Banning philosophy revisited a.k.a. return of the revenge

[No Luck Involved]

@shinyskarmory: Your post pretty much proves how subjective the suspect process can be. Not only are there players who don't mind having consistency or not, there are players like you who actively encourage slippery slope. The process of continuously banning the most used things in the metagame would create a dynamic, always changing metagame which I have to agree could actually be quite fun.

I guess that's the third extreme: letting bans snowball until you get to Luvdisc in OU and then start all over again. Kind of like having 'seasons' of competition. But that begs the question of why not play OU one month, UU another, RU the next, and NU and then go back to OU and keep a consistent suspect system and let the player decide what they want to play at any time? I believe this is what the tiering system hopes to achieve, and I am a proponent of trying to perfect the process with consistency rather than variability.

 

[shinyskarmory]

@shinyskarmory: Your post pretty much proves how subjective the suspect process can be. Not only are there players who don't mind having consistency or not, there are players like you who actively encourage slippery slope. The process of continuously banning the most used things in the metagame would create a dynamic, always changing metagame which I have to agree could actually be quite fun.

I guess that's the third extreme: letting bans snowball until you get to Luvdisc in OU and then start all over again. Kind of like having 'seasons' of competition. But that begs the question of why not play OU one month, UU another, RU the next, and NU and then go back to OU and keep a consistent suspect system and let the player decide what they want to play at any time? I believe this is what the tiering system hopes to achieve, and I am a proponent of trying to perfect the process with consistency rather than variability.

Well, I'm glad I was able to prove a point then.

If everyone is using the same teams ad infinitum, is the game really worth playing? Who has gotten to #5 on the ladder with a team with interesting sets? Nobody. The teams we see at #5,#4, #1-they're always almost exactly the same as the ones that came before them. That's the real problem-in order to be truly successful in OU, you're running rain stall, sandstorm stall, or bulky offense.

@Jimera0: Bulky Offense is the Scizor/Rotom-W cores we've been seeing. It's last gen's T-tar/Scizor/Heatran Rock Paper Scissors games. It's basically stall with a sweeper tacked on to finish the job.

I'm glad you found RMTs that prove me wrong. I'm glad that some people still think. I'm glad that there is still SOME innovation, some spark of ingenuity. We need to give the spark tinder and twigs, so we can set it ablaze. We need to do everything we can to encourage innovation, and so far many of the pokemon that are high on the OU usage list stifle innovation. Sure, 20% usage is not EVERY team. But it's close enough that you can't play without seeing those teams. It doesn't matter if there have always been one or two archetypes dominating the ladder, because the point where there are many strategies that are all viable is the IDEAL metagame. Just like the Ideal Gas Law, which describes an IDEAL gas that can never exist, a metagame where everything is viable is the IDEAL metagame but also cannot exist. But does that mean we shouldn't TRY to reach it?

 

[Jimera0]

Hmmm ok looks like I got some things I want to reply to.

(my shit on SS + Drizzle here)

But still. Why? Why not banning the broken Swimmers (which, for 101% certainty, was Kingdra only), but complex banning Drizzle+SwSw instead? I'm sure banning Swift Swim under Drizzle was a MUCH bigger cut on variety than banning only a handful pokémon.

Well I have to admit that I didn't actually start playing BW until after Drizzle + SS was banned. Indeed I didn't start playing until the suspect round where Excadrill and Thundurus were under the magnifying glass. As such, all my opinions on the things that came before are based on what I've heard, not on what I know from experience. I had HEARD that SS in drizzle broke a ton of things, like Kabutops, Ludicolo etc as well as Kingdra, and having faced rain dance teams in generation IV I believed it. I mean, look at Kabutops, in rain it's basically Excadrill lite. Now, I can't say from experience though whether they were broken or not. If you were right and Kingdra was the only one that was broken with it, then yes, I would be for just banning Kingdra. But if it made a lot of others broken like others have claimed, then I'd still be fore the complex ban in order to minimize impact. I mean, just because things like Kabutops are less viable now than before doesn't mean you can't still USE them after all. I'm sure it's possible to make successful team with them if people would make the effort, and I like that option to be there if possible.

@No Luck Involved:

I really don't think that a "scientific" method of determining bans is any sort of reasonable. As you said there are WAY too many factors, and figuring out just how those factors interact and then coming up with some sort of objective determination of a Pokemon's power from it is impossible. Further more, even if we COULD do that we'd then have to determine where the cut off line is, and you know what? That'd put us right back where we are now, because determining that cut off line is completely subjective.

I also have an issue with the Suspect Test, primarily because, well, I don't trust the public to make smart choices for the entire metagame. I've noticed not just here but in every democratic process I've witnessed ever, two things about the way people vote:
1. Many, many people WILL vote selfishly about what benefits THEM the most, not the way that benefits EVERYBODY the most.
2. People are far to easily swayed by emotional pleas, especially if they appeal to their selfishness. "Do you want to lose because of this? Then ban it!" "OH SHIT I DON'T WANT TO LOSE BAN!"

