Metagame Shared Power [Under Re-Construction!]

[Gweebis]

Without sturdy every pokemon without a great bulk would need to carry focus sash to survive a hit. That is the reason why sturdy exists.

The thing is that, when every mon has this ability, offensive teams struggle since power doesn't matter when you can't OHKO - your opponent can retaliate before going down, mitigating the effectiveness of offensive teams. Personally, Sturdy on its own isn't a problem, but, with less reliable ways to set up hazards and with Poison Heal at an all time high, offensive teams are going to struggle to stand their own unless they too run a similar method. When you combine Sturdy with Regenerator and Multiscale, teams can survive for much longer than before, making it harder to kill.

I don't know how I feel about Sturdy in terms of a ban to be honest. On one hand, you can remove its effects with hazard and status, but, on the other, the ways of getting around it are harder and harder to do (running moldy SRs seems to be the guaranteed way to get them up). I do feel it'd be good to look into as Sturdy and Magic Guard was the combo that led to Magic Guard being suspected and eventually banned; with people leaning more towards a potential unban of Magic Guard, it might be a good idea to investigate its partner in crime.

 

[LordHelix]

I feel too many people are voting based on what they enjoy to use and are voting biasely.

Also i dont get why people are calling multiscale broken when its obviously only as good as it is because of the existence of brokenbounce but still insist on not having mbounce banned. I dont get why people are complaining abt mscale and dont want mbounce banned it doesnt make sense

How i see it (my opinion)
Mbounce banned: multiscale and sturdy becomes fine and exca isnt as necessary on every team best option imo

Fluffy unbanned: stall teams now invalidate phys teams even more with multiscale/regen/unaware/ph/fluffy core no pls keep it banned

Multiscale banned but mbounce isnt: sturdy becomes a better substitute and offense teams are still broke doesnt solve the prob

Sturdy banned but mbounce isnt: multiscale becomes a substitute, or sash spam again i see mbounce as the problem here

Regenerator: i dont care abt this ability, both offense and stall still function well without it, a bit overwhelming but wont be so much if multiscale/mbounce is banned no opinion

Mguard unbanned: literally no reason to bring it back only reason why anyone would want it back is because they enjoyed using it for biased reasons of making some dumb playstyles viable (solar power, gale wings spam, sturdy offense...etc) at the cost of breaking much more, invalidating so much and making shit styles like sash/sturdy spam an actual viable playstyle keep it out and banned for the rest of this oms existence

 

[Gweebis]

Also i dont get why people are calling multiscale broken when its obviously only as good as it is because of the existence of brokenbounce but still insist on not having mbounce banned. I dont get why people are complaining abt mscale and dont want mbounce banned it doesnt make sense

Yeah, that's fair. MBounce is what's forcing people to run Excadrill only to set up rocks, which limits teambuilding. Without rocks, Multiscale becomes so much harder to break. Having just one mon with Magic Bounce would make hazards viable again without having to rely on Excadrill. I guess the focus was more on Regen/Multiscale because of how prevalent they are on stall teams and how prevalent stall teams are in this meta; hazards would normally mitigate them, but MBounce stops that. Personally, I feel like Multiscale and Regen may still be a problem due to PH's recovery rate being twice that of Leftovers, but this is all theory at this point. I very much agree on a ban for Magic Bounce.

 

[Zyrax]

I feel too many people are voting based on what they enjoy to use and are voting biasely.

Also i dont get why people are calling multiscale broken when its obviously only as good as it is because of the existence of brokenbounce but still insist on not having mbounce banned. I dont get why people are complaining abt mscale and dont want mbounce banned it doesnt make sense

How i see it (my opinion)
Mbounce banned: multiscale and sturdy becomes fine and exca isnt as necessary on every team best option imo

Fluffy unbanned: stall teams now invalidate phys teams even more with multiscale/regen/unaware/ph/fluffy core no pls keep it banned

Multiscale banned but mbounce isnt: sturdy becomes a better substitute and offense teams are still broke doesnt solve the prob

Sturdy banned but mbounce isnt: multiscale becomes a substitute, or sash spam again i see mbounce as the problem here

Regenerator: i dont care abt this ability, both offense and stall still function well without it, a bit overwhelming but wont be so much if multiscale/mbounce is banned no opinion

Mguard unbanned: literally no reason to bring it back only reason why anyone would want it back is because they enjoyed using it for biased reasons of making some dumb playstyles viable (solar power, gale wings spam, sturdy offense...etc) at the cost of breaking much more, invalidating so much and making shit styles like sash/sturdy spam an actual viable playstyle keep it out and banned for the rest of this oms existence

I hate people like yourself the most. Claiming other's decision being based on personal bias just because you yourself cannot grasp their arguments.

