BH Balanced Hackmons Suspects and Bans Thread

[Kingslayer2779]

I know i've been on hiatus for awhile and just came back, but i'd argue that Gengarite is exactly the same as it was in Gen 6. Which is to say its an item that at very low opportunity cost it provides access to an ability universally considered to be one of the most busted of all time. Simply having to wait a turn and use an item slot isn't bad enough to balance Shadow Tag. It can still do all the degenerate things Shadow Tag does post Mega Evolution (Encore etc.) It does not significantly impede the functionality of the set. Mega Gengar is a great "fast" Shadow Tag user, its not optimal but it still outspeeds the vast majority of the non scarf meta. Its not like Red Orb and Blue Orb in Gen 6 where a fixed decent ability and fixed mediocre item was a significant downside to access 2 banned Pokemon. The limitations on the Primals were enough to keep them balanced, having to mega evolve Gengar only restricts you for a single turn.

So TL;DR Shadow Tag is broken, and Gengarite provides Shadow Tag on a decent user without much cost.

 

[Deleted User 91486]

I just want to share this replay with you, as it illustrates how broken STag Gengar actually is - it could perish trap my choice banded (!) Gyarados which was locked into Pursuit. Without the crit, Gengar would have easily survived the hit, and I would have lost the game because without being able to heal, Zygod would fail to wall Regigigas.

Link: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-576803629
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-576803629
I really hope that there will be a suspect poll/test soon...

 

[motherlove]

I really hope that there will be a suspect poll/test soon...

I heard there's one coming, just bear with it for a moment.

 

[ElMustacho]

I just want to share this replay with you, as it illustrates how broken STag Gengar actually is - it could perish trap my choice banded (!) Gyarados which was locked into Pursuit. Without the crit, Gengar would have easily survived the hit, and I would have lost the game because without being able to heal, Zygod would fail to wall Regigigas.

Link: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-576803629
I really hope that there will be a suspect poll/test soon...

You can always run a Gengar Proof team, like every team member has at least one of the following: Magic Bounce + switch move, Soundproof, 131+ Speed, Prankster Taunt, Choice Scarf, -ate or Shed Shell.

 

[jrm115]

You can always run a Gengar Proof team, like every team member has at least one of the following: Magic Bounce + switch move, Soundproof, 131+ Speed, Prankster Taunt, Choice Scarf, -ate or Shed Shell.

you shouldnt need literally every mon to be a counter
if you need every mon to have a counter, its probably a little bit overcentralizing

 

[tegrof19]

you shouldnt need literally every mon to be a counter
if you need every mon to have a counter, its probably a little bit overcentralizing

i think that was the point of the argument lol

 

[Deleted User 91486]

You can always run a Gengar Proof team, like every team member has at least one of the following: Magic Bounce + switch move, Soundproof, 131+ Speed, Prankster Taunt, Choice Scarf, -ate or Shed Shell.

What jrm115 said, is true. If you want to be sure that you lose no mon to Gengar, you need every mon to be a check against it, as you can't switch out.

Shed Shell: Sleep Clause Please. Because of the omnipresence of Spore and the lack of a sleep clause, Safety Goggles are always the preferred item for passive mons over Shed Shell or Lefties (except maybe for non-RegenVest Steels, because of Magnet Pull). That's another reason why Gengar is broken - we can't afford to run the item which is necessary for being able to switch out of Shadow Tag Gengar, because of another major and much more common threat.
With a sleep clause, spore would still be used, but we would be able to use one dedicated mon as sleep fodder, so that Shed Shell on mons like Unaware Audino can be used without having to worry about spore.

 

[SomeIrish]

I'm going to finally make a post about Shell Smash and why I think it needs to be banned.
As we all (probably) know, Shell Smash is a Normal type status move with 24 max PP that raises the user's Attack, Special Attack, and Speed by 2 stages and drops both defenses by only 1 stage each. This allows even arguably weak pokemon to be able to deal sustainable damage to a team, especially with the introduction of anti-priority abilities such as Dazzling, Queenly Majesty, and Psychic Surge, followed by moves like Sunsteel Strike and Moongeist Beam which caused an indirect but large nerf to Unaware, the previous answer to almost all setup last gen. This is only further aided by the fact that Prankster was nerfed this gen to where the move, if it has a specific target, fails if used against a Dark type or while some form of anti-priority is active. This leads to a meta where priority is almost absent in more competitive play, stopping the opponent from dealing damage to a Pokemon that outspeeds them unless they are able to survive the hit.

