When you all four of your shared power teams use a Tinted Lens Butterfree(Im not mad though)
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Metagame Shared Power
- Thread starter The Immortal
- Start date
This is good tbh, but Unaware / Furscales needs to still be looked at.
Literally either don't share Unaware with others, ban it completely, or ban Fluffy (cause the stacking is actually a joke now).
:)
Hey, so I'm a stall player, and I just wanted to say: THANK YOU SO MUCH for banning both weather AND steel spam. Now I don't have to run a water absorb mon now, and I can just run fluffy to make my team even more unkillable.
Ok but for real, stall is way too good now. I think Fluffy or unaware need to go for sure, as there's basically no way to muscle through these teams anymore.
Ok but for real, stall is way too good now. I think Fluffy or unaware need to go for sure, as there's basically no way to muscle through these teams anymore.
The problem with stall is not FurScales. FurScales is a good, omnipresent strategy on every stall team, but it isn't broken. What IS broken about stall at the moment is Unaware. There are two huge parts of this ability that make it extremely broken.
1: Set up based stallbreaking is impossible. Traditionally, in every single gen, to break through a fat mon you set up to do more damage. In the current meta, this just isn't possible. Stall completely invalidates any set up based mon and makes it a gamble to include one on your team, as it can be dead weight against any stall team. Even the tankiest mons with FurScales can be taken down by +6 attacks. With Unaware, this is just not an issue, and they don't ever need to worry about giving the opponent opportunities to set up. Unaware removes a large mechanic of the game, setting up.
2: Unaware is a very accessible ability. Unlike something like Fluffy where you have to use one fairly mediocre mon on a stall team, Unaware comes with two stall staples, Quagsire and Clefable. Almost every stall team has one of these two mons or another Unaware user. Clefable especially is quite potent because of it's ability to Wish pass to teammates with no recovery.
Unaware is not competitive. FurScales only seems broken because it is enabled by Unaware. On top of this, to stack Fluffy + Fur Coat + Ice Scales makes half your team incredibly weak to being worn down due to lack of recovery, which is yet another reason to throw in Clefable and include Unaware on your team.
An ability that completely removes a game mechanic, such as Arena Trap, is almost always seen as uncompetitive. Why is Unaware not seen the same way?
To summarize, Unaware enables stall teams. Completely invalidates all set up. Makes it almost impossible to stall break without running specific team archetypes.
1: Set up based stallbreaking is impossible. Traditionally, in every single gen, to break through a fat mon you set up to do more damage. In the current meta, this just isn't possible. Stall completely invalidates any set up based mon and makes it a gamble to include one on your team, as it can be dead weight against any stall team. Even the tankiest mons with FurScales can be taken down by +6 attacks. With Unaware, this is just not an issue, and they don't ever need to worry about giving the opponent opportunities to set up. Unaware removes a large mechanic of the game, setting up.
2: Unaware is a very accessible ability. Unlike something like Fluffy where you have to use one fairly mediocre mon on a stall team, Unaware comes with two stall staples, Quagsire and Clefable. Almost every stall team has one of these two mons or another Unaware user. Clefable especially is quite potent because of it's ability to Wish pass to teammates with no recovery.
Unaware is not competitive. FurScales only seems broken because it is enabled by Unaware. On top of this, to stack Fluffy + Fur Coat + Ice Scales makes half your team incredibly weak to being worn down due to lack of recovery, which is yet another reason to throw in Clefable and include Unaware on your team.
An ability that completely removes a game mechanic, such as Arena Trap, is almost always seen as uncompetitive. Why is Unaware not seen the same way?
To summarize, Unaware enables stall teams. Completely invalidates all set up. Makes it almost impossible to stall break without running specific team archetypes.
That kind of seems like “Just ban Gorilla Tactics instead of Darmanitan-G” (which I’ll admit I was guilty of).
If one of the abilities gets banned, then it should be Fur Coat, since otherwise it will just create even more excuses for different other abilities being banned that don’t deserve them.
However, I was thinking of a solution.
Have a clause prohibiting 2 abilities that are identical and near identical.
This clause would prevent abilities like Steely Spirit being run on a team with Steelworks (being identical), and stacking Fluffy with Fur Coat (being near identical).