So yeah, I thought the suspect testing was the worst thing ever. You don't need to be a reasonable person to get high on the ladder, so using that as a method to determine who was qualified to vote was basically a crap shoot. I much prefer the council system we have today where a small group of trusted members with varying opinions on the way the game should be come to a decision on it. Now we do have to be careful about who we let into that council, or we end up with the same problem as the suspect process, and preventing someone in power from stacking the odds in their view's favor is hard to reliably prevent. Ultimately, you're taking a risk either way, but I personally have more confidence in our current council than I would in a random selection of the most high ranked players in the tier.
(BTW this whole section is regarding OU, I don't know enough about the other tiers to comment on them).

Now there definitely SHOULD be some statistical reasoning put forward when making arguments for and against banning. If you saw my posts in the evasion discussion thread you'd know I used statistics as a cornerstone of many of my arguments. I do think they should also be given more weight than subjective viewpoints in some ways, as at least no one can double the authenticity of the numbers. But we need to be careful with statistics too, as the way they're presented can be done in a deceptive or misleading way, leading to false conclusions. Advertisers use this to their advantage all the time, able to convey false impressions with real numbers. In a Pokemon setting this would be, for instance, arguing that Heracross should be banned by putting forward the very convincing calculations that show it can OHKO every Pokemon in OU after one turn of set up (Seriously it can, SD, Toxic Orb, Megahorn, Close Combat, Facade). But obviously it's not broken for a host of other reasons, but just looking at that immediately coveys a "holy shit why do we allow this thing" sort of feel. Now everyone in reality knows why Heracross isn't Uber, but this scenario could easily be used to argue things like Haxorus, Chansey, Terrakion, ETC without giving the whole picture. Statistics are just tools, and in the wrong hands they can be as deceptive as anything else.

@ShinySkarmory:

Well there's a few problems with your viewpoint, at least to me. One, just because you had to go mainstream with your team to succeed doesn't mean everyone does. I'm at 1200 and climbing on the ladder right now with a weatherless, Volt-Turnless team that includes Mamoswine and Hitmontop. It is possible to do well without using cookie cutter teams, it just takes some knowhow and a willingness to experiment.

Two, the game is always going to be centralized around a few main threats no matter what we do. This comes down to human nature more than anything; once something has proven to be successful, a lot of people will go straight for it and start using it without bothering to look for their own ways to win. That's why Volt-Turn is so damn common right now, because people see it as an easy way to win. It's still perfectly possible to win without it, but a lot of people just don't care to deal with it. Now if we were to ban things like Scizor and Rotom-W, I can assure you it'd just bring new threats back into the limelight and we'd be back to where we were before. Seriously, name one point in OU history where there weren't two or three main team archetypes that dominated the ladder? I can't say I've ever experienced a time when it wasn't.

As such, we shouldn't be trying to make a metagame where everyone DOES use a wide variety of things, because that's an unrealistic goal. We should strive for a metagame where it's POSSIBLE to use a wide variety of tactics to win. The fact that things like the dual weather teams in that IRC competition could get to the top of the ladder in the current metagame is a testament to the fact that even bizarre play methods can win in today's metagame. I can say personally about how you don't need them to win either, as I haven't used a common archetype since my first successful team in OU months ago when Excadrill was still running around (it was a rain balance team) and that was when I was still getting to know BW OU. Now that I know it better, I can use whatever the hell I want and get it to work if I'm patient enough, and I do.

Finally, if you do get tired of seeing the same thing over and over, then you can move onto the lower tiers and try there for a while. I would like to say though that I doubt that those are any less centralized, and that if they ARE less centralized that it's not because of the banning policies, but because there are fewer people playing. The smaller the pool of players the less likely dominating archetypes are to emerge, or at least they'll take longer to emerge with less games and teams being made. And with how often the lower tiers have been changing over the course of this generation so far, it wouldn't surprise me if they never have had the time to settle down to core team archetypes yet. But again, I don't play the lower tiers so all this is speculation on my part, I can't say from experience.

EDIT:

If everyone is using the same teams ad infinitum, is the game really worth playing? Who has gotten to #5 on the ladder with a team with interesting sets? Nobody. The teams we see at #5,#4, #1-they're always almost exactly the same as the ones that came before them. That's the real problem-in order to be truly successful in OU, you're running rain stall, sandstorm stall, or bulky offense.

AHEM:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3464491
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3458509

Also "bulky offense" Is an incredibly broad term and not a true archetype. There are about 20 different Pokemon that could be and usually are used successful in "bulky offense". Unless you're talking about Volt-Turn, which is a whole other story.

 

[No Luck Involved]

Now there definitely SHOULD be some statistical reasoning put forward when making arguments for and against banning. If you saw my posts in the evasion discussion thread you'd know I used statistics as a cornerstone of many of my arguments. I do think they should also be given more weight than subjective viewpoints in some ways, as at least no one can double the authenticity of the numbers. But we need to be careful with statistics too, as the way they're presented can be done in a deceptive or misleading way, leading to false conclusions. Advertisers use this to their advantage all the time, able to convey false impressions with real numbers.

Yes this is precisely the reason why I have concerns about the current process and why I raised the possibility of having an objective system that is intrinsic to the suspect process (even if it is just a part of it).

Because the current system does not set out a way to proceed with discussions, facts and numbers and statistics can be 'gamed' or 'cooked' by anyone wanting to argue a point. I'm sure anyone can produce a very convincing argument for why Heracross is broken in OU by carefully showing the facts that are convenient to the argument and omitting others that aren't. It may not even be intentional, just some facts or statistics can jump out much more than others and people can gravitate towards a viewpoint without knowing it and through no fault of their own.

