Ladder Balanced Hackmons

[0pr4h]

If BH looks like it is starting to die, we may need to go back to the older version. I don't want a cool OM getting completely rejected just because of a change.

 

[Rumors]

I would be much quicker to blame school/college starting back for most people than any changes made to the meta for the lack of activity.

 

[Beta.]

how do people feel about the suspect thread opening up on Sunday? Is that a fine time, is it too soon, etc?

I think we should not open it tomorrow. The point of the suspects were to find out what is broken in the tiers we have. The problem of this is that as adrian said, barely anyone has been playing as of lately. So nobody has been up to date with the metagame, sadly. At least wait a week so more people have a chance to do something in the meta, instead of it being a dead meta, as that's what it kinda is now. I would wait a bit more before something continues. So right now, just sit and wait, at least a week before opening the thread.

 

[Halliday]

Well, I say open a suspect thread with a laddering requirement, and then have the voting go on in a week. Allow people to get examples of how broken / not broken whatever is being tested is and basically make the main ladder a suspect ladder. I know we're too small for two ladders, but one suspect ladder could be enough

 

[Rumors]

The meta is definitely had some time to stabilize I've been playing a decent bit recently and I can say with confidence -ate is all over the damn place. That replay is a more ridiculous example, but all of the serious high ranking teams I've seen have both one or more -ate abusers and have one or more -ate counters. The only people not using -ate are those who are sub 1250ish.

Anecdotal, yes, since I've not saved literally every replay I've seen or watch, but I can say with confidence -ate is becoming very centralizing and I don't see a reason to continue waiting. I'm getting tired of every match against decent or better players boiling down to "whose -ates are better" and/or "whose -ate counters are better".

 

[E4 Flint]

I have had a team without -ate and done a tad better than 1250. Not bad for nub lel -ates are not terribly bad since they're mostly predictable and in fact I think protean is the stronger ability overall

I think what actually happened is not that people are using -ates but more that they have no idea what to do if someone else uses their ingenious idea yet so def not stabilized

 

[Lcass4919]

The meta is definitely had some time to stabilize I've been playing a decent bit recently and I can say with confidence -ate is all over the damn place. That replay is a more ridiculous example, but all of the serious high ranking teams I've seen have both one or more -ate abusers and have one or more -ate counters. The only people not using -ate are those who are sub 1250ish.

Anecdotal, yes, since I've not saved literally every replay I've seen or watch, but I can say with confidence -ate is becoming very centralizing and I don't see a reason to continue waiting. I'm getting tired of every match against decent or better players boiling down to "whose -ates are better" and/or "whose -ate counters are better".

the thing about ilate, is that unlike other abilities bar one, EVERY pokemon in the game has potential to check/counter it given they have access to kings sheild. i use ks on most of my offensive pokemon(one per team obs), and honestly, i dont have problems with ilate. sure boomburst scares my teams a bit, but even then, chansey also deals with ilate rather nicely. given i havent been in the meta like...EVERY day considering i have better things to do nowadays, but on the occasional times ive battled, both mine and flints team runs a simple check to ilate, and both of us have minor problems with ilate. and its really simple to put a Kings sheild on a poke, it could be protean, it could be PH it can be anything, and suddenly your opponents ilate becomes a joke. honestly, ilate is one of those abilities, that if you dont take time to counter (like imposter) it, its obviously going to take your team and destroy it. best way to stop the revenge killer? make your offensive pokes immune.

 

[Arcticblast]

The meta is definitely had some time to stabilize I've been playing a decent bit recently and I can say with confidence -ate is all over the damn place. That replay is a more ridiculous example, but all of the serious high ranking teams I've seen have both one or more -ate abusers and have one or more -ate counters. The only people not using -ate are those who are sub 1250ish.