Problem is that you can’t really draw a line on “near identical” and this would an obvious complex clause.
Aight time to run FurScales now since it's the only damn thing remaining. Unaware is still a thing but still weather ended up being banned before steel spam somehow. I just don't see where we're going with these bans like, are we gonna ban anything that becomes popular? I agree with the steel spam part but the weather seems really farfetched. And I've barely seen anyone complaining about weather. Like why
I haven't been following this too closely but this is 100% what happened with the original incarnation of this meta and the reason why I'm skeptical this will work out even with the changes that have been implemented. In the original meta, there was a pretty distinct back and forth between offensive abilities like skill link being overcentralizing, getting banned, then some defensive gimmick that skill link (or whatever) completely invalidated would pop up in the vacuum, have 0 counterplay, and then get banned, then whatever the next best HO strat was would become meta, rinse and repeat. Slippery slope is an actual issue here and you don't have to look far for the proof.
alephgalactus
Banned deucer.
So what do we do about this then? Is there any solution that can possibly balance this meta?
id second freeing of *some* individual abilities, and res
and I think this is basically the solution. I think we should free up *some* individual abilities. I'm thinking that unaware could be one of the mon restricted abilities (tho this could make CM shell armor clef broken but idk) I'm also a fan of banning the speed weather abilities instead of the weather setting abilities.
I think accessibility does need to be considered more. Flare boost probably wont ever be abused because it has one setter in the NU tier. I'm starting to see quick feet strats for speed control but the only setters are linoone and jolteon and theyre okay at best.
also ive been seeing a lot of unaware + parting shot but doesnt unaware invalidate the parting shot drops?
I think this was suuuuper well said.
and I think this is basically the solution. I think we should free up *some* individual abilities. I'm thinking that unaware could be one of the mon restricted abilities (tho this could make CM shell armor clef broken but idk) I'm also a fan of banning the speed weather abilities instead of the weather setting abilities.
I think accessibility does need to be considered more. Flare boost probably wont ever be abused because it has one setter in the NU tier. I'm starting to see quick feet strats for speed control but the only setters are linoone and jolteon and theyre okay at best.
also ive been seeing a lot of unaware + parting shot but doesnt unaware invalidate the parting shot drops?
The reason you would ban Fluffy over Fur coat is because the combination of them is broken. Marvel scale doesn't do nearly what fluffy does, and that interaction is relatively tame, nor is it an issue. There is no REASON to ban fur coat over Fluffy, the only thing you do is unbalance the meta further by taking away one of the few ways to handle HO or physstack teams.
It's not because fur + fluff is an insanely good way that it isn't "one of the very few" ways. We have 3 abilities that help with physical defensive play, not 4, not 5, not 6, 3. Fur Scales, Fluffy, and Marvel Scale. Indirectly, Thick Fat also adds to this but that is not relevant. If Fur Coat is banned, the meta will revolve around having to use the shitty bewear in every team, or just running HO yourself.
And (Sandaconda) @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Sand Spit
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Glare
- Coil
- Stealth Rock
1 (Clefable) @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Teleport
- Heal Bell
- Wish
- Moonblast
2 (Crawdaunt) @ Choice Band
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Crabhammer
- Close Combat
- Aqua Jet
1234 (Machamp) @ Smooth Rock
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dynamic Punch
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
- Knock Off
Get Up (Dracozolt) @ Choice Band
Ability: Hustle
EVs: 252 Atk / 8 SpD / 248 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bolt Beak
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Low Kick
Get On Up (Excadrill) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide
- Rapid Spin
Ability: Sand Spit
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Glare
- Coil
- Stealth Rock
1 (Clefable) @ Smooth Rock
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Teleport
- Heal Bell
- Wish
- Moonblast
2 (Crawdaunt) @ Choice Band
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Crabhammer
- Close Combat
- Aqua Jet
1234 (Machamp) @ Smooth Rock
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dynamic Punch
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
- Knock Off
Get Up (Dracozolt) @ Choice Band
Ability: Hustle
EVs: 252 Atk / 8 SpD / 248 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bolt Beak
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Low Kick
Get On Up (Excadrill) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Rock Slide
- Rapid Spin
I played around with a new team concept after the ban of weather abilities, and ho boy did I find one I enjoy.
