensible that a team might have a Keldeo check AND a separate shaymin sky check? Also Weavile has a free moveslot (Fake Out/Dark/Crash/filler), so if you need to put Ice Shard in the filler slot instead of Low Kick or Protect to have the best team possible YOU WOULD JUST USE IT. Just because it isn't on the sample set or you saw Stratos telling people it's awful doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. If a creative moveset beats the things you want it to beat, then it can't be that bad of an option.
Again just blatantly wrong, I hate acknowledging Skymin + Keldeo in this thread because it's such a bad point, but Thundurus also gets access to Thunderbolt and Hidden Power Ice! AND YOU GET A PARTNER TOO. Yes if you're down to Keldeo + Skymin vs last mon Thundurus it can be a tough spot, but not only is this situation as irrelevant as it is specific, Thundurus still can win this matchup! Just saying this a couple more times so that you might actually understand it:
YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO YOU GET A PARTNER TOO
Yes, it's obvious that there is no 1 Pokemon that exactly and completely fills all of the match ups that Shaymin Sky does, but no one is suggesting (or at least I hope they aren't) that you can simply take Skymin and swap it for Serperior and have just as effective of a team. Obviously the solution to building a good HO team isn't as simple as swapping one grass for another, but it's far from impossible to make a great team. Venusaur, Ludicolo, Virizion, Serperior, and Breloom jump into mind immediately. Do they fill the exact spot Shaymin Sky does and beat the exact same Pokemon? Of course not, but they are certainly viable. Also Virizion and Breloom are grass mons that do a solid job against most steels.
I lied I'm saying it again: YOU GET A PARTNER TOO. The situation isn't "OK i have my thundurus now let's hope Thundy can 1v6 entire teams". You also get 6 mons on your team when you teambuild! Amazing! Also Weavile is a solid Pokemon and plenty of people have used Mega Abomasnow, if you're going to point to the ladder usage as evidence for Mega Abomasnow usage, please don't waste your time. Abomasnow has been used in circuit tours and SPL long before we started suspecting Shaymin.
Yes Shaymin-Sky can be annoying for dedicated Trick Room teams, does this mean that Shaymin is broken? No. We may as well ban Jirachi and Togekiss by that logic. I didn't realize before I undertook this journey of destroying your post how many times you were going to use Keldeo as evidence for Shaymin being broken, but YOU GET A PARTNER TOO.
I don't fully understand the point you're trying to make here. Is your point that fast rock types beat Shaymin Sky checks? YOU GET A PARTNER TOO
HO is poor in VGC compared to DOU because they straight up don't have access to Shaymin-Sky, Keldeo, Mega Diancie, Deoxys, or Jirachi. Balanced teams in VGC benefit from not having to worry about Kyurem-B destroying them completely. This is hardly the work of one Pokemon, and even if it was completely due to Shaymin Sky, it still wouldn't mean Skymin is broken.
I think you meant to say that Shaymin Sky doesn't do well against teams that carry checks to it because you said the opposite. Spoiler alert guys: teams that don't check a relevant threat will almost certainly lose to that threat! Better ban Gardevoir because teams that don't carry a fairy/Psychic resist will get destroyed by it! Better ban Charizard Y too because teams that don't carry a Fire/Grass resist are pretty much an auto loss. Get where I'm going with this?
Hyper Offense will suffer slightly without Shaymin Sky, but that again has nothing to do with whether or not it's broken.
I think you would benefit enormously from watching and listening to the game/chat around you before you post.
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GiraGoomy
when you see a good meme
I know how I feel about Skymin, so I'm not going to vent about it here, instead try to show why I think it's unhealthy for DOU.
