This is not true, I'm sick of every one banging on about altering mechanics and now I'm doing it to grrrr. Banning seed flare is perfectly enforceable and both players can agree to it; you just don't put seed flare or air slash on your Shaymin-S.
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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 2 - Who am I to break tradition?
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This is not true, I'm sick of every one banging on about altering mechanics and now I'm doing it to grrrr. Banning seed flare is perfectly enforceable and both players can agree to it; you just don't put seed flare or air slash on your Shaymin-S.
If you agree with your opponent to do so, fine. Otherwise, we are not going to implement variants of Shaymin-S into PO without access to Seed Flare as that does not simulate the game.
Then by your logic Evasion Clause, Sleep Clause, and OHKO Clause should all be repealed, because they change the mechanics of Pokemon. Don't try and deny that they work by the same method. The first and third ban moves and the second bans moves in specific situations. That's not sound logic.
Here's the answer: there is no difference. Banning ANYTHING requires people to agree to it. ANY ban does not accurately simulate the game. With that said, the simplest bans are those on Pokemon, because it prevents a lot of worthless dilly-dallying over what to ban. Aldaron's proposal was an EXCEPTION made to protect an entire weather condition and cannot be compared to anything else. Manaphy is not an entire weather condition.
A huge "lol" right there, since when I was the one arguing that, the guy actually disagreed with me...
@topic: Manaphy's top OU counter, Nattorei, has currently 20% usage on PO, and things prolly aren't very different on the Smogon server. Two very fast, powerful, and competitively viable electric types have been added to OU (Voltlos and Denchura). Most bulky water-types cannot be OHKOed by any of +3 Manaphy's attacks, while there are many new OU pokes with more than base 100 speed (Landlos, Garchomp, Latis, Terakion, Virizion, etc). Outside of rain, it can be paralised, poisoned or burned, making it able to beat by residual damage. In short, Manaphy cannot maintain a sweep in the new metagame. Garchomp isn't running SD sets for similar reasons, although it's in a higher speed tier, where he outpaces Landlos and doesn't tie with Shaymin and Salamence. It's not illogical to test Manaphy outside of rain.
Reasonable enough.
However, it's completely irrelevant. Manaphy is not the only Pokemon in question here.
If Manaphy was the only abuser we had trouble with, we wouldn't have had a need for Aldaron's proposal in the first place. Aldaron's proposal created an exception for all abusers of permanent weather, not just the ones that make use of the specific combination of Swift Swim and Drizzle. Manaphy is part of that exception, not some unrelated addition to it.
Then I won't be the one to say it.
If you don't believe weather is different, get Aldaron's proposal repealed. As it stands, yes, weather is different. That, not the banning of Swift Swim + Drizzle, is what Aldaron's proposal is, and that is the proposal that was accepted into official policy.
I may have been wrong.
What exactly were you arguing for Aldaron's proposal to be applied to? If it was something other than permanent weather, however, I was correct.
@Thorhammer
Though I don't entirely agree with the points these two made, the above quotes sum up my feelings. Yes Manaphy is a Rain abuser, yes the other Rain abusers were dealt with differently, but purely on this basis you cannot treat it as "part of that exception" - a Hydration abuser is entirely different to a SwSw abuser and should not be treated as such despite the rain abusing element.
Again, complex bans for the sake of one pokemon seems a horribly foolish course to take. Even with weather as the factor, it could easily lead to such things as allow Ho-Oh with no Rapid Spin on the team, as hazards are arguably almost as wide-affecting an effect as weather. Whether making the exception for Manaphy is even the right thing in terms of the meta is irrelevant given the danger it could, and would lead to in terms of slowing down further suspect processes and extensively complicating the banlist. The arbitary suggestion that weather and no other factor can create such exceptions will not hold up in a such a broad a game as pokemon. And I don't think I need explain why I think the possibilty of complex banning a huge array of weather abusers is a bad idea, but if you disagree fair enough.