This is why I raised the question of incorporating an objective system into the suspect process somehow, to have the same method of determining facts and statistics for every suspect so everytime there is a more consistent picture appearing instead of stumbling on calcs or arguments as the discussions progress and being swayed one way or other. It could even help speed up the suspect process if one is optimistic enough. Note however that the subjective judgement process is still there, just I'd like to see an objective system for gathering data incorporated alongside it.

It's the difference between arriving at a crime scene and having a planned schedule of investigation to identify and sift though every piece of evidence, as opposed to arriving at a crime scene and having a free for all of who can find the crucial evidence first (or even worse, it's not found; or even even worse, we think we've found it but in reality we haven't).

 

[Hwang]

I can't really compete with the length of some statements people have made so far, and I'm really a terrible OU player, but I'll slip in here anyways.

The goal of banning things, be it an ability, move, or pokemon, is to enable more strategies to be used and to promote variety in the metagame. So far, I feel like we've done a good job so far. Thundurus, Excadrill, and Blaziken were all pretty much unstoppable in rain, sandstorm, and sun respectively (even in Ubers, Blaziken can 2HKO physically defensiveGiratina-A in the sun o_O). What I'm worried about are the number of pokemon that are used almost all the time.

In 4th Gen, which I played briefly near the release of B/W in Japan, I really didn't enjoy playing. Every match felt like a Rock-Paper-Scizors game between Tyranitar, Scizor, and Heatran. And if you weren't packing all 3 of them, or reasonable substitutes for one if you didn't feel like including it, you were pretty much screwed. This is an example of unhealthyness in the metagame; when 3 pokemon who counter each other basically become staples on every team just to counter each other.

In 5th gen, where I've played OU and laddered for a bit, I quickly got tired of it and stopped playing it, even leaving Smogon for a few months. The reason? I got tired of fighting the same, copypasted weather teams over and over again. The last straw for me was when I literally saw two identical teams (T-tar/Scizor/Gliscor/Ferrothorn/Jellicent/Excadrill (back during the Excadrill era, obviously)), followed by 3 consecutive games against nearly identical rain teams, with only one pokemon changing in between.

I'll be completely honest. I ragequit Smogon. What was the point of trying to come up with unorthodox sets, sets that were actually fun to play, when everyone recycled the same team and maybe changed one or two pokemon? I was losing games left and right, and I even fell to 860 at one point. I made a few comments on alts on the server about how certain pokemon who I found to be overcentralizing (like Tyranitar, Scizor, and Politoed) should be banned. And I meant it. Finally, I rescued my rating by going into the teambuilder and making the same team that everyone else was using, the same bulky offense sand team, and carried myself up to 1205 with it. But I was miserable. It was no fun to win using the same cookie-cutter sets and moves, and just playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to win. I wanted to enjoy myself while laddering, which is a pretty much impossible task when everyone is using the same team.

When we ban things, the goal should not be to ban things which are "broken" if they are only slightly slow. The goal should be to decentralize the metagame. To make more sets, more team strategies, more pokemon viable. It should not be to ban anything and everything which breaks our precious Ferrocent cores.

With that in mind, we should be suspect testing not the pokemon who are viewed as broken, but the ones who are used the most. These are the ones who are clearly limiting variety; pokemon which are not being used much in OU are not limiting variety as much as the ones who are used all the time. I like the way UU and RU ban, simply because they look at pokemon like Lilligant and Sigilyph in RU's case, who are clearly centralizing in their tiers. Why should OU ban differently when it is clear that UU and RU have many more viable pokemon, a much more enjoyable metagame, and lots of experimentation? OU is currently stagnating, and has been for months, so changes need to be made to encourage variety, whether they come from new dream world releases (uncontrollable), new game mechanics (maybe in Black and White 2), or from bans. Since bans are the only thing we as a community can control, more must be enacted to promote variety.

I 90% agree with this. I have 3 or 4 teams that don't use any of the main strategies and do relatively well (Around 1200 points). I never use Rain, Sand, Volt-Turn, or even Sun. I also never use Pokemon that are in the Top 10 usage. Honestly, it's not fun nor is it rewarding to win with teams that everybody else uses. You can still win with teams that don't use copy pasted strategies, it just takes more prediction and skill.

The problem with the metagame is the lack of creativeness. 4/5 teams that I see are either Rain or Sand, and it is no fun to keep playing against the same damn teams over and over. So I think that maybe we should ban on usage instead of brokenness. Pokemon that are broken will rise to the top of the usage charts anyway. Pokemon shouldn't just be about making the best team, but making a team that is actually creative and good at the same time. I'm tired of seeing the same damn copy-pasted strategies all the time. It's gotten to the point where I commend people for not using Sand or Rain teams.

Also, I feel like the main counters for the top 10 used Pokemon, are other Pokemon in the top 10. Ex: Any time Terrakion comes out, I pretty much have to death fodder something. Terrakion's main counter is Scizor, but I have to use Focus Sash Dugtrio most of the time to counter it, and since Dugtrio can't switch into Terrakion, I have to let something get KO'd so I can bring Dugtrio in safely.

