On The Radar Vol. 2 [See Post #336]

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I really don't think comparing a Gorilla Tactics ban to allowing underwhelming Megas in lower tiers is a fair comparison. Gorilla Tactics is an ability that is baked into the Pokemon and its design, while Garchompite was an item introduced 2 gens after Garchomp was created. In that hypothetical you presented Garchomp can still use its base form's talents without an item, while Darm without Gorilla Tactics has to bank exclusively on Zen Mode.
I disagree, for two reason.
  1. Garchompite may have been introduced seven years after Garchomp, but Diancite was introduced at the same time as Diancie. If Mega Diancie happened to be worse than regular Diancie, it would be very strange to treat it differently.
  2. Gorilla Tactics might currently be unique to Galarian Darmanitan, but to say it's "baked into the Pokemon" is a stretch. This isn't like Multitype or Shields Down where the ability is intrinsically linked to its sole user. This isn't even like Wonder Guard, which is clearly designed around a single Pokemon. Gorilla Tactics is just... an ability. It's tied to Galarian Darmanitan in the same way Motor Drive is tied to Electrivire or Fur Coat is tied to Furfrou. Execpt it's even less tied to G-Darm than those other two, because it has the option to use Zen Mode.
Abilities are only banned over Pokemon when they either grant access to broken forms (which is more like banning a Pokemon than banning an ability) or when they are particularly egregious like Shadow Tag or Moody. While I wouldn't necessarily be against going against this when there would be literally no current collateral damage for banning the ability and later change the ban to the Pokemon if a new user is introduced, I also appreciate the desire to avoid such asterisks.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I feel like Zen Mode G-Darm isn't even worth saving. Unlike regular Zen Mode Darmanitan, Zen Mode G-Darm doesn't change all that much when it changes form. You could swap Zen Mode out for Unburden and be left with fundamentally the same belly drumming, berry munching ape.
 
I think some people are missing the point in terms of distinction between G-Darm and other mons. One person keeps bringing up huge power as a broken ability. But I'd argue an ability is only really proven broken if at least more than one mon can abuse it to warp the tier.

Huge power seems broken on paper, but in actuality it's users are either mediocre or have sufficient counterplay that make them manageable. For example, in Gen 6 mega mawile was banned because the qualities of the mon in addition to huge power made it unbearable.

In a similar vein, arena trap and shadow tag were deemed uncompetitive (as well as technically moody) because multiple mons could abuse the ability to great effect. Take away dugtrio and gothitelle and smart team builders were still using shit like Diglett, trapinch, and gothorita to great effect because the ability proved overwhelming. (Although moody falls more under rng, the argument could be made that banning just glalie would have left people still abusing moody through octillery).

We cant definitively prove whether G-Darm itself or just the ability is broken since there isn't any other mon that can use it. We could theorymon all day that something like slaking with gorilla tactics would be obviously be broken, but we could also say something like Rillaboom would be balanced with the ability.

In this unique situation, I would err on inclusivity, since there is technically no tiering policy being broken and no precedent being disregarded.

In addition, I would argue that Zen mode darm would be worth using. Take away gorilla tactics, and you still have a mon that has 140 base attack, ice stab, and can use choice items (as well as other ones). Belly drum is still an option, but it definitely isn't it's only viable one. Some people are worried bulky balance and stall will become dominant (which seems unlikely), but keeping in G-Darm might assauge those fears.
 
I think some people are missing the point in terms of distinction between G-Darm and other mons. One person keeps bringing up huge power as a broken ability. But I'd argue an ability is only really proven broken if at least more than one mon can abuse it to warp the tier.

Huge power seems broken on paper, but in actuality it's users are either mediocre or have sufficient counterplay that make them manageable. For example, in Gen 6 mega mawile was banned because the qualities of the mon in addition to huge power made it unbearable.

In a similar vein, arena trap and shadow tag were deemed uncompetitive (as well as technically moody) because multiple mons could abuse the ability to great effect. Take away dugtrio and gothitelle and smart team builders were still using shit like Diglett, trapinch, and gothorita to great effect because the ability proved overwhelming. (Although moody falls more under rng, the argument could be made that banning just glalie would have left people still abusing moody through octillery).