Even if we get rid of Magic Bounce, the problem is not solved. The ACTUAL issue here is Poison Heal. Here me out:

Teams with Poison heal basically have a doubled Leftovers + Marvel Scale giving them a huge defense on top of that. Even if rocks are up, they come in, Protect 1 turn and get their Multiscale back up. Wearing them down indirectly is not possible, because they are already poisoned and usually get more HP back, than they would actually lose due to Poison Heal (Sand, Hail and not even Leach Seed work on them). You HAVE to directly attack them, but their physical defense is too high (Marvel Scale) and they have Prankster Recover to get back to their Mulstiscale, while at the same time PP stall you with Pressure. Their pressure Mon is usually Aerodactyl which can easily deal with Kyurem, Excadrill and Pinsir, aka the most common Mold Breakers. Now you could set up on them, but they either have Unaware oder Prankster Haze for that, so set-up is not possible either. And when you want to hit them on the special side, have fun dealing with Chansey. The worst part is, that they come in almost with full HP thanks to Regenerator and protect 1 turn to get to full HP. Hazards don't do anything to them and as soon as they burn you, your physical attackers won't even do more than 12% to them (no joke, I run Adaptability + Tough Claws and while burned, my Mons cannot do more than 24% to their Marvel Scale + Multiscale, so they take one hit, and then protect to get to full HP). Banning Magic Bounce won't do anything to this strategy and beating them requires 3-4 dedicated Slots which means that you lose to almost anything else.

I honestly think that Poison Heal is the issue here and not Magic Bounce. But even then, Multiscale is more than an issue, than Magic Bounce will ever be. Right now, those Stall Teams don't even need Magic bounce, since none of the stuff it would bounce can actually touch them. Honestly, think about it: if you could use Magic Bounce, all of the above STILL matter. The only difference is, that you could now Taunt them but for that, they just swap their Magic Bounce Monster with one that has Oblivious. Literally the only thing they need to do and their strategy still works.

Again, Magic Boucne is not the issue. It probably is Poison Heal. And even then, Multiscale has proven to be an issue every time we discuss it. Sure, it is not the original root of these problems, but every time something strong shows up, Multiscale is involved. It is not broken by itself, but it becomes broken with a lot of other abilities, that in and off themselves aren't broken either. I mean, overtime we think, we solved it by banning something else, a new way is found to make Multiscale work again). I really think, that we should just ban it, since it WILL be a problem in the future, too.


Tl,dr;

- BAN Poison Heal (actual problem here)
- BAN Multiscale (secondary problem here, but also a secondary problem almost everywhere else, making it an actual issue)
- DO NOT BAN Magic Bounce (no issue at the moment, because the above exist)

 

[Iknowup]

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-703894833

A complex ban would be pointless. Just get rid of Harvest.

Thing is that guy couldve avoided the sweep with prankster destiny bond.

 

[Jaajgko]

A good example of sturdy being broken, even though I set up rocks it's still able to be back at full and leave the twinkle tackle. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-704720567

 

[Jrsmash9]

I hate people like yourself the most. Claiming other's decision being based on personal bias just because you yourself cannot grasp their arguments.

Even if we get rid of Magic Bounce, the problem is not solved. The ACTUAL issue here is Poison Heal. Here me out:

Teams with Poison heal basically have a doubled Leftovers + Marvel Scale giving them a huge defense on top of that. Even if rocks are up, they come in, Protect 1 turn and get their Multiscale back up. Wearing them down indirectly is not possible, because they are already poisoned and usually get more HP back, than they would actually lose due to Poison Heal (Sand, Hail and not even Leach Seed work on them). You HAVE to directly attack them, but their physical defense is too high (Marvel Scale) and they have Prankster Recover to get back to their Mulstiscale, while at the same time PP stall you with Pressure. Their pressure Mon is usually Aerodactyl which can easily deal with Kyurem, Excadrill and Pinsir, aka the most common Mold Breakers. Now you could set up on them, but they either have Unaware oder Prankster Haze for that, so set-up is not possible either. And when you want to hit them on the special side, have fun dealing with Chansey. The worst part is, that they come in almost with full HP thanks to Regenerator and protect 1 turn to get to full HP. Hazards don't do anything to them and as soon as they burn you, your physical attackers won't even do more than 12% to them (no joke, I run Adaptability + Tough Claws and while burned, my Mons cannot do more than 24% to their Marvel Scale + Multiscale, so they take one hit, and then protect to get to full HP). Banning Magic Bounce won't do anything to this strategy and beating them requires 3-4 dedicated Slots which means that you lose to almost anything else.

I honestly think that Poison Heal is the issue here and not Magic Bounce. But even then, Multiscale is more than an issue, than Magic Bounce will ever be. Right now, those Stall Teams don't even need Magic bounce, since none of the stuff it would bounce can actually touch them. Honestly, think about it: if you could use Magic Bounce, all of the above STILL matter. The only difference is, that you could now Taunt them but for that, they just swap their Magic Bounce Monster with one that has Oblivious. Literally the only thing they need to do and their strategy still works.