I'd like to start off by saying I think people are taking Air Slash the wrong way. The 57% chance to flinch is bad in itself, but imo that's not entirely what makes Skymin unhealthy for the metagame. Think about it this way, no one likes to be flinched by Skymin. People then decide to try and use things faster than Skymin to avoid getting flinched. Skymin is making slower teams worse and shifting the metagame to become extremely offensive. Now this isn't entirely a bad thing in itself either, but I think it's the fact that with offense everywhere, DOU is becoming or going to become bland eventually, and to be completely honest I think that variety is the best thing for a tier and ultimately makes a tier fun. That then brings me to ask: Is Skymin therefore making this tier not fun? I don't think Skymin is 100% ruining the fun factor, but I believe it has the ability to.
Secondly:
[11:31] GiraGoomy: what's a direct counter to skymin
[11:32] qsns: rotom-heat
I decided to do some calcs on Skymin vs Rotom-H to see how much Rotom-H actually countered Skymin. (Note: I decided to use Rotom-H's dex spread).
Assuming Rotom-H switches in on Skymin (counter) and Skymin has min rolls on every attack: 30% is done to Rotom-H with Seed Flare. Air Slash at -2 does 37%. Seed Flare at -2 does 60%.
Therefore including Sitrus: 30% + 37% - 25% + 60% = 102%
Taking in accuracy, seed flare drop and air slash flinching we get:
85/100 (seed flare hitting) * 80/100 (seed flare drop) * 57/100 (air slash hitting + flinching) * 85/100 (seed flare hitting) = 33% chance for Skymin to beat Rotom-H.
Yeah yeah make your arguments about how they have a partner to help deal with Skymin, well I have a partner as well. Also Rotom-H isn't even getting an attack off so that means that the opps partner will not only have to take Skymin down to Sash, but then KO it as well. In all honesty the point I'm trying to make it that it seems to me that Skymin has these opportunities to beat it's so called 'counters', and I think that's extremely good and shows some of the dumb stuff Skymin can pull off that it just shouldn't be able to. This also brings me back to my first point: as you can see from this, Skymin has the ability to beat it's counters that are slower than it, forcing the metagame to become faster and making a balanced playstyle less viable. I guess you could also say that this also effects teambuiding as you think you need to run certain stuff to beat Skymin and then the whole meta sorta just becomes a bit over-centralised, but idrk about that one.
Anyways in conclusion these are some of the reasons I don't like Skymin. I'm open to discussion (as long as you be civil about it) and also I've really enjoyed reading all of your thoughts on Skymin as some of you have some really good points on both ends of the spectrum.
I'd like to start off by saying I think people are taking Air Slash the wrong way. The 57% chance to flinch is bad in itself, but imo that's not entirely what makes Skymin unhealthy for the metagame. Think about it this way, no one likes to be flinched by Skymin. People then decide to try and use things faster than Skymin to avoid getting flinched. Skymin is making slower teams worse and shifting the metagame to become extremely offensive. Now this isn't entirely a bad thing in itself either, but I think it's the fact that with offense everywhere, DOU is becoming or going to become bland eventually, and to be completely honest I think that variety is the best thing for a tier and ultimately makes a tier fun. That then brings me to ask: Is Skymin therefore making this tier not fun? I don't think Skymin is 100% ruining the fun factor, but I believe it has the ability to.
Secondly:
[11:31] GiraGoomy: what's a direct counter to skymin
[11:32] qsns: rotom-heat
I decided to do some calcs on Skymin vs Rotom-H to see how much Rotom-H actually countered Skymin. (Note: I decided to use Rotom-H's dex spread).
Assuming Rotom-H switches in on Skymin (counter) and Skymin has min rolls on every attack: 30% is done to Rotom-H with Seed Flare. Air Slash at -2 does 37%. Seed Flare at -2 does 60%.
Therefore including Sitrus: 30% + 37% - 25% + 60% = 102%
Taking in accuracy, seed flare drop and air slash flinching we get:
85/100 (seed flare hitting) * 80/100 (seed flare drop) * 57/100 (air slash hitting + flinching) * 85/100 (seed flare hitting) = 33% chance for Skymin to beat Rotom-H.