Please, please, please read the characteristics of a desirable pokemon metagame. Smogon is a competitive POKEMON community, and thus must keep some semblance of the actual base game, else we become something different entirely. Secondly, banning individual moves on individual pokes simply sets too dangerous a precedent. To give an example of gen 4, DD Mence was largely broken by merit of outrage, yet we cannot simply ban outrage on mence, for then someone else will undoubtedly bring up a similar ban in the tiering discussion of another poke. In order to follow the method we had set previously, this would have to be done to every single broken pokemon, leaving us with a great deal of pokes who couldn't run most of their especially good moves, which is way too far from the actual game. I can easily make Darkrai not broken in 3 actions:
1)Ban Dark Void on it
2)Ban Nasty Plot on it
3)Ban Focus Blast on it
Yet this is too far straying from the cartridges, wherein every single poke can run any and all of its moves.
You can use any pokemon you want in the cartridges, unless you're in the battle subway or a nintendo tournament. Do we just allow any pokemon/ or one of the rulesets made by nintendo? nope. The rules we have are easily enforced by player agreement, as would pokemon + move bans. None of them change the mechanics of the game, with the exception of sleep clause as we play it (to have it ingame the second move would have to not be a fail but an auto-forfeit).
The reason why we don't allow move + pokemon bans are because they are arbitrary. Take for an example, wobbuffet (past gens, he hasn't even been nom'ed has he?). If we only allow one-condition bans, then the only choice is to ban wobbuffet. If we allow for multi condition bans, we have not one but three possible ways to make him non-broken. Ban shadow tag on him, ban encore on him, or ban mirror coat + counter on him. Which would we do?
Aldaron's proposal is more of an exception becuase what it bans is not a broken pokemon plus a move it needs (of which there are typically 3 or 4), but a broken teamstyle (rain super-HO). I still would've favored banning the top 3 abusers (Kingdra, Ludicolo, Kabutops) though and going from there.
That's exactly what I said, but with a slightly different wording. That being said, the facts are the same, I don't doubt for a second that every single pokemon could be made to be just as good with a colossal amount of banning. Yet, that is not conducive to an enjoyable or competitive metagame. These bans, however, effectively make it so Nintendo's movepools are irrelevant, and would take far too long
I was agreeing with your actual end statement (no to poke+move bans) but disagreeing with your reasons. Gamefreak's movepools wouldn't be (totally) irrelevant, but whether they would be messed with too much (on the more powerful pokes) would be a subjective opinion and I'm not going to argue it.
I still don't get why Sandstorm + Sand Force/Sand throw got banned with Drizzle + Swift Swim ban. It's practically the same, arguably even better. Now there's not two broken and centralizing weather teams but just one, Sandstorm teams. I really think Sandstorm should (have been) be treated the same way Drizzle+Swift Swim did.
This whole idea of a Hydration + Drizzle ban is just some desperate attempt to keep Manaphy in OU. It's the only problematic Hydration pokémon; shit like Lapras and Dewgong is still shit, while Vaporeon loses Wish if it uses Hydration, and Wish-less Vaporeon is pretty bad. Just accept you guys find Manaphy broken already.
Here's my schpiel as to the "complicated bans" and "simple bans" argument.
Weather/pokemon/ability bans should be allowed.
i.e.- no using SS Kingdra, Kabutops & Ludicolo on a team with drizzle.
This is exactly 1 variable more complicated than the ban resulting from Aldaron's proposal.
Currently, we have accepted 1 combo ban, the ban of drizzle/swiftswim. That ban prevents 19 fully evolved pokes from being on a drizzle team. Three of which actually gave people trouble. So, we banned 16 pokes from being on a drizzle team (hell, maybe without kingdra's ubiquity in rain offense, perhaps Ludicolo and Kabutops wouldn't be so bad).
The issue with simple bans are that they have a much bigger effect, and often, some effects are unintended. Complicated bans that are tailored to do exactly what we want might be a better idea. And btw, the slippery slope argument is illogical. Going by slippery slope, we should've never banned everything, because now we're gonna ban everything until pokemon is gone. Classic fallacy.
So, we've already accepted aldaron's proposal. The ENTIRE POINT of aldaron's proposal was to not ban shit that isn't broken, essentially. Drizzletoad isn't broken. Don't ban it. Swift Swim isn't broken, don't ban it. Just ban the combination.
