Suspect BH Suspect #7 - Nuzzle

[XxLazzerpenguinxX]

What?
Based on council discussion and community feedback, the BH Council is going to suspect test the Nuzzle. If implemented, nuzzle will be banned from Balanced Hackmons. If not, Nuzzle will remain in the metagame.

Why?

Paralysis has been a tool used primarily for speed control. In a metagame where many pokemon are between 90-100 base speed it is natural for paralysis to play such a prominent role. Currently, paralysis is used most frequently on Ho-oh - to check Eternatus, on regenvest - as a means of crippling, on Prankster - as a last minute ditch to cripple an offensive pokemon, and on Fur Coat Lunala. Its speed control is also seen on offensive pokemon like Regigigas and Palkia, which want to paralyze and be faster than Zamzenta-Crowned.

However, the paralysis effect goes beyond speed control. On every turn, a paralysed pokemon has a 25% chance of not making a move, i.e. getting paralyzed. This 25% para chance is by nature uncompetitive. Paralysis over the course of long games, which bh games tend to be, can make its presence very sharply felt. Throughout OMPL, there have been numerous games decided by parahax, where a pokemon is paralyzed at a crucial moment.

As a result of an outcry for potential tiering action on paralysis, and it's uncompetitively by nature, the BH council has unanimously decided to suspect test Nuzzle.

Why Nuzzle over other paralysis moves such as glare, thunder wave, stun spore, etc? Because Nuzzle is currently the most splashable paralysis move available with little to no draw backs. Thus, to some, it too easily enables the spread of paralysis, and creates an uncompetitive environment. However, Nuzzle is not without counter play. Ground and electric pokemon such as Zygarde-Complete, Groudon, and Zekrom have rose in popularity as a result of Nuzzle. Similarly, poison heal users such as Xerneas and Regigigas find themselves on many teams due to their immunity of paralysis. Heal bell is also a move that can be fit on support pokemon. As a result, some people do not believe that Nuzzle is a move which too easily enables the spread of paralysis.

How?

• We will be using the new suspect process laid out by Zarel here (aka no COIL).
• The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 82 with at least 30 games played.
• Do so by making a new alt with the prefix “uwu”. For example I could register the alt "uwu Sevag"
• The alt must have a creation date on or after June 11, 2022

Where?
You must post your proof of reqs in this thread and play your games on the main pokemonshowdown.com sim.

Nuzzle will be allowed in the ladder for the duration of this suspect; I would recommend using them as much as you can to get a feel of how they are in the meta and have a good idea of if they are broken/unhealthy or if they are perfectly manageable after all.
Do:

• Post your proof of reqs and, if you wish, your stance on the matter briefly, in this thread. Read the following CAREFULLY on how to do so:
  • you MUST FIRST AND FOREMOST PROVIDE AN IMAGE OF THE ALT WITH PROOF OF OWNERSHIP. We can't stress that last part enough. Refer to these examples of how to do this: example1 example2 example3
  • If you don’t do at least the above, your vote won’t be counted. We will be very strict about this.
• Post in this thread if you have any questions about THIS SUSPECT PROCESS.

Do NOT:

• Post your stance on the matter in this thread without proof of requirements (This should be posted in the main thread instead)
• Post anything in this thread unrelated to this suspect (with or without proof)

When?
This suspect period will last until June 25, 2022, 11:59 pm GMT-4. We will try to begin the voting process immediately after and post the Voter ID Thread similar to past suspects.

GLHF!
---
TLDR?

• 82 GXE after 30 games with a new alt
  • “uwu” alt with image proof IN THIS THREAD
• Nuzzle is ALLOWED on ladder
• DEADLINE: June 25, 2022
• This suspect test counts toward the Tiering Contributor badge!
  
  

Tagging Kris to setup suspect and announcement on PS ladder games. Thank you!

 

[in the hills]

Reminder, this is a suspect thread. Chill out with the one liners. This thread is for voter identification and people posting their thoughts on the suspect.

 

[Tea Guzzler]

(bombed it through the reqs day 1 because I have 5 exams in the next 2 weeks)

To be honest, I don't really know where I stand on Nuzzle. On the one hand, I could support a ban because of the splashability, ease of destroying checks/fast mons with it, and the counterplay to it being somewhat dodgy as "just run aroma bozo" means you don't benefit from the best ability / having to run slower sacks still opens up problems such as forcing 50/50s that usually aren't in your favour. On the other hand, Nuzzle is very important for easily keeping fast menaces like Eternatus, Palkia, Zamazenta in the like in check, and realistically you're always going to have something on the team that is either immune to Nuzzle or doesn't care too much about it. Getting rid of Nuzzle also won't remove full paras as a relevant mechanic, so using this as an argument for ban is mostly invalid IMO, they'll just happen slightly less.
I think based on the above i'm probably voting Ban on Nuzzle mainly due to it being too easy to spread and speed control still being available through Glare / Zap Cannon / Webs - i'm still honestly on the fence about it though and my vote could go either way.