How does this differ from other set up moves like Shift Gear and Quiver Dance? Unlike the other setup moves out there, Shell Smash gives the user boosts much faster and at an absurdly manageable cost as the user does't have to spend countless turns boosting to get past a wall but only 2 or 3 which can easily be done by putting the foe to sleep or using some other method to prevent them from attacking the user. There is very little about Shell Smash that could make it unfavorable for someone to choose it over some other move while also making it more difficult after the opposing team has been weakened or has lost their pokemon that was supposed to check this powerful form of setup.

With all this said, I would like to see that Shell Smash is suspect tested from Balanced Hackmons as it provides a form of setup that yields little risk and high rewards as even counterplay in the form of Prankster and Haze which bypasses all forms of Anti-Priority Setup does not prevent the APS user from sweeping later on after the Prankster pokemon has been knocked out.

 

[RNGIsFatal]

I'm going to finally make a post about Shell Smash and why I think it needs to be banned.
As we all (probably) know, Shell Smash is a Normal type status move with 24 max PP that raises the user's Attack, Special Attack, and Speed by 2 stages and drops both defenses by only 1 stage each. This allows even arguably weak pokemon to be able to deal sustainable damage to a team, especially with the introduction of anti-priority abilities such as Dazzling, Queenly Majesty, and Psychic Surge, followed by moves like Sunsteel Strike and Moongeist Beam which caused an indirect but large nerf to Unaware, the previous answer to almost all setup last gen. This is only further aided by the fact that Prankster was nerfed this gen to where the move, if it has a specific target, fails if used against a Dark type or while some form of anti-priority is active. This leads to a meta where priority is almost absent in more competitive play, stopping the opponent from dealing damage to a Pokemon that outspeeds them unless they are able to survive the hit.

How does this differ from other set up moves like Shift Gear and Quiver Dance? Unlike the other setup moves out there, Shell Smash gives the user boosts much faster and at an absurdly manageable cost as the user does't have to spend countless turns boosting to get past a wall but only 2 or 3 which can easily be done by putting the foe to sleep or using some other method to prevent them from attacking the user. There is very little about Shell Smash that could make it unfavorable for someone to choose it over some other move while also making it more difficult after the opposing team has been weakened or has lost their pokemon that was supposed to check this powerful form of setup.

With all this said, I would like to see that Shell Smash is suspect tested from Balanced Hackmons as it provides a form of setup that yields little risk and high rewards as even counterplay in the form of Prankster and Haze which bypasses all forms of Anti-Priority Setup does not prevent the APS user from sweeping later on after the Prankster pokemon has been knocked out.

I will elaborate on what you said first so this won't end up being a shitpost.

Elaboration

Yes, as I said in the past, this move just comes out of nowhere and forces pretty much all competitive teams to carry Prankster with Haze, Spectral Thief on random stuff like Mega Audino or even Registeel, and increased the viability of Scarf Imposter (not much after EV limit removal has weakened APS in general but... still). The move itself heavily restricts the movepool of any support 'mons because most of the time they will have to carry either Spectral Thief or Haze to check setup spammers.

Just because Prankster Haze can remove boosts immediately doesn't mean Shell Smash is neglectable. The user can just keep spamming Shell Smash because the Prankster has to stay in to keep one of its teammates from dying next turn, and this just kinda fucks the momentum.

Also you forgot to point out how the drops of defense from Shell Smash:

* are mediated from Focus Sash or even White Herb
* risks even Imposter from being OHKOed in certain circumstances

It is not that I do not agree with you or anything (nor minimoding); I made about 5380793485243 posts about Shell Smash in this thread, but I think you are making same mistakes that I did in the past: now isn't the time to talk about Shell Smash, if we judge from about last couple pages of discussions about Shadow Tag, namely Gengarite. As soon as the poll of Gengarite is out, and after we decide what to do about it, I will be more than glad to join discussing about Shell Smash further.

