Unifying Baton Pass Clause, second try

Baton Pass Clause should be:

  • Baton Pass is banned (completely)

    Votes: 98 68.1%
  • different in every tier

    Votes: 46 31.9%

  • Total voters
    144

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
I'm personally not entirely convinced that Baton Pass needs to be banned completely, but that idea seems to have more political support than trying to push Baton Pass Speed Clause, and honestly I think the "limit 1 per team" part is unnecessarily complex, anyway.

So, this has been brought up before, but that thread went unresolved and it led to a grand total of four different Baton Pass bans in different tiers (if you count whatever Gen 7 OU is pulling, which I don't even know).

The main reason why bans should be consistent is because our tier system revolves around bans being consistent. If, hypothetically, Masquerain is UU with a QuiverPass set, and you ban that set, it should not fall to RU and then be able to use its QuiverPass set in RU, because its QuiverPass set is clearly BL.

In other words: If we are banning Pokémon and letting them move around tiers based on usage, they should have the same sets available in every tier.

Anyway, this poll is once again non-binding, but I'm hoping to get enough consensus to get some sort of ball rolling.
 

Aberforth

is a Top Social Media Contributoris a Member of Senior Staffis a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogon
Ubers Leader
>new thread time
>Old thread had 16 replies and was only around for a few days, just cause of the poll.

Implementing a Baton Pass ban everywhere is the most consistent with all of our other policies and would solve the problem of baton pass without setting a bad precedent of complex banning, and I've probably bitched too much about it now so I'll leave it at that.
 

atomicllamas

but then what's left of me?
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Idk the point of the new thread, the point of the poll, or how you came to the conclusion no bp had the most support when it wasn't even in the previous poll (NU's current clause was winning with negligible difference between the other options).

Your op seems to basically be saying that you disagree with breaking transitivity as a whole, in which case you should make a thread about that and not disguise that policy change in this one.

Until the point we decide to unbreak transitivity again there's no point in this thread, the bp clause in each tier should be up to the respective tiering councils.

Whatever the "consensus" of this thread is, it won't be implemented in ORAS RU unless we as a council come to the same conclusion.

I'd argue that the bp clause was fine before NU and UU decided to be special and not just ban Combusken and Celebi respectively (no way agility pass was an issue in NU, I guess idk about Ninjask, there's like a 50% chance Celebi is broken in UU regardless). I digress, its not my job to tell them what to ban in their tiers, so I don't have an issue with those bans but perhaps had transivity not been broke they bans would have worked out differently, so to retrofit bans to the tiers now seems kinda dumb.
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
>new thread time
>Old thread had 16 replies and was only around for a few days, just cause of the poll.
Yeah, the only reason I made a new thread was to make a new poll. There doesn't seem to be a way to push a poll in the middle of a thread, and it's nice to make it clear that I'm reversing direction and pushing for a full BP ban.

Idk the point of the new thread, the point of the poll, or how you came to the conclusion no bp had the most support when it wasn't even in the previous poll (NU's current clause was winning with negligible difference between the other options).
"Ban BP" is leading with 70% right now, so either I'm psychic or I'm better than you at coming to conclusions. :P

(The punchline is that I'm using an ancient computer-science psychic power called branch prediction.)

Your op seems to basically be saying that you disagree with breaking transitivity as a whole, in which case you should make a thread about that and not disguise that policy change in this one.
I've mentioned several times that I believe breaking transitivity should be a last resort, and repairing transitivity should be done whenever possible. I figure this is a pretty uncontroversial opinion, and as far as I can tell, most of PR agrees with me.

It's my own fault that I wasn't very active in Smogon when the decision to break transitivity was made, but I can at least do my best to prevent it from getting too out-of-hand.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Well, you're putting up what I think is an unpopular option against your preferred option.

No one really wants different in every tier. Different in every tier, like you say, should be a last resort. And wow surprise surprise it has ~the same 30% that it had in the last poll.

The difference is you've now forced the other 70% for whom different in every tier is a bad outcome to say to ban baton pass as a whole because that's the answer you favor.

I am very willing to bet that "Do not pass speed boosts" on its own would also be winning by roughly the same 70-30 margin.

This seems to be terrible survey design. Here are some good fundamentals if you want to actually get a popular opinion on the issue: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/writing-survey-questions/

You should always err on the side of including too many options. The 3 and 2 you've done are woefully insufficient. You start large then narrow it down. Or really the best way to do this would probably be 5 or 6 options and ask people to take a ranked pairs type of survey (or imply it from an IRV type poll and script it) to get a true condorcet result.
 