Sand Spit permits the user (Sandaconda) to set up stealth rocks or pressure opposing Persians with EQ (coming from respectable ATK) to urge them into a parting shot or uturn. Obviously U-turn and knock off both proc sand spit.
Beyond the t1 play, Clefable provides the unaware for the team which enables it to break defensive boosting mons like corviknight who could otherwise set up before the team is prepared, with teleport for the slow pivot if it takes a hit during the turn (to proc sand spit if needed).
Machamp is there as a sack to proc sand spit if needed, and to grant no guard to the team; but it can also be devastating with dynamic punch in sand while rush is active.
Dracozolt speaks for itself, it provides hustle to the team and has bolt beak, the ultimate move in a fast team.
Excadrill is excadrill. It provides speed to the team and hits like a truck with band. Rapid spin is an emergency case move.
Excadrill's main goal is to sweep, obviously.
Finally, Crawdaunt provides adaptability and is an alternate wincon if Excadrill dies early on. The speed is not relevant, crawdaunt murders with aqua jet anyways. If facing stall, however, the lack of water absorbers now leads to Crabhammer hitting like a truck along with koff being its usual strong self.
Small shoutout to Kris for helping me reach the idea and Billybobman for reminding me Sand Spit exists.
I'm on board with the ban Contrary + Unaware squad. Simply put, stall is too good rn, but not because of FurScales, but because unaware prodives no pokemon that can setup to beat the core. However, if we ban Unaware, Contrary must follow because it's simply too good to be stopped without it. Keeping it short, but I think Unaware is the big problem here.
I think there could be broadly two possible directions:-
1. If the meta aims to become balanced, continue with fast and heavy quickbans. This strategy might take more than one month to succeed, but I believe it eventually will, since many abilities have inherently limited value or potential synergy and are difficult to combine into broken combos (e.g. Inner Focus, Keen Eye, Frisk).
I would anticipate that almost all abilities that give passive multipliers to stats or damage output would be banned in this scenario because they have dangerous synergy when stacked and are too asymmetrical between attack and defense to check each other properly. E.g. people are currently arguing for abilities like Fur Coat to be kept, presumably to deal with offensive abilities like Adaptability, even though the offensive equivalent to Fur Coat (Huge/Pure Power) is already banned; abilities like Adaptability and Tough Claws don't have direct defensive equivalents. Even if the offensive and defensive boosts were symmetric, there's something overcentralising - and arguably quite wasteful and boring - about dedicating a part of each team just to keep up with stat multiplier races. Removing these categories of abilities completely seems like the likely stable end result of bans without accepting broken-checks-broken.
Many players probably would not enjoy this outcome, since the long banlist would harm accessibility, and (a perhaps larger perceived problem) the meta could not deliver on the "dream" of using ridiculous broken combos like steel spam. However, I don't think realistically this and balance can co-exist; the power inherent in the OM mechanic is so large as to make abilities that would typically be reasonable in metas like AAA or Inheritance spiral out of control.
2. Give up on balance and embrace the "fun" brokenness. Unban most things that don't result in technical problems like Regenerator++Emergency Exit (as for Harvest, I don't understand why the Leppa Berry example wasn't eventually triggering Endless Battle Clause...?)
EDIT: The replay that bonk posts ahead is literally a Funbro equivalent but still doesn't trigger Endless Battle Clause. Is EBC bugged currently?
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Regardless of whether balancing is considered insoluble, I don't think it's necessarily a fundamental problem, and I'm very glad that this meta was brought back. There's even something quite interesting and compelling about the 'ban of the day' phenomenon itself, as in some sense it keeps the meta continually fresh - I feel like this probably contributed to SP maintaining popularity throughout the month in Gen 7, and it might well be the case again.
This seems unlikely to be considered. Firstly, OMs in general seem to be moving away from allowing 'restricted' item lists (e.g. AAA had Restricted Abilities removed this gen because it was considered a complex ban, even though the system was demonstrably functional during Gen 7).