However, Aldaron's elegant solution turned out to be clumsier than two left feet. Out of 19 pokemon effected, only 3 were even relevant in OU at the time. Why shouldn't I be able to use DW Armaldo on a drizzle team? Is it because SS Kingdra and SS Ludicolo and SS Kabutops are broken when they are on a drizzle team all together? Because that's a bad reason
People say things like "It doesn't matter whether or not you can use your little NU SS pokes on a drizzle team. They don't have high usage stats."
First of all, that's not a good reason to ban something, because nobody uses it. Secondly, if we're trying to do what's best for the metagame, and inspire diversity and competition, limiting offensive rain teams to the classic 4gen formula of fast RD lead, Kingdra, Ludi, Tops, and some defense is dumb. Let drizzle be a part of rain offense, but ban the pokemon broken with it from taking advantage.
Find out what's broken under drizzle, and ban it, and don't ban anything else. I'm all for simple, elegant rules, but when simple rules are as clumsy as this, we need to stop playing slapdick with the language, and just actually solve the problem, explicitly. Ban what is broken.
In closing, we shouldn't ban shit for trivial reasons like simplicity or convenience. Ban things because they are broken.
(this applies mostly to controversial weather. It doesn't apply at all to Ubers coming to OU, or anything where the classic test-ban system has succeeded.)
Weather/pokemon/ability bans should be allowed.
i.e.- no using SS Kingdra, Kabutops & Ludicolo on a team with drizzle.
This is exactly 1 variable more complicated than the ban resulting from Aldaron's proposal.
Currently, we have accepted 1 combo ban, the ban of drizzle/swiftswim. That ban prevents 19 fully evolved pokes from being on a drizzle team. Three of which actually gave people trouble. So, we banned 16 pokes from being on a drizzle team (hell, maybe without kingdra's ubiquity in rain offense, perhaps Ludicolo and Kabutops wouldn't be so bad).
The issue with simple bans are that they have a much bigger effect, and often, some effects are unintended. Complicated bans that are tailored to do exactly what we want might be a better idea. And btw, the slippery slope argument is illogical. Going by slippery slope, we should've never banned everything, because now we're gonna ban everything until pokemon is gone. Classic fallacy.
So, we've already accepted aldaron's proposal. The ENTIRE POINT of aldaron's proposal was to not ban shit that isn't broken, essentially. Drizzletoad isn't broken. Don't ban it. Swift Swim isn't broken, don't ban it. Just ban the combination.
However, Aldaron's elegant solution turned out to be clumsier than two left feet. Out of 19 pokemon effected, only 3 were even relevant in OU at the time. Why shouldn't I be able to use DW Armaldo on a drizzle team? Is it because SS Kingdra and SS Ludicolo and SS Kabutops are broken when they are on a drizzle team all together? Because that's a bad reason
People say things like "It doesn't matter whether or not you can use your little NU SS pokes on a drizzle team. They don't have high usage stats."
First of all, that's not a good reason to ban something, because nobody uses it. Secondly, if we're trying to do what's best for the metagame, and inspire diversity and competition, limiting offensive rain teams to the classic 4gen formula of fast RD lead, Kingdra, Ludi, Tops, and some defense is dumb. Let drizzle be a part of rain offense, but ban the pokemon broken with it from taking advantage.
Find out what's broken under drizzle, and ban it, and don't ban anything else. I'm all for simple, elegant rules, but when simple rules are as clumsy as this, we need to stop playing slapdick with the language, and just actually solve the problem, explicitly. Ban what is broken.
In closing, we shouldn't ban shit for trivial reasons like simplicity or convenience. Ban things because they are broken.
(this applies mostly to controversial weather. It doesn't apply at all to Ubers coming to OU, or anything where the classic test-ban system has succeeded.)
I don't have time to reply to all of that right now, but I'll say this: people will take you a lot more seriously if you don't write with such a hostile attitude.
What exactly do you think Evasion, Sleep and OHKO Clause are? They are agreements between players beforehand to not use a move, not to entirely remove it from the pokemon's movepool. We don't say "Sheer Cold Lapras can be used in Ubers, but we must remove Sheer Cold from its movepool to allow it in OU." Instead, we say "I'll agree to not use OHKO moves if you won't for the sake of a competetive game."
