RL, I think that Flygon bit is kind of off the point, and a rather silly, unessecary, flawed attack on Quibing's argument. First of all that point had very little to do with the main argument, and I'm glad you didn't make any full conclusions from it, second of all no-one here is saying "Scarf Flygon is better than Scarfchomp," all Quibing meant to say is that "Scarf Flygon isn't
completely outclassed by Scarf Chomp." Just so that people wouldn't try to play the "it's not completely outclassed" card, looks like that backfired a bit.
I don't really know if discussing move banning in this thread is such a great idea, as that is not really the purpose, I would have thought that it might be better to bring it up in the "Banning Moves" PR thread, but I shall try to convey my disjointed thoughts at this point in time. I do not nessecarily support banning moves, but these are my thoughts on Quibing's questions, because it is an interesting topic to discuss, and could be good policy for Smogon to adopt, should we deem it so.
Is Dragon/Steel centralization a serious concern?
First of all, this really is a matter of taste. TAY tried to argue this about Latias, but was denied to vote. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with saying "I don't like this, it's making the game boring, let's get rid of it," but only if it
really is that bad. On the other hand, however, there probably are people who are bored of constant changes to the metagame and want it to settle down into something they can more consistantly win in. I think getting to a stable metagame "soonish" is something that we should be aiming to do, so the question goes back to
"where do we draw the line."
The outcome of that thread was never properly decided, but one thing that was pretty solidly concluded was that "variety makes a good metagame." I think, therefore that we can safely conclude that Dragon / Steel centalization is a serious concern, when four of the top five used Pokemon are all either Dragon or Steel. There are also other statitics to show the large rise in Dragons and Steels, as Quibing pointed out, the large rise in Kingdra and Flygon usage. Even though Flygon and Kingdra themselves aren't the issue, they are a good testemant to how Outrage has affected the metagame. "Outrage made average Dragons good, what can it do to Dragons that were already good." I believe that is enough to say "this is an issue," then again others may feel differently, and I guess that is really what this whole thread is about.
If "time" wasn't an issue I'd say wait four or five months to see if this trend continues, only then can we have conclusive evidence of it's long term impact, as was identified with Garchomp. Unfortunately that is simply "too long" so me must either decide to "deal with it and move on" or find some alternative solution.
If a move is indeed broken on only certain pokemon, would we ban it's use on only those pokemon?
Here at Smogon it has recently been the policy with "bans" to ban the Pokemon, and not nessecarily the move. The argument that goes along with this is "we could essentially un-uber every Pokemon." Why not remove Water Spout from the game? Why not remove Dragon Dance or Swords Dance from the game? Would they un-break Kyogre and Rayquaza? These are, of course, extreme examples, and probably wouldn't "un-break" the Pokemon, but the general rule still implies, we could systematically ban moves from each Pokemon, to un-break them. So does that mean that banning moves on individial Pokemon is out of the question? Not nessecarily, if it does un-break them then why not. Personally, I feel this is "messing with individual aspects of the game too much," but I have no real grounds for that outside of personal preference. I wouldn't mind if we adopted that policy.
I feel, however, that we are too far into the suspect test process for the 4th generation, why would we undo all of the hard work that we have done and start unbanning Pokemon and banning moves? I don't think we should try and implement an individual Pokemon move banning Policy until the 5th Generation!
Do we test moves as suspects if we consider them to be so?
I believe that this is the most interesting question of them all. If we decide that banning moves is a policy that we wish to undertake (I am fairly indifferent on this point so will not try to argue any position), then we must define more accuretly the context in which to ban moves. I think the banning moves topic should get a bit more love in light of Quibing's post just to see if it is a Policy that we do wish to adopt. To ban a whole move I believe will take a PR thread similar to that of "Portrait of an Uber." The problem with some of the suspect tests was that they were hard to carry out because of a lack of definitions, I believe me must come up with "Charcteristics of a bannable move" before considering anything.
Tangerine was talking about "People having hard set ideals of not banning moves that don't have any real argument to back them up," if I remember correctly. If that is the case with people's views then I would like to see it thoroughly discussed and sorted, before we decide that it is a policy that we should / should not adopt. No more of this "We can't ban a move unless it's broken on everything," because where are the grounds for that statement? If banning a move makes the metagame more diverse,
why not do it?
What types of moves are bannable?
"Problematic moves," to me I can simply refine this down to "moves that centrilise the metagame significantly," although this is a very arbiatery definition, and a very subjective one at that, it is one that I am willing to work with.
I can link this definition back to Stealth Rock, if we were to test it, would we find a more or less diverse metagame. I expect we would find a less diverse metagame, but that is just one man's opinion. If it was shown to diversify the metagame then I would be more than happy to ban it, but as I have said before, "I don't care that much." The same goes for Draco Meteor, if it literally forces every team to carry 2 / 3 Steel types then I would definately consider that to be significant centrilisation, and would also support a ban for it.
So I have made my point that I think it is acceptable to ban significant centralising moves, I feel that the problem here is the definition of the word significantly, which will always be subjective. I shall leave my definition as it is for now, as it is a decent basis to work from, although I'm sure it can be improved on. With regards to the Uber definitions I found this quite interesting:
Offensive Characteristic: Draco Meteor - Forces people to use lots of Steel types to absorb it
Defensive Characteristic: Reflect / Light Screen - Forces people to use very high powered attackers, or find other ways to deal "damage" residually or by using status
By damage I mean, "delay / stop your opponent from carrying out his plan. Defensive Characteristic and Support Characteristic seem to follow the same sort of trend here, and I guess you can also class attacking moves as supporting too, as "wall breakers" are essentially team support. I do not nessecarily think any of those moves are bannable, they are merely examples of the impact that those moves have on the metagame. The real question is do we feel that that impact is "significatly negative" to do something about. This leads quite nicely onto Quibing's next point:
How many pokemon must a move be 'broken' on before we would consider banning it? Must it be 'broken' on all pokemon that learn it?
I don't think it nessecarily should be. I don't think it being broken on one Pokemon should be an issue, we can easily ban say Darkrai or Garchomp for breaking a move, if it doesn't make other Pokemon broken. If a significant proportion of the metagame were to get Dark Void, or possibly even Spore, which have a good chance of removing another Pokemon from the game, almost entirely, then I would support a ban for it as a "broken" move that forces people to use a dedicated Sleep Talker, even then, people could use that as a free turn to set up anyway.
I also don't think that saying "it must be broken on a significant proportion of Pokemon to be broken" is a good argument either. I'd be prepared to say that if a move is broken on more than one Pokemon then it can be classified as a suspect. So we should be saying "Does this move have a significant impact on the metagame, that could not be solved by banning one Pokemon." Draco Meteor, obviously, is a good example here, there are many Pokemon that use it. Banning Salamence would probably only increase the number of people using Kingdra, Flygon and Dragonite to use the move, so it may not nessecarily solve the problem at all. Would we then consider banning the move, or should we ban Dragonite as well, or again should we simply "get over it and move on."