Yeah yeah make your arguments about how they have a partner to help deal with Skymin, well I have a partner as well. Also Rotom-H isn't even getting an attack off so that means that the opps partner will not only have to take Skymin down to Sash, but then KO it as well. In all honesty the point I'm trying to make it that it seems to me that Skymin has these opportunities to beat it's so called 'counters', and I think that's extremely good and shows some of the dumb stuff Skymin can pull off that it just shouldn't be able to. This also brings me back to my first point: as you can see from this, Skymin has the ability to beat it's counters that are slower than it, forcing the metagame to become faster and making a balanced playstyle less viable. I guess you could also say that this also effects teambuiding as you think you need to run certain stuff to beat Skymin and then the whole meta sorta just becomes a bit over-centralised, but idrk about that one.
Anyways in conclusion these are some of the reasons I don't like Skymin. I'm open to discussion (as long as you be civil about it) and also I've really enjoyed reading all of your thoughts on Skymin as some of you have some really good points on both ends of the spectrum.
All I learned from GiraGoomy's post is that he knows how to multiply probabilities together :/
1) Rotom-H is not even close to the best counter. Thundurus or Zapdos would definitely be better. So I don't even see the point of this thought exercise.
1a) not that it even matters since Rotom-H is niche (and see point 1 as well), but I have to point out that the Rotom-H spread onsite is bad and outdated and is being replaced as soon as the QC process ends. Using an improved set, even with max rolls Skymin will have a 0% chance to KO in that manner even if all attacks hit.
2) If occasionally beating your counters was a factor that meant we banned things, then we should ban Kangaskhan because bulky Kanga has a ~50% chance to live Keldeo's Secret Sword and OHKO back with Return. And we should ban Scarf Landorus-T Rock Slide because it too can beat checks like Mega Gardevoir, Gyarados, bulky Thundurus, and heck just about anything. Actually we probably just need to eliminate all damage rolls and misses. I mean Kyu-B has a 10% chance to beat Latios when Draco Meteor misses. pls ban.
I'm fine with arguments to ban Skymin. Those just aren't valid ones.
1) Rotom-H is not even close to the best counter. Thundurus or Zapdos would definitely be better. So I don't even see the point of this thought exercise.
1a) not that it even matters since Rotom-H is niche (and see point 1 as well), but I have to point out that the Rotom-H spread onsite is bad and outdated and is being replaced as soon as the QC process ends. Using an improved set, even with max rolls Skymin will have a 0% chance to KO in that manner even if all attacks hit.
2) If occasionally beating your counters was a factor that meant we banned things, then we should ban Kangaskhan because bulky Kanga has a ~50% chance to live Keldeo's Secret Sword and OHKO back with Return. And we should ban Scarf Landorus-T Rock Slide because it too can beat checks like Mega Gardevoir, Gyarados, bulky Thundurus, and heck just about anything. Actually we probably just need to eliminate all damage rolls and misses. I mean Kyu-B has a 10% chance to beat Latios when Draco Meteor misses. pls ban.
I'm fine with arguments to ban Skymin. Those just aren't valid ones.
jesus the guy just got back
also bughouse you're not addressing all parts of giragoomy's post btw...
GiraGoomy
when you see a good meme
Thanks for the reply Bughouse, I can definitely see where you're coming from. I admit that my 2nd argument was poor, however the fact of occasionally beating your counters isn't what I was mainly trying to express. I was just using Rotom-H as an example onto why Skymin is making people want to try and use counters that allow the rest of your team to have an easier time vs Skymin, such as Zapdos and Thundurus (Tailwind and Thunder Wave respectively). I wanted to try and express that Skymin is leading to people playing more offensively which I believe is making certain playstyles (like balance) less viable and lead to the meta becoming the same thing over and over. I probably could've worded it better and in all honesty I don't even know if what I'm saying relates to anything whatsoever. Thanks though for pointing out how I could've made my post better, and I'm sorry to those who thought my post was bad.
Aight, I got the ladder reqs for the suspect, so here's the post part.
I'm currently inclined towards voting ban, although I'm still not sure yet. My reasons being almost exactly what most voting ban would have- Air slash and Seed flare coupled with serene grace, and a great speed tier to abuse them, outspeeding majority of the metagame.