Kiyo

the cowboy kid
is a Forum Moderatoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Is there any communication going on in senior staff about this? Can someone please relay an official statement on where we are on bp in oras. It honestly feels like we're getting nowhere.

Im not pretending to know what goes on but from an outside perspective it seems like Zarel is just trying to do his own thing and the rest of ss either has a differing opinion like llamas or is uninterested in the tiering of bp putside of the few posts ive seen people like sam mag and llamas make
 
Does this require an official statement? Transitivity was broken by tier leaders awhile ago, which was approved by SS, and it doesn't seem their opinion has changed.

Also

I'd argue that the bp clause was fine before NU and UU decided to be special and not just ban Combusken and Celebi respectively (no way agility pass was an issue in NU, I guess idk about Ninjask, there's like a 50% chance Celebi is broken in UU regardless). I digress, its not my job to tell them what to ban in their tiers, so I don't have an issue with those bans but perhaps had transivity not been broke they bans would have worked out differently, so to retrofit bans to the tiers now seems kinda dumb.
The only thing "especial" about UU is simultaneously having BP receivers that don't need speed passed (Mega Sharpedo, Aero, etc) and receivers that don't need anything but speed (Espeon, Xatu, Sylveon, etc). Celebi was the most threatening Baton Pass abuser, but Gligar Pass + Sharpedo has been been stupid for months, Combusken cheese that created auto-wins against some teams was starting to get some traction in the tier (and was being used by good players, like Hogg, not lower ladder randoms), and the only reason Scollipede was never retested (despite the previous BP nerfs) was because an above average Pokemon with Speed passing would be too much for the tier.

The BP clause was not fine in UU and the problem wasn't just Celebi. Both Speed passing and Attack / SAtk passing were deemed broken by the council, so only non-broken version of BP is drypassing and "wish passing"; only thing that uses drypassing in UU is Specs Sylveon and that's because the only other option for a 4th move is Hyper Beam, while Wish passing is the excuse bad players use to run Vaporeon instead of Alomomola (and it is garbage). Nerfing BP a 4th time instead of banning, just because of that 1 set or because bad players like a bad Pokemon, would be extremely silly and unnecessary.
 

Adeleine

after committing a dangerous crime
is a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I object to "ban Baton Pass everywhere competitively" for the sake of drypass (for those who don't know, baton pass without any stat boosting moves).
BP just for pivoting is really cool on certain pokemon that dont get uturn/volt switch, especially shedinja (and i've seen others, like mega mawile), and I don't think anybody will argue that BP without any potential to boost stats is ever broken in any tier.
I support the general "broad ban everywhere" concept if it is altered to preserve pure drypass.
so only non-broken version of BP is drypassing and "wish passing"; only thing that uses drypassing in UU is Specs Sylveon and that's because the only other option for a 4th move is Hyper Beam, while Wish passing is the excuse bad players use to run Vaporeon instead of Alomomola (and it is garbage). Nerfing BP a 4th time instead of banning, just because of that 1 set or because bad players like a bad Pokemon, would be extremely silly and unnecessary.
I'd say being the fourth move on a good Pokemon's good set is certainly something. And while Vap is still garbo, wish is key for its lack of worseness in the tier
I don't see any benefit to banning drypass, and it's somewhere on the range of useful to essential for at least a handful of pokemon

FWIW I'll make a list of Pokemon that have drypass somewhere on their gen6 analyses. (in progress)
primary=slashed but its the first option
non-primary=slashed and not the first option

Accelgor (OO)
Buizel (OO)
Celebi (primary move of a set)
Deerling (unslashed move of a set, non-primary move of another set)
Delcatty (unslashed move of a set)
Dodrio (OO)
Durant (OO)
Eevee (primary move of a set)
Flareon (primary move of a set)
Floatzel (non-primary move of a set)
Glaceon (unslashed move of a set)
Gorebyss (OO)
Hypno (OO)
Illumise (unslashed move of a set)
Jolteon (unslashed move of a set)
Leafeon (OO)
Lopunny-Mega (slashed move of a set)
Mawile-Mega (unslashed move of a set)
Mawile (unslashed move of a set)
Medicham-Mega (OO)
Medicham (OO)
Mienfoo (basically OO)
Mienshao (primary option for a set)
Mime Jr. (primary move of a set)

bah i'll stop here, you get the point.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If you're going to post the same argument that has been posted 5 times over, at least try to respond to my concerns from the other thread about how banning "bp + stats" doesn't work well at all in practice. There wasn't any "benefit" to banning Blaze Blaziken either, that doesn't mean it shouldn't have been banned.