Again, Magic Boucne is not the issue. It probably is Poison Heal. And even then, Multiscale has proven to be an issue every time we discuss it. Sure, it is not the original root of these problems, but every time something strong shows up, Multiscale is involved. It is not broken by itself, but it becomes broken with a lot of other abilities, that in and off themselves aren't broken either. I mean, overtime we think, we solved it by banning something else, a new way is found to make Multiscale work again). I really think, that we should just ban it, since it WILL be a problem in the future, too.


Tl,dr;

- BAN Poison Heal (actual problem here)
- BAN Multiscale (secondary problem here, but also a secondary problem almost everywhere else, making it an actual issue)
- DO NOT BAN Magic Bounce (no issue at the moment, because the above exist)

Sadly you cant fit all of those things on one team, if you could it would obviously be broken. For example Sableye/Dragonite is required on stall, and from there you almost always want a regenerator user unless you're using some stall that doesent switch (protect/sub/prankster stall). So now you have three slots to fill where you can choose from Unaware, Intimidate, Chansey, Stamina, Prism Armor, PH, Marvel Scale, or a reliable prankster user (since sableye will usually rather mega). Also if people think that PH should be banned (most think otherwise) then I would rather have a Item Clause which would nerf PH, Guts, Sash spam, Scarf Spam, Harvest spam, and other things.

I’m just going to address this now because I honestly cannot disagree more with this.

At the beginning of the metagame, a sizable amount of people were complaining about how broken this metagame was and how there was a huge lack of balance. Now that the metagame is beginning to show a semblance of balance, complaining about how “the chaos was fun” and how “it’s up to OU and UU etc to balance their metas” makes no sense at all. We are not heading into a direction of chaos and unbalance and if that’s what you’re hoping for, then you should probably stop playing the tier.

We will continue to try and balance this meta to the best of our ability, and we continue to listen to the community. I understand sometimes it’s best to take it slow, but it’s relatively easy to identify what the metagame can and cannot adapt to. I continue to think Regenerator is unhealthy and should be banned, and it seems impossible for the metagame to adapt to this. While stall vs stall battles seem like they won’t be fixed, banning Regenerator will mean that Stall will basically exist on Poison Heal. Poison Heal seems a lot easier to adapt to in the metagame, for example, with Pokemon like Tapu Fini gaining usage.

Explain why you think regenerator itself is unhealthy? Also if you're ever going to do a vote to ban something, then please do a suspect test instead of a poll, so that the voters will be more informed and experienced.

 

[Stone evil]

Without sturdy every pokemon without a great bulk would need to carry focus sash to survive a hit. That is the reason why sturdy exists.

This can also be read as "No matter how powerful you are I gonna take one,and I can just maximum offense to 2hko you",which make stacking offensive power meaningless against that kind of team.And offense vs offense will be "Whoever run sturdy wins",or use hazard to break sturdy,which can be counterplayed.It's absolutely beatable,but sturdy makes players effectively have 12 mons on the team,which is unfair for other offensive teams.Sash is fine cause you sacrifice your item slot for a z stone,a choiced item,or even a megastone.
Conclusion:Sturdy is dumb.Please ban.

 

[Ivy]

Explain why you think regenerator itself is unhealthy? Also if you're ever going to do a vote to ban something, then please do a suspect test instead of a poll, so that the voters will be more informed and experienced.

Not sure if a formal suspect test is possible; OMOTM isn't allowed a suspect ladder. Could just be done on the normal ladder I suppose.

 

[Jrsmash9]

Here is some changes I suggest to the viability rankings:

Hitmontop UR -> B- This mon is so good, providing intimidate and rapid spin. It stops excadrill from setting rocks and kills it, while also switching in to pangoros knockoffs. You cant even spinblock it because it gets foresight.
Clefable A+ -> B Magic guard being gone hurts this mon a lot and makes its only niche unaware.
Necrozma UR -> B- Providing prism armor is very good to balance and stall teams, and mold breaker does not go through so you can use this ability to help check kyub.
Exadrill S -> A+ Its inferior to Kyub and Pang as a stall breaker, and its only real niche is setting rocks against offense.
Dragonite A+ -> S Multiscale is still such a good ability to have, and dragonite is very versatile.
Espeon UR -> A If you dont want to be predictable with leading diancie or sableye then this is your best bet for a magic bounce user.
Heatran B+ -> B- Flash fire isnt the best ability to donate and can be useless in some matches
Mega-Swampert UR -> C- This can blow some offense teams away under rain even though it doesent pass swift swim.
Klinklang UR -> C With shift gear and gear grind, it can hit very hard when paired with steelworker/tech/adapt, and mudsdale is also lowering in usage which will help it a lot.