The fact that it can rely on flinches to get a check to kill range, or letting your partner KO is kind of unhealthy, although its just playing with chances. I don't think thats extremely broken, it can certainly be dealt with if your team is prepared but that in a way restricts teambuilding, forcing you to pack at least a check, but thats what you gotta do about all the threats out there. Its also a bit underwhelming when either TR, tailwind, or weather is already up. Although its the luck-factor that has me worried, one flinch at a crucial point during the game can turn the tides. Not like skymin has a shit ton of usage in dou, but this tier can be more fun w/o it, involving better strats than fishing for flinches.
I think i'll try to ladder a bit more, and read more posts here before making my final decision!
I'm currently inclined towards voting ban, although I'm still not sure yet. My reasons being almost exactly what most voting ban would have- Air slash and Seed flare coupled with serene grace, and a great speed tier to abuse them, outspeeding majority of the metagame.
The fact that it can rely on flinches to get a check to kill range, or letting your partner KO is kind of unhealthy, although its just playing with chances. I don't think thats extremely broken, it can certainly be dealt with if your team is prepared but that in a way restricts teambuilding, forcing you to pack at least a check, but thats what you gotta do about all the threats out there. Its also a bit underwhelming when either TR, tailwind, or weather is already up. Although its the luck-factor that has me worried, one flinch at a crucial point during the game can turn the tides. Not like skymin has a shit ton of usage in dou, but this tier can be more fun w/o it, involving better strats than fishing for flinches.
I think i'll try to ladder a bit more, and read more posts here before making my final decision!
So I'm nearly at the point of getting my reqs, and while I saw only a handful of Shaymin-Sky on the ladder, I am leaning towards it not being banned.
Shaymin has two great things going for it: its amazing speed tier and its luck factor with its STAB moves.
The overwhelming prevalence of speed and speed control in DOU including Thunder Wave, Tailwind, Swift Swim, and Trick Room combined with Shaymin's less-than-ideal typing including being weak to some of the most common moves in the metagame (Ice Beam/Icy Wind, Heat Wave, Rock Slide) leaves Shaymin very vulnerable and removes one of the few boons it has when it is outsped; after all, its greatest redeeming quality and likely the reason it would get banned -Serene Grace Air Slash- is useless when it is outsped. Its Special Attack is good, but not great; without flinching, Air Slash is rather weak and Seed Flare is manageable.
Priority is an issue for it as well; Brave Bird and Ice Shard can kill it without having to worry about flinches.
Shaymin is also rather hard to use in that any slip-up in prediction with regards to Protect and Fake-Out or perhaps Follow Me can lead to a dead Shaymin due to its aforementioned weaknesses in typing and below average bulk. This also leaves Shaymin hard pressed to switch in, as its weakness to all the common spammable moves means that it will flat out die on switch-in.
Shaymin is still a great Pokemon though, as if you play well with it and remove all of the opponent's methods of speed control and offensive checks, you can achieve a lot with it. However due the support needed and difficulty to accomplish that, I think that Shaymin, while good, does not deserve being banned.
I do think that it can be potentially unhealthy for more defensive, slower teams because of the flinch factor, but I think the fact that it can only flinch one Pokemon and also the possibility of Trick Room allows defensive teams to handle Shaymin (lots of Pokemon do very well vs defensive teams).
Shaymin has two great things going for it: its amazing speed tier and its luck factor with its STAB moves.
The overwhelming prevalence of speed and speed control in DOU including Thunder Wave, Tailwind, Swift Swim, and Trick Room combined with Shaymin's less-than-ideal typing including being weak to some of the most common moves in the metagame (Ice Beam/Icy Wind, Heat Wave, Rock Slide) leaves Shaymin very vulnerable and removes one of the few boons it has when it is outsped; after all, its greatest redeeming quality and likely the reason it would get banned -Serene Grace Air Slash- is useless when it is outsped. Its Special Attack is good, but not great; without flinching, Air Slash is rather weak and Seed Flare is manageable.