But alas, I don't think that banning high usage Pokemon will actually solve much. If we ban Scizor and the likes, other Pokemon will just take its place as an extremely overused Pokemon. I think we should just make it more viable to use different strategies and teams.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

I think I am a perfect example of why "fun" is subjective. I find a sickening pleasure of making a team someone can't break through, stopping all their sweepers, and phasing them to death. I’m sorry but I find that hilarious, while others find that annoying or boring. In fact I hate it when metagames get more diverse, then I have to deal with more stuff lol.

Jamero dealt with the anti-complex bans arguments well enough, even if he is a moderate. I don't think it would be in my best interest to go against him when most of the people here seem to be against them ;).

There is one point I would like to bring up, and that is "luck." I don't feel that there is any real luck behind potential evasion strategies. When someone spams double team, they really aren't looking to get lucky; they are looking to stay around. There is about as much luck in double team as there is Jirachi iron head spamming. For that reason I don't think evasion is exactly anti skill, but more of really anti-desirable metagame. I haven't played much in nintendo clause-less metagames, but from what I have seen, they are terrible. A good handful of games turn into massive miss fests that even the most dedicated staller would be disgusted with. Sure that is subjective, but when such a massive amount of the player base hates that, it isn't good to allow it. The success in the moody strategy, which only raises evasion 1/7 of the time, shows how dangerous regular evasion boosting is.

I find this different from "hax" abilities and items as they, at the moment, are having few people truly abusing them and don't continually boost up evasion. Also because of their lower miss rates, they fall more into the range of straight up luck rather than an actual strategy (although yes people can still abuse them).

This kinda of argument at the surface, though, puts in question the 1HKO clause. As there is nothing inherently, and competitively, wrong with giving you Lapras sheer cold to break through Blissey, it is just as "wrong" as giving a primarily special attacker physical moves to break through special walls. I could sympathize with 1HKO moves if they were just used like that, but they aren't. 1HKO moves can and will be continually spammed until whatever dies, which is pretty ridiculous to be honest. 30% isn't that terrible either for spamming for a 1 hit kill on everything, so it might even straight up fall into the range of "over powered." Although I am much more open to testing 1HKO moves rather than evasion boosting as 1HKO moves are much less common in distribution.

 

[Glen ^^]

Less team building liberty? What are you talking about? On the contrary bans should give you more freedom with team building (for example now you can make your team with no worries about an excadrill sweeping you).

Now you have to worry about Dragonite Dragon Dancing and rainstall. But this time you're actually forced to counter them, since there's no way to create a bigger threat for yourself. Awesome.

Remember Lt. Surge's post on the start of DP, about how Pokemon was going to be about building your strategy, and not countering every single threat out there?

We not only considered "what counters what" when deciding bans, but also helped bringing back this dreaded model of metagame. Move over Advance generation already.

 

[The QWAZ]

I will apologies in advance for any grammar mistakes

To be honest i don't think double team is broken, if you play challenge cup you will see it is fairly easy to stop something before they set up to many. Complex bans are dangerous and should only be implemented if totally necessary; as some of you may know there is a huge sand veil debate in UU currently with many members pushing for a ban on it, doing so would result in a ban on sandslash and cacturn, exactly.
to deal with bans more effectively a suspect ladder should be set up allowing garchomp, manaphy ect. to be tested in OU. This would be a huge benefit for the metagame as some pokemon were only banned due to the popularity of others or other broken pokemon, this is especially true in the case of thunderus. Back then terrakion and landorus where non-existent and scarfers were unviable due to excadrill, this allowed thuderus to outsped most of OU and beat it down with superb coverage. However in todays metagame scarfers are indeed viable as shown by the usage of terrakion and landourus both of whom are primarily used as scarfers, thus allowing thunderus to be kept in check.
now, i think the banning process is unfair and promotes elitism as only top users are allowed to decide the fate of a meatagame, with lesser known users being ignored or brushed of as noobs, to avoid this we should have a system where a ladder is put in place with said suspect allowed on it for a certain time period, if the mods or admins revive hard evidence in the form of replays or battle logs that said pokemon is broken they should proceed to ban said pokemon. this system would have issues but i belive it is better than the current elitist system.
glitches are a tricky point as i have no experience with them (except missingno) but if they cause issues or a outright broken they should be banned or un-implemented from the battle servers.
this isn't as impressive or as detailed as some arguments, but it is the best i can do
thank you for reading

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Well I have to admit that I didn't actually start playing BW until after Drizzle + SS was banned. Indeed I didn't start playing until the suspect round where Excadrill and Thundurus were under the magnifying glass. As such, all my opinions on the things that came before are based on what I've heard, not on what I know from experience. I had HEARD that SS in drizzle broke a ton of things, like Kabutops, Ludicolo etc as well as Kingdra, and having faced rain dance teams in generation IV I believed it. I mean, look at Kabutops, in rain it's basically Excadrill lite. Now, I can't say from experience though whether they were broken or not. If you were right and Kingdra was the only one that was broken with it, then yes, I would be for just banning Kingdra. But if it made a lot of others broken like others have claimed, then I'd still be fore the complex ban in order to minimize impact. I mean, just because things like Kabutops are less viable now than before doesn't mean you can't still USE them after all. I'm sure it's possible to make successful team with them if people would make the effort, and I like that option to be there if possible.