We cant definitively prove whether G-Darm itself or just the ability is broken since there isn't any other mon that can use it. We could theorymon all day that something like slaking with gorilla tactics would be obviously be broken, but we could also say something like Rillaboom would be balanced with the ability.

In this unique situation, I would err on inclusivity, since there is technically no tiering policy being broken and no precedent being disregarded.

In addition, I would argue that Zen mode darm would be worth using. Take away gorilla tactics, and you still have a mon that has 140 base attack, ice stab, and can use choice items (as well as other ones). Belly drum is still an option, but it definitely isn't it's only viable one. Some people are worried bulky balance and stall will become dominant (which seems unlikely), but keeping in G-Darm might assauge those fears.
No one in this thread has said Huge Power is a broken ability. What has been said is that 1) it is not banned and 2) it is objectively superior to Gorilla Tactics in every way. Therefore, banning Gorilla Tactics and not banning Huge Power would be absurd, therefore G-Darm should be banned instead of Gorilla Tactics.
 
The discussion about to ban GDarm or GT is something I do believe should be better elighted on our Tiering Police.

Ban something always happens because the community agrees that an element of the Metagame creates an uncompetitive environment. As many times, several aspects of a mon creates this situation (ex: MegaGross last gen), or just one of them (Arena Trap on Dugtrio).

So, the aspect of GDarm that's creating this situation is only GT? I don't think so. We also have Stats (+1 140 atk, ok base speed) and movepool (U-Turn, Flare Blitz, Icicle Crash, EQ, Stone Edge). Also, we could try GT Darumaka and probably won't get any result near to what GDarm reaches.

Considering all aspects above, if the community (or the OU Concil) conclude that GDarm is broken, I believe it should be banned, and not GT. You can't splash GT on any physical mon and turn him broken. Some of them will. But many won't. So, ban GDarm
 
So, the aspect of GDarm that's creating this situation is only GT? I don't think so. We also have Stats (+1 140 atk, ok base speed) and movepool (U-Turn, Flare Blitz, Icicle Crash, EQ, Stone Edge). Also, we could try GT Darumaka and probably won't get any result near to what GDarm reaches.
You cannot in fact try Gorilla Tactics Darumaka, because it's stuck with the same Hustle/Inner Focus abilities that its original incarnation gets. Hustle transitions into GT with evolution, and Inner Focus aptly becomes Zen.
 
If i have to choose the ban of Gorilan Tactics is the better. But I doesnt have problem fighting against him.
I see many player lead with GDarmanitan, bc of the utility of uturn gaining but i play against him using protect. if you know his move he become fairly manegable.

Things like Dracovish or LO Clefable generated more problem in general...
Dracovish has a significantly more difficult time breaking times due to Water Absorb, a worse Speed tier, etc. LO Clef is difficult to switchin to but easier to pressure defensively. Darm on the other hand is an incredible nuisance to offense, even if you're using Protect (which is a great move and imo a neccesity on Seismitoad but useful on other mons as well)
 
The discussion about to ban GDarm or GT is something I do believe should be better elighted on our Tiering Police.

Ban something always happens because the community agrees that an element of the Metagame creates an uncompetitive environment. As many times, several aspects of a mon creates this situation (ex: MegaGross last gen), or just one of them (Arena Trap on Dugtrio).

So, the aspect of GDarm that's creating this situation is only GT? I don't think so. We also have Stats (+1 140 atk, ok base speed) and movepool (U-Turn, Flare Blitz, Icicle Crash, EQ, Stone Edge). Also, we could try GT Darumaka and probably won't get any result near to what GDarm reaches.

