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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 3 - So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
- Thread starter reachzero
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Sleep clause only exists ingame for (what games was it? Oh well, not black and white). It is currently impossible to play a black and white metagame with sleep clause implemented. It is changing game mechanics to play with it any game that does not have the ability to implement it (it's also why it was technically impossible last gen for rotom-a and giratina-o to exist alongside sleep clause, since I think only PBR had it).
How about just leave it as is, this is not important enough to be banned, its an unnecesary ban, its not going to make much of a difference at all in the metagame, all it does is piss p[people of because they cant use Garchomp and T-tar, two very popular pokes, on the same team, 20% evasion is not worth it.
Leaving it as it is is unnecessary, and it makes people not take the current Evasion Clause seriously.
A small but definite benefit in exchange for virtually nothing is a trade-off we should always be willing to make.
nonsense, sand veil has existed for years (since 4th gen started) and people still follow evasion clause, the notion that people dont take it seriously is a fairy tale.
trade off
Non sequitur much? When people use standard rules, they don't have a choice about following Evasion Clause, so the fact that they do is irrelevant. I've seen people complain about the double standard, and for good reason.
That combination is not something harmless that can be ignored. When those two Pokemon are used on a team together, one of them automatically gets a passive Evasion bonus, which is as bad as the things banned by Evasion Clause.
Evasion Clause bans the moves Double Team and Minimize, which after one use, give 33% and 40% Evasion bonuses, respectively. In contrast, in Sand Stream conditions, Sand Veil grants a 20% bonus without requiring a move to be used at all, a bonus which is very much comparable to the bonus from Double Team, only it doesn't require setup. Of course, if Garchomp does take the turn to set up, just like the Double Team user, he winds up with +2 Attack and +20% Evasion, while the Double Team user only has 33% Evasion. Tell me, how do you justify banning the latter but not the former?
While I find Sand Veil incredibly irritating, I will defend its place in the regular metagame until the day I die for a few very significant reasons.
1)Sand Veil rarely decides an entire match. Unless your team carries only a single poke that can outspeed or take a hit from a Sand Veil pokemon, a miss from Sand Veil won't decide a match. It will help the user of that ability, as it should, for as do almost every other ability, but not to the point of breaking the game.
2)Sand Veil does not stack, so the boosts from moves like Minimize or Double Team are, in fact,largely broken, as the boosts accumulate and make further boosts easier to get. If a pokemon could only use an evasion move once, I highly doubt evasion clause would exist, for there are many other more reliable set-up moves that allow one to deal far more damage to a team than a 33% chance of not getting hit.
Well Double Team and Minimize are available to all pokemon, including walls who don't die in one hit normally, could easily set up, and would be next to impossible to kill with the boosts. Also the boosts stack. Also we only seem to be talking about Garchump as broken with this ability (no one gives a shit about Cacturne) so if the ability is only broken on one specific pokemon why don't we, y'know, ban that one specific pokemon and not mire ourselves with complex bans and setting up precedents to nerf certain pokemon in order to keep them OU and whatnot. Honestly I still do not understand the whole rationale behind this but I doubt it would pass if it ever got nominated so whatever.
Moving onto other pokemon, I'm still kinda surprised I haven't seen very many Mew. Is it bad? Currently outclassed with Deo-S and Shell Smash Gorebyss running around? I really haven't seen enough of them to determine if it's any good or not.
Quick wuestion, why did you quote me? You didn't seem to be disagreeing. Just odd.
As for Mew, I find Mew does a lot of things well, but nothing especially better than anything else. It can BP, but Gorebyss does it better. It can Nasty Plot, but Thundurus does it better. Mew is just outclassed in many of the roles it is capable of filling, but is still very good.
I think Mew is really an underrated gem because it is FAR from bad and can do so many things it's ridiculous. It can do the Dual Screening thing as well as Deoxys except slower but it has much better bulk to continuously support the team, can attack, can phaze, can status, can Trick Room, can Gravity, can do Transform, can Trick, can run Weather, can really be annoying and hard to kill. Mew is WAY better than the usage stats would suggest but sometimes good things are forgotten. Plus, what pokemon to better support? Synchronize punishes Sleep and Paralysis (you could even run a one time Lum thing to deliberately absorb Paralysis/burn and throw it back but I like Leftovers). No one seriously runs Spiritomb so the only legit Poke that puts a damper on all Mew for sure is Sableye.