Kingdra, Kabutops and Ludicolo were called the "broken trio", as they had ridiculous power and Speed under Rain and more importantly, had no shared weakness to capitalize on. I won't deny it, the complex ban was necessary back then but, in hindsight, Kingdra was the only one 101% guaranteed to be an asshole; maybe Kabutops and Ludicolo could be manageable without Kingdra. Or maybe they were broken too. Or maybe Qwilfish would prove itself to be broken.

But this was never properly checked. This "impact" you talk of was guaranteed to affect only one pokémon, highly probably affect other two and possibly affect a handful of pokémon (Poliwrath, Qwilfish, Omastar, Gorebyss, Huntail, Floatzel). But only three pokémon dominated the Swift Swim niche; there isn't enough material to affirm every other Swimmer would be broken. In fact, even if, say, Qwilfish, Omastar, Poliwrath and Gorebyss were broken besides the original "broken trio", would it be worth complex banning Drizzle+SwSw instead of, you know, banning seven pokémon and letting 10+ others and a whole strategy be properly used in OU? I don't buy much of this "we let variety flourish by not banning pokémon!!!" when Kingdra is UU and is the most used Swimmer. We have 1 Swimmer in UU, 4 others in RU and everyone else in NU. N freaking U. Just like it's silly to defend Drizzle in OU because it lets Toxicroak and Parasect be used, we can't allow nerfing pokémon just so they can be used in more tiers.

And you can't build a team that's successful with Kabutops simply because you can't use Kabutops for its main selling factor. On the other hand, you can punish Drizzle players by randomly throwing a Swimmer in your team. Does it seem right to let a possible Uber punish a team just because this team uses a certain strategy and cannot use the supposedly Uber pokémon itself? Wouldn't it be more right to just ban that pokémon?

 

[Blatreutka]

I've been thinking about design and design processes a lot lately since it has been taking up the majority of my time for the last year and I think it applies here since we're basically designing a metagame.

The best designers, I found, are those who come up with iterations, those who aren't afraid to try and fail, those who learn from their mistakes. If you want to design something, you don't sit around and theorize for days about what might work or what something might achieve. You go out and you try it and you see what happens. Designers can't be afraid to fail, failing is what what makes the next design great. As long as you fail quickly and learn from it, there's no reason that it should even be a concern. That's where I think Smogon needs to improve. The ban process has been so rigid; people are so afraid to ban something that we spend weeks discussing what would happen if it were banned, whether it deserves to be banned, whether banning it would help decentralize. The unbanning process has been ignored so much that it left things like Mew and Deoxys-D in Ubers last generation when we've tested them and found them anything but broken (that said I applaud the Latias test last gen since that's exactly what needs to happen more, even though it was still found an uber). I look at Deoxys-N, who iirc was banned based on the assumption that banning Deoxyx-A would break it, and I think how can you know that if you never even tried it. Who knows, maybe Deo-N isn't broken and could be a valued part of the metagame. Even if it is broken, a quick test can tell you that and you can reban it and move on with your life. Sitting around waiting and theorizing just wastes time and means that you'll need to wait longer to have a better metagame. You shouldn't consider anything permanent because you can never predict everything, so locking yourself into something does nothing but slow you down and limit your options.

Anyway, that's just my opinion on how bans should be thought of.

 

[Ace Emerald]

Wow there are some pretty impressive text walls in this thread. I've never been one for extreme elaboration but I hope my post still gets attention because this is coming from a former flip-flopper, and current zealous moderate. I have put a lot of thought into my philosophy, and it is a compromise between both sides. Essentially, it is this: Unless a factor (ability, move, mechanic) is broken on all Pokemon relavent to the tier and if that number of Pokemon is significant, only Pokemon should be banned.

The reason why I feel this is the best banning philosophy is because it combines the best the two conflicting philosophies. Personally, I like the method of mainly moving Pokemon around. That method allows you remove undesirable characteristics (overpowered Pokemon) without really tampering with the inner workings of the game. It's not that you cannot use Exadrill, he is just a different strength of Pokemon. At the same time, my philosophy is flexible for cases and factors that are truly different (Moody, for example).

For the most part, my philosophy agrees with Smogon decisions. But the questions always becomes "Where do we draw the line?" My philosophy has a solution to that: if all Pokemon relavent to the tier are broken from the factor and there are a significant number of Pokemon relavent to the tier with that factor, ban it individually. Now, this in itself needs clarification. With Drizzle and Swift Swim, not every Pokemon that used the combo was broken. Luvdisc certainly wasn't. But we had a good number of Pokemon that became overpowered utilizing that combo, so the combo had to go (*). To compare this to a different but similar situation, it wasn't necessary to ban Sand Rush+Sand Stream because it wasn't relavent to a large number of Pokemon.

(*) Note: My philosophy would prefer Swift Swim banned outright, since that was a breaking factor for all Pokemon relavent. I don't mind that much, but I'd rather have just banned Swift Swim.

 

[The Truth]

This is a really interesting topic and there are a lot of interesting opinions and arguments going around, so I guess I'll throw in my piece on all of this.

One of the big example topics going around is Drizzle+Swift Swim, and the complex ban on these two abilities being used together. I feel like even setting aside the debate on whether swsw was "broken", there was something it was doing to the metagame that is universally frowned upon; overcentralizing. The vast majority of teams you would see around would be running drizzle+swift swim, and they would be using the same three swift swimmers. Kingdra, ludicolo, and kabutops found their way onto every swsw team, and with the usage imbalance at the time, this meant kingdra, ludicolo, kabutops, and of course politoed would be on virtually every team in standard ou. The teams not running swsw would have to focus most of their slots on countering this teamtype. Even if drizzle+swsw weren't "broken", it caused the same problem that deoxys-s hyper offense did, and I don't see much debate about the banning of deo-s.