 

[SomeIrish]

I'm gonna be honest, I completely forgot about Gengarite Gengar, I just haven't been seeing it around lately. Does not mean it isn't broken though, it should be suspected and I don't think there is anything that hasn't already been said about it at this point

 

[ShedMiddleFinga]

Let me just point out that gengarite takes a large amount of skill to use correctly and can't just be slapped on to any random team. Personally, I don't feel like gengarite needs a ban as of now because
1) it is obvious that the opponent is running it from the team preview
2) Defensive mons should have uturn and offensive mons should be able to kill gengar
3) Because you can see it from the team preview, usually good players are able to play around it.
To be honest, I've used gengarite a bit in gen 6 and only a little in gen 7 and the most mons i ever killed with it in one game was 2. Given that it usually ends up being a 1-1 trade or a 0-1 trade I don't see any reason to ban it.

What I do see a reason to ban is shell smash and possibly belly drum. Every single counter to smash has been nerfed, unaware by sungeist and prankster by removing viability of topsy turvy b/c of dark and dazzling immunity. That being said they do kind of work. But not really. If someone smashes you generally have to lose a mon before you can stop them, and there is no urgent reason for them to switch out once you haze them. EV boost really helped them a lot, it no longer is viable just to spectral mons on the off chance of a smash simply b/c spectral doesn't do enough damage to offense anymore, and you will get outdamaged and killed. EV boost also means that the defense of these mons isn't really hurt that bad, basically it's just what it was at 510 evs. It also means that -ate were it exists, often can't kill them anyway. It requires no warning, no skill, and only further centralizes the meta, and for that reason i find it banworthy. Along with that, I think we need to ask ourselves, why SHOULDNT we ban it. I cannot think of a single instance in which it is something I would consider it high skill. Basically the metagame is suffering for a move that doesnt benifit anyone except people who don't want to think to hard when they play pokemon.

 

[RNGIsFatal]

Let me just point out that gengarite takes a large amount of skill to use correctly and can't just be slapped on to any random team. Personally, I don't feel like gengarite needs a ban as of now because
1) it is obvious that the opponent is running it from the team preview
2) Defensive mons should have uturn and offensive mons should be able to kill gengar
3) Because you can see it from the team preview, usually good players are able to play around it.
To be honest, I've used gengarite a bit in gen 6 and only a little in gen 7 and the most mons i ever killed with it in one game was 2. Given that it usually ends up being a 1-1 trade or a 0-1 trade I don't see any reason to ban it.

What I do see a reason to ban is shell smash and possibly belly drum. Every single counter to smash has been nerfed, unaware by sungeist and prankster by removing viability of topsy turvy b/c of dark and dazzling immunity. That being said they do kind of work. But not really. If someone smashes you generally have to lose a mon before you can stop them, and there is no urgent reason for them to switch out once you haze them. EV boost really helped them a lot, it no longer is viable just to spectral mons on the off chance of a smash simply b/c spectral doesn't do enough damage to offense anymore, and you will get outdamaged and killed. EV boost also means that the defense of these mons isn't really hurt that bad, basically it's just what it was at 510 evs. It also means that -ate were it exists, often can't kill them anyway. It requires no warning, no skill, and only further centralizes the meta, and for that reason i find it banworthy. Along with that, I think we need to ask ourselves, why SHOULDNT we ban it. I cannot think of a single instance in which it is something I would consider it high skill. Basically the metagame is suffering for a move that doesnt benifit anyone except people who don't want to think to hard when they play pokemon.

While i am agreeing with you on Shell Smash and i mentioned same thing more than couple times in the past, i have to disagree on gengarite.

As you may or may not know it is not all about Encore and Perish Song, it can run offesive sets and give a surprise mudafaka, such as hitting mega ray with ice beam or instantly removing mega audino while disguising itself as something stupid like registeel. So i think that makes clear why you shouldnt neglect gengarite at least. It does something against offensive teams.

Further, the presence of gengarite, especially after mega evo, is just terrifying. Everytime you press milk drink with your precious fur coat zygarde that imposterproofs your whole team, every time your audino presses defog or stealth rock, every time your unboosted regigias uses facade on a weakened mon, every time you press rapid spin with your av regen sogaleo, you are risking to lose them. This pretty much invalidates your argument about "carrying all fat mons with u turn will get you out of it". Unless your team consists of 6 regenvest mons, at least one of your mon should think twice, i mean more than twice before pressing recovery or other moves even if it is close to fainting.

But no, this doesnt mean gengarite doesnt make bh meta uncompetitive or anything, so i would say suspect, or at least poll voting is necessary to decide if a mega stone thah can potentially get rid of any kind of wall that does hot outspeed itself or has magic bounce is too overcentralizing or unhealthy.