STOP USING DRUMSPAM TO GET THE REQS YOU BELLENDS

 

[aerobee]

Pure Hackmons

I don't know much about this metagame but I think I can provide a unique view on this matter. I'm personally fine with the "hax" aspect of paralysis so I'll focus more on the speed reduction.

In ORAS Hackmons (PH) paralysis is rising but nowhere near as prevalent as it seems to be in SS BH, and I think that the main reasons are a much higher Prankster usage due to the metagame's much higher power level and the metagame being really pivot-heavy meaning underspeeding opposing pivots when possible is often favorable. PH also has Wonder Guard, meaning Nuzzle specifically is less common than otherwise (though Mold Breaker Nuzzle sets do exist). In BH defensive Pokemon seem generally a lot harder to break through conventionally because of Fur Coat and Ice Scales' existence. I may be wrong here but running Mold Breaker would mean offensive Pokemon forgo increased longevity or a favorable matchup against opposing Imposter, especially when in BH there's more room to run useful Abilities for progress-makers like Poison Heal, Adaptability, Tough Claws, Tinted Lens, etc than in PH where Mold Breaker is ubiquitous. Mixed attackers are more viable in a metagame with Fur Coat/Ice Scales users, but in a full EV format they need multiple turns to break through opposing walls in an even matchup so paralysis support seems greatly appreciated.

From my point of view it seems as though there are two general causes to paralysis' prowess in this metagame. I think that in a metagame where offensive Pokemon (in particular physical attackers) weren't as limited by physical hardwalls paralysis would be slightly less common. In Pure Hackmons Will-O-Wisp Prankster Giratina's quite popular for opposing Huge Power users, as Burn all but neuters them while them being paralyzed means Huge Power users still pose a huge threat to the opposing team. Likewise I think that offensive Pokemon's ability to take advantage of a free turn from an opposing paralyzed Pokemon in BH is a contributing factor. I'm fairly sure what I experienced on ladder isn't the norm, but I had seen Sevag's Belly Drum Spam team more than a few times on ladder, with me even encountering a Doppelganger team with Magic Bounce Kartana and defensive Ho-Oh and Zygarde-C; I would guess that maybe 5~6 out of 30 games were decided with a speed tie between Imposter and a non-Unburden Belly Drum user. I think that Belly Drum's ability to completely flip games around (potentially with a lucky paralysis turn) is innately unbalanced and is an issue that should be addressed in the metagame.

So what's my position? I'm not sure at the moment. On one hand Nuzzle's splashability and its enhanced ability, compared to other forms of spreading paralysis, to potentially eke out a win for the user because of a lucky paralysis turn is worrying. But on the other hand, going on the assumption that cheese like Belly Drum spam is much less common than what I experienced, in the vast majority of games paralysis turns shouldn't affect the game's outcome significantly, and as a Pure Hackmons player banning Nuzzle just feels wrong in a way. My vote could go either way.

e: who thought it was a good idea to use this prefix

 

[Quantum Tesseract]

Confirming

Also 100% going to vote ban. It was bad enough in tours, but if anything nuzzle on ladder was way worse.

 

[cityscapes]

ill unironically be in sevags walls for posting the drum spam team right before this started. if you get lucked vs it you autolose which happened to me 3 times (twice my fc resh got crit, once i got double parad when i was trying to glare zygc). quojova you were right ill never doubt you on any non building related topic ever again

teams:
nuclear fusion (hard) https://pokepast.es/5aa5c08ef4d79e2e
the best of my worms (may 15th) https://pokepast.es/8ea3b353cd300025

no idea what im gonna vote

i think most people have completely incoherent positions because they haven't articulated what exactly they want from the meta. all i hear really is either complaining or just "the meta is good lol". like what would your perfect meta look like? what aspects does gen 8 bh lack? where does current tour play shine and where does it not? what elements make a meta easy or hard to get into and how can we address those?

all they know how to do is talk about nuzzle specifically and its very easy to hate nuzzle

 

[Onyx Onix 7]

I was close to getting the required Gxe undefeated but unfortunately choked on the last couple of games. As for Nuzzle I will likely vote Ban. Nuzzle in my opinion centralizes the game to an unhealthy degree where everything runs it to make progress at virtually no opportunity cost. Since there is no reason to use anything else the meta has been warped into a paralysis fest where every team that doesn't use Nuzzle or is heavily resistant to Nuzzle is inherently at a disadvantage. As such while Nuzzle isn't exactly uncompetitive much like Paralysis in general, it most certainly has an unhealthy influence on metagame.