Considering all aspects above, if the community (or the OU Concil) conclude that GDarm is broken, I believe it should be banned, and not GT. You can't splash GT on any physical mon and turn him broken. Some of them will. But many won't. So, ban GDarm
I feel like loosing gt on darumaka(only in ou) is a much smaller lose than zen mode galarian darmanitan. By not being forced into a choice lock the sets that gdarm can run become much more variable, and the only reason why we haven't seen zen mode used as anything else but a gimicky bd sweeper is because gt is just that good. That being said after the dynamax ban I feel like there are a lot more ways to abuse the auto choice lock on gdarm. There are plenty of mons that can take any one move from scarf darm and switch accordingly(pex, the rotoms, jelly and others). And while the band set can break through those mons it is much easier to revenge kill, there are plenty of mons that are naturally faster than it and can do major damage with the free turn provided from band gdarm. Im sure alot of use have lost to a random scarfer because we didn't know it's item/set until it was too late. In my opinion by knowing exactly what a mon can do from team preview gives you the ability to much more easily form a game plan around it.
 
Allowing Darmanitan in OU on the condition that it uses Zen Mode instead of Gorilla Tactics is exactly the same as allowing Garchomp in UU on the condition that it holds Garchompite and not Rockium Z or a Choice Scarf or whatever.
I mean, isnt this the same as scizor being allowed in uu as long as it doesnt hold scizorite
 
Looking through this thread, I’ve seen significant mention of banning/suspect testing Gorilla Tactics as opposed to Galarian Darmanitan itself. While I was initially hesitant to think such a suggestion would be taken very seriously (given that a ban of Gorilla Tactics specifically could likely be seen as a “complex ban”), I agree with the idea more and more as I give it legitimate thought.

The most broken aspect of Darmanitan at the moment is its ability to hit incredibly hard without any setup, essentially entering battle with a DD applied immediately when holding a Scarf or an SD with a Band, which both pair very well with incredible base 140 Attack stat and effective base 95 Speed stat. These features, along with its great coverage, allow it to directly threaten just about anything in the tier, aside from a few relatively niche counters.

Zen Mode, by comparison, lacks the immediate Speed and Attack that Gorilla Tactics Darmanitan has. Instead, its viability mainly hinges on it being a Belly Drum sweeper which utilizes Salac Berry to be able to outspend its counters. While this set can be quite threatening once set up, it is still relatively balanced because it relies on having the ability to set up BD AND get its Salac boost. Additionally, it relies heavily on surprise factor, having the right coverage, and the opponent not having particular walls present on their team.

Generally, it seems as though Gorilla Tactics is the big issue here, since it gives Darmanitan such absurd amounts of power to abuse right out the gate when entering the field and should likely be the main focus of a potential suspect/ban.
 
Dracovish has a significantly more difficult time breaking times due to Water Absorb, a worse Speed tier, etc. LO Clef is difficult to switchin to but easier to pressure defensively. Darm on the other hand is an incredible nuisance to offense, even if you're using Protect (which is a great move and imo a neccesity on Seismitoad but useful on other mons as well)
Dracovish and Darm are pretty much at the same level of bullshit imo. The difference between them is Dracovish has all his bullshit consolidated into one move while Darm is much more well rounded with the bullshit he can pull off. Both ultimately end up being incredibly low-risk high reward mons that suffocate and homogenize teambuilding.

LO Clef is definitely a top tier threat, but nowhere near the level of centralization of the other two. Her speed tier is pretty bad and she crumbles to a lot of common stuff if they switch in on the right move like Excadrill, Hydreigon, and even Scorbunny. (AV Ttar is also still a thing, don't let the loss of Pursuit discourage you from using it)
 
I feel like loosing gt on darumaka(only in ou) is a much smaller lose than zen mode galarian darmanitan. By not being forced into a choice lock the sets that gdarm can run become much more variable, and the only reason why we haven't seen zen mode used as anything else but a gimicky bd sweeper is because gt is just that good. That being said after the dynamax ban I feel like there are a lot more ways to abuse the auto choice lock on gdarm. There are plenty of mons that can take any one move from scarf darm and switch accordingly(pex, the rotoms, jelly and others). And while the band set can break through those mons it is much easier to revenge kill, there are plenty of mons that are naturally faster than it and can do major damage with the free turn provided from band gdarm. Im sure alot of use have lost to a random scarfer because we didn't know it's item/set until it was too late. In my opinion by knowing exactly what a mon can do from team preview gives you the ability to much more easily form a game plan around it.
someone already said this, just want to point out that darumaka does not get gorilla tactics, it is an ability unique to darm, like wonder guard on shedinja.
So this is not a one liner, I think that a gorilla tactics ban makes sense, simply because the Pokémon is not an issue without it, and there are no drawbacks to doing this. However, I am rusty on the tiering policy framework etc., so I’m aware this might be a bad precedent to set or something

EDIT: maybe this is not a good example because it was a different form, but I find myself comparing the possibility of a ability ban here to the power construct ban in gen 7 SM
 
I mean, isnt this the same as scizor being allowed in uu as long as it doesnt hold scizorite
No.