If my points were not clear, here is my entire stance on Shadow Tag which people seem to neglect at this point.

 

[Rumors]

To be concise, Gengarite is kinda like Innards Out. With IO, you can't click an attack without fear of something randomly exploding. With Gengarite, you can't click a non-attack (or low powered attack like Spin) without fear of getting trapped and KOed.

 

[Deleted User 91486]

I don't know why I'm the only one who has mentioned it here in the thread, but I think that the introduction of a sleep clause can solve a lot of the meta's current problems, maybe even without banning Gengar or Shell Smash.

1. As you can use one pokemon as dedicated sleep fodder, you can afford to run Shed Shell over Safety Goggles on (non-steel) walls like Audino or Zygarde, without them becoming setup fodder for shell smashers carrying spore, and so Gengarite Gengar becomes far less threatening.
   
2. As soon as one of your mons is asleep, the opponent can't get free turns for setup by Spore anymore. This means, setting up with Shell Smash or Belly Drum becomes more difficult and more dangerous, as you can nullify the boosts instantly, u-turn into an imposter/unaware/prankster while breaking a potential focus sash, or fire a core enforcer into a Belly Drummer to suppress Unburden.

 

[Rumors]

While I'm in favor of Sleep Clause, it does not do anything about Gengarite Encore or anything Shell Smashing on some sort of gained momentum. For example, Solgaleo uses Rapid Spin, for Gengarite, Gengar swaps in on same turn and Encores it. For Smash, anything that forces out Solgaleo, like Yveltal or Groudon, switches in on Spin and Shell Smashes as Solgaleo is forced to manually switch or chance a U-Turn.


...honestly, Sleep Clause might actually help Shell Smash since you'd no longer be able to sleep multiple smashers.

 

[jrm115]

While I'm in favor of Sleep Clause, it does not do anything about Gengarite Encore or anything Shell Smashing on some sort of gained momentum. For example, Solgaleo uses Rapid Spin, for Gengarite, Gengar swaps in on same turn and Encores it. For Smash, anything that forces out Solgaleo, like Yveltal or Groudon, switches in on Spin and Shell Smashes as Solgaleo is forced to manually switch or chance a U-Turn.


...honestly, Sleep Clause might actually help Shell Smash since you'd no longer be able to sleep multiple smashers.

the thing about sleep clause with gengar is that not everything passive is gonna need safety goggles, so shed shell (which makes gengarite a non-issue) has a much, much lower opportunity cost.
this means that the only thing that can switch in on a rapid spin and immediately screw everything over is shell smash but tbh it could just spore w/e and smash anyway so i dont think that makes it worse

 

[Rumors]

Snarky response: So, run Shed Shell on everything (defensive) just to deal with one Pokemon.

More serious response: Knock Off is a very common thing and its certainly something Gengar can shove into a STag set for little cost or run on teammates. The existence of Shed Shell does not simply solve Gengarite, just like our sheer amount of anti-sleep options do not solve lack of Sleep Clause.

 

[RR RR]

I'm going to finally make a post about Shell Smash and why I think it needs to be banned.
As we all (probably) know, Shell Smash is a Normal type status move with 24 max PP that raises the user's Attack, Special Attack, and Speed by 2 stages and drops both defenses by only 1 stage each. This allows even arguably weak pokemon to be able to deal sustainable damage to a team, especially with the introduction of anti-priority abilities such as Dazzling, Queenly Majesty, and Psychic Surge, followed by moves like Sunsteel Strike and Moongeist Beam which caused an indirect but large nerf to Unaware, the previous answer to almost all setup last gen. This is only further aided by the fact that Prankster was nerfed this gen to where the move, if it has a specific target, fails if used against a Dark type or while some form of anti-priority is active. This leads to a meta where priority is almost absent in more competitive play, stopping the opponent from dealing damage to a Pokemon that outspeeds them unless they are able to survive the hit.

How does this differ from other set up moves like Shift Gear and Quiver Dance? Unlike the other setup moves out there, Shell Smash gives the user boosts much faster and at an absurdly manageable cost as the user does't have to spend countless turns boosting to get past a wall but only 2 or 3 which can easily be done by putting the foe to sleep or using some other method to prevent them from attacking the user. There is very little about Shell Smash that could make it unfavorable for someone to choose it over some other move while also making it more difficult after the opposing team has been weakened or has lost their pokemon that was supposed to check this powerful form of setup.