 

[Isa Simple]

Honestly I'm really disappointed with how this meta has been run and the direction it is going, with people's logic and reasoning to find new bans and unbans becoming increasingly ill-informed.

Yes balance is important but so if fun, and we were pretty close to both not that long ago but now it seems we're running all over the place.

Magic Guard was fine. Sure it compressed a lot of effects into one but none of them were broken by themselves, just like Landorus-T can compress roles in OU but is not broken as a pokemon.
Yes, Magic Guard was an enabler of Sturdy and Multiscale, just like Magic Bounce is now the go to enabler, just like Poison Heal will be the next, followed by more and more elaborate ways to heal off or prevent hazards.
Having the ability to prevent Stealth Rock damage does not break the meta and send it diving into Chaos, in fact I'd personally say that it was quite refreshing. Having a meta that quite literally revolves around Stealth Rock to combat abilities like Sturdy and Multiscale, forcing most offence teams to run Excadrill just to be considered viable however is not the kind of meta I enjoy playing or consider balanced. Hazards and their removal are far too centralising and it is because of Sturdy and Multiscale.

Sturdy and Multiscale are both S tier allowing an entire team to survive hits that should not be possible, with the former making offence incredibly difficult to deal with as their mons cannot be revenged killed, and the latter making Stall incredibly difficult to break, as their bulk is doubled with multiple ways of healing and pivoting to refresh their scales.

Even if you do everything you can to limit the power of these two abilities, hazard removal will always still exist, and bringing in at least half the team with intact Sturdy or Scale will never be too difficult, so at best you bring these centralising abilities from S to A tier. Please just ban them, they're all the tier has ever revolved around.

I really don't like unbanning stuff but I have to bring it up because to me these bans were just stupid.

Without Sturdy and Multiscale, Magic Guard is not even remotely broken, and it won't even be centralising. Banning Magic Guard achieved nothing in balancing the meta, it only made it the most hazard centralised meta I've seen because the actual problem still exists. Even before, there was little that Magic Guard did that couldn't be done by Poison Heal. Poison Heal still does wonders in mitigating hazard damage, but also makes you completely immune to other status effects, where as Magic Guard only blocks the damage, meaning Burn Atk drops, Para, Sleep and Freeze are still massive burdens. You're also not getting that incredible natural healing with Magic Guard are you? What Magic Guard did do better was negate recoil effects and allow perfectly balanced, viable and fun strategies like Solar Power and Gale Wings/Reckless to exist.
Without Sturdy and Multiscale, and with Poison Heal, Magic Guard is far from necessitated, so Stealth Rock is still a viable move to carry around in the back pocket for useful match ups.
Plus with Magic Guard unbanned you'll undo all the other negative repercussions that came along with it's initial ban, namely killing off a plethora of balanced strategies and removing a lot of diversity from the tier, and transforming the already powerful stall into a behemoth capable of wearing the opponent down inevitably without needing to attack by conventional means and Iron Barbs Rocky Helmet alike, while also not having to worry about the best SpA boosting ability in Solar Power, with strong Special Attackers being well established as Stall's biggest weakness.

Also I don't care too much for Skill Link because it's not good and people only ever thought it was because of Magic Guard and Sturdy which I continue to proclaim are the only problem abilities in this meta currently. Seriously, Ursaring's Facade hit harder than Mega Bee's 3 ability boosted Pin Missile with just Guts and Toxic Boost, let alone any other boosting abilities they usually run. Cloyster, Cinccino and Mega Beedrill, are not good in standard, buffing one to two of each of their moves does not break a meta where I can run a scarfed Protean Greninja with Hustle, Adaptability and Sheer Force, not even close.
The only reason that I care to bring up a Skill Link unban is because advocating for a Magic Guard unban will inevitably result in people's mindless squeals for "What about 6 Sash offence?!" which is worth having skill link for so I don't have to read through any more of that nonsense.

The Innards Out ban was good.

Wait on Regenerator discussion until Sturdy and Magic Bounce are gone. Magic Bounce's removal will likely nerf Regenerator pretty hard, and it's hard to advocate for a Regenerator ban when it's not really broken. Sure it probably has the least repercussions out of the ways to make the Stall vs Stall matchup less ridiculous, but it's not worth doing unless it completely solves the problem, which I have my doubts that it will. Stall players may just need to be prepared for the long haul or establish their own ways to break opposing Stall.

Tl;dr
This meta has revolved around Multiscale and Sturdy since day 1, let's finally get rid of the problem and unban the things we thought would solve it in Magic Guard and Skill Link.
Thank you have a nice day.

