np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)

[TheValkyries]

I think it's actually the opposite. Brightpowder and Lax Incense should not be unbanned because there's absolutely no rational reason for doing so. The unbanning of those two items would have a negative effect on the metagame. Regardless of whether or not that negative effect is reasonably large enough to actually have an actual impact on the metagame, the fact that it's a negative effect nonetheless makes me wonder why anyone would call for them to be unbanned.

Also, we have evasion clause for a reason. The voters found that having an item that affects evasion falls under that clause. I don't think the evasion percentage or whether or not another item would be better are relevant at that point.

What is the reason for evasion clause, though? Was it to stop spamming evasion boosting moves, or was it to get rid of all evasion? Yes, the voters have decided, but everyone voted without really thinking about evasion clause, but rather voted thinking, "Man this really sucks."

Now don't get me wrong, I understand that bringing back these items will only have a negative impact on the game, and I'm fine if they stay banned. However, as it stands, there are a great many things that have similar negative impacts on the game that we aren't considering for bans. Why are we playing favoritism with the negative effects we're fine with, and those that we aren't? This is really something that should be questioned if we truly care about maintaining as much truism to the game as possible.

In reality, the items themselves don't create situations that are significantly more adverse than other varieties of RNG abuse. Yet they were singled out. Largely because of the late Garchomp, and yet also because it was easier to justify a ban on something that was only merely annoying, rather than game-breaking. You wonder why some of us feel we should bring them back? Well, it's because we feel these items were wrongly banned for reasons that didn't actually pertain to the true best interests of the game.

 

[spweasel]

Brightpowder unconditionally boosts evasion. The Evasion Clause banned moves that unconditionally boost evasion; it's not unreasonable to add these items to the Clause, especially now that the 5th Generation has made non-Pokemon bans no longer taboo. Brightpowder wasn't really all that broken on anything (although I wouldn't be surprised if some Pokemon could pull off a pseudo-HaxChomp set with it), but banning it to be more in line with the rules is something I have no problem with.

Sand Veil, on the other hand, only conditionally increases evasion. Moreover, it's a condition that you have some effect over. On a conceptual level, this is the difference between Double Team and Accupressure, and why one is banned and the other not. Permanent weather has no bearing on this fact.

As for the necessity of the Evasion Clause in general, it's because evasion is inherently unfun and luck-based. It completely negates turns, which reduces a mostly skill-based game into something entirely luck-based. Unlike Serene Grace flinch hax (probably the closest unbanned cousin of evasion), you can't play around it, either. The thought of letting Blissey abuse the new and improved Minimize is enough to make me shudder, and rightfully so. It would quickly make the game unplayable.

 

[fidgety]

may point out that even on chomp BP and LI were inferior to lefties as they would be run to allow sub-chomp to keep its subs.

BP/LI=28%->48.16%->62.68%->72.45%

Lefties=20%->36%->48.8%->59.04%->67.23%

barely more than a 5% difference and with chomp gone there is really nothing that has any hope of really utilizing BP/LI and even then lefties was better as once the miss occurs chomp is getting HP back and not stuck at 3 hp after the fourth sub. so BP/LI bans actually violate Smogon's "minimal bans policy".

@jaxx that is because you were in the middle of the ladder once you get further up sand becomes far more common evidenced by the fact that tar is consistently pushing 20% usage every month. (though toed is being tested over there as the PO server is against complex bans (which i agree with) and far too many people are being too lazy to actually ban the abusers (which i despise)).

 

[November Blue]

Well, yeah, but a Brightpowder un-ban makes no sense and has no effect either.

To be quite honest, it really doesn't matter what we do with BrightPowder; we could say it's banned on weekdays and unbanned on weekends/holidays, and it still wouldn't really make a difference.

Rofl, we could have evasion saturday :P

I'm not sure what to think about the evasion bans... It makes no difference either way.

Hey JTSwift, I think you make threads like these interesting since we have to question our tiers as the game is constantly changing. Honestly though, smogon's already averse to hax and skymin is definitely not coming back. Why not focus on bringing things that are debatable, like garchomp, back into OU? I'm glad you tried to focus this time on a 600 BST pokemon instead of a 680 BST pokemon. Like I said, how about that garchomp.

Thanks! Garchomp was just banned recently though and I actually support the ban. When rough skin is released it might be worth re-evaluating, but not now.