Anecdotal, yes, since I've not saved literally every replay I've seen or watch, but I can say with confidence -ate is becoming very centralizing and I don't see a reason to continue waiting. I'm getting tired of every match against decent or better players boiling down to "whose -ates are better" and/or "whose -ate counters are better".

turn 7 was literally the worst play I've ever seen oh my god

his Xerneas was faster than his entire team (save the opponent's own Xerneas and burd) and hit them all super effective and he just LET IT DIE WHAT THE FUCK

 

[E4 Flint]

Yeah exactly and if he had protected or scouted for his tran he'd have done markedly better. Ofc this is hindsight but I feel like that replay shows more inexperience than -ates being superior to anything else the tier can offer

 

[Lcass4919]

Yeah exactly and if he had protected or scouted for his tran he'd have done markedly better. Ofc this is hindsight but I feel like that replay shows more inexperience than -ates being superior to anything else the tier can offer

also both teams were ilate spammers, which doesnt really show the "brokeness" of ilate.

 

[CactusCacti]

Well to be fair, back in the day I used to patch up my teams with a backup chansey to save it when things get too rough.
Nowdays the patch up a pixilate xerneas.

Add one -ate and even the shittest gimmick teams suddenly start fairing 100% better does tell something about the power of the -ate spam

 

[Rumors]

I'm saving my arguments for the actual suspect thread since this isn't the place, but let just say one thing. Look at the picture and the team in the below spoiler and ask yourself this: does a team that poorly built and deliberately as poorly played as I show you in the replay above deserve to be that high on the ladder? I'd argue it shouldn't even be breaking 1250.

Whether you think it's ban worthy or not, I seriously believe this is worth discussing in the suspect thread.

bad team that should be bad but isn't

I'm ranked 34 on there, user Its come to this. This team doesn't deserve 1500, which is high ladder territory. I could go higher, or probably even peak if I felt like it (and I don't because I really don't want to peak a shit team), but Real Life™ demands my attention right now and I probably won't get back to playing it tonight. And yes, that's me in the above replay. Yes, I built a purposely shit team. Yes, I purposely played it like shit (hell, half the time I was doing other things and just pausing to click an -ate move.) No, that's not Photoshop, you can go look on the ladder right now.

It also annoys me it's doing this well with so little thought. My ability clause pls team required a lot of thought into both building and playing to fully abuse the lack of ability clause. This one? I just click Boomspeed while doing other things and win games. It's stupid as hell.

Kyurem-Black @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Extreme Speed
- Infestation
- Bolt Strike

Kyurem-White @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Boomburst
- Earth Power
- Blue Flare
- Switcheroo

Xerneas @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Feint
- ExtremeSpeed
- Thousand Arrows
- Heart Swap

Xerneas @ Life Orb
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Boomburst
- Stealth Rock
- Sacred Fire
- ExtremeSpeed

Rayquaza @ Lum Berry
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpA
Lonely Nature
- Fake Out
- ExtremeSpeed
- Boomburst
- Rapid Spin

Yveltal @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Fake Out
- ExtremeSpeed
- Boomburst
- Knock Off

 

[Lcass4919]

I'm saving my arguments for the actual suspect thread since this isn't the place, but let just say one thing. Look at the picture and the team in the below spoiler and ask yourself this: does a team that poorly built and deliberately as poorly played as I show you in the replay above deserve to be that high on the ladder? I'd argue it shouldn't even be breaking 1250.

Whether you think it's ban worthy or not, I seriously believe this is worth discussing in the suspect thread.

bad team that should be bad but isn't

I'm ranked 34 on there, user Its come to this. This team doesn't deserve 1500, which is high ladder territory. I could go higher, or probably even peak if I felt like it (and I don't because I really don't want to peak a shit team), but Real Life™ demands my attention right now and I probably won't get back to playing it tonight. And yes, that's me in the above replay. Yes, I built a purposely shit team. Yes, I purposely played it like shit (hell, half the time I was doing other things and just pausing to click an -ate move.) No, that's not Photoshop, you can go look on the ladder right now.

It also annoys me it's doing this well with so little thought. My ability clause pls team required a lot of thought into both building and playing to fully abuse the lack of ability clause. This one? I just click Boomspeed while doing other things and win games. It's stupid as hell.