With all this said, I would like to see that Shell Smash is suspect tested from Balanced Hackmons as it provides a form of setup that yields little risk and high rewards as even counterplay in the form of Prankster and Haze which bypasses all forms of Anti-Priority Setup does not prevent the APS user from sweeping later on after the Prankster pokemon has been knocked out.

DON'T BAN PLEASE!
My spectral thief!

 

[ShedMiddleFinga]

Ok I'm gonna try again. First off I agree that gengar and sleep are annoying but they really didn't benefit or get hurt from any new mechanics in gen 7 and both were manageable in gen 6 so i don't see the need for immediate action (sleep might of gotten better with most walls running vest instead of goggles + weakening of PH but that's beside the point.)

I honestly don't think belly drum/shell smash were anywhere near bannable in gen 6. Let me go over what changed.

1) Mons get full evs. I've heard that this "weakens" shell smash but anyone with any brains can see it really doesn't. If something can't tank power trip, it isn't gonna tank it after 252 evs. defense evs aren't gonna stop 1000 atk. they just aren't. If something CAN tank it, it would already have 252 evs in hp and defense anyway probably. But because the shell smash/belly drum mon has 252 evs, extreme speed/other priority usually does a pitiful amount of damage, almost always <50%. That means u can't really revenge kill it.

2) Priority Attacks is weakened. This happened in several different ways. First, gale wings was nerfed. For me that means no more d-ascent, which could normally take out 90% on most mons. This leaves espeed. As you guys know, ate was nerfed from gen 6 and mons have more defense, and the damage usually isn't sufficient to kill. I've seen damage as low as 30% taken on an espeed. not even enough to kill drummers. In addition, priority has a general bad time of it because of new abilities like queenly majesty phazing them out and making them far less common. So basically this check, which SINGLEHANDEDLY put smash in its place in gen 6, doesn't really exist.

3) Prankster was nerfed. This means no more encore on dark types. That REALLY HURTS. that was another of my go-to stops for setup in gen 6. Even without spectral thief/haze the extra turns were still enough to let me get around the threat. well that doesn't really work anymore. D-Bond was nerfed. As someone who doesn't use d-bond too much I'm not at liberty to say much here, except I imagine it can be annoying, especially without the threat of encore looming. Topsy turvy can't manage stuff anymore. This is pretty big. Topsy turvy was a big hit to setup and you can't really use it anymore because of targeting. And because you can't put any pressure at all on smashers they are free to batter away at you till they stall recover/ outpredict your switch and smash= u lose another mon. So you have to stay in to keep the "threat" of haze alive while your opponent either kills you or they switch and the momentum goes to the opponent.

4) Unaware isn't actually that good. People seem to think unaware is some magic answer but it really isn't. First off smashers are usually powerful enough to 2 hit or 3 hit (2 hit especially if it's a subpar wall like gyarados) So switching in often ISN'T an option. That means you lose 1 more mon. This is especially true if there is either hazards up, or your wall has taken ANY previous damage. It's important to note that without any passive healing it's almost impossible to maintain a wall at 100% (you can't run leftovers because spore) so you really have to run multiple walls. One for actually walling stuff, and one for stopping stuff like shell smash. Along with the fact that these walls have pretty short lifespans in general, there are new moves like sunsteel and moongeist to give them grief. This rules out notable walls such as Tina, audino, and solgaleo, and reduces many to subpar options like gyarados. To really hammer in just how bad this is, this is damage calc of a popular belly drum set vs gyarados.

252+ Atk Groudon-Primal Bonemerang (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gyarados-Mega: 156-186 (39.5 - 47.2%) -- approx. 32.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

So, Gyarados canț switch in which means often an even 1-1 trade. Even with preparation you still are 1-1. Thats friggin terrible. pdon has now broken even through no demonstration of skill on 1 move. If you make the asinine assumption that you can switch in because everyone knows that its super easy to keep weak ass walls like gyara at 100%, there is still the chance that its running bolt strike. Yes groudon has a lot of attack, but everything that smashes has around 170+ anyway so i don't see it as a big factor. Yes bonemerang is unresisted, but these mons tend to have 3 coverage moves, it isn't hard to find a unresisting move. It's true that this is a stab move but lots of potential drummers (mmx/ray/etc) have stab unresisted and mmx has super effective stab (byi gyara). Also it's important to take in account that bonemerang is by no means some 150 power base move. It has 100 BP, and that isn't that powerful. Lots of moves have the capability to do more than that. This is my most important point: It is important to rmember that this is actually a pokemon battle, not a damage calculator were everything starts off at 100% and stays that way. It is so so so so so so so so so so so easy to deal 20% to a mon in a battle and have it go unhealed. Remember u-turn is super effective. I am tired of people telling me to run gyarados on the grounds that it theoretically checks shell smash. What I'm trying to say is that unaware doesn't work because it's a bad ability that doesn't do much to strengthen a mons ability to switch in/heal, it's a bad ability because two very common moves check it, and it's a bad ability because the niche answers (gyarados) that people purport can stop shell smash really can't. And even if it could check it, you have to stay in to heal while the momentum goes to the opponent