 

[Shoopz_Whisper]

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-704857878

Ok, here I am playing with a new team I made myself. So I finallly, ever in any tier, made over 1300 ELO. I want one more battle then call it a day. All of the sudden, I'm hit with Triage Mold Breaker Hawlucha. Not only do we need to look at Magic Bounce and Regen, but Triage is scary and can take over the meta.

 

[Chopin Alkaninoff]

Honestly I'm really disappointed with how this meta has been run and the direction it is going, with people's logic and reasoning to find new bans and unbans becoming increasingly ill-informed.

Yes balance is important but so if fun, and we were pretty close to both not that long ago but now it seems we're running all over the place.

Magic Guard was fine. Sure it compressed a lot of effects into one but none of them were broken by themselves, just like Landorus-T can compress roles in OU but is not broken as a pokemon.
Yes, Magic Guard was an enabler of Sturdy and Multiscale, just like Magic Bounce is now the go to enabler, just like Poison Heal will be the next, followed by more and more elaborate ways to heal off or prevent hazards.
Having the ability to prevent Stealth Rock damage does not break the meta and send it diving into Chaos, in fact I'd personally say that it was quite refreshing. Having a meta that quite literally revolves around Stealth Rock to combat abilities like Sturdy and Multiscale, forcing most offence teams to run Excadrill just to be considered viable however is not the kind of meta I enjoy playing or consider balanced. Hazards and their removal are far too centralising and it is because of Sturdy and Multiscale.

Sturdy and Multiscale are both S tier allowing an entire team to survive hits that should not be possible, with the former making offence incredibly difficult to deal with as their mons cannot be revenged killed, and the latter making Stall incredibly difficult to break, as their bulk is doubled with multiple ways of healing and pivoting to refresh their scales.

Even if you do everything you can to limit the power of these two abilities, hazard removal will always still exist, and bringing in at least half the team with intact Sturdy or Scale will never be too difficult, so at best you bring these centralising abilities from S to A tier. Please just ban them, they're all the tier has ever revolved around.

I really don't like unbanning stuff but I have to bring it up because to me these bans were just stupid.

Without Sturdy and Multiscale, Magic Guard is not even remotely broken, and it won't even be centralising. Banning Magic Guard achieved nothing in balancing the meta, it only made it the most hazard centralised meta I've seen because the actual problem still exists. Even before, there was little that Magic Guard did that couldn't be done by Poison Heal. Poison Heal still does wonders in mitigating hazard damage, but also makes you completely immune to other status effects, where as Magic Guard only blocks the damage, meaning Burn Atk drops, Para, Sleep and Freeze are still massive burdens. You're also not getting that incredible natural healing with Magic Guard are you? What Magic Guard did do better was negate recoil effects and allow perfectly balanced, viable and fun strategies like Solar Power and Gale Wings/Reckless to exist.
Without Sturdy and Multiscale, and with Poison Heal, Magic Guard is far from necessitated, so Stealth Rock is still a viable move to carry around in the back pocket for useful match ups.
Plus with Magic Guard unbanned you'll undo all the other negative repercussions that came along with it's initial ban, namely killing off a plethora of balanced strategies and removing a lot of diversity from the tier, and transforming the already powerful stall into a behemoth capable of wearing the opponent down inevitably without needing to attack by conventional means and Iron Barbs Rocky Helmet alike, while also not having to worry about the best SpA boosting ability in Solar Power, with strong Special Attackers being well established as Stall's biggest weakness.

Also I don't care too much for Skill Link because it's not good and people only ever thought it was because of Magic Guard and Sturdy which I continue to proclaim are the only problem abilities in this meta currently. Seriously, Ursaring's Facade hit harder than Mega Bee's 3 ability boosted Pin Missile with just Guts and Toxic Boost, let alone any other boosting abilities they usually run. Cloyster, Cinccino and Mega Beedrill, are not good in standard, buffing one to two of each of their moves does not break a meta where I can run a scarfed Protean Greninja with Hustle, Adaptability and Sheer Force, not even close.
The only reason that I care to bring up a Skill Link unban is because advocating for a Magic Guard unban will inevitably result in people's mindless squeals for "What about 6 Sash offence?!" which is worth having skill link for so I don't have to read through any more of that nonsense.

The Innards Out ban was good.

Wait on Regenerator discussion until Sturdy and Magic Bounce are gone. Magic Bounce's removal will likely nerf Regenerator pretty hard, and it's hard to advocate for a Regenerator ban when it's not really broken. Sure it probably has the least repercussions out of the ways to make the Stall vs Stall matchup less ridiculous, but it's not worth doing unless it completely solves the problem, which I have my doubts that it will. Stall players may just need to be prepared for the long haul or establish their own ways to break opposing Stall.

Tl;dr
This meta has revolved around Multiscale and Sturdy since day 1, let's finally get rid of the problem and unban the things we thought would solve it in Magic Guard and Skill Link.
Thank you have a nice day.