Kyurem-Black @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Extreme Speed
- Infestation
- Bolt Strike

Kyurem-White @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Boomburst
- Earth Power
- Blue Flare
- Switcheroo

Xerneas @ Safety Goggles
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Feint
- ExtremeSpeed
- Thousand Arrows
- Heart Swap

Xerneas @ Life Orb
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Boomburst
- Stealth Rock
- Sacred Fire
- ExtremeSpeed

Rayquaza @ Lum Berry
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpA
Lonely Nature
- Fake Out
- ExtremeSpeed
- Boomburst
- Rapid Spin

Yveltal @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Fake Out
- ExtremeSpeed
- Boomburst
- Knock Off

wasnt your past arguement the exact same in regards to the ability clause? lol. your rmt of your ph abuse...you specificly said "In reality, the counter can stop one, two, or, if it's really lucky, maybe even three of the same thing. But, especially in BH where even a hard counter can find it difficult to OHKO or completely shutdown the thing it's supposed to be countering, the counter will eventually be overwhelmed and, shortly after that, the rest of the opposing team can easily follow." basically, this team is the prime example of this, and thus, is rendered irrelevant in terms of arguments about brokenness. something to consider is treating ilates as one such ability (just like huge power and pure power could be considered such) and limit them to the ability clause.

 

[Fossil_Maniac_27]

I've gotten in the top 100 and have never used -ate, but I have gone to the extremes before in order to stop it, usually, I switch in sturdninja, then volt switch out of their switch-in, but I also ran tentacruel for a period of time, and even a pixilate mm2x just to kill kyurems.

 

[Adrian Marin]

I've reached #20 and above iirc with a gimmick team; ladder ranks in the Other Metagames don't really prove much, especially since a large part of the ladder lacks knowledge about the metagame.

 

[Fossil_Maniac_27]

I've reached #20 and above iirc with a gimmick team; ladder ranks in the Other Metagames don't really prove much, especially since a large part of the ladder lacks knowledge about the metagame.

I was mainly going for a counter argument on everyone using -ate, but I have noticed some really stupid things on the ladder, namely dazzling gleam.

 

[Rumors]

wasnt your past arguement the exact same in regards to the ability clause? lol. your rmt of your ph abuse...you specificly said "In reality, the counter can stop one, two, or, if it's really lucky, maybe even three of the same thing. But, especially in BH where even a hard counter can find it difficult to OHKO or completely shutdown the thing it's supposed to be countering, the counter will eventually be overwhelmed and, shortly after that, the rest of the opposing team can easily follow." basically, this team is the prime example of this, and thus, is rendered irrelevant in terms of arguments about brokenness. something to consider is treating ilates as one such ability (just like huge power and pure power could be considered such) and limit them to the ability clause.

The key difference between the Poison Heal team and this one is the Poison Heal team not only has, but also required, actual synergy to be threatening. (Before that one, I tried 6 half-assed PH Gigas and it just got steamrolled by anyone decent.) It also required thought, strategy, and paying attention in battle. This -ate team has none of that. I just tossed it together with little thought, changed a move or two down the line after losing to a dumb gimmick here and there, and play it just as thoughtlessly in the background while I do other things.

Also worth noting: of the ten losses it has, seven of them were because it had better played -ates and a mon or two to support them. Of the remaining three, two were the same team abusing evasion before I slapped on Heart Swap and the last was a mono-Shuckle team that happened to turn out to be a team of six checks to what I was running and could have been soloed by a single Magic Guard sweeper or offensive Prankster Taunt user.

Also also worth noting: I've not seen an absence of -ates on 1400+ teams which, while "anyone" can achieve that, is still tough enough of a rating that the players who really don't understand the tier can't reach it or hold spots there. Everyone one of them, from 1400 to 1600, has had at least one -ate, usually two or three, and two or three checks to their own -ate sets. I forget who they all were, but this does include both Nike and someone who I think may have been one of Lance's alts. Even if it's not broken, it's centralized as hell. Like, more common than Chansey centralized as hell.


Edit: Lemme add that'd I'd be okay with counting all -ates together under ability clause, since that'd be better than the current situation. But it'd still only be a bandaid, sort of like the 3 BP users per team thing implemented on OU before it got later restricted to 1.