Also, at Hikari's post: Transitivity can be broken but it's still the default when something is banned from a higher tier. I'd argue that it really shouldn't be broken just to have a complex ban (the fact that you need one means that bp is also broken in that tier and should be banned there regardless...)
 

Adeleine

after committing a dangerous crime
is a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
If you're going to post the same argument that has been posted 5 times over, at least try to respond to my concerns from the other thread about how banning "bp + stats" doesn't work well at all in practice.
as you wish

- a sleep clause style ban is out of the question because it can be caused by your opponent through moves such as flatter
agreed
- a teambuilder ban is really messy because moves, abilities, and items can all cause stat raising. Sure, you can remove items from the equation because they're not broken on anything, but at that point your ban is more complex regardless (and it is anyway).
i say remove items, and that a unified ban of baton pass+stat boosting move/ability is not impossibly complex (Get a list of every move that either directly boosts a stat or can as a secondary effect, same for abilities) and in my opinion less complex than what we have now
Sure we could implement our clause from last generation, but the fact that it didn't work in every tier is a huge red flag to me, not because we need uniformity across tiers or anything, but because it means that even with the ridiculous number of modifications it's had, Baton Pass was STILL broken in some metagames. We need to stop wasting our time.
Assuming you mean the ORAS clause, I don't like that one either so yeah agree.
The move is broken, ban it.
Does that include drypass? It's my firm opinion that drypass isn't broken.

There wasn't any "benefit" to banning Blaze Blaziken either, that doesn't mean it shouldn't have been banned.
benefits to banning BlazeIken were consistent/good tiering policy and preventing overcomplexity/overconfusion. Banning BP+any ability or move that can boost a stat globally is consistent and i say not overcomplex or overly confusing.
 

LeoLancaster

does this still work
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
"Blaziken but not with Speed Boost" and "Baton Pass but not with a boosting move/ability(/item)" are equally complex bans, so that isn't a valid argument. Blaze Blaziken definitely isn't broken either, so drypassing's non-brokenness isn't a good argument in and of itself. The main difference is that Baton Pass is a move not a Pokemon, meaning it's much more dependent on the respective metagames and available 'mons for its relative power level (i.e. it scales through tiers a lot better than a Pokemon form does). That's where arguments against a global ban should come from imo. Even if I don't agree with it, it's a much more defensible position.
 
It's not that such a ban would be *too* complex, it's just pointlessly complex when keeping drypass does nothing except make certain Pokemon a bit better; it's certainly not an objectively healthy strategy that we need to go way out of our way to preserve. "Pointlessly complex" is obviously subjective, but whenever your complex ban includes Metal Claw, I think it's safe to say that another option would probably be better.
 

Adeleine

after committing a dangerous crime
is a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Smogon Media Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
"Blaziken but not with Speed Boost" and "Baton Pass but not with a boosting move/ability(/item)" are equally complex bans, so that isn't a valid argument.
Do pardon my bad wording, I must've meant something more like "straightforward" or "logical". I don't plan to argue in favor of this concept, though, as its not a centerpiece of my point and opens up a quagmire of subjectivity (i just want to clarify what i intended).
Blaze Blaziken definitely isn't broken either, so drypassing's non-brokenness isn't a good argument in and of itself.
Correct. I see establishing that it isn't broken as an axiom for the actual argument, which is that drypass's rather significant impacts on a wide range of pokemon plus moves/items across all tiers merit its exclusion from a ban.
it's just pointlessly complex when keeping drypass does nothing except make certain Pokemon a bit better
it's essential for Shedinja, the most important Pokemon in the game
I mean that's technically correct (so long as ~50 or more Pokemon constitutes a "bit") but understates the move's impact. It also makes moves (see Wish, Substitute) and items (choice ones especially) better, and enough so that "wishpass" and "subpass" are reasonably common jargon.
it's certainly not an objectively healthy strategy that we need to go way out of our way to preserve. "Pointlessly complex" is obviously subjective, but whenever your complex ban includes Metal Claw, I think it's safe to say that another option would probably be better.
well i mean its not objectively healthy, but i think the benefits it provides to many Pokemon as well as certain moves and items merit an effort to keep it
lol yeah including metal claw is odd, but i tolerate it and since it logically results from a simple and exception-less principle (no move or ability can boost stats)