Finally someone who realize that Multiscale and Sturdy are problems since day 1. Though I don't really think Magic Guard should be unbanned since it's WAY too versatile, compressed many roles into one slot, kinda like Pdon in uber. But Magic Guard in a way, DO bring some positive changes is the meta, so this is just my opinion. In any case, please realize that Multiscale and Sturdy are problems and ban them. Thank you.

 

[PrincessGardevoir]

I'm not gonna lie, as long as I can make a shitpost about a ban i'm down

But, if I had to choose, pls get rid of sturdy and multiscale, and have magic guard return.

Multiscale ain't fun to run across when you're attempting to have a good time, especially when paired with things that make it just more annoying to combat like Guts, Aerilate (Flying STAB Dnite), Dazzling, etc. Sturdy does the same, but I've had a lot better success dealing with that on the 2 occasions I saw it.


And magic guard...

pls i want my burnrecoilless conkeldurr to focus punch switchins again.

 

[Legendary]

On an unrelated note, please get rid of the Mega Banette Prankster-Harvest workaround bullshit ASAP. It's is so frustrating to lose to it when you know it's actually banned, because you literally can't beat unless you have Unnerve, Prankster Haze, or get extremely lucky. Also, screw the one or two player who are spamming it on the ladder knowing full well it is banned.

On even more of a side note, Haxours should move up from C- to at least B+, probably even A-/A, in viability because it's ability to 6-0 most stall teams with SD, Mold Breaker, access to Poison Jab for fairies, and even against offensive teams with Dragon Dance, Dual Chop with Technician support for sashes. Or just slap on a scarf for the surprise factor, or use Superpower with contrary support. The option are endless! (not actually, because I've listed most of them already.)

 

[megacrazyhand]

So I just wanted to pipe in with more support on banning Sturdy and Multiscale. I don't have any account that's high on the ladder but I've played on a bunch of different alts. The three most dominating abilities are probably: Multiscale, Sturdy, and Poison Heal. I feel it is conducive to discuss all three of these abilities to some degree.

Multiscale: There is no team that doesn't benefit from Multiscale. Rather, there are builds that have difficulty fitting it. The ability to provide every single Pokemon on your team with double bulk at full health gives every team too much staying power. It also synergizes amazingly well with other abilities, like the aforementioned poison heal which prevents you from taking poison damage while also providing a double leftovers effect to help keep you in the range of multiscale. The opportunity cost of running Multiscale is that you have to run Dragonite which is a good win condition in and of itself. The only good ways around Multiscale are hazards (can be bounced back with magic bounce- unreliable), status (can be blocked by poison heal builds- unreliable), and Mold Breaker which cannot be shared and has a limited number of Pokemon that can use (of which the most relevant are Kyu-B, Excadrill, and Pangoro). With limited reliable counterplay against one of the most played abilities, the ability is likely broken and centralising and a ban should be considered.

Sturdy: The other centralising ability. While no one Sturdy user is as good of a win condition as Dragonite, there are plenty that aren't bad. Shuckle can provide hazards against teams that don't have magic bounce, Donphan can provide priority, Skarmory can probably do things as well- free balling a little here. The ability guarantees that you survive any one hit at full health meaning that in cases where you should be knocked out and your opponent should begin pressuring you, you can instead attempt to status or damage them so as to more easily force a switch next turn. While I am usually in favor of counterplay, this stops being counterplay when it is applied to all 6 Pokemon on the team and the opponent the has to deal with limited counterplay options as well. Much like Multiscale, we run into the same problems regarding countering the strategy: Magic Bounce builds prevent hazards, antistatus builds block status, and Mold Breaker is an ability with a few users. As a result, you may only have one Mold Breaker Pokemon on your team and if that faints, you lose your counterplay. With limited counterplay against a widespread ability, we should consider that it may in fact be broken and should be banned.

Poison Heal: This is an ability that is broken in conjunction with Multiscale but on its own is manageable. On Guts builds, its main purpose is to keep your attackers healthy while they run through opposing teams. Thankfully, Tapu Fini exists and can shut down toxic orbs on all grounded Pokemon for five turns, and can knock Gliscor out with Ice Beam. This despite being widespread, should stay around because it might not be broken on its own.

Although I do have an alternate proposal for the metagame if one does not wish to restrict SturdyScale: Unban Mold Breaker. Without Mold Breaker, teams of every variety have too much bulk. Unrestricting it also means that the win con of a team that relies on SturdyScale is no longer KO'ing the single Pokemon with Mold Breaker. Now, I know this proposal won't be popular but we've already banned so much that dealt with SturdyScale (Skill Link) that we may as well unban the things that dealt with it or ban the problem disease that the meta has centered around.