Priority is an issue for it as well; Brave Bird and Ice Shard can kill it without having to worry about flinches.
Shaymin is also rather hard to use in that any slip-up in prediction with regards to Protect and Fake-Out or perhaps Follow Me can lead to a dead Shaymin due to its aforementioned weaknesses in typing and below average bulk. This also leaves Shaymin hard pressed to switch in, as its weakness to all the common spammable moves means that it will flat out die on switch-in.
Shaymin is still a great Pokemon though, as if you play well with it and remove all of the opponent's methods of speed control and offensive checks, you can achieve a lot with it. However due the support needed and difficulty to accomplish that, I think that Shaymin, while good, does not deserve being banned.
I do think that it can be potentially unhealthy for more defensive, slower teams because of the flinch factor, but I think the fact that it can only flinch one Pokemon and also the possibility of Trick Room allows defensive teams to handle Shaymin (lots of Pokemon do very well vs defensive teams).
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yo guyz i going to say some of my thoughts on shaymin-sky in double
first of all having increadible speed+serena glance= hax fiesta but having short of movepoll(acording to me) is not best idea to ban a mon also in double where a mon can attack same mon twice so we can break thorught the shaymin-sky also having large amount of priority moves may also help to shut down shaymin-fly even tho there is less mons to check shaymin but many can revenge it.
shaymin-fly just to frail it can get OKHO or 2KHO at almost any move and every move i can see in doubles.Also in doubles i see a number of Weather teams in double wch make shaymin-fly weak in tat kind to sitution as in rain team it get wrekt by ice or stab move in rain team in sun team it get rekt by fire move. i feel in HO teams shaymin makes HO teams weak as shaymin-fly cant okho most of the time it relies on flinch wch does to happen all the time also if a team carries mons like Bulky Thundy talo etc shaymin-fly gets shut wch may help to set up moves like subs also help to activate weakness policy most of time it does not do good vs neutral teams and get wrekt by counter style teams even tho flinches maybe annoying but shaymin-sky can be stopped and definitely not ban worthy also I did not even saw a game where shaymin-sky is used and it is destroying mons.
I would say that shaymin-sky is not broken as in doubles two mons can attack same mon wch help to help to stop shaymin and there are many priority moves wch possible can OKHO shaymin-sky and it need a perfect matchup for having fun also revenge killing is not tat tuff also during suspect test also i saw in spl statistics in most of week it was not even used and win% of tat was barely 50% in most of game it was used.
so definety i would be voting no ban if i got my reqs :D(sorry if i am wrong)
first of all having increadible speed+serena glance= hax fiesta but having short of movepoll(acording to me) is not best idea to ban a mon also in double where a mon can attack same mon twice so we can break thorught the shaymin-sky also having large amount of priority moves may also help to shut down shaymin-fly even tho there is less mons to check shaymin but many can revenge it.
shaymin-fly just to frail it can get OKHO or 2KHO at almost any move and every move i can see in doubles.Also in doubles i see a number of Weather teams in double wch make shaymin-fly weak in tat kind to sitution as in rain team it get wrekt by ice or stab move in rain team in sun team it get rekt by fire move. i feel in HO teams shaymin makes HO teams weak as shaymin-fly cant okho most of the time it relies on flinch wch does to happen all the time also if a team carries mons like Bulky Thundy talo etc shaymin-fly gets shut wch may help to set up moves like subs also help to activate weakness policy most of time it does not do good vs neutral teams and get wrekt by counter style teams even tho flinches maybe annoying but shaymin-sky can be stopped and definitely not ban worthy also I did not even saw a game where shaymin-sky is used and it is destroying mons.
I would say that shaymin-sky is not broken as in doubles two mons can attack same mon wch help to help to stop shaymin and there are many priority moves wch possible can OKHO shaymin-sky and it need a perfect matchup for having fun also revenge killing is not tat tuff also during suspect test also i saw in spl statistics in most of week it was not even used and win% of tat was barely 50% in most of game it was used.
so definety i would be voting no ban if i got my reqs :D(sorry if i am wrong)
this is p much my exact opinion, and here's why I think you should exercise it in your vote if you share it.