Mega Scizor is OU because it gets enough usage, while normal Scizor is in UU because it doesn't get enough usage. Garchomp is OU because it gets enough usage. Mega Garchomp would be UU because it doesn't get enough usage, but it stays in OU by technicality, because to allow it in UU would necessitate allowing base Garchomp in UU.

When it comes to in-battle transformations, banning the transformation is easy. You just ban whatever triggers the transformation, be it item, ability, or (in Rayquaza's case) the transform button. However, it's a far dicier endeavor to ban the base form while also preserving the transformation. It's the difference between removing the roof from a building, and removing the walls from a building while still trying to keep the roof aloft.
 
G-Darmanitan's presence in Gen 8 is a bit like Mega Metagross was when it got banned. It's not necessarily Too Good but it's also not especially healthy. It's just little bit too overwhelming for the metagame as it stands. Getting to stack a Choice Band and Choice Scarf on the same powerful attack stat just doesn't lend itself to fair games of Pokemon.
 
I'm in favor of a Gorilla Tactics suspect. I don't like the argument that Huge Power is better than Gorilla Tactics and isn't broken because it focuses too much on the theoretical rather than the practical. The purpose of a suspect/ban (at least imo) is to isolate and remove unhealthy aspects of the metagame. The unhealthy aspect here is Gorilla Tactics Darm- it's pretty clear that Zen Mode Darm is fine. Banning Darmanitan as a whole because Gorilla Tactics is worse than Huge Power on paper doesn't accomplish this goal, since it lumps in the unhealthy aspect with a healthy one. Meanwhile, banning Gorilla Tactics doesn't cause any collateral damage since no other Pokemon gets the ability.
 
I'm in favor of a Gorilla Tactics suspect. I don't like the argument that Huge Power is better than Gorilla Tactics and isn't broken because it focuses too much on the theoretical rather than the practical. The purpose of a suspect/ban (at least imo) is to isolate and remove unhealthy aspects of the metagame. The unhealthy aspect here is Gorilla Tactics Darm- it's pretty clear that Zen Mode Darm is fine. Banning Darmanitan as a whole because Gorilla Tactics is worse than Huge Power on paper doesn't accomplish this goal, since it lumps in the unhealthy aspect with a healthy one. Meanwhile, banning Gorilla Tactics doesn't cause any collateral damage since no other Pokemon gets the ability.
I'm confused on when people started talking about huge power, its irrelevant. Gorilla Tactics is an ability unique to darm, like power construct to zygard. The ability would not be banned because its "good", it would be banned to fix the issues the metagame has with galarian darmanitan.
 
We don't ban abilities very often. We basically do it in cases where the ability either introduces an unacceptable degree of randomness or removes fundamental game mechanics. Moody introduced situationally extremely powerful, completely passive boosting with extremely limited consistent counterplay, which is just not seen elsewhere. Shadow Tag removed the ability to switch, maybe the most fundamental mechanic of competitive Pokemon. Arena Trap last gen was banned for the same reason.

Power Construct is a notable exception, but I imagine it was viewed sort of like Megas. There was precedent for banning a notably overpowered in-battle form change while maintaining the base form.

Gorilla Tactics doesn't introduce randomness, and it doesn't remove fundamental game mechanics. It doesn't introduce powerful in-battle form changes. Sure, Gorilla Tactics is a very powerful boost, just as Huge/Pure Power is. But Darmanitan is broken is the way that a million mons have been broken in the past. It just breaks shit. It's broken in a classical sense. Ban it.
 