I mean at this point it gets pretty subjective, but yea i've gone through why i think it's not "pointlessly" complex to keep it
 

LeoLancaster

does this still work
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
The alleged healthiness of a nonbroken part of something broken has never been enough of a reason to favor a complex ban over a simple one. Otherwise DD-less Salamence could be UU instead of BL, which would be especially helpful as another hazard remover and Entei/Fighting-type check. That's far more demonstrably healthy for a metagame than any instances of dry/wishpassing, but it's not enough because the integrity of our tiering system is more important. (Heck, it's also not enough for certain simple bans of a nonbroken element to nerf something broken, e.g. PU Dynamic Punch-less Machoke and King Shield-less Aegislash.)

There needs to be something other than "drypassing isn't broken" to justify a complex ban, as is the case with "Defog Salamence isn't broken" and "Blaze Blaziken isn't broken."
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I'm pretty sure you don't need anything complex to justify Baton Pass isn't broken.

Baton Pass is not broken whatsoever on any user not also using boosting moves. Baton Pass is not broken on many (in fact most) Pokémon while they do use boosting moves.

The only sense in banning Baton Pass is if it in isolation is a broken move, i.e. Broken on any reasonable Pokémon within the tier. It isn't.

Suppose Landorus-T was broken with double dance sets and that SD or RP was signature to Lando. We would never ban the signature move, we'd ban the Pokemon.

Now we didn't do that for Baton Pass for very good reason, but we've now claused it down to one Baton Pass user that can't pass speed and other stats. There are others who are willing to make it that you can't even pass speed. That that alone can be too much. That's ok and I think most agree with that.

But anything beyond that point is like my Lando-T example. Anything further (ie totally banning Baton Pass) is unreasonably limiting numerous other users who are not remotely broken for the sake of preserving one or two mons.

We don't ban blanket ban individual moves to preserve Pokemon. We've never done it before. Period.
 

LeoLancaster

does this still work
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
It's ok to institute complex nerfs on a move in order to preserve Pokemon, but not ok to just ban the move?

Besides, Baton Pass when unrestricted is broken on anything "reasonable," i.e. full BP chains which consisted of otherwise terrible Pokemon such as Espeon, Vaporeon and Mr. Mime. Sure, that required very specific teammates to achieve, but I thought policy was to evaluate potentially broken things in terms of their best places in the metagame, not a vacuum.

And then, even after the restriction of 1 user per team, Quickpassing from Scolipede, Smeargle, and Gorebyss became enough of a problem to warrant further nerfs. And then, even after the implementation of the current clause we have now, BP is still finding ways to be problems in other tiers. At what point are specific Pokemon (Celebi, Combusken in this case) the culprits instead of the move? It makes sense to say that the Pokemon are the problem instead of the move only in the situations brought about by the severe nerfs already placed on the move.

It seems arbitrary to say that Quickpass Scolipede or Speedpass Combusken is a problem because of BP but Nastypass/SDpass Celebi (in UU) are problems because of the Pokemon forms themselves. What makes passing X amount of boosts a BP problem and passing Y amount of boosts a Pokemon problem? What makes Speedpass into CM Xatu a BP problem but Nastypass into Scarf Hydreigon or SD Pass into Mega Sharpedo a Pokemon problem? There's no non-arbitrary cutoff between the passing being the problem and the Pokemon being the problem.

edit: That's not to say I don't think there are legitimate arguments against [stat]-passing being a Pokemon problem instead of a BP problem, but they apply pretty much equally to all passers and if the consensus is that there is a problem where BP itself is the culprit (which there definitely seems to be, hence the nerfs) then any cutoffs concerning how much passing is BP's fault vs the Pokemon's fault are arbitrary.
 
Last edited:
The post above covers most of what I wanted to address, but this line in particular:
We don't ban blanket ban individual moves to preserve Pokemon. We've never done it before. Period.
is incredibly misleading. There aren't many cases of banning a single move to preserve a single Pokemon (PU Chatot is recent one, yeah yeah we were unofficial whatever, it still happened), but you also have cases of ability bans to preserve Pokemon (tons of examples of this: Drought to save Ninetales, Shadow Tag to save Wobbuffet / Gothita / whatever, Moody to save like 5 Pokemon, the whole Sand Veil thing in multiple generations), and even complex bans to preserve Pokemon (BW Politoed, GSC Missy). What makes moves so special and sacred that you can do all of these other things but not ban moves?