I might as well just say it right now: Shaymin-S is not even close to full-on broken, as is literally nothing in Doubles except maybe Kyogre. Mega Salamence was NOT full-on broken, it was just too strong to be worth having in the tier. Zekrom, Groudon, and Giratina-O would hardly be broken if dropped, and my point with this is that a pokemon does not have to be broken to be unhealthy. All the singles tiers have begun tiering subjectively in ORAS (most notably Pidgeot ban from UU; that thing wasn't too strong, it just landed a confusion on a counter sooner or later), why shouldn't we?; we have the meta by far most fit for subjectivity in tiering decisions.
Shaymin-S forces speed control, preferably priority speed control, which would otherwise be quite unnecessary. It creates a ridiculously fast paced meta in which (as an amazing example by Goomy), an offensive Thundurus (299 HP, 196 SpD) is a more consistent counter to Skymin than even a standard invested Rotom-H (291 HP, 250 SpD), and where Pokemon lose slight viability from being slower than 127 base. Bringing priority is the only way you can truly counter skymin, and there simply should be defensive options for balance teams as well...
I'd like to play more in a meta without Shaymin-S before casting my vote, but if not convincing, my vote will be a ban. Also a Kyurem-B suspect test has been something ive considered more and more when seeing bulky teambuilds basically die...
tl;dr: if your opinion at the current moment of time is something like: "it's definitely unhealthy, but im not sure of my vote, because i don't find it broken", your vote should be ban. This is how today's smogon tiering works in other tiers, and it's creating much more balance in those compared to BW lower tiers.
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Getting battling reqs has been a fun ride (and taken me way longer than anticipated), but I've finally made it - so it's time for my Skymin post. There are many different avenues to approach the issue of Skymin in DOU, but the question I'm going to make central to my post is "Why ban a Pokémon?".
This is my second suspect, the first being the suspect of Salamencite. After reading over the DOU banlist and from experiences of the Salamencite suspect, I believe that Pokémon are usually banned in DOU for being "broken", or "overpowered" and having a presense overcentralises the metagame around it. Skymin is unique in DOU as it doesn't fit that same idea of "broken." While having a high sp-atk stat of 120 and a speed of 127, it is incredibly frail, with a def/sp-def of 75 and an hp of 100, so it fits the definition of "glass cannon" to a tee, being incredibly powerful, but with the defensive capabilities of a twig. Now, to progess my post further I'm going to have to be specific in my words, I wrote that "Skymin is unique in DOU as it doesn't fit that same idea of "broken."". In a statistical sense Skymin is balanced, but the controversy surrounding it comes from its ability, Serene Grace. At a glance it is innocuous with its effect of doubling the chance of the added effects of moves happening, but loses that sense when it is combined with the move Air Slash. With an accuracy of 95% and a flinch chance of 30%, it actually has a 60% of flinching upon hitting with Serene Grace taken into account, giving a 57% chance of hitting and causing a flinch. While Togekiss can do this too, Skymin doesn't have that magic 127 base speed stat which outspeeds the majority of the DOU metagame, therefore making that calculation relevant. Additionally, Skymin has a signature move known as "Seed Flare", which has a base power of 120BP and a chance to reduce the special defense of the opposing Pokémon by two stages of 40%, or 80% when taking into account Serene Grace. It's a powerful move which allows a partner on the field to pick it off after Skymin has weakened it, due to the devastating special defense drop, but is not broken on its own - just a powerful move from a glass cannon. The central issue comes from Air Slash's 57% flinch and hit chance, a likely event which reduces the effect of strategy affecting the game, making it less competitive. Of course, we can see why that'd be an issue in singles, but less so in doubles. After all, you have a partner. Though Skymin has an amazing coverage when you factor in the commonly run Earth Power, it is, as stressed, a glass cannon, so can easily be taken out by your other member as you can only flinch one Pokémon at a time with it. Mind games ensue over "who will Skymin target!?", but we're able to deal with the lovely "attack or King's Shield" mind games of Aegislash, as they generally add to play. Of course my opinion is sewn into this post, you may disagree with me on the ease of taking out Skymin as after all, your opponent has a partner too - but from my point of view its power and flinch haxability doesn't necessarily make it broken, after playing against it a while I no longer take a sharp intake of breath when I see it on the set up screen. Skyrim is moderately difficult to deal with, and nowhere near as broken as other Pokémon such as a certain Aeroplane mega.