This is gonna be short, but I believe it should be mentioned. Defensive Grimmsnarl is a great counter to G-Darm. Priority T-Wave, Reflect, and Trick. Under screens, Grimmsnarl is a 4-6 HKO while G-Darm has Choice Band, and 2 HKO without screens in the same situation. T-Wave inhibits the speed problem. Also if you want, you could Trick a Flame Orb or Iron Ball to further neuter G-Darm if you like using Trick over T-Wave. Example set would involve Defensive Grimmsnarl Tricking Flame orb on Darm before burn, then setting up t-wave while you're choiced, then just switch; There, he's done, no problem. He is not unstoppable if you think outside of the box a bit. But I do agree, the list of his counters are small, but not to the point of being banned if something as simple as having prankster can stop it in its tracks.
 
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I don't think this is the correct time to suspect Garm, the metagame has just went through a huge change, and we didn't have enough time to really play with Garm to make a decision on wether or not to ban it, it isn't really an obviously broken mon/feature such as dynamax was, and i've seen people outside of this thread who clearly don't understand what Darmanitan even does talking about a suspect, just proving that we need more time to make such an important decision.
If I were to, at this moment, decide on wether to ban or not to ban Garm, I'd prob choose ban, because the Choice Band set lacks good checks, and because U-Turn is such a good tool on that beast and makes for chipping down checks quite an easy task, but that's a very uncertain opinion, I feel like Garmanitan can be dealt with, and that its restriction on teambuilding isn't very different than some stuff we had and that we didn't even discuss a ban.
Banning GT instead of Garm would be an optimal solution, but I doubt that such a thing would happen.

So yeah, my final opinion is that Galarian-Darmanitan is banworthy, but that we should wait a little before suspecting, even more if we consider that we have had less than a week to test Darm on this new enviroment that is Dmaxless OU. Some people here said that they want Garm quickbanned, and that just seems very absurd to me.

Also, The Fish deserves a ban before Darm, running a water absorber on every team is just beyond over-centralizing.
 
This is gonna be short, but I believe it should be mentioned. Defensive Grimmsnarl is a great counter to G-Darm. Priority T-Wave, Reflect, and Trick. Under screens, Grimmsnarl is a 4-6 HKO while G-Darm has Choice Band, and 2 HKO without screens in the same situation. T-Wave inhibits the speed problem. Also if you want, you could Trick a Flame Orb or Iron Ball to further neuter G-Darm. He is not unstoppable if you think outside of the box a bit. But I do agree, the list of his counters are small, but not to the point of being banned if something as simple as having prankster can stop it in its tracks.
I'm not sure if you are aware of the proper terminology here. A COUNTER is something that can switch in directly on something and beat its common sets. Grimmsnarl cannot do this, you cant set up a screen on a switch-in hit. Also I believe you are unaware of a current bug in the damage calc, gorilla tactics is not working rn. This is the real damage calc:

252 Atk Choice Band Darmanitan-Galar Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Grimmsnarl: 339-400 (86 - 101.5%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock <-- dam, darm really got stopped in his tracks huh
 
Pretty surprised to see people wanting G-Darm to get quickbanned
We did a suspect for Dynamax which was much much more obviously broken than Darm and a suspect for Darm is gonna take like what, two weeks? Two weeks out of about 3 or so years of this gen's life competitively speaking? I think it is worth it to do a suspect even though I think Darm is probably going to get banned. I think a lot of people have already made up their minds about it which is a shame because I actually think Darm is sort of borderline. I'm leaning toward ban but I don't think Darm is the most broken mon to ever hit the metagame. I'd like to see the no-ban arguments from players who are able to make reqs.