It's funny though. Some people can't make a good counter argument for skymin, so they nitpick and insult. You all think that garchomp and blaziken should be retested? I think that skymin should be retested! I can back up my opinion with solid arguments as well.

I honestly don't think that serene grace is broken on skymin. I've listed several pokemon that can wall and KO it, status destroys it, scarfers can't be flinched...

You can't flinchhax teams to death with any kind of reliability. There is every chance that your opponent won't flinch, and will retaliate with deadly effect.

Let me give you an example. Tyranitar vs. skymin. We'll say that you want to flinchhax ttar to death. A 252 HP / 0 spdef tar with -2 special defense and leftovers is only 4HKOed by life orb timid skymin's air slash. No competent battler would leave skymin in in this situation, as tyranitar WILL KO skymin with stone edge. Expecting air slash to flinch three times in a row is ridiculous. You have the same chance to hit three times in a row with hypnosis!

It has plenty of checks, so it's not broken in that regard. Some people argue that thundurus is broken because it has no definite counters or checks. Could thundurus be harder to handle than skymin?

If flinchhaxing is such a broken and feared "strategy" why doesn't everyone abuse it? Togekiss has great bulk, shares an identical special attack stat and STAB air slash with skymin and can run a trickscarf set with 426 speed. It can run a bulky roost / nasty plot / twave / air slash set that can arguably blast through teams better than any skymin. Togekiss isn't broken though right?

I thought that smogon policy was to have a metagame with as few bans as possible. I'd like to have skymin tested for OU in the current metagame. It's annoying, but not broken. None of you have proven me wrong.

 

[doomvendingmachine]

You DO realize that skymin was the first unanimous ban in the history of Smogon's OU suspect process right?

 

[Jaxx]

@jaxx that is because you were in the middle of the ladder once you get further up sand becomes far more common evidenced by the fact that tar is consistently pushing 20% usage every month. (though toed is being tested over there as the PO server is against complex bans (which i agree with) and far too many people are being too lazy to actually ban the abusers (which i despise)).

I don't think you seem to understand. I have indeed been quite high on the ladder in PAST rounds. However I was specifying that this round I ran into a lot of Drizzle teams back to back. It wasn't to say that Drizzle is the most common. It was to say that weather is ALL I see, SS or Drizzle I was just stating what I ran into non-stop drizzle as I began to ladder and it is becoming rather stale.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Let me give you an example. Tyranitar vs. skymin. We'll say that you want to flinchhax ttar to death. A 252 HP / 0 spdef tar with -2 special defense and leftovers is only 4HKOed by life orb timid skymin's air slash. No competent battler would leave skymin in in this situation, as tyranitar WILL KO skymin with stone edge. Expecting air slash to flinch three times in a row is ridiculous. You have the same chance to hit three times in a row with hypnosis!

Air Slash has a 74% chance to flinch...

.74^3 * .95^3 = approximately 34.7% chance of flinchaxing Tyranitar thrice.

That's higher than the chance of Body Slam paralysing...

 

[extra]

Let me give you an example. Tyranitar vs. skymin. We'll say that you want to flinchhax ttar to death. A 252 HP / 0 spdef tar with -2 special defense and leftovers is only 4HKOed by life orb timid skymin's air slash. No competent battler would leave skymin in in this situation, as tyranitar WILL KO skymin with stone edge. Expecting air slash to flinch three times in a row is ridiculous. You have the same chance to hit three times in a row with hypnosis!

your example is shit because if ttar has -2 special defence from SEED FLARE then shaymin is just going to SEED FLARE again, isn't it (text bolded for your convenience)

^ guy above me needs to learn to math as well because it's 57% flinch chance (counting accuracy modifier if that wasn't already clear (it should be (better safe than sorry in this thread))).

 

[November Blue]

Yes. Go back a couple of pages and read through my posts. EDIT: @ Doomvendingmachine

It was a rough example. The point was to illustrate how unreliable flinches are. You've completely missed the point.

 

[spweasel]

^ guy above me needs to learn to math as well because it's 57% flinch chance (counting accuracy modifier if that wasn't already clear (it should be (better safe than sorry in this thread))).

The flinch rate was increased to 37% this gen (supposedly), and he did consider accuracy - what else did you think the .95^3 was for?

Try to make sure you aren't wrong before calling someone out.

 

[Tobes]

It's funny though. Some people can't make a good counter argument for skymin, so they nitpick and insult. You all think that garchomp and blaziken should be retested? I think that skymin should be retested! I can back up my opinion with solid arguments as well.