Your whole post leads up to the conclusion that we should just ban every Pokemon broken with Baton Pass in every tier (which is obviously stupid because sending Huntail and friends to Ubers is pointless and likely a pr nightmare), but then you say it's okay to ban a bunch of different parts of a move but completely not okay to ban the move as a whole? Your logic doesn't make any sense.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Chatter was banned under the same premise as Swagger, banning powerful confusion inducing moves. Uncompetitive, not broken. Do not conflate the two. I'd still rather have banned Chatot not Chatter, but anyway still not the same thing.

And abilities are different things too. Moves are learned by sometimes a hundred Pokemon or more. The abilities you listed are on 5 tops.

So the main reason is that when you ban an ability, you are having far less collateral damage than you do when you ban a move. It's really that simple.

Furthermore the abilities you list are abilities that would be broken on any Pokemon that receive it. Shadow Tag would be broken on just about anything. Drought in a perma-sun metagame would be broken on just about anything purely for the team support. It's not like Ninetales is even good.

Baton Pass does not meet this standard of being broken on anything that could hypothetically get it, nor even on the things that do actually get it. In fact, just about no moves meet the standard. OHKO moves do. And they're appropriately banned.
 

LeoLancaster

does this still work
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
It's not like Ninetales is even good.
But Gorebyss and Mr. Mime are? I think it's pretty obvious that Baton Pass is broken on most things that get it, it's just not the case currently because the move has been nerfed to hell and back.

Not to mention collateral seems like a pretty weak argument for a complex ban when the same could be said of nearly any Pokemon banned to Ubers or a BL (obvious examples being King Shield-less Aegislash and DD-less Salamence), and often much more demonstrably healthy for their respective metagames than drypassing or wishpassing anyway.

Again, what makes any specific nerf to BP not an arbitrary cutoff between passing as a BP problem and passing as Pokemon problem?
 
"It has to be broken on everything that could get it" is a dumb rule. The examples you yourself gave don't even work; Shadow Tag Gothita is not broken in OU. A base 500 power Dragon move with no drawbacks would not be broken on Sunkern or any other LC mon, so let's just ban every fully evolved Dragon type in the game lol. You still haven't explained why an absurdly complex ban is acceptable but a simple move ban that has barely any more collateral damage (oh no muh drypass, the meta will be ruined without you) is not, which is the main flaw in your whole argument.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Sorry if that's what it seemed I said. I meant to say would be broken on anything viable in the tier. iirc Oglemi expressed an idea similar to this recently. It's a good measure of evaluating the brokenness of an element - consider it on other comparable Pokemon.

Obviously I don't think the standard for OU should be how it would be on a caterpie (I've said as much elsewhere, when I said don't decide a move's brokenness based on Smeargle because Smeargle is ass and learns everything, so it would ruin the rule.)

But any OU mon with Shadow Tag would be broken in OU. Any UU mon with Drought would be broken in UU, etc.

That is not remotely the case with Baton Pass. I'm concerned 1) with DryPass being removed. It's fundamentally not broken. And 2) I'm concerned with random shit like SD Pass Beedrill being removed too. There's just no reason to do it because it's not broken.

So no, I am not the one with the absurd argument just because the resulting clause is a complex ban. We should not be banning any non-Pokemon elements lightly. And we should do whatever possible, including bizarre clauses and banning Pokemon, in order to achieve that goal. Indeed, it's what we did for all of XY. The only absurd argument is to ban a move that is not broken on many or even most users. That is highly inconsistent with Smogon tiering policy.

Smogon first and foremost tiers Pokemon. Outright bans of moves are an absolute last resort, not compatible with this philosophy.

Because Smogon tiers Pokemon, we should only ban a move when it allows that many more Pokemon to be legal. Totally banning OHKO moves lets us not ban Articuno, Rhyperior, etc etc (long list). Totally banning Baton Pass would free up... well nothing, compared to our current clause. UU would maybe get back Scolipede (though they chose not to) and if they didn't ban Baton Pass maybe would have banned Celebi. So that's 2 mons. I don't know of any others that are currently BL that would drop or are currently in a tier but will get banned if we don't change. Please enlighten me if there are others. XY came and went and the baton pass clause worked quite well and could be even further limited if necessary by a reasonable proposal. A few edge cases do not amount to enough to affect 100 other Pokemon.