This isn't true. In terms of Baton Passing Mew gets a really important move in Taunt, which makes passing with it a lot easier. Then it has that really great natural bulk that makes setting up and taunting a lot eaier for it and it also has leftovers. Similarly when it NPs it gets far better coverage (and far more unpredictable coverage since it can run four or so good coverage moves) than Thunderous does, and far better bulk with no SR weakness, and it can just pass off its boost if runs into something troubling. The most important thing is that you don't know what its gonna be doing so your first switch in, if wrong, could set you back quite a bit.
Which is why Mew is great, but NP Mew does not wreck teams with 100 base SpA and a terrible STAB, unfortunately. Thundurus is just faster and much more powerful. As with Gorebyss, the pure power from Shell Smash largely makes Mew inferior in many players' eyes, though it may be very useful for surprise value alone.
Yeah natural bulk is good but that typing really sucks with few good resists and some annoying weaknesses. A lot of stuff can outrun and threaten it with strong hits (Terrakion, Excadrill, Lati@s, all the Genies, etc) but slower checks are unreliable as Mew can always run moves to take out the obvious switch ins (Focus Blast/Aura Sphere for Ttar, Flamethrower for Scizor and Excadrill). All in all though it hasn't proven astoundingly broken. I still have to wonder why we never bothered to test it last gen.
Speaking of Mew, Mew is a great recipient of a Shell Smash pass then as Mew can continue the chain if need be with Baton Pass, add to it, and attack on both sides (although special is way superior) or be the one providing the Screens...that is something Deoxys can't do, have the option of either screening or chaining or both. Psychic is not a terrible stab (especially for Mew who has all sorts of things to mess with steel types) and hitting the many fighters this gen is essential as is resisting their stab. Doing it with great stats everywhere (god, imagine if it had Magic Guard as a Dream World or something, argh so many potential abilities lost, darn Game Freak for not giving a second option ability) with reliable recovery and speed is awesome. Mew has the bulk to take a lot of those hits because of Roost (with Hp investment although even with Min def Mew could take Terakion, Landlos, Doryuzu hits and survive, and unboosted even afford to Will-O-Wisp and or Roost later). Draco Meteor is a pain but it can survive it with hp and sdef investment, laugh at Latios as it Roosts, and sets up Screens or Will-O-Wisp on the next things in. Poison/Burn/Para is annoying but you get to reflect the status at least once which could help and Mew is more of a bulky hit taker.
The difference is that Mew is a bulky Nasty Plotter while Thundurus is more frail but a set of Nasty Plot/Psychic/Aura Sphere/Roost (or even Calm Mind which would make Mew really painfully hard to kill) would hurt much like Rankurusu's would except Aura Sphere is reliable, Mew's attack is much stronger than the max hp/max def Rank's after Nasty Plot, it has good defenses, and Psychic hurts almost everything but Steels and other Psychics. It is still reccomend to have something to take bulky steels out but Mew is not outclassed as an attacker, Nasty Plotter or otherwise because Mew survives some ridiculous things and the fact is that it has so many sets to run until you see what it does, the opponent still has no idea if it's a Screener, a bulky attacker, a statuser, a phazer, a weather set upper (although if it's on a weather team, you'd think that'd be a dead giveaway although it would lure in their Tyranitar for you to destroy...), a Scarf Transformer, and on.
The things that threaten Mew look more like these: Shubargo (no Flamethrower although it won't enjoy burn as much), Scizor (same as Shubargo), Latios (Draco Meteor), Sazandora (Draco Meteor and/or Dark Pulse), Sableye (Mischievious Heart Taunt, Mew simply can't do anything long term to this guy really), Spiritomb (hah, like anyone uses it but if you do), other Psychics (without Shadow Ball/carrying Light Screen, especially if they carry Shadow Ball), bulky Taunters that don't die to Mew, etc. Physical hitters like Landlos, Terakion, Doryuzu are secondary (unless they got Swords Dance but one is assuming they come in on Mew, not the other way around) and are handled by things like Icebeam, Will-O-Wisp, Reflect, Psychic, Trick Room, etc in Mew's arsenal. Terakion does have a weakness to Psychic so if you're dumb and you get burned or Mew get's Nasty Plot, Mew can 1-2 hit ko you with that. I don't know why that was mentioned.