Now, I refer back to the theme of my post; "Why ban a Pokémon?". I've just elaborated on why I don't think Skymin is broken in DOU, so why do I think it's banworthy? (Soz, spoilers for the end of my post.) Well, I believe that Skymin is inherently uncompetitive. It's speed and ability makes the chance of a flinch from it a likely event, which reduces the effect of strategy in the game. Of course, there's strategy it getting around it, but a move with the likely effect of negating the other opponent's move is going to limit the kinds of strategies they can pull, like playing a card game with the opponent being able to dictate what card they draw or see your hand. Though I believe it's possible to work around it, I feel like its a generally unfair strategy and shouldn't be promoted in a highly skilled metagame such as this one on a matter of principle, and Skymin's ability to flaunt this principle. (Togekiss is in a much worse position to.)
In conclusion, I feel like Skymin is banworthy from a matter of principle in not reducing the impact of strategy on the game. Of course, that may be controversial in being a matter to ban a Pokémon on, so I'm still open to changing my mind hence currently undecided.
Ps: Accidentally hitting ctrl-W really sucks. Don't do that. >_<
This is my second suspect, the first being the suspect of Salamencite. After reading over the DOU banlist and from experiences of the Salamencite suspect, I believe that Pokémon are usually banned in DOU for being "broken", or "overpowered" and having a presense overcentralises the metagame around it. Skymin is unique in DOU as it doesn't fit that same idea of "broken." While having a high sp-atk stat of 120 and a speed of 127, it is incredibly frail, with a def/sp-def of 75 and an hp of 100, so it fits the definition of "glass cannon" to a tee, being incredibly powerful, but with the defensive capabilities of a twig. Now, to progess my post further I'm going to have to be specific in my words, I wrote that "Skymin is unique in DOU as it doesn't fit that same idea of "broken."". In a statistical sense Skymin is balanced, but the controversy surrounding it comes from its ability, Serene Grace. At a glance it is innocuous with its effect of doubling the chance of the added effects of moves happening, but loses that sense when it is combined with the move Air Slash. With an accuracy of 95% and a flinch chance of 30%, it actually has a 60% of flinching upon hitting with Serene Grace taken into account, giving a 57% chance of hitting and causing a flinch. While Togekiss can do this too, Skymin doesn't have that magic 127 base speed stat which outspeeds the majority of the DOU metagame, therefore making that calculation relevant. Additionally, Skymin has a signature move known as "Seed Flare", which has a base power of 120BP and a chance to reduce the special defense of the opposing Pokémon by two stages of 40%, or 80% when taking into account Serene Grace. It's a powerful move which allows a partner on the field to pick it off after Skymin has weakened it, due to the devastating special defense drop, but is not broken on its own - just a powerful move from a glass cannon. The central issue comes from Air Slash's 57% flinch and hit chance, a likely event which reduces the effect of strategy affecting the game, making it less competitive. Of course, we can see why that'd be an issue in singles, but less so in doubles. After all, you have a partner. Though Skymin has an amazing coverage when you factor in the commonly run Earth Power, it is, as stressed, a glass cannon, so can easily be taken out by your other member as you can only flinch one Pokémon at a time with it. Mind games ensue over "who will Skymin target!?", but we're able to deal with the lovely "attack or King's Shield" mind games of Aegislash, as they generally add to play. Of course my opinion is sewn into this post, you may disagree with me on the ease of taking out Skymin as after all, your opponent has a partner too - but from my point of view its power and flinch haxability doesn't necessarily make it broken, after playing against it a while I no longer take a sharp intake of breath when I see it on the set up screen. Skyrim is moderately difficult to deal with, and nowhere near as broken as other Pokémon such as a certain Aeroplane mega.