 

[AquaticPanic]

On an unrelated note, please get rid of the Mega Banette Prankster-Harvest workaround bullshit ASAP. It's is so frustrating to lose to it when you know it's actually banned, because you literally can't beat unless you have Unnerve, Prankster Haze, or get extremely lucky. Also, screw the one or two player who are spamming it on the ladder knowing full well it is banned.

On even more of a side note, Haxours should move up from C- to at least B+, probably even A-/A, in viability because it's ability to 6-0 most stall teams with SD, Mold Breaker, access to Poison Jab for fairies, and even against offensive teams with Dragon Dance, Dual Chop with Technician support for sashes. Or just slap on a scarf for the surprise factor, or use Superpower with contrary support. The option are endless! (not actually, because I've listed most of them already.)

This. That strategy has been banned already, and Bannete breaks through the code. Ban Bannetite or something until the code is fixed - Having a way to use a broken strategy which is supposed to be banned is just straight-up stupid. This should honestly take priority over anything else which we are attempting to balance right now. It's honestly not funny to just see someone go up the ladder with a banned strat by just clicking Sub + Protect because of the ban not working properly. Haaku. Not sure if you know about Bannete breaking the code, so, tagging you to see this.

 

[Haaku.]

Not sure if you know about Bannete breaking the code, so, tagging you to see this.

This has been fixed by Kris and is just waiting to be hotpatched. Tagging The Immortal for this!

 

[hiei-q]

I created a solar power + psychic surge team to verify if solar power is unreliable or not. This team stack abilities like psychic surge, adaptability and solar power to hit really hard, i use sash excadril to set rocks up and spin, and mega alakazam (inner focus) because he is a monster under the gimmicky magic room. Despite having to run pure scarfers and having to run sash just to land some hit before dying, i found this team fun to play and even decent. Here are some replays

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705124294 (some magic room usage!)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705128002
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705135739 (i missplayed attacking chansey outside sun and psychic terrain but in the end i was lucky)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705140355 (more magic room, but it wasnt needed)

So, what would happen if sturdy and multiscale were both banned? The answer is: i woudnt need to have excadril on my team, making me room for sheer force nidoking. With that 30% extra power mega alakazam can OHKO chansey with psychic, sun and magic room up (it did 35% to a damaged chansey without the boosts and just magic room).

+1 252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Chansey in Psychic Terrain: 684-806 (97.2 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Heatran in Psychic Terrain: 255-300 (66.2 - 77.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 200 HP / 252+ SpD Magearna in Psychic Terrain: 235-277 (66.9 - 78.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 212 HP / 0 SpD Heatran in Psychic Terrain: 342-403 (90.9 - 107.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Magearna in Psychic Terrain: 317-374 (105.3 - 124.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+1 is for solar power and life orb is for sheer force. While hyper offense has counterplay even without sturdy and multiscale, with magic room i just deleted that. magic room disables focus sash, assault vest, eviolite and choice scarf, meaning that a boosted to hell mega alakazam can demolish entire teams for 4 turns without fearing being outspeed (he can speed tie mega bee and mega aerodactyl) or revenge kill by priority. And the only ways to prevent that is switch into dark types (who dies against FB or dazzling gleam), use bronzong, or stall with protect (but alakazam can use substitute for predicted protects, like guts).

If sturdy and multiscale are both banned, then teambuilding will be just stack four/five abilities and kill your opponent with that, because stall woudnt be able to keep up.

While not being the best thing that can happen, i dont consider forcing pure offensive teams to run excadril something unhealty. Most strategy games forces you to do something specific in order to survive in certain points, and that is not something bad. And it is not a limitation, a limitation would be that i coudnt break sturdy on offense teams by any mean. Also, while there are not many ways to break sash/sturdy, excadril is NOT the only option on every team: if you have technician on your team, you can use scarf cinccino. If you play contrary, shuckle can take advantage of magic bounce and bounce webs, while you can use weather to break sturdy/multiscale. Gear grind also works on kingklan teams. Forrestress can put/remove hazzards while providing sturdy/overcoat (latter is neat if you also use hail+aurora veil, and help against MB). And last, rocky helmet, ferro and garchomp can remove pressure from excadril against though claws teams with heir contact punishing capabilities.

Maybe multiscale is fine to see gone because it sinergizes really well with regenerator and PH, but i think that baning sturdy too will end up in a complete chaos.

 

[someone2u]

I know I played very badly but please just ban Harvest AND Banettite OR Substitute:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705229321

It's just SO annoying and the guy could have stalled me longer if he got a SpD boost or Sun. Also, I ask you to ban LV1 mons to avoid annoying Sturdy + Recycle stalling.

 

[AquaticPanic]

I know I played very badly but please just ban Harvest AND Banettite OR Substitute:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705229321

It's just SO annoying and the guy could have stalled me longer if he got a SpD boost or Sun. Also, I ask you to ban LV1 mons to avoid annoying Sturdy + Recycle stalling.