The difference is that Mew is a bulky Nasty Plotter while Thundurus is more frail but a set of Nasty Plot/Psychic/Aura Sphere/Roost (or even Calm Mind which would make Mew really painfully hard to kill) would hurt much like Rankurusu's would except Aura Sphere is reliable, Mew's attack is much stronger than the max hp/max def Rank's after Nasty Plot, it has good defenses, and Psychic hurts almost everything but Steels and other Psychics. It is still reccomend to have something to take bulky steels out but Mew is not outclassed as an attacker, Nasty Plotter or otherwise because Mew survives some ridiculous things and the fact is that it has so many sets to run until you see what it does, the opponent still has no idea if it's a Screener, a bulky attacker, a statuser, a phazer, a weather set upper (although if it's on a weather team, you'd think that'd be a dead giveaway although it would lure in their Tyranitar for you to destroy...), a Scarf Transformer, and on.
The things that threaten Mew look more like these: Shubargo (no Flamethrower although it won't enjoy burn as much), Scizor (same as Shubargo), Latios (Draco Meteor), Sazandora (Draco Meteor and/or Dark Pulse), Sableye (Mischievious Heart Taunt, Mew simply can't do anything long term to this guy really), Spiritomb (hah, like anyone uses it but if you do), other Psychics (without Shadow Ball/carrying Light Screen, especially if they carry Shadow Ball), bulky Taunters that don't die to Mew, etc. Physical hitters like Landlos, Terakion, Doryuzu are secondary (unless they got Swords Dance but one is assuming they come in on Mew, not the other way around) and are handled by things like Icebeam, Will-O-Wisp, Reflect, Psychic, Trick Room, etc in Mew's arsenal. Terakion does have a weakness to Psychic so if you're dumb and you get burned or Mew get's Nasty Plot, Mew can 1-2 hit ko you with that. I don't know why that was mentioned.
Given that one Pokemon with the ability is Garchomp, I would say that if it does activate, it's likely to make a bigger difference than you seem to think. A single missed turn can decide a match, especially when you're staring down a boosting sweeper. And when that sweeper is hiding behind a Substitute, they're likely to take advantage of that free turn to boost again.
Stacking boosts counts for little. This is the progression of boosts from an Evasion move and the resulting decrease in move accuracy:
+1: 25%
+2: 40%
+3: 50%
+4: 57%
+5: 62%
+6: 67%
As you can see, the benefit goes down drastically with each use. Using Double Team more than once or twice just isn't worth the slight benefit. It's true that it makes it easier to set up more Double Team uses, but I recall that when Evasion Clause was being discussed earlier in Gen 5, someone posted a chart showing the average number of times the Pokemon would be likely to be hit while doing so and demonstrated that it just wasn't an effective strategy. And it looks like I was wrong about the previous statistic; one use of Double Team only gives a 25% boost. So with no setup at all, Garchomp has nearly the Evasion of a Double Team user after a single turn of setup, and Garchomp's advantage after a single turn of setup is even larger. More turns of setup seem irrelevant when it means staring down a +4 or +6 Garchomp with an Evasion boost, and when the benefits of the Double Team user just decrease each time.
Minimize is another story, and Sand Veil cannot match up to the extent that it violates Evasion Clause. However, as Double Team is also banned under Evasion Clause, Sand Veil only needs to grant the same benefit to Evasion as Double Team in order to be banned as well.
Again, the discussion is not about something being broken. The discussion is about an ability combination violating Evasion Clause.
Any extra turns granted to a wall are nothing compared to what a top-tier Pokemon such as Garchomp can do with a free turn.
Thorhammer, if you feel so strongly about the issue can you please just nominate it when nomination threads come up instead of clogging up the thread with this annoying circular debate? If people like your idea, they'll follow along, and if they don't, then too bad.