 

[Lcass4919]

yeah, but the thing is, unlike ou, this is an ability we are talking about. an ability that once we ban, we begin to restrict the meta moreso then we are allready doing now. also on the topic of your poison heal team, i wasn't talking about your teams effectiveness in the meta,i was talking about what your sentence was saying. because that was the main reason for enforcing ability clause. which is basically "when you spam something, you eventually break teams enough for the rest to clean up" which is what ilatespam does. its the same if i had 6 contrary users...or protean users. obviously with 6 of the same concept sets you will break through the counters and sweep easy. i am just saying, you don't NEED synergy to break counters.

like, ilate is a huge threat, dont get me wrong, and if people agree with you, then ill just go with the flow and let it happen. but i have never really had problems with ilate users barring the rare few.

 

[E4 Flint]

I think I get and agree with what Lcass is saying. Citing "if you have enough you'll break the counter and win" as a reason of op-ness can be used with literally any ability which should've been solved by your earlier Ability Clause proposal. The only reason it's not is cause there are three of these abilities and should theoretically be solved if they are bucketed together as well.

However I personally would like to add that I don't think they're op as all can be more or less solved easily by Chans, soundproof, a resist, Protean, and many more options. The simple fact is, as Lcass mentioned, that although -ate spam is somewhat mindless, stopping it (for now) is just as mindless with a single move usually doing the job and team preview only makes it easier. As adrian mentioned, having a high progress in the ladder is almost meaningless and does not necessarily account to something being overpowered especially when the ladder involved has experienced an intense downturn in regular users and an increase in newer ones (that would perhaps be more unfamiliar in how to stop these threats - for now?). Personally, the -ate spam hasn't even come close to the spore spam or the Ph gigas spam of BH gen 5.

My problem with banning is removing -ates from the game is only going to create openings for banning other seemingly "op" threats such as Gengar Mega and more protean users, some of which are already being discussed for this even with -ates being in the game. Next thing we know baton pass will be banned from BH too. Let's not act like -ates only bring negatives to the table. The most dominant abilities right now all check each other. Popularity as a reason for banning is not in spirit with what I view a ban should be for in BH i.e. something that is completely and irrevocably broken which has teams attempting to prepare for it in a multitude of ways but still are not able to provide a concrete answer to, a la Parental Bond, Sheer Cold and the rest. Especially relative to these latter banned things in BH -ates seem like such small fish.

Banning them will only create precedent for the inevitable further bans of Mewtwo Megas, Gengar Mega, Protean and the rest and I wouldn't want that to happen as BH would just be completely unrecognizable at that point. And all this because of a half operational ladder and personal bias.

Besides, you don't have any evidence for the other side of the tale. Have you made a team where you have had 2-3 -ate counters and have lost consistently and felt they were just beyond your considerable innovative ability to stop? You're a decent player Rumors, I'm sure you'd post similar win rate figures as your -ate team with a different team as well. Ladder state and inexperience is probably just as big a factor as -ates in your wins imo. I have had a largely unchanged team as I did for initial ev and damge calc testing post the change and have already made high ladder progress almost effortlessly (without -ates the first few times); that doesn't make anything I use necessarily op (they're all basic test mons) or good in synergy (probably one of the worst teams in that regard that I've made for a while).

 

[Fossil_Maniac_27]

I started using this quickly made -ate spam team to see just how good it was under a different account than my normal one. It is actually spookily effective, although part of that might just be the lower ladder kinda sucking. (I ran into a wurmple).

Ultimate -ate Spam

Kyurem-Black @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Refrigerate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Extreme Speed
- Fusion Bolt
- U-turn

Rayquaza @ Icicle Plate
Ability: Aerilate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Boomburst
- Thunderbolt
- Judgment
- Giga Drain

Rayquaza @ Life Orb
Ability: Aerilate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- ExtremeSpeed
- Dragon Claw
- Drain Punch
- Spiky Shield

Xerneas @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Pixilate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- ExtremeSpeed
- Fake Out
- Close Combat
- Shadow Claw

Shedinja @ Focus Sash
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- ExtremeSpeed
- Endeavor
- Volt Switch
- Recycle

Mewtwo-Mega-X @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Defog
- ExtremeSpeed
- Sacred Sword
- Spiky Shield

I think a ban on -ate is definitely something to look at. JungleB's post below also seems like it could work.