5) Chansey didn't really get nerfed in any big way but it is very difficult to beat smashers because some have unburden and you usually have to sacrifice a mon anyway to get chansey in. Also, because of defense debuffs, many can outdamage or kill chansey anyway. In my opinion, chansey is just worth more than smashers and I don't regard that as a very even trade. So basically when looking at chansey, you're often looking at best a 1-1 +heavy damage on one of your most valuble mons and at worst a 6 mon sweep.

6) Innards Out is banned. God rest it's soul.

Because I know you guys like hard examples ima give u some.


Player A has a MMX and Player B has team made to defeat smash and a regen Zygarde out at 20%
MMX uses simple shell smash and zygarde switches to fur coat tina
MMX uses stored power
Tina dies
Regi switches in and hazes
Regi dies to close combat.



MMX has taken 0 damage and killed 2 mons. Its sash is unbroken.

lets imagine that they switched into a different check to MMX, something you would never normally do if you donț already know mmx is simple. That mon is unaware zygarde. Now usually with smash teams, terrain is usually up

252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-X Stored Power (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Unaware Zygarde-Complete in Psychic Terrain: 589-694 (92.6 - 109.1%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
zygarde is in all probability dead given the difficulty of keeping mons at 100%.

Ok kids! that didnt work so lets try gyarados. That will work for sure!

252+ Atk Mewtwo-Mega-X Close Combat vs. 242 HP / 252+ Def Gyarados-Mega: 390-462 (99.7 - 118.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

Rip gyarados is dead now.

How about chansey?

+4 252- SpA Mewtwo-Mega-X Stored Power (260 BP) vs. -2 252 HP / 252 SpD Mewtwo-Mega-X in Psychic Terrain: 3079-3624 (431.2 - 507.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Today is not ur lucky day. Rip chansey (yes i made it the correct HP, but i did ignore eviolite cuz at 500% who cares) even if chan wins the speed tie it dies cuz sash!

You send out aerilate Ray, but since psychic terrain is gay and terrain extender exists, ray is now an endangered species

Notice I have taken 1 mon. Matched it up against ALMOST EVERY SINGLE COUNTER NAMED and won with 3! moves.

That is one mon. The team built specifically for checking Bullshit is now gone because of ONE switch. Talk about a stakeout that continues until everything is dead.

Lets imagine regi has destiny bond and i know that.

Regi used destiny bond!
Mewtwo X used Encore!

rip regi.

Even if regi uses haze, he still dies to subsequent close combats.

I know this is a hypothetical situation but I have seen the mon described used under conditions similar to this with the same basic results.



So to conclude, every possible check to smash/drum has been crippled and this has created a perfect storm in which a centralizing move can be slapped on to most anything and can still be expected to win. Smash comes with no warning, and is not perdictable. Before the ev limit was lifted it was possible to spectral every deoxys you saw and get away with it, but now we have spectral dealing ~20% to possible smashers and that is just not enough to put any pressure on them, especially since these prospective smashers have 3 attacking moves to choose from while they batter away at you. Any of the ways I listed for dealing with smashers either ends up in your mon dead or momentum going to the opponent (except for chansey) how is that ok? Basically, it's far too hard to deal with, and we shouldn't have to deal with it anyway. Thanks for your time and please please please ban shell smash and/or belly drum.

 

[RR RR]

I honestly don't think belly drum/shell smash were anywhere near bannable in gen 6. Let me go over what changed.