The simplest bans are not necessary those on pokemon - it would have been just as easy to ban Drizzle. If banning the pokemon were the simplest (and best) way to go about making a competetive metagame, we would have banned Kingdra, Ludicolo, Kabutops, and any other rain sweeper that was broken in Drizzle. We still keep rain around, and, by your logic, have taken the simplest course of action.
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While I was initially opposed to a Manaphy + Drizzle ban, Thorhammer's post have made lean more and more to it being a good idea. That's effectively what Aldaron's Proposal is now:
Drizzle + SwSw Kingdra: No
Drizzle + SwSw Kabutops: No
Drizzle + SwSw Gorebyss: No
In fact, Aldaron's proposal may actually be a little more extreme in that it reduces the options available to a pokemon based on weather conditions. It strips Kingdra from access to its Swift Swim ability if Rain is in effect, which is basically saying "in these common battle conditions, this version of the pokemon is allowed. But in these, you must use this version of the pokemon only." It sounds awfully similar to "In this common battle condition (Ubers), this version of Kyogre is allowed. But in this common battle condition (Standard), only versions of Kyogre lacking water moves and Drizzle are allowed."
At least in the case of a Manaphy ban we dictate "here is the pokemon, you can use it here but you can't use it there."
I really think that a lot of the people itt misunderstand the purpose of Aldaron's proposal (or maybe I do, in which case feel free to enlighten me). Drizzle teams were significantly overpowered. We couldn't ban Drizzle without significantly decreasing the variety of the metagame or making other playstyles unbalanced as well, and we couldn't ban Swift Swim or the individual Pokemon for fear of screwing up Rain Dance teams and, when we get to it, the lower tiers. Aldaron's proposal was a way to mitigate those problems while still making an effort to balance Drizzle. It's purpose was not to keep Uber Pokemon usable in OU. The nerfing of Swift Swimmers was a side effect of balancing Drizzle, and was justified by the fact that it was an effort to significantly improve the metagame in a way that a simple ban could not.
Banning Drizzle + Manaphy, or in fact any other Drizzle combination would be going against policy.
Banning Drizzle + Manaphy, or in fact any other Drizzle combination would be going against policy.
At this point, I think most of us can agree that Drizzle is no longer overpowered. Banning any Drizzle combination does not directly help the metagame, because at this point there is no need for it. We can't play favorites with bans. Changing Manaphy's ban to a Drizzle + Manaphy ban does nothing but nerf Manaphy to keep it OU. Not to mention if we go down this path it will lead to arbitrary decisions as to what we can justify complex bans with, which should also be avoided.
Forgive me for playing devil's advocate here, but what exactly is it about saying, "I agree not to use a certain move if you won't for the sake of a competitive game" that makes it a simple agreement, whereas saying "I agree not to use a certain move on a certain pokemon if you won't for the sake of a competitive game" is considered an alteration of game mechanics? The game functions the exact same way it is programmed in either case. It'd make more sense to say why the former is better and the latter is worse because of simplicity or whatever rather than its changing game mechanics or anything. By the way, wouldn't banning, say, DT in essence entirely remove a move from many pokemon's movepools?
Evasion and OHKO moves are unhealthy for the metagame,even for Ubers,because they don't encourage skill or predition at all,you just use it.
Dark Void,Water Spout,*insert other Uber-strong moves here that most Ubers user here*,etc. make these mons broken,but their not unhealthy for the metagame in any way.
You still need your freaking brain to use the moves and not just luckily kill your counters by sheer luck.
Firstly, I don't think you got my point. I'm not arguing whether or not those things are broken at all. What I'm arguing against is this:
And this:
I'm asking what is it that makes the banning of a move from many pokemon okay yet banning a move from a single pokemon "not simulat(ing) the game" when in fact both are the same thing--the mutual agreement not to do something in a match. I'm asking what exactly makes one a legitimate proposal and the other not, as simply saying that the former is legitimate and the other is not is not sufficient proof for that argument. (By the way I do think Evasion, Sleep, and OHKO clause are fine and that having Skymin be OU just without Seed Flare is stupid, in case you're wondering). If we are to make a distinction saying that we don't, say, "ban specific things so that a certain pokemon can be OU" but instead "ban specific things so OU doesn't become a total clusterfuck" that would be a much more compelling argument, which I think is pretty much what we do now.