I'd like to have skymin tested for OU in the current metagame. It's annoying, but not broken. None of you have proven me wrong.

Your arguments are not even close to being solid enough to overturn a unanimous decision to ban, and you sorely overestimate your ability at debating (hint: it's not much). The reason you keep getting insulted is because your "arguments" are just so plain stupid. By the way, what ridiculously broken Pokemon will you be nominating to drop down next? Darkrai? Groudon?

Suspect voters have already proven you wrong. We don't need to give a counter argument. Skymin was overwhelmingly decided to be broken, because it is. It's simply ridiculous that you think that a fucking 100% ban vote could be overturned just because you think Skymin might be manageable. This is not a decision that will ever be reversed, no matter how much crap you keep spewing about flinches and Sp.D drops being manageable. Just. Fucking. Drop it.

 

[ginganinja]

I honestly don't think that serene grace is broken on skymin. I've listed several pokemon that can wall and KO it, status destroys it, scarfers can't be flinched...

You can't flinchhax teams to death with any kind of reliability. There is every chance that your opponent won't flinch, and will retaliate with deadly effect.

Let me give you an example. Tyranitar vs. skymin. We'll say that you want to flinchhax ttar to death. A 252 HP / 0 spdef tar with -2 special defense and leftovers is only 4HKOed by life orb timid skymin's air slash. No competent battler would leave skymin in in this situation, as tyranitar WILL KO skymin with stone edge. Expecting air slash to flinch three times in a row is ridiculous. You have the same chance to hit three times in a row with hypnosis!

It has plenty of checks, so it's not broken in that regard. Some people argue that thundurus is broken because it has no definite counters or checks. Could thundurus be harder to handle than skymin?

If flinchhaxing is such a broken and feared "strategy" why doesn't everyone abuse it? Togekiss has great bulk, shares an identical special attack stat and STAB air slash with skymin and can run a trickscarf set with 426 speed. It can run a bulky roost / nasty plot / twave / air slash set that can arguably blast through teams better than any skymin. Togekiss isn't broken though right?

I thought that smogon policy was to have a metagame with as few bans as possible. I'd like to have skymin tested for OU in the current metagame. It's annoying, but not broken. None of you have proven me wrong.

hi

Enough people have already responded towards your (lets face it rather poor) example so I won't really discuss it except to make the point that if you were serious about getting Skymin retested you would like, use well thought out situations and examples. For example when you list Conkeldurr as a Skymin check (which is so wrong on a number of levels) people just don't take it seriously. Not to mention your apparent checks struggle to beat Skymin anyway.

Assuming that its a standard SubSeed version Skymin (like any decent sweeper) will switch on a pokemon that cannot do shit to it or is forced out. It gets up a Substitute. Now if you have a scarfer they face getting hit by a STAB Seed Flare for a broken Sub, if its Chansey then I can Leech Seed away. Heck when you are switching into that set you need to break that Sub and then take a Seed Flare, hope to hell you don't get a SDef drop and then hope to hell it does not choose to stay in and finish you with Air Slash.

Tl;dr

get better examples that explain your point rather than wasting your time making shitty ones that prove how broken Skymin really is. Those shitty examples do not further your argument and are tiresome to respond to

 

[shrang]

It's funny though. Some people can't make a good counter argument for skymin, so they nitpick and insult. You all think that garchomp and blaziken should be retested? I think that skymin should be retested! I can back up my opinion with solid arguments as well.

We ALL think Garchomp and Blaziken need to be retested? Since when? If you haven't noticed, they both received supermajorities telling them to GTFO.

Skymin was banned unanimously in the first suspect test. Nothing much has changed since then that could potentially allow Skymin back in, if anything, it lost a great check in Speed Boost Blaziken and the lack of Swift Swimmers that was usually how Skymin was revenged back then. There is a reason that Skymin was unanimously banned, so stop trying to bring it back up. All you are doing is spitting in the faces of those who voted, so stop trolling, whether you are trying to or not.