Or, you can make another thread and discuss it there, like the Rain discussers did last round with Drizzle + Swift Swim.
Or, you can make another thread and discuss it there, like the Rain discussers did last round with Drizzle + Swift Swim.
Thorhammer, you have continually shown that you choose to ignore the main point of whomever makes an argument against yours, and instead focus on their elaboration and examples to discredit them. If I were to say:
"Banning Sand Veil under Evasion Clause is like banning Deoxys-S and Deoxys-D because we have Deoxys-A and Deoxys-N banned. That's a double standard too, isn't it?"
You would ignore the main point of my argument, that is to say, a Sand Veil ban is completely different from the current Double Team and Minimize ban. In response you would say, "But Deoxys is a Pokemon, and Sand Veil is an ability, so your point is moot!" or otherwise evade the main argument being made. This logic is also what prevents you from understanding the purpose of Aldaron's proposal, even after he has explicitly stated his main point. Instead of realizing that your stance is against what he has labelled himself as the purpose of his proposal, you look to a brief mention that such a complex ban should only be applied if the combination is broken, and draw your grounding from that. It is not a contradiction, it is a condition. In other words, if the weathers are imbalanced, we can't just pick the strongest Pokemon from the strongest weather and combination ban it, if the combination itself is not broken. Likewise, if the weathers aren't even imbalanced, and someone wants to get rid of Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, you can't draw justification from Aldaron's proposal for a complex ban, because nothing is imbalanced in the first place.
As for the rest of the anti-Evasion Ability people, Double Team and Minimize existed for the sole reason of creating hax, and relying on luck to win a battle. As such, they were deemed uncompetitive, and Evasion Clause was made to prevent people from relying on them. Likewise, with Inconsistent you had to rely on luck to get the boosts that you needed, and if you were lucky you could easily win a battle against someone far more skilled than you. When I choose Garchomp, is it because I'm going to rely on Sand Veil to win me games? No, it is so I can have an awesome scarfer who can revenge pretty much every other Dragon, or to have a SDing wallbreaker and sweeper. If I choose Gliscor with Sand Veil, is it because I am going to rely on the crappy 20% miss chance to win a game? No, it is because I want my Gliscor to have Roost instead of Poison Heal. Those that do rely on Sand Veil misses to win games might get lucky once in a while, but it is very similar to teams relying on Super Luck, Focus Energy, Night Slash, Absol to get crits and do a decent amount of damage. Sure they have a chance of getting a Night Slash crit on your physical wall and finishing it off, but do we ban Absol + Super Luck because it promotes hax? No, we do not, because any team relying on it will not win against someone with a better built team, or greater skill, or anything else of the sort more than they would from any other sort of hax. Is Sand Veil actually broken? Do we really need to ban it? How many times have you lost because of an Ice Beam miss on Garchomp? Now how many times have you lost because of a crit, and untimely burn, or a miss?
Stop bitching. If we removed every luck-based factor from this game, we wouldn't be playing Pokemon anymore.
"Banning Sand Veil under Evasion Clause is like banning Deoxys-S and Deoxys-D because we have Deoxys-A and Deoxys-N banned. That's a double standard too, isn't it?"
You would ignore the main point of my argument, that is to say, a Sand Veil ban is completely different from the current Double Team and Minimize ban. In response you would say, "But Deoxys is a Pokemon, and Sand Veil is an ability, so your point is moot!" or otherwise evade the main argument being made. This logic is also what prevents you from understanding the purpose of Aldaron's proposal, even after he has explicitly stated his main point. Instead of realizing that your stance is against what he has labelled himself as the purpose of his proposal, you look to a brief mention that such a complex ban should only be applied if the combination is broken, and draw your grounding from that. It is not a contradiction, it is a condition. In other words, if the weathers are imbalanced, we can't just pick the strongest Pokemon from the strongest weather and combination ban it, if the combination itself is not broken. Likewise, if the weathers aren't even imbalanced, and someone wants to get rid of Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, you can't draw justification from Aldaron's proposal for a complex ban, because nothing is imbalanced in the first place.