Secondly, how is something that's broken not unhealthy for the metagame? Isn't that the whole reason we ban things to begin with?
When's Round 3?
The difference is, we have banned Evasion/OHKO from the game period across all tiers as they make the game uncompetitive in and of themselves. Seed Flare in and of itself is not uncompetitive, otherwise Shaymin-L would be facing Ho-Oh and Rayquaza rather than Heatran and Salamence at this point.
The point I'm trying to make is this. We are used to banning things if they are broken under a set of general "common battle conditions." There is a difference between Shaymin-S spamming LO Seed Flare followed by an Air Slash and sweeping, and using a Rapid Spinner, Pursuit user, and weather setter to allow, say, Manaphy to sweep.
This generation...what exactly are common battle conditions? It definitely isn't Sand + SR like it was last gen. It could be Sand + Spikes. Rain + Spikes. Sun, period. Rain + Toxic Spikes. Weatherless + Spikes + Stealth Rock.
And then with the pool of pokemon having significantly increased, there are new checks to old threats and old checks to new threats alike.
In the majority of conditions, I do not believe Manaphy to be broken. The loss of Hydration is really big for it, since there are plenty of faster threats and if it wants to support itself, it loses a coverage option (which is a severe cost considering the threats running rampant nowadays). This situation is very similar to Kingdra and the Swift Swimmers. Kingdra is far from broken outside of Rain, no one will argue that. Only in one of several conditions does it become broken, so that particular scenario is prevented from happening in the first place.
Before people try to apply this to the Gen 4 metagame, think of this. Outrage is not broken in and off itself, so we could not ban that on Salamence to keep it OU; Mence had to go. Yache Berry is not broken in and of itself, so we cannot simply ban Yache + Garchomp; Chomp had to go.
The same would apply to the case of Manaphy. As far as Manaphy / Kingdra / etc taking advantage of opposing Rain, that is a risk that a Drizzle user takes when constructing his team and should prepare adequately. Furthermore, relying on opposing Drizzle would be a poor strategy and few would try it.
And I really don't see how adding a viable pokemon to OU (or in this case keeping it in OU as it originally was, if it doesn't prove broken) is unhealthy for the metagame.
Starman, thank you for arguing my points for me better than I would have myself. To continue, my point in bringing up Evasion Clause etc. was that saying "it changes mechanics" is a bullshit reason that sets arbitrary standards. The only acceptable reason to not issue a certain ban is complexity, and complexity should be looked at from a cost/benefit point of view. For example, in the case of the clauses, the cost is a certain amount of complexity that people quickly learn to take for granted and the benefit is an infinitely more competitive metagame. In the case of Aldaron's proposal, the cost is a new level of teambuilding complexity that still follows a very simple rule and the benefit is allowing several Pokemon and the rain weather condition to remain in OU. In the case of the Manaphy/Drizzle ban (let's not even TALK about Hydration/Drizzle), the cost is an increased level of complexity involving a detailed rule that applies to one Pokemon AND a precedent for nerfing Pokemon to keep them OU, and the benefit is... drum roll please... Manaphy stays in OU. Now, if Manaphy was something like the only way to deal with [team] and banning it would result in banning [team], then maybe that would be okay. However, things aren't even close. Manaphy offers nothing to the metagame besides a powerful specially based setup sweeper, and god only knows we have enough of those. This is unacceptable. Just ban Manaphy. The little blue blob can be replaced.
I would really like for you to explain to me how banning Drizzle + Manaphy is nerfing Manaphy, but banning Drizzle + Swift Swim isn't nerfing Kabutops, Kingdra, Ludicolo, and their successors.
And people act like this "complexity" is on an absurd level, when honestly memorizing natures, movepools, stats, EVs, IVs, and Hidden Powers is much more complex. Nobody is saying "You can only use Manaphy on a non-drizzle team with a nature that hinders defense and no simultaneous placement of more than 100 EVs in SpA and Spe."
Literally everything you said can be applied just as easily to the swift swimmers.
See, that makes much more sense as an argument.
Also this wasn't directed at you or about manaphy. Just a rebuttal to this post by Kefka:
Also this wasn't directed at you or about manaphy. Just a rebuttal to this post by Kefka:
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