This has been fixed by Kris and is just waiting to be hotpatched. Tagging The Immortal for this!

As you see, problem's been addressed already, and taken care of, should be solved pretty soon (The glitch with the Mega, that is).

As for Sturdy + Recycle, can't say how much of an issue that'd be, but I'm not sure if banning lvl 1 mons is even possible (And then people would just run Lvl 2 anyways, and so forth with the low lvls).

 

[someone2u]

Yeah but Lv1 mons are plain annoyers. Look for Lv1 Gulpin with Sturdy + Sitrus Berry + Cheek Pouch and Recycle. Perhaps you could Ban Recycle to prevent this from happening.

I created a solar power + psychic surge team to verify if solar power is unreliable or not. This team stack abilities like psychic surge, adaptability and solar power to hit really hard, i use sash excadril to set rocks up and spin, and mega alakazam (inner focus) because he is a monster under the gimmicky magic room. Despite having to run pure scarfers and having to run sash just to land some hit before dying, i found this team fun to play and even decent. Here are some replays

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705124294 (some magic room usage!)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705128002
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705135739 (i missplayed attacking chansey outside sun and psychic terrain but in the end i was lucky)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705140355 (more magic room, but it wasnt needed)

So, what would happen if sturdy and multiscale were both banned? The answer is: i woudnt need to have excadril on my team, making me room for sheer force nidoking. With that 30% extra power mega alakazam can OHKO chansey with psychic, sun and magic room up (it did 35% to a damaged chansey without the boosts and just magic room).

+1 252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Chansey in Psychic Terrain: 684-806 (97.2 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Heatran in Psychic Terrain: 255-300 (66.2 - 77.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 200 HP / 252+ SpD Magearna in Psychic Terrain: 235-277 (66.9 - 78.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 212 HP / 0 SpD Heatran in Psychic Terrain: 342-403 (90.9 - 107.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Adaptability Alakazam-Mega Psychic vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Magearna in Psychic Terrain: 317-374 (105.3 - 124.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+1 is for solar power and life orb is for sheer force. While hyper offense has counterplay even without sturdy and multiscale, with magic room i just deleted that. magic room disables focus sash, assault vest, eviolite and choice scarf, meaning that a boosted to hell mega alakazam can demolish entire teams for 4 turns without fearing being outspeed (he can speed tie mega bee and mega aerodactyl) or revenge kill by priority. And the only ways to prevent that is switch into dark types (who dies against FB or dazzling gleam), use bronzong, or stall with protect (but alakazam can use substitute for predicted protects, like guts).

If sturdy and multiscale are both banned, then teambuilding will be just stack four/five abilities and kill your opponent with that, because stall woudnt be able to keep up.

While not being the best thing that can happen, i dont consider forcing pure offensive teams to run excadril something unhealty. Most strategy games forces you to do something specific in order to survive in certain points, and that is not something bad. And it is not a limitation, a limitation would be that i coudnt break sturdy on offense teams by any mean. Also, while there are not many ways to break sash/sturdy, excadril is NOT the only option on every team: if you have technician on your team, you can use scarf cinccino. If you play contrary, shuckle can take advantage of magic bounce and bounce webs, while you can use weather to break sturdy/multiscale. Gear grind also works on kingklan teams. Forrestress can put/remove hazzards while providing sturdy/overcoat (latter is neat if you also use hail+aurora veil, and help against MB). And last, rocky helmet, ferro and garchomp can remove pressure from excadril against though claws teams with heir contact punishing capabilities.

Maybe multiscale is fine to see gone because it sinergizes really well with regenerator and PH, but i think that baning sturdy too will end up in a complete chaos.

I saw a team with a Mega-Houndoom with Solar Power + Adaptability + Sheer Force + Mega Launcher, so that both Flamethrower and Dark Pulse were really powerful.

Psychic Surge seems to be the key to success when paired with Scarf mons now that Skill Link is banned. At least what I see more often.

 

[Stone evil]

As you see, problem's been addressed already, and taken care of, should be solved pretty soon (The glitch with the Mega, that is).

As for Sturdy + Recycle, can't say how much of an issue that'd be, but I'm not sure if banning lvl 1 mons is even possible (And then people would just run Lvl 2 anyways, and so forth with the low lvls).

tbh I've played lv1 strat with a couple of games,and teams usually have measures to deal with that kind of shit.Namely moldy mons,hazards and a few multihit moves.

 

[Iknowup]

Haaku your banette patch doesn't seem to be working.

Look at http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705397423

 

[GeniusMike]

Haaku your banette patch doesn't seem to be working.

Look at http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705397423

This. There are posts about this exploit going back to at least Tuesday. It’s Saturday now and it’s still an issue. Here’s another replay from this morning of the exploit:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7sharedpower-705468300

It’s time to quickban BANettite.