Also, while I understand the argument against just banning Gorilla Tactics I do think that approach should be considered. Zen-Darm is much more manageable and easier to play around when you aren't playing around Gorilla Tactics. (ever switch to a scarf darm switch-in just to watch this dude get a free belly drum?) People draw comparisons to Huge Power and in a vacuum yeah Huge Power is undeniably better than GT but Gamefreak obviously does not consider Gorilla Tactics to require the same balancing Huge Power has. I doubt Gamefreak will ever make a mon with that has more than 80 base attack and multiple abilities which include Huge Power. Hell even Pokemon that only have Huge Power as an ability max out at 105 base attack and that's only on megas. But they gave GT to Darm who has 140 base attack. Clearly they consider the ability to be balanced in comparison to Huge Power (it isn't obviously) but ok. Darm is the only mon who can use GT (and it's the only thing that makes him truly broken)
Also, "we didn't ban abilities like this in the past" is a pretty fatalistic mentality. We have the ability to balance this game beyond what we were just given in the game and it's pretty frustrating how much Smogon is prone to holding itself back with very arbitrary and philosophical restrictions. These games are complicated and we already don't have a 100% set-in-stone policy regarding bans and clauses (which I think would be a terrible idea by the way). For better or worse all of this stuff gets looked at on a case-by-case basis and I think we should embrace that.
 
We don't ban abilities very often. We basically do it in cases where the ability either introduces an unacceptable degree of randomness or removes fundamental game mechanics. Moody introduced situationally extremely powerful, completely passive boosting with extremely limited consistent counterplay, which is just not seen elsewhere. Shadow Tag removed the ability to switch, maybe the most fundamental mechanic of competitive Pokemon. Arena Trap last gen was banned for the same reason.

Power Construct is a notable exception, but I imagine it was viewed sort of like Megas. There was precedent for banning a notably overpowered in-battle form change while maintaining the base form.

Gorilla Tactics doesn't introduce randomness, and it doesn't remove fundamental game mechanics. It doesn't introduce powerful in-battle form changes. Sure, Gorilla Tactics is a very powerful boost, just as Huge/Pure Power is. But Darmanitan is broken is the way that a million mons have been broken in the past. It just breaks shit. It's broken in a classical sense. Ban it.
Why is that? I was looking in Policy Review for anything about banning abilities and couldn't find much. If I had to guess, it's because most abilities that cause problems on certain mons are healthy on others and would cause collateral damage with a ban, which isn't the case with Darm. If there's another reason for not banning abilities, what is it?
 
This is gonna be short, but I believe it should be mentioned. Defensive Grimmsnarl is a great counter to G-Darm. Priority T-Wave, Reflect, and Trick. Under screens, Grimmsnarl is a 4-6 HKO while G-Darm has Choice Band, and 2 HKO without screens in the same situation. T-Wave inhibits the speed problem. Also if you want, you could Trick a Flame Orb or Iron Ball to further neuter G-Darm if you like using Trick over T-Wave. He is not unstoppable if you think outside of the box a bit. But I do agree, the list of his counters are small, but not to the point of being banned if something as simple as having prankster can stop it in its tracks.
A counter is something that can reliably and consistently switch in on a pokemon, shut it down, and force it out. Grimmsnarl can't do this as even max defense gets 2HKO'ed by Scarf Icicle Crash:

+1 252 Atk Darmanitan-Galar Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Grimmsnarl: 207-244 (52.5 - 61.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Things like this sound good on paper, but the reality that will occur in a match is you'll very likely be staring down Darm with something that can't afford to take an Icicle Crash - and directly switching in Grimmsnarl is something you'll only be able to do once. And because this is the case, Darm is free to get big damage on the rest of your team while the best you can do is bring in Grimmsnarl in as a response after the fact - at which point Darm will switch out and repeat. It's a situational check that can be effective for sure, but not a consistent or reliable defense against it which is the big problem here.
 
Pretty surprised to see people wanting G-Darm to get quickbanned
We did a suspect for Dynamax which was much much more obviously broken than Darm and a suspect for Darm is gonna take like what, two weeks? Two weeks out of about 3 or so years of this gen's life competitively speaking? I think it is worth it to do a suspect even though I think Darm is probably going to get banned. I think a lot of people have already made up their minds about it which is a shame because I actually think Darm is sort of borderline. I'm leaning toward ban but I don't think Darm is the most broken mon to ever hit the metagame. I'd like to see the no-ban arguments from players who are able to make reqs.