 

[doomvendingmachine]

Reasons why the flinch chance is more important on skymin than either togekiss or jirachi

1. Skymin is fucking fast.
at 125 speed, skymin will outspeed all of ou without a choice scarf except for excadrill in sand. This alone makes it more dangerous than either jirachi or togekiss. in order to outrun the crucial 100-111 speed tier togekiss and jirachi both need to run choice scarf. Skymin has the luxury of any item it damn well chooses. This can be lefties to make flinching even more costly, specs for even more power (which we're going to get to in a minute) or lo, which allows you to out-power both rachi and kiss while still having the ability to switch moves. An argument can be made that rachi and kiss can para their incoming counters, thus making them faster than them. This is effective, but it doesn't look at the broader scope of skymin's usefulness. You will not always be able to force a swtich in every situation; since skymin in naturally faster it doesn't need to force a switch to be faster than its opponent, it can just come in and flinch the shit out of it. This gives skymin more utility than both jirachi and togekiss.

2. Skymin is fucking powerful.
120 base special attack is pretty damn high for how fast skymin is. It's the same as togekiss, and 20 points higher than the attack stat jrachi's flinch move runs off of. Furthermore, since skymin doesn't need to run a scarf to outspeed a huge chunk of the meta that rachi and kiss otherwise miss, it can boost its offensive prowess further with specs or life orb. This make for a flinch move that hits harder than your average flinch. Additionally, skymin's other main stab has a nasty habit of dropping spdef by -2, so even if you do get your mon in on a move besides air slash if the move it comes in on is seed flare this effectively increases the power of the flinch as well.

3. Kiss and rachi can't leech seed.
Leech seed+flinch is so beyond annoying. Imagine the following scenario. Skymin comes in on a light attack or comes in free with SR up. It leech seeds as you switch to something to deal with it. It stays in a turn and flinches with air slash. Between 2 turns of leech seed it's recovered most or possibly all of the health lost switching in. it then retreats, essentially for free, while you switch in is worn down, less able to handle it next time.

4. With a special note to jirachi: flying is a much better offensive type than steel.
Steel is quite frankly walled by a lot, and doesn't hit many common typings SE. Additionally, as a steel type itself, jirachi is vulnerable to being trapped by magnezone, specifically if it's the scarf set on a locked iron head.

 

[Yoshiken]

Okay, lots of posts while I've been writing this, so some will have already been covered but...

That's against TTar, who is resistant to Air Slash. Take it against, say, Scizor and you're looking at what should be an average battle.

...huh. And there's me about to say that Skymin should win that easily, except it actually gets 2HKOed and 2HKOs. Hrm. That said, priority.
...Now I'm curious. I really hate the concept of Skymin coming back, especially given how sickeningly good Haxrachi is right now, but.. let's see...
..wait, you mentioned TTar? AHAHAHAHA. Well. You said Timid 252/252 Skymin, right? Yeah, 252/252 Sassy TTar is OHKOed 15% of the time by Seed Flare. Forget flinching when it can OHKO (with SR up, that 15% becomes 92%.)
Also, it's damn difficult to wall, thanks to Leech Seed... Let's take something that laughs at that and is still pretty specially-defensive..

252/252 Timid Skymin vs. Calm 252/252 Tentacruel @Sludge:
Seed Flare: 2-3HKO (with the SpD drop, this'd be a OHKO after rocks, meaning it's a secure 2HKO assuming SpD drop on the first Seed Flare, and still potential 2HKO otherwise)
Air Slash: 4-5HKO. 74% chance of flinch... That's approximately 1/4 chance of 4 flinches running without missing.

So yeah, no. Even the most defensive of Pokemon are destroyed by Leech Seed + Air Slash, and most offensive Pokemon are outsped and KOd by Seed Flare (and Sub is just the icing on the cake.)

There is no way I want to see Skymin come back from Ubers.

 

[Machi]

@JT: You do realize that when Skymin was still available at OU all your so called checks - i.e. ice shards, steel types, Chansey/Blissey, Tyranitar - pretty much existed on the field back then and Skymin STILL dominated. And in fact Skymin users DID adopt sets to the so called checks - HP fire, SubSeed, Earth Power (meaning the checks you proposed were already known to Skymin users so really its nothing new in fact you missed out on a good but pretty unconventional one with Bisharp) - or even if it didn't its two STAB moves Air Slash/Seed Flare ended up dominating by sheer luck. And this luck is not something to be underestimated - nor could calculations accurately capture it either as somebody had so nicely pointed out so that the 3 or 4 OHKO at times became POSSIBLE with Skymin which did make many people rage. And I would hardly call Smogon's ban on Skymin a bias when considering even OTHER servers with their OWN tier system also relegated Skymin relatively quickly to UBER - meaning there is certainly merit in considering the consensus that had occurred in smogon along with why the other servers banned Skymin rather than simply calling it a bias.