This brings me to the subject of complex bans. I feel that generally bans should be simple, to avoid too much elaboration, but if a complex ban is overall the best option, my prefefence for clean-cut simple bans shouldnt get in the way if that. The majority of bans that have been done I absolutely agree with. For those saying that we should stick to entirely simple bans (moody is banned, excadrill is banned, etcetera) I have one thing to say. We've had one complex ban so far, and that was drizzle+swsw. I see nothing wrong with this ban. I've stated that this combination was overcentralizing, and I firmly believe it was broken as well. I think anyone who played during the swsw era knows that. Thanks to this ban, rain still exists in ou, and there's no discussion of banning rain right now. Rain was obviously not the problem if we can have a relatively healthy metagame where rain exists. Kabutops and kingdra are both relatively successful in lower tiers, but neither see use in ou now that they can't abuse drizzle+swsw. I don't really know what ludicolo is doing so no comment there. Thanks to Aldaron's Proposal, a large number of pokemon were saved from going to ubers, and at least three metagames have more toys to play with. Sending politoed or the broken abusers to ubers would have done the opposite of promoting diversity. The abusers in question are still available to play with, and nobody wants rain dance teams sent to ubers. In short the only reason people disagree with this ban is because it was complex. I hear examples like swift swim luvdisc being brought up. My answer to this is, would anyone be using luvdisc anyway? I think having a metagame with both rain and kingdra available is worth sacrificing a pokemon which wouldnt see use anyway.

 

[X5Dragon]

I play on PO nowadays but I've played extensively at smogon fr about a year and these two servers follow eachother almost religiously when it comes to bannings and their policies (also the fact my PO forum alt has like 1 post) making any change here will effect both servers given time.

Anyhow past is past, no use discussing it, the future however is very clear, no more complex bans, no more ban an entire Pokemon because of one overpowered ability, it's the past.

The new way is gonna be ban sand veil Garchomp to uber, rough skin chomp is OU. I don't care how much programming it takes, it is doable and it's a one time effort, it's ridiculous how the PO programmers have taken the complex ban solution as "well that patches the hole" instead of "this is a temp solution until we figure a permanent fix".

Second is the toleration of users screaming hax and hurling insults (battle rage) whenever a critic or 10% status happens using a certain move. I'm guilty of I and I'm sure some noob out there has a log of me raging because of something similar and keeping it as a trophy. It's not a newbie thing, most people are convinced that these effects are unfair disregarding the fact that people do use these moves or choose them in the first place over other similar moves because of these effects. Zero-tolerance policy should be implemented to stomp out this behavior for good.

Less important on my list is a call to implement a para clause. It has an widespread, 100% spammable move, unlike sleep this cripples the mon for the remainder of the battle and in OU of all places a para Pokemon is good for only taking that Draco Meteor and bringing relief to its user by dying (or the opponent is super smart to detect a potential fodder toss and instead bring a setup user and then your really screwed). It is comparable in every way to spore and sleep and arguably much more used, much more devastating and has better users then say spore. Jirachi in particular comes in mind.

My 0.02$.

 

[pharaohcalvin]

Kingdra, Kabutops and Ludicolo were called the "broken trio", as they had ridiculous power and Speed under Rain and more importantly, had no shared weakness to capitalize on. I won't deny it, the complex ban was necessary back then but, in hindsight, Kingdra was the only one 101% guaranteed to be an asshole; maybe Kabutops and Ludicolo could be manageable without Kingdra. Or maybe they were broken too. Or maybe Qwilfish would prove itself to be broken.

But this was never properly checked. This "impact" you talk of was guaranteed to affect only one pokémon, highly probably affect other two and possibly affect a handful of pokémon (Poliwrath, Qwilfish, Omastar, Gorebyss, Huntail, Floatzel). But only three pokémon dominated the Swift Swim niche; there isn't enough material to affirm every other Swimmer would be broken. In fact, even if, say, Qwilfish, Omastar, Poliwrath and Gorebyss were broken besides the original "broken trio", would it be worth complex banning Drizzle+SwSw instead of, you know, banning seven pokémon and letting 10+ others and a whole strategy be properly used in OU? I don't buy much of this "we let variety flourish by not banning pokémon!!!" when Kingdra is UU and is the most used Swimmer. We have 1 Swimmer in UU, 4 others in RU and everyone else in NU. N freaking U. Just like it's silly to defend Drizzle in OU because it lets Toxicroak and Parasect be used, we can't allow nerfing pokémon just so they can be used in more tiers.

And you can't build a team that's successful with Kabutops simply because you can't use Kabutops for its main selling factor. On the other hand, you can punish Drizzle players by randomly throwing a Swimmer in your team. Does it seem right to let a possible Uber punish a team just because this team uses a certain strategy and cannot use the supposedly Uber pokémon itself? Wouldn't it be more right to just ban that pokémon?