As for the rest of the anti-Evasion Ability people, Double Team and Minimize existed for the sole reason of creating hax, and relying on luck to win a battle. As such, they were deemed uncompetitive, and Evasion Clause was made to prevent people from relying on them. Likewise, with Inconsistent you had to rely on luck to get the boosts that you needed, and if you were lucky you could easily win a battle against someone far more skilled than you. When I choose Garchomp, is it because I'm going to rely on Sand Veil to win me games? No, it is so I can have an awesome scarfer who can revenge pretty much every other Dragon, or to have a SDing wallbreaker and sweeper. If I choose Gliscor with Sand Veil, is it because I am going to rely on the crappy 20% miss chance to win a game? No, it is because I want my Gliscor to have Roost instead of Poison Heal. Those that do rely on Sand Veil misses to win games might get lucky once in a while, but it is very similar to teams relying on Super Luck, Focus Energy, Night Slash, Absol to get crits and do a decent amount of damage. Sure they have a chance of getting a Night Slash crit on your physical wall and finishing it off, but do we ban Absol + Super Luck because it promotes hax? No, we do not, because any team relying on it will not win against someone with a better built team, or greater skill, or anything else of the sort more than they would from any other sort of hax. Is Sand Veil actually broken? Do we really need to ban it? How many times have you lost because of an Ice Beam miss on Garchomp? Now how many times have you lost because of a crit, and untimely burn, or a miss?
Stop bitching. If we removed every luck-based factor from this game, we wouldn't be playing Pokemon anymore.
You're talking about a Sand Veil+Sand Stream ban. I was arguing against a Sand Veil ban. So, really, our arguments are incompatible...
1)lolwut?
2) The exchange would be for limitations on teambuilding. Which may be small, but I'd say it easily cancels out the benefit of the ban.
Why ban something that's not broken for the sole benefit of having a more complete Evasion Clause?
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I just encountered another Shell Smash BP team. I killed Gorebyss, so I thought I was safe. Then Huntail came out and got the pass off. Given that they have almost the same stats, I don't see why Huntail is unused. Other than the lower Sp Atk, which shouldn't matter too much to a BPer.
The SDSub Garchomp set pretty much relies on Sand Veil to win games and this set is increasing in popularity recently(last 3 i encountered all had this set). I do agree with Thorhammer that Sand Veil is pretty damn close to having one free Double Team. It's in a way very similar to Evasion, not broken but relies pretty much on luck to win games.
I'm tempted to make an argument about why evasion clause should be tested however i'm not allowed to do so...
Well Garchomp is just devastating this gen and Sand veil isnt much of problem.
His 102 Speed IS his problem. Im not saying hes broken kay.
The reason gen 4 chomp is devastating is mostly caused by the existence of one Perfect Pokemon(Garchomp) in a metagame filled with Fragile Sweeper(Luke, Ape).
In gen 5, a gen with no damage increase, not a lot more powerful metagame compared to what gen 4 have to deal damage with, but bulkier metagame with so many perfect pokemon(Terrakion, Keldeo later) running arround, It make sense why chomp dont feel broken other than the other factor that make him isnt.
Yeah gen 5 power creep is not much in power term but much in bulk term. Gen 5 is a BIT mostly slower a BIT faster but has big bulk increase with bulky things pretty much dominate the playfield one way or another.
@ mew
Use Stall mew guys. Its amazing. Taunt, W-o-W, Roost, Filler is very great in this metagame. Also about latios i must say hes meh even in before metagame. Especialy after i use Shuubarugo. Latios is mostly a gamble at best tbh. Use it and blow hole or use it and get st up on AND lose. After a -2 DM i can use my terakion(who is close as bulky as Tyranitar) set up, or just blow a fucking hole.
Honestly If theres a suspect this time around, i feel Terakion is more worthy that those that most are voting(Reuniclus, Randorusu, Voltlos, Tornelos, etc) but asince i dont think its broken, then i go with no suspect
His 102 Speed IS his problem. Im not saying hes broken kay.
The reason gen 4 chomp is devastating is mostly caused by the existence of one Perfect Pokemon(Garchomp) in a metagame filled with Fragile Sweeper(Luke, Ape).