Also, while I understand the argument against just banning Gorilla Tactics I do think that approach should be considered. Zen-Darm is much more manageable and easier to play around when you aren't playing around Gorilla Tactics. (ever switch to a scarf darm switch-in just to watch this dude get a free belly drum?) People draw comparisons to Huge Power and in a vacuum yeah Huge Power is undeniably better than GT but Gamefreak obviously does not consider Gorilla Tactics to require the same balancing Huge Power has. I doubt Gamefreak will ever make a mon with that has more than 80 base attack and multiple abilities which include Huge Power. Hell even Pokemon that only have Huge Power as an ability max out at 105 base attack and that's only on megas. But they gave GT to Darm who has 140 base attack. Clearly they consider the ability to be balanced in comparison to Huge Power (it isn't obviously) but ok. Darm is the only mon who can use GT (and it's the only thing that makes him truly broken)
Also, "we didn't ban abilities like this in the past" is a pretty fatalistic mentality. We have the ability to balance this game beyond what we were just given in the game and it's pretty frustrating how much Smogon is prone to holding itself back with very arbitrary and philosophical restrictions. These games are complicated and we already don't have a 100% set-in-stone policy regarding bans and clauses (which I think would be a terrible idea by the way). For better or worse all of this stuff gets looked at on a case-by-case basis and I think we should embrace that.
I think it is going to be banned either way, but I agree it should be suspected. There is no drawback to suspecting it, and although is arguably broken, someone would have to be pretty tilted to claim that its making the meta unplayable.

Also yeah, I respect smogon adhering to their tiering policy, but I always get frustrated with "there is no precedent" arguments
 
Seeing people suggesting banning Gorilla Tactics instead of tackling Darmanitan itself may seem a bit off due to the Blaziken Precident; but it's different from Blaziken. Put simply; Blaziken is the wrong example to be bringing up regarding Darm/Gorilla Tactics.

Examples:

1: Blaziken/Speed Boost. Only Blaziken was broken with Speed Boost. Yanemega, Ninjask; Combusken and so on were not broken with Speed Boost. This means the problem is not Speed Boost, but Blaziken. Since Blaziken is the only issue, a complex ban [Blaziken+Speed Boost] is also not a viable option. Banning the ability is the wrong move since the ability itself has other users which are not broken.

2: Sand Veil. Breaks Evasion Clause and is uncompetitive. It has the potential to break any pokemon with it with enough luck. This also wasn't done until every Sand Veil pokemon had a legal alternative ability.

3: Moody - Actually was broken on everything that got it. There were records of Bidoof sweeping Ubers. In this case; the ability ban is obviously the right choice.

Darmanitan fits none of these. Darmanitan is the only user of Gorillia Tactics. Thus; a case can be made to ban Gorillia Tactics. Unlike Blaziken, where there were other Speed Boost users; this isn't the case with Darm.

Furthermore; in Gen 5 we had Drizzle suspected like 3 times. Despite it being an ability unique to Politoad in OU [Kyogre had it too but that was Uber already]

We did not try and ban Politoad; we tried to ban Drizzle.

This could justify a Gorilla Tactics ban, as we have the Politoad/Drizzle precedent when it comes to an ability only on one pokemon. Although you could also argue that Drizzle never got banned in Gen 5, so there isn't a precedent actually set.

If Darumaka got Gorillia Tactics; then it's clear-cut; suspect Darmanitan. But Darumaka dosen't get it.
 
A counter is something that can reliably and consistently switch in on a pokemon, shut it down, and force it out. Grimmsnarl can't do this as even max defense gets 2HKO'ed by Scarf Icicle Crash:

+1 252 Atk Darmanitan-Galar Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Grimmsnarl: 207-244 (52.5 - 61.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Things like this sound good on paper, but the reality that will occur in a match is you'll very likely be staring down Darm with something that can't afford to take an Icicle Crash - and directly switching in Grimmsnarl is something you'll only be able to do once. And because this is the case, Darm is free to get big damage on the rest of your team while the best you can do is bring in Grimmsnarl in as a response after the fact - at which point Darm will switch out and repeat. It's a situational check that can be effective for sure, but not a consistent or reliable defense against it which is the big problem here.
252+ Atk Gorilla Tactics Darmanitan-Galar U-turn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Grimmsnarl: 125-148 (31.7 - 37.5%) -- 0.1% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

basically if you switch into U-turn you also can never switch into darm again as well. Grimmsnarl just can't do it.
 
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