1) Mons get full evs. I've heard that this "weakens" shell smash but anyone with any brains can see it really doesn't. If something can't tank power trip, it isn't gonna tank it after 252 evs. defense evs aren't gonna stop 1000 atk. they just aren't. If something CAN tank it, it would already have 252 evs in hp and defense anyway probably. But because the shell smash/belly drum mon has 252 evs, extreme speed/other priority usually does a pitiful amount of damage, almost always <50%. That means u can't really revenge kill it.

2) Priority Attacks is weakened. This happened in several different ways. First, gale wings was nerfed. For me that means no more d-ascent, which could normally take out 90% on most mons. This leaves espeed. As you guys know, ate was nerfed from gen 6 and mons have more defense, and the damage usually isn't sufficient to kill. I've seen damage as low as 30% taken on an espeed. not even enough to kill drummers. In addition, priority has a general bad time of it because of new abilities like queenly majesty phazing them out and making them far less common. So basically this check, which SINGLEHANDEDLY put smash in its place in gen 6, doesn't really exist.

3) Prankster was nerfed. This means no more encore on dark types. That REALLY HURTS. that was another of my go-to stops for setup in gen 6. Even without spectral thief/haze the extra turns were still enough to let me get around the threat. well that doesn't really work anymore. D-Bond was nerfed. As someone who doesn't use d-bond too much I'm not at liberty to say much here, except I imagine it can be annoying, especially without the threat of encore looming. Topsy turvy can't manage stuff anymore. This is pretty big. Topsy turvy was a big hit to setup and you can't really use it anymore because of targeting. And because you can't put any pressure at all on smashers they are free to batter away at you till they stall recover/ outpredict your switch and smash= u lose another mon. So you have to stay in to keep the "threat" of haze alive while your opponent either kills you or they switch and the momentum goes to the opponent.

4) Unaware isn't actually that good. People seem to think unaware is some magic answer but it really isn't. First off smashers are usually powerful enough to 2 hit or 3 hit (2 hit especially if it's a subpar wall like gyarados) So switching in often ISN'T an option. That means you lose 1 more mon. This is especially true if there is either hazards up, or your wall has taken ANY previous damage. It's important to note that without any passive healing it's almost impossible to maintain a wall at 100% (you can't run leftovers because spore) so you really have to run multiple walls. One for actually walling stuff, and one for stopping stuff like shell smash. Along with the fact that these walls have pretty short lifespans in general, there are new moves like sunsteel and moongeist to give them grief. This rules out notable walls such as Tina, audino, and solgaleo, and reduces many to subpar options like gyarados. To really hammer in just how bad this is, this is damage calc of a popular belly drum set vs gyarados.

252+ Atk Groudon-Primal Bonemerang (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gyarados-Mega: 156-186 (39.5 - 47.2%) -- approx. 32.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Yes groudon has alot of attack, but everything that smashes has around 170+ anyway so i don't see it as a big factor. Yes bonemerang is unresisted, but these mons tend to have 3 coverage moves, it isn't hard to find a unresisting move. It's true that this is a stab move but lots of potential drummers (mmx/ray/etc) have stab unresisted and mmx has super effective stab. Also it's important to take in account that bonemerang is by no means some 150 power base move. It has 100 BP, and that isn't that powerful. Lots of moves have the capability to do more than that. This is my most important point: It is important to rmember that this is actually a pokemon battle, not a damage calculator were everything starts off at 100% and stays that way. It is so so so so so so so so so so so easy to deal 20% to a mon in a battle and have it go unhealed. Remember u-turn is super effective. I am tired of people telling me to run gyarados on the grounds that it theoretically checks shell smash. What I'm trying to say is that unaware doesn't work because it's a bad ability that doesn't do much to strengthen a mons ability to switch in/heal, it's a bad ability because two very common moves check it, and it's a bad ability because the niche answers (gyarados) that people purport can stop shell smash really can't. And even if it could check it, you have to stay in to heal while the momentum goes to the opponent

5) Chansey didn't really get nerfed in any big way but it is very difficult to beat smashers because some have unburden and you usually have to sacrifice a mon anyway to get chansey in. Also, because of defense debuffs, many can outdamage or kill chansey anyway. In my opinion, chansey is just worth more than smashers and I don't regard that as a very even trade. So basically when looking at chansey, you're often looking at best a 1-1 +heavy damage on one of your most valuble mons and at worst a 6 mon sweep.

6) Innards Out is banned. God rest it's soul.