I got to agree with Mario here. Now that our meta is in a real nice balanced place, this seems like a perfect time to take a look at this complex ban, because, complex bans create a bias towards letting some pokemon "continue" usage in the tier. (None of them do) Then thus limit other pokemon's usage, for all we know, Qwilfish could have his chance at OU, and Kabutops and Ludi without the trio's leader could be able to stay. I guess part of what I am trying to say is that this ban, just allows stuff that are broken to stay in the game at the cost of other pokemon, which can possibly be usable in OU.

 

[No Luck Involved]

@The Truth: Not wanting to turn this into a SwSw + Drizzle thread but I have to disagree that the ban has kept diversity in the metagame. It wasn't a ban about Kingdra, Kabutops, Ludicolo and Luvdisc; it was a ban affecting this additional list of Pokemon too: Armaldo, Beartic, Carracosta, Floatzel, Golduck, Gorebyss, Huntail, Lumineon, Mantine, Omastar, Poliwrath, Qwilfish, Relicanth, Seaking and Seismitoad. It effectively delcared a blanket ban on all of the above and that whole playstyle with little to no testing done on most of them.

It was sold as good logic but whether it was the 'right option' as you describe it is very much up for debate. Is testing and banning the SwSw Pokemon one by one really so obviously worse as an option that it hasn't even been tested?

 

[X5Dragon]

You don't even have to test them one by one, the three users who make the decision nowadays can have a rotating number of "advisors" raising red flags (besides skyrocketing usage stats) and then decide to introduce test discussions into the public.

 

[Jimera0]

This is a really interesting topic and there are a lot of interesting opinions and arguments going around, so I guess I'll throw in my piece on all of this.

One of the big example topics going around is Drizzle+Swift Swim, and the complex ban on these two abilities being used together. I feel like even setting aside the debate on whether swsw was "broken", there was something it was doing to the metagame that is universally frowned upon; overcentralizing. The vast majority of teams you would see around would be running drizzle+swift swim, and they would be using the same three swift swimmers. Kingdra, ludicolo, and kabutops found their way onto every swsw team, and with the usage imbalance at the time, this meant kingdra, ludicolo, kabutops, and of course politoed would be on virtually every team in standard ou. The teams not running swsw would have to focus most of their slots on countering this teamtype. Even if drizzle+swsw weren't "broken", it caused the same problem that deoxys-s hyper offense did, and I don't see much debate about the banning of deo-s.

This brings me to the subject of complex bans. I feel that generally bans should be simple, to avoid too much elaboration, but if a complex ban is overall the best option, my prefefence for clean-cut simple bans shouldnt get in the way if that. The majority of bans that have been done I absolutely agree with. For those saying that we should stick to entirely simple bans (moody is banned, excadrill is banned, etcetera) I have one thing to say. We've had one complex ban so far, and that was drizzle+swsw. I see nothing wrong with this ban. I've stated that this combination was overcentralizing, and I firmly believe it was broken as well. I think anyone who played during the swsw era knows that. Thanks to this ban, rain still exists in ou, and there's no discussion of banning rain right now. Rain was obviously not the problem if we can have a relatively healthy metagame where rain exists. Kabutops and kingdra are both relatively successful in lower tiers, but neither see use in ou now that they can't abuse drizzle+swsw. I don't really know what ludicolo is doing so no comment there. Thanks to Aldaron's Proposal, a large number of pokemon were saved from going to ubers, and at least three metagames have more toys to play with. Sending politoed or the broken abusers to ubers would have done the opposite of promoting diversity. The abusers in question are still available to play with, and nobody wants rain dance teams sent to ubers. In short the only reason people disagree with this ban is because it was complex. I hear examples like swift swim luvdisc being brought up. My answer to this is, would anyone be using luvdisc anyway? I think having a metagame with both rain and kingdra available is worth sacrificing a pokemon which wouldnt see use anyway.

Ok, this pretty much sums up my view on SS + Drizzle pretty well. I'd just like to point out one thing to people who are claiming that this ban didn't promote variety at all because former abusers of it now have fallen to the lower tiers.

I'd like to point out that those Pokemon can still be used in the lower tiers. The thing with sending something to Uber is that it restricts the metagames a Pokemon can be used in to just ONE tier. While things like Qwilfish, Kabutops and Ludicolo might've been moved to Uber and seen no usage at all had we decided them broken, now they all see respectable use within their respective tiers. It isn't just about maintaining variety in OU, but in the metagame as a whole. Sure they might not be very viable in OU anymore, but at least you can use them SOMEWHERE without getting laughed at. Sending something to Ubers that can't function there is like a death sentence for that Pokemon; it'll never see much usage again, at least not until the next generation. At least this way they can still be used viably, except for things like Luvdisc which were never viable anywhere to begin with. So yes, now you can't use things like Floatzel and Gorebyss on your Drizzle Team, but in return you can use Kingdra, Ludicolo, Qwilfish, Omastar and others elsewhere, or even in OU if you're feeling bold. Overall, the Drizzle + SS ban made maybe one or two Pokemon almost never used even in NU, while it allowed 3 or more to be used unlimited in the lower tiers. I think just in terms of sheer numbers that's a pretty good trade off.

And btw I think discussing Drizzle + SS is not bad for this topic because it is perhaps the most poignant case study we have available to discuss complex bans, variety and so forth. By discussing it we can better appreciate our views beyond this topic as well.