Now, I refer back to the theme of my post; "Why ban a Pokémon?". I've just elaborated on why I don't think Skymin is broken in DOU, so why do I think it's banworthy? (Soz, spoilers for the end of my post.) Well, I believe that Skymin is inherently uncompetitive. It's speed and ability makes the chance of a flinch from it a likely event, which reduces the effect of strategy in the game. Of course, there's strategy it getting around it, but a move with the likely effect of negating the other opponent's move is going to limit the kinds of strategies they can pull, like playing a card game with the opponent being able to dictate what card they draw or see your hand. Though I believe it's possible to work around it, I feel like its a generally unfair strategy and shouldn't be promoted in a highly skilled metagame such as this one on a matter of principle, and Skymin's ability to flaunt this principle. (Togekiss is in a much worse position to.)
In conclusion, I feel like Skymin is banworthy from a matter of principle in not reducing the impact of strategy on the game. Of course, that may be controversial in being a matter to ban a Pokémon on, so I'm still open to changing my mind hence currently undecided.
Ps: Accidentally hitting ctrl-W really sucks. Don't do that. >_<
Hi, my first post was shitty, so making another one.
I'm still not sure whether or not to ban Skymin. I honestly didn't have much trouble with it on the ladder, but then again I had a more offensive team. Skymin is really unhealthy for defensive and balance teams, so I understand why people would want to ban it; then again, it's not our job to decide what team styles should and shouldn't be good in this meta. Shaymin-Sky also has many flaws, such as bad defenses and typing along with a big weakness to speed control; however, these can be patched up with the right partner. I think it really comes down to your definition of uncompetitive; is a Pokemon with great coverage, a wallbreaking move in Seed Flare, a blistering Speed stat, immunity to EQ, and a 57% flinch chance uncompetitive enough to be banned in a tier where Speed control and spread moves dominate? Right now I don't know. Skymin is not broken, but it certainly restricts teambuilding enough that you would probably 2 checks in order to handle it, which is unhealthy for the metagame. Teams can find ways to work around Skymin, but it's kind of an unfair strategy, especially in Doubles where it requires a lot of skill to put together and guide a team to victory. You wouldn't want to be driving a car on the highway and suddenly be stopped by a herd of cows, and you wouldn't want to get a flinch from Shaymin and lose (sorry that was a bad analogy). I think banning Skymin is probably the right thing to do, but I'll keep my mind open until the suspect vote.
I'm still not sure whether or not to ban Skymin. I honestly didn't have much trouble with it on the ladder, but then again I had a more offensive team. Skymin is really unhealthy for defensive and balance teams, so I understand why people would want to ban it; then again, it's not our job to decide what team styles should and shouldn't be good in this meta. Shaymin-Sky also has many flaws, such as bad defenses and typing along with a big weakness to speed control; however, these can be patched up with the right partner. I think it really comes down to your definition of uncompetitive; is a Pokemon with great coverage, a wallbreaking move in Seed Flare, a blistering Speed stat, immunity to EQ, and a 57% flinch chance uncompetitive enough to be banned in a tier where Speed control and spread moves dominate? Right now I don't know. Skymin is not broken, but it certainly restricts teambuilding enough that you would probably 2 checks in order to handle it, which is unhealthy for the metagame. Teams can find ways to work around Skymin, but it's kind of an unfair strategy, especially in Doubles where it requires a lot of skill to put together and guide a team to victory. You wouldn't want to be driving a car on the highway and suddenly be stopped by a herd of cows, and you wouldn't want to get a flinch from Shaymin and lose (sorry that was a bad analogy). I think banning Skymin is probably the right thing to do, but I'll keep my mind open until the suspect vote.
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