 

[JungleB]

I'm personally opposed to banning the -ates outright, but rather having them all be grouped together with the ability clause.

 

[Rumors]

Lcass4919 and E4 Flint Just keep in mind that this team and its performance is not the main thrust of my argument against -ates, or even a major part, but is rather me trying to get the suspect thread opened so I can discuss this in the proper place. Apologies if it came across that way as I might have gotten a little too caught up in posting to clarify that.

Also mind, while hard ban on -ates will be one of my proposals when the suspect thread opens, it's not the only one. Lcass hit one of them, though I don't feel it alone fully addresses the problem. I also have another complex ban in mind that keeps -ate as an ability legal (but bleh, complex bans). And there was a fourth one that I came up with and then promptly forgot before writing it down, but hopefully I'll be able to remember that one before the thread opens.

However, I'm going for this because well played and design -ates do not have any counters whatsoever. At least, not anymore. This isn't the first time I ran an -ate spam team. I did it once (and Mold Breaker abuse) prior to 510 and found neither of them to be broken. But times have changed. There are still checks, yes, but an -ate utilizing proper coverage means these checks are extremely risky and team preview eases prediction for the -ate user on guessing at a switch-in. I'm not pulling this out of my ass either. I've ran numbers and have about two pages of calculations for a completely unboosted mixed -ate, I mean not even even an offense-boosting nature, only EVs (and not even 252), netting either 2HKOs or 3HKOs on 12 different defensive or bulky sets using either -ate STAB or a single type of coverage (and yes, the same STAB/coverage combo is applied to all 12 of them, except when the STAB gets the job done on its own, and none of them are weak to the -ate part.) When the suspect thread opens, I'll provide these and any further calcs I make involving defensive or bulky Pokemon I forgot about who aren't weak to the STAB.

And yes, I don't have evidence of playing a 3-4 -ate counter team and getting steam rolled by them. This is simply because there is no way for me to ensure I can consistently run into a large variety of teams abusing -ate from a variety of players at a variety of skill levels. I can't control my opponent's team choices, and to do so I feel would defeat the purpose of such an experiment. I can, however, abuse it myself and consistently hit a variety of teams, players, and skill levels.

Apologies if I'm coming off as trying to be mysterious or something here. Verbatim made a suspect thread for talking about this sort of thing, so I don't feel this is the place to dump my full proposal. (Especially since that thing has come out to seven pages after addressing all of my points and the various counterpoints I can think of. Plus it needs some editing and revising still since it's a little disorganized.)

 

[E4 Flint]

Fair enough Rumors we shall verbally spar on a separate thread for this purpose. I'd just like to end with this however; if you feel that...

there is no way for me to ensure I can consistently run into a large variety of teams abusing -ate from a variety of players at a variety of skill levels. I can't control my opponent's team choices, and to do so I feel would defeat the purpose of such an experiment. I can, however, abuse it myself and consistently hit a variety of teams, players, and skill levels.

then that is directly at odds with

The meta is definitely had some time to stabilize I've been playing a decent bit recently and I can say with confidence -ate is all over the damn place. That replay is a more ridiculous example, but all of the serious high ranking teams I've seen have both one or more -ate abusers and have one or more -ate counters. The only people not using -ate are those who are sub 1250ish.

so either your premise of it being around too much is wrong, or you haven't fully explored the other side of the tale completely.

 

[Nike of Samothrace]

In complete agreement to all the aforementioned reasons for not banning -ate, it must also be said that -ate provides checks to mons that would otherwise run rampant, like mega Gengar and the mewtwos and just about every other glass cannon in the meta. Plus -ate is so easily destroyed with king's shield, it's a check that has checks, so I don't see why it's such a problem in regular play.
I've been playing a lot in the past few weeks, and haven't once finished a game and thought "WOW I hate -ate! It's so OP!"
What I have thought quite a few times after a game was "WOW I hate minimize! It's so toxic and provides nothing but agony for everyone!"
evasion clause ftw
-ate ban = unnecessary

 

[Arcticblast]

FUCK evasion oml