Oh, and one more thing. I've always been a bit annoyed at one aspect of the Smogon community; we're very quick to ban things but very, very reluctant to un-ban and retest them in a new environment. Right now my main thought is to Thundurus, which in my view is our shakiest current ban, but I'd be open to testing some other things with new conditions as well. If we truly want to make as good a metagame as possible we might have to admit we made a mistake at some point, or simply that as the environment changes so does the usefulness of a Pokemon. I think we really should consider some way to facilitate this sort of testing, as I think it could really benefit us in the long run.

 

[The QWAZ]

Oh, and one more thing. I've always been a bit annoyed at one aspect of the Smogon community; we're very quick to ban things but very, very reluctant to un-ban and retest them in a new environment. Right now my main thought is to Thundurus, which in my view is our shakiest current ban, but I'd be open to testing some other things with new conditions as well. If we truly want to make as good a metagame as possible we might have to admit we made a mistake at some point, or simply that as the environment changes so does the usefulness of a Pokemon. I think we really should consider some way to facilitate this sort of testing, as I think it could really benefit us in the long run.

i could not agree with this more, the main point of my last two arguments were that thundurus was only broken due to the enormous effects excadrill had on the metagame. Scarfers were made unviable so the only thing faster than thundurus was starmie which was easily dealt by prankster thunder wave.
What i'm trying to say is that some bans should be re-evaluated to fit in with today's metagame, for example how well do think blaziken does against scarf terrakion or how well would a manaphy do vs volt-turn. Of course some things would turn out to be broken, the blaziken issue in the DW metagame is a prominent example of this as most seemed to agree that baton passed made blaziken incredibly broken, i cant say i agreed with them but what ever.
The drizzle s/s issue is very complex and difficult to agree on. Some swift swimmers such as qwilfish or luvdisc were never overpowering or dangerous to the OU metagame. However something like shell smash omastar or any kingdra set was undoubtedly broken and flat out bad for our metagame; however banning all swift swimmers to ubers is ludicrous, do we really want to be the community that banned luvdisc? But seriously i believe that all half decent pokemon should have a chance to shine, no matter what tier it may be in, so banning qwilfish or floatzel to ubers would result in them only seeing usage in gimmick or theme teams.
Thank you for taking the time to read this>

 

[AyoGabos]

I honestly think everything that's been banned at this point, in all tiers, had a legitimate reason to be banned seeing as it sufficiently altered the metagame. I recently read a discussion on whether Jynx was "broken" in the NU Tier; people were complaining how it should be banned simply because it wrecked their teams on multiple occasions. Being very fast with the LovelyKiss/NastyPlot combo, Jynx can indeed rip holes in teams, but with correct prediction and smart playing it can be defeated with ease. People too quickly jump the gun to call things "broken" just because they are good. Unless they are legitimately "broken" then they should not be banned, that's just my opinion.

I also agree with everyone as far as this whole "simplicity" argument is concerned. Allowing Legendaries in the OU tier if their level is dropped or they lack certain moves is just too complex; they're in Ubers for a reason and that's where they should remain.

 

[Vvamp6]

Only to insure a more comfortable metagame for those with high ranks is what banning should be called. ._.

 

[The QWAZ]

Only to insure a more comfortable metagame for those with high ranks is what banning should be called. ._.

that is just untrue, i feel the current system is elitist but everyone wants a good metagame, don't tell me you want deoxys-a back in OU

 

[Vvamp6]

that is just untrue, i feel the current system is elitist but everyone wants a good metagame, don't tell me you want deoxys-a back in OU

Theres always a check&counter to Pokemon. It's up to the player how to deal with it.

 

[The Truth]

@Vvamp6

By that logic nothing should be banned; if you want to play in a metagame like that, play ubers (which is actually surprisingly balanced) but lower metagames should be regulated. It's true that everything has stops to it, but some things are so powerful that their presence in the metagame forces players to either use them or a team full of stops to them. "Making things more comfortable for those in high places" is inaccurate. Often it's the players in high places who are exceptional at dealing with top threats, or got to high places by using said broken threats. Bans make the metagame more comfortable for everyone but players who depend on those threats to win, and if you have to depend on things other people consider broken enough to ban, odds are you're not the most skilled player.

 

[Vvamp6]

@Vvamp6

By that logic nothing should be banned; if you want to play in a metagame like that, play ubers (which is actually surprisingly balanced) but lower metagames should be regulated. It's true that everything has stops to it, but some things are so powerful that their presence in the metagame forces players to either use them or a team full of stops to them. "Making things more comfortable for those in high places" is inaccurate. Often it's the players in high places who are exceptional at dealing with top threats, or got to high places by using said broken threats. Bans make the metagame more comfortable for everyone but players who depend on those threats to win, and if you have to depend on things other people consider broken enough to ban, odds are you're not the most skilled player.

Only if your surpressed to a certain logic. Ubers is consisted of ridicously high all around stats. Everything sent there Blazekien etc with their few perk abilities or stats do poorly compared to other behemoths of the tier. In general only ridiculous Pokemon should be in ubers. In opinion.

 

[The QWAZ]

Blaziken was ridiculous it was very easy to set up and had a powerful snowball effect, it is even worse with baton pass as that +2/2 blaziken is now a slamence or a jirachi. Your logic is simply incorrect, while every pokemon has checks the amount need to contain a certain pokemon makes it broken.