So basically, as I see it, every possible check to smash/drum has been crippled and this has created a perfect storm in which a centralizing move can be slapped on to most anything and can still be expected to win. Smash comes with no warning, and is not perdictable. Before the ev limit was lifted it was possible to spectral every deoxys you saw and get away with it, but now we have spectral dealing ~20% to possible smashers and that is just not enough to put any pressure on them, especially since these prospective smashers have 3 attacking moves to choose from while they batter away at you. Any of the ways I listed for dealing with smashers either ends up in your mon dead or momentum going to the opponent (except for chansey) how is that ok? Basically, it's far too hard to deal with, and we shouldn't have to deal with it anyway. Thanks for your time and please please please ban shell smash and/or belly drum.

Suicide Leads, and also suicide steels, are here for you :P

[/hide]Clauses:

Click to view

Clauses should be reserved for complex cases where you'd either need a lot of individual bans, or it's more of a strategy that needs to be reduced. Saved for:

• Dominant strategies with either no checks, or the player has to choose between preparing for this specific strategy or the general meta
• Remove the emphasis of the game from skill to outside forces such as luck or amount of time the battlers have e.g. Endless Battle Clause
• Blanket limitations instead of going for multiple bans e.g. Ability Clause

Exception: No complex bans which disallow specific Pokemon from having specific moves, items, abilities or any combination thereof

Thanks
E4 Flint

Really, YOU NEED ALL YOUR TEAM TO BE PREPARED FOR SLEEPING.


SUSPECT FOR THE SLEEP CLAUSE PLEASE

 

[jrm115]

gengar fucked stall last gen too
things arent broken because everyone uses them, brokenness is separate from that.
gengar got more popular, and more attention this gen because someone actually capitalized on gengarites potential.
to be clear, i am not in favor of a gengarite ban, but shrugging something off as "not getting better" isnt an anti ban argument, because usage changes, things can come to people's attention and banning philosophys change (ex. why flint says he would have banned sleep in gen5)

 

[cityscapes]

Suicide Leads, and also suicide steels, are here for you :P

how do suicide leads help against smash/drum ?_? this makes no sense

Really, YOU NEED ALL YOUR TEAM TO BE PREPARED FOR SLEEPING.

SUSPECT FOR THE SLEEP CLAUSE PLEASE

would you mind explaining why this is the case? i mean like safety goggles isn't that hard to slap on a random mon. ofc regigigas can just knock it off but regigigas is a different beast entirely.

 

[RNGIsFatal]

Really, YOU NEED ALL YOUR TEAM TO BE PREPARED FOR SLEEPING.

SUSPECT FOR THE SLEEP CLAUSE PLEASE

1. There are so many viable ways to prevent sleep such as using Poison Heal and Magic Bounce which has so much more viability outsides simply blocking sleep.

2. Speaking based on my personal experience but I am pretty sure 70+% of us here will know this: sleep spammers are more scarce in higher ladders because most people are already prepared with any 'mons with aforementioned abilities or Safety Goggles (If you are going to argue forcing the usage of Safety Goggles makes Sleep Clause necessary, I don't know what to tell you tbh).

3. Wait for Gengarite poll. I DO hate Shell Smash, I don't like sleep spams. But we can talk about these stuff after we vote on Gengarite poll, and decide what to do about it. I will happily join discussion, I promise.

 

[Funbot28]

Yet again, I still hold the opinion their are bigger issues to address before we start discussing Gengarite (aka Primal Groudon), that should be discussed first imo. The fact that we have a mon that basically necessitates either Fur Coat Giratina or Zygarde to be used on every serious BH team (and still, Pdon has so much set versatility that it can easily circumvent the aforementioned threats) on top of it being difficult to scout due to the amount of viable variant it can run b/w its offensive sets is absolutely absurd and should not be tolerated with any longer. While I am open to the Gengarite discussion (although I dont believe its banworthy), we should talk about our red lizard friend first.

 

[E4 Flint]

Gengarite suspect poll should be going live this weekend. After reading and listening to opinions from various bh players from all over the ladder, as well as laddering myself I am also considering adding Magnet Pull into contention. My options for this poll will be

• Suspect Gengarite
• Suspect Gengarite and Magnet Pull
• Do not Suspect anything

Feel free to discuss any of the above in this thread. I will put my full reasoning on why I am planning on polling for these options when the thread goes up and after I read whatever has been discussed here. I read every post so don't be afraid about not being heard.

E: Quickban is not a current option on my mind right now for either since I don't feel they are "pressing enough"