This is my last post on the subject. I don't think you two have a good understanding of Smogon tiering philosophy, which is rather embarrassing for the one of you who's a tier leader...
 
Legitimate question: has the notion of banning any boost + Baton Pass and removing the old clause been a train of thought? Lets you use Baton Pass on any number of Pokemon for pivoting, isn't hard to understand, and seems to fix the issue. Haven't player competitively in awhile, so feel free to ignore this post if it seems nonsensical.
 

Legitimate Username

mad tales of a bloodthirsty corviknight
is a Top Artist Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I think there's a pretty obvious criteria to go by for this.

Is the ability to pass stat boosts (and volatile status conditions/Substitutes/Ingrain) from one Pokémon to another inherently broken? I'm not talking about from a "is anything passing boosts to anything always going to be overpowered", but the idea that a player would use this ability optimally given that this is a competitive game.

I've always been opposed to a straight-up Baton Pass ban because I've always believed that the ability to pass stat boosts was not an inherently broken mechanic, and that the problem lied more in specific uses such as full chains or SmashPass or whatever other bullshit people were abusing, and that most of these "broken" uses of Baton Pass were solved by banning Speed passing or whatever other complex bans we had prior to that. I've never played UU, but if things like Celebi and Combusken were really that obnoxious despite the nerfs that were in place, then I don't think that it would be unjustified to say that passing stat boosts is overpowered and that the move itself is banworthy.

I don't think it makes sense to go out of our way to try and save DryPassing, it's clearly not intended to be the move's primary mechanic and we don't need a complex ban just to save fringe cases like Celebi vs. Tyranitar (as opposed to using a complex ban to preserve passing stat boosts, something which I personally think is justified given that it's a unique game mechanic that arguably adds more/interesting options to the game). If there's an argument to be made that passing stat boosts (and passing other miscellaneous stuff) is something that's inherently capable of breaking the game, then the move itself is broken.

I don't have an opinion on whether or not passing boosts is an overpowered mechanic, I just think that this is the question that we should be asking and I'd like to see if there's a decent answer to it.
 

Sam

i say it's all just wind in sails
is a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
"It has to be broken on everything that could get it" is a dumb rule. The examples you yourself gave don't even work; Shadow Tag Gothita is not broken in OU. A base 500 power Dragon move with no drawbacks would not be broken on Sunkern or any other LC mon, so let's just ban every fully evolved Dragon type in the game lol.
I see this sentiment a lot and I think this completely misses the point. A 500 BP Dragon move with good distribution would get banned, we would not ban everything to preserve the move. When looking at a Pokemon being broken though, movepool is a huge huge consideration there. Take a look at Salamence in UU. It's pretty much agreed that it was Dragon Dance sets that made Salamence broken. In banning it, good offensive Defog and defensive sets were lost. Theoretically, Salamence could have been preserved in UU by banning Dragon Dance. At the same time there were a bunch of good, healthy, non-broken users of Dragon Dance in the tier. Therefore, Dragon Dance is not broken, and in the broken combination of Salamence + Dragon Dance it is Salamence that gets banned. If there is a recurring issue of [mon] + Dragon Dance being an issue, then yes we could look at Dragon Dance being broken. We can't just ban Dragon Dance out of a desire to keep Salamence in the tier. I think in the case of a move not being well distributed, it's more prudent to think of access to that move as an attribute of the broken Pokemon. Entei + Sacred Fire, Victini + V Create, Porygon + Conversion, etc. I think Chatot is just kinda something that got through the cracks, and if that came up now I think Chatot would be banned instead.

However, I think Baton Pass is a unique exception to what was outlined above. The original point of nerfing Baton Pass is to get rid of the broken Baton Pass chains that were plaguing the game. Nothing in the chains were really individually broken but specific combinations of them were. If you ban one of them they probably wouldn't be too difficult to replace. There's still a ton of healthy users of Baton Pass and it didn't make sense to ban individual members of Baton Pass chains so the nerf was put in place. I think at that point, it made more sense to expand on the nerf as needed. There's a ton of healthy users of Baton Pass, and even now with the nerf instances of things being broken or uncompetitive still have the issue of being combinations, making them more complex than the example with Dragon Dance and requiring 'complex' tiering.
 

Sam

i say it's all just wind in sails
is a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnus
For the point of this thread though, BP is a clause that each tier can modify. Given then complexity with BP given above it can vary between tiers and I would like to have each tier's clause be as non-restrictive as possible. It isn't really a huge issue so I think it makes sense to keep it as it is.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top