In gen 5, a gen with no damage increase, not a lot more powerful metagame compared to what gen 4 have to deal damage with, but bulkier metagame with so many perfect pokemon(Terrakion, Keldeo later) running arround, It make sense why chomp dont feel broken other than the other factor that make him isnt.
Yeah gen 5 power creep is not much in power term but much in bulk term. Gen 5 is a BIT mostly slower a BIT faster but has big bulk increase with bulky things pretty much dominate the playfield one way or another.
@ mew
Use Stall mew guys. Its amazing. Taunt, W-o-W, Roost, Filler is very great in this metagame. Also about latios i must say hes meh even in before metagame. Especialy after i use Shuubarugo. Latios is mostly a gamble at best tbh. Use it and blow hole or use it and get st up on AND lose. After a -2 DM i can use my terakion(who is close as bulky as Tyranitar) set up, or just blow a fucking hole.
Honestly If theres a suspect this time around, i feel Terakion is more worthy that those that most are voting(Reuniclus, Randorusu, Voltlos, Tornelos, etc) but asince i dont think its broken, then i go with no suspect
Like I said earlier, how many times have you lost to SDSub Chomp compared to the number of times you have lost to a crit, or a Focus Blast miss? Hax is part of the game, and making it impossible to use Garchomp on SS teams is far too much to ask just to remove a largely insignificant bit of luck.
If SDSub Chomp is broken (which I assume we can agree is not the case), we should ban Garchomp instead of making a complex ability ban that isn't even justified in the first place.
Critical hits and Focus Blasts can be landed by numerous pokemon while SDSubchomp is just one pokemon, you really can't compare them in terms of numbers. (it's like comparing the amount of times you faced critical hits and Inconsistent users)
Evasion and OHKO moves have been banned for Luck based factors alone, not for their brokeness. Thorhammer is using the same logic to advocate his Sand Veil/Sandstream ban.
I agree with you that hax is part of the game however, that's why i believe we never should be banned anything for luck factors in the first place. Currently we're sitting in some gray area in which there is no real line in what should banned for luck factors and what shouldn't be.
hax is part of the game but hax like crits cannot be controled 'cause it's the games mechanics!
in the other hand we can just ban evasion increasing abilities and call it a day with no complex bans involved and no pokemon competitively used having lost almost anything(no i dont care if dream world glaceon loses half of it's movepool).
and the free turns that garchomp gains are not limited to 1 every 5 games...
garchomp with leftovers can spam substittutes for 5 turns till he gets the miss he needs which has a really great chance to happen in all these turns.
this would mean that garchomp would have a sub and a swords dance under his belt ready to sweep,because garchomp comes in he scares something out and then he subs,then he sd as u break the sub and then he spams substittite 'till u miss...
how is thit competitive at all?a player spamming subs to activate hax that you cannot avoid?
the only way to prevent this is changing the weather but i dont think that ninetales and politoed are willing to switch in on garchomp anyday soon...the only real solution would be changing the weather before the landshark comes in which is very situational...
every other form of hax is different...it either requires you to do something or it cannot be avoided(like crits that only have a 6,25 chance of happening not 20%).but garchomp in addition to being such a deadly mon can spam subs for free turns...how is this healthy?
Sand Veil/Snow Cloak/Evasion moves are different from flamethrower burning, a move landing a crit, or having an inaccurate move miss.
Flamethrower, attacking moves that can land crits, and moves with high power and low accuracy all have a purpose outside of admittedly creating some hax- to do some (in the case of low acc high power, more) damage. It's nice (or not nice) when their effects activate, but you're not using them solely for their hax- they have another, usually bigger, purpose.
Sand Veil, Snow Cloak, and Evasion moves create hax and have no purpose other than creating hax. That is the big difference between a small, healthy dose of luck and turning the game into just rolling dice.
Unfortunately, we as a community do not have the right or the reason to ban an ability that we find gripe-worthy. If we did, then Serene Grace would be gone long ago, and critical hits would not exist. Yet we cannot. Banning something because it brings extra luck to the metagame is unfounded and against the general philosophy of the suspect tests. The metagame is not broken by this ability, nor does this ability overcentralize the metagame in countering it. Sand Veil only decides matches with extreme hax, and there is no possible way to entirely remove hax from the game without deviating extremely far from the original games.
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