Edit: Heck I think the better check for Skymin - which it never got the chance to experience - was Drizzle being released in conjunction to all the powerful swift swimmers. But of course not that would actually matter.

Edit: Reading old thread oh looks like Drizzle was released when Skymin was alive and the weather speed boost, forgot about that XD I think the names on PO were even still the japanese names back then been so long. And looking at that thread it seems you compared him to Perversity Jaroda O.o Heck its even funnier when you read how the initial supporters thinking it to be hasty to ban Skymin ended up agreeing he needed to be banned.

 

[capefeather]

Look, JT, some of us did give you counter-arguments, and claiming that no one did just because the insulting posts stick out won't get you anywhere. These are many of the same arguments from round 1, and I assure you I read those. I even explained why Shaymin-S is so much better than Jirachi or Togekiss...

 

[Tobes]

Edit: Heck I think the better check for Skymin - which it never got the chance to experience - was Drizzle being released in conjunction to all the powerful swift swimmers. But of course not that would actually matter.

Aldaron's proposal didn't exist during the round Skymin was in. Drizzle + Swift Swim was used to check it and it was still voted Uber. You sure seem like the pot calling the kettle black by questioning whether Swift has used Skymin when you clearly haven't.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

There is a reason why everyone wanted Skymin OUT of the metagame ASAP.

Similar to how Kyurem got a unanimous vote in UU, its the same for Skymin: he's too damned broken. And if you need a broken strategy to check a broken mon... maybe not. Stay in your comfy land of Uber Skymin with your best buddies Darkrai and Mewtwo.

Nothing has changed for the OU metagame except for whatever the fuck was used to check Skymin being thrown straight into uber as well.

Also, Jirachi and Togekiss don't have Skymin's lovely 125 base Speed, which effectively trolls the entire non-scarf'd OU save for Jolteon, Aerodactyl, Electrode, Accelgor, Ninjask, Deoxys-S and some others that I might have missed. All these mons are however pretty much irrelevant(nobody uses Electrode, Ninjask, Accelgor and Aerodactyl are rare, Deoxys-S and Jolteon see occasional use iirc). Hence, Skymin effectively is faster than every single non-scarf'd mon in OU. Who needs para again?

An 80% chance of getting a pseudo-NP while dealing damage of 120 base power, and STAB on top of it? The only thing that could top that is Contrary Serp's Leaf Storm, but it sucks and its unreleased. Ice Shard was the only thing that can really stop it without scarf, but who runs Ice Shard outside of Mamoswine(hit SE by Seed Flare)? Donphan is UU and Weavile either runs Ice Shard or Ice Punch.(and it usually runs the latter seeing as it needs the power)

So basically, to sum it up, get lost Skymin. Seed Flare was pretty much the final nail, seeing as it basically means: more Air Slash damage, and less safe switchins. The only common Sap Sipper is Sawsbuck, which is rarely seen in OU and is hit SE by Air Slash.

 

[RBG]

No more talk about Shaymin Sky Forme.

Let's get back to talking about the current metagame and it's suspects (such as Thundurus).

 

[what123]

You all do know that porygon2 with trace can stop thunderus leads, which is all I see with thunderus anyways?

 

[TM13IceBeam]

You all do know that porygon2 with trace can stop thunderus leads, which is all I see with thunderus anyways?

How?

Porygon2 is slower than Thundurus, and the only point I see is Priority Recover, and Thundurus has a faster Taunt.

 

[Nkululeko]

@Smogon

Thank you for zeroing in on the Brightpowder/Lax Incense part of my post and ignoring the part that might actually matter. For the record I also posted No Suspect for this Round as nothing stands out as broken in the current meta bar Thundurus and even that's debatable.

 

[cco]

Well I oughta tackle a pair of topics, lately on a few teams where I was using Chomp, I've started to run an offensive LO Donphan, the moveset pretty much always varies. But the constants are Earthquake and Ice Shard. It serves as a very nice Thunderus check, as Ice Shard is a 2HKO from Jolly LO Donphan and if the Thunderus has taken enough LO recoil or randomly eaten some damage beyond Stealth Rock (the 50% range) it'll KO.

 

[Eggbert]

Does anyone have and pro-ou thundurus opinions?