More importantly, this approach was tried and shown to be insufficient to quickly stabilize SP in Gen 7 (Mold Breaker specifically was restricted and continued to cause problems until the meta itself was banned). It just adds even more complexity to the balancing debate and gives abilities that really need to be banned a place to 'hide' while still being stackable with almost every other ability.
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I also think Unaware should be banned even if I still use it sometimes
Also came up with a darm flare blitz team that amazingly doesn't need the sun
The Team
Proof it works(sometimes)
Fill in the moves of the last two mons but flare blitz is good on its own.
I could care less about furscales and fluffy or even fluffy prism armor solid rock furscales but can we PLEASE ban Recycle + Leppa Berry.
Or even JUST Leppa Berry
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8sharedpower-1093157461
Or even JUST Leppa Berry
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8sharedpower-1093157461
Very well put! Especially about FurScales offensive equivalent (Huge Power/Pure Power) is already banned.
Considering Contrary can be destroyed by haze (and Prankster / Topsy-Turvy can help too), I'm not too worried about it.
Skill Link Technician is also difficult to get through but there are ways to defeat it; Will-O-Wisps, Haze (for Shell Smash Cloyster), Rocky Helmet/Iron Barbs (to an extent) etc.
I understand that we can't restrict an ability to be solely on the native pokemon and that it's counterproductive to the metagame. Despite this, when I verse teams that have FurScales Fluffy and Unaware, I have to forfeit as nothing offensive gets through it (especially now that weather AND Steely offense has been banned).
To balance the metagame, I believe a quickban of Fluffy is the next and potentially final step.
Seems like a good idea.
Every ban shifts the dynamic of SP. The metagame tilts from HO to stall and back and forth with regards to which team is more effective. It’s clear that the next ability on the chopping block is Unaware. I also hear the appeals of keeping as many elements in the metagame as possible. I came into this concept with the mentality that complex bans would be necessary. However, it hasn't been utilized thus far. With that in mind, and with the intention of further balancing this metagame, I have made the following decisions:
- Unaware is now banned
- Regenerator has been unbanned (the complex ban with Emergency Exit/Wimp Out is reinstated)
- Weather abilities have been unbanned (Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream, Snow Warning)
- Weather abilities in combination with their speed boosting abilities have been banned (Drizzle + Swift Swim, Drought + Chlorophyll, Sand Stream + Sand Rush, Snow Warning + Slush Rush)
- Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are now banned
- Electric Surge in combination with Surge Surfer is now banned
- Steely Spirit has been unbanned and instead the combination of Steelworker and Steely Spirit is banned
I hope this addresses the various issues that have been brought up and allows you to continue to enjoy Shared Power!
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I think embracing the fun brokenness is the way to go. Shared Power is all about finding powerful ability combos. As long as it isn't stuff like Leppa Harvest, which can trigger an endless battle, I think it's fine. Obviously, a few bans are still necessary, to encourage people to get creative, so we don't get Huge Power on everything, and weather speed abilities so people aren't forced to run Water Absorb or Storm Drain to beat Dracovish, but Shared Power has always been broken. Let the floodgates open. Ban based on whether it makes the game unfun.
In terms of brokenness, Shared Power is like Pure Hackmons or Anything Goes. The only difference is that we have a banlist. Let's put that to good use.
I was just going to say we should ban Fur Coat instead of “banning Gorilla Tactics but not Huge Power”, but then The Immortal posted this when I was replying.
Now I think Banning the combination of Fur Coat+Fluffy is the right call, along with Steely Spirit+Steelworker.
Or at least would be, but now the Meta has gotten a huge shift in bans, so we may see later.
Imo it's a boring metagame.. Soles abilities ban but no fluffy/fur coat/ice scale/Unaware? What's the problem..
No counter against that.. Or if you want to counter this cancer other team like contrary surge surfer unberduun destroy your ass..
Battle between stall team take one year.. With pressure it's just a switch battle without attack.. Sad...
No counter against that.. Or if you want to counter this cancer other team like contrary surge surfer unberduun destroy your ass..
Battle between stall team take one year.. With pressure it's just a switch battle without attack.. Sad...
Unaware was actually just banned recently. Like 27 minutes ago.
alephgalactus
Banned deucer.
Weather was banned for less than 24 hours. This meta is certainly a rollercoaster.