 

[Osake]

confirming but fuck Redflix

 

[TTTech]

Voting ban, too splashable so when we suspecting drum because I've been asking for that for 6+ years

 

[kDCA]

really ugly record but i was using that heinous belly drum shit so i probably deserved to be tormented to the endless paras that i experienced. no idea why i did this suspect, but i like the approach that city and tea have towards the matter

will probs vote ban but ill think about it some more later

 

[Darkrai Retribution]

so nuzzle is really confusing for me. i use it a lot on scales pokemon and regenvesters to make eternatus a lot more manageable. i feel that without nuzzle, eternatus is gonna become really broken, specifically the borderline unwallable ones like tcage taunt and simpleplot. on the other hand its a pain in the ass for defensive pokemon, since offensive ones use it to break usually proper checks. ultimately its a luck based aspect and i feel the defensive utility it affords is more important than the annoying part. i am a mostly stall player and hate having my gira or celes lucked by a gigas or or something because of the nuzzle but i feel personally i cant even dream of defensively checking all the millions of eternas and spectrier sets without the threat of nuzzle. maybe glare could take its place but thats a very risky move to click, especially on a scales mon. for this ill be voting no ban.

scales spectrier stall (pokepast.es)
interesting team i used to get reqs, it uses nuzzle on a scales mon to check eternatus in tandem with celesteela. i really cant imagine making defensive teams work at all without nuzzle.

its a bit of a give and take and i certainly agree that its nice that my gira can wall gigas, i can use bulky bounce users to block spikes gigas etc, but it will create other problems. i am not sure if bh council is willing to suspect eternatus, and unless they are willing to directly after this, my stance wont change.

another problematic thing is that the offensive mons are just gonna run zap cannon or body slam or something anyway so it basically buffs eternatus and slightly inconveniences offensive para spreaders, while nerfing scales mons a lot

 

[Redflix]

reqs

Confirming as uwu memed on
Leaning no ban

 

[MagearnaTheBoss]

 

[anaconja]

gen 8 bh is terrible
used this team early ladder then this team mid ladder then city's team late ladder
drum makes me want to die can we qb it

 

[byee]

reqs get

My Opinions

I have been playing BH for a little bit and gotta say that the issue I have w/ para in general is speed control and the hax factor combined. Both make 100% wins into 75% chance wins and I feel it has such a limit on way of play. I personally don't think the issue is specifically nuzzle, but I mean if sleep gets truly banned from every OM then why not right? There are plenty of moves like glare(which I never understood why it hits ghosts but twave doesn't hit ground types, could someone explain that to me?) which are able to capitalize on these issues. I think the only thing that stops para from being absolutely busted is poison heal and even that requires a teleport user and maneuvering around what your opp does to make sure it is set. Even so, when I have to have a para'd mon it just makes the game much much harder to play properly due to that being my only check to certain threats and it having the 1/4 chance for me to lose the game right there seems a bit unfair. There is always the option of running aromatherapy, but that is limited to certain teams. Kind of a ramble, but I think you get the picture.

TL;DR

BH games can go on much longer than other tiers and it feels bad when you lose a 200+ turn game to para chance.

My name is a half joke, I feel the way about this tier as I do League of Legends(A lot of invested time to only have a broken heart)

 

[hybone]

vote not ban:)

 

[XxLazzerpenguinxX]

reqs get
View attachment 430521

My Opinions

I have been playing BH for a little bit and gotta say that the issue I have w/ para in general is speed control and the hax factor combined. Both make 100% wins into 75% chance wins and I feel it has such a limit on way of play. I personally don't think the issue is specifically nuzzle, but I mean if sleep gets truly banned from every OM then why not right? There are plenty of moves like glare(which I never understood why it hits ghosts but twave doesn't hit ground types, could someone explain that to me?) which are able to capitalize on these issues. I think the only thing that stops para from being absolutely busted is poison heal and even that requires a teleport user and maneuvering around what your opp does to make sure it is set. Even so, when I have to have a para'd mon it just makes the game much much harder to play properly due to that being my only check to certain threats and it having the 1/4 chance for me to lose the game right there seems a bit unfair. There is always the option of running aromatherapy, but that is limited to certain teams. Kind of a ramble, but I think you get the picture.

TL;DR

BH games can go on much longer than other tiers and it feels bad when you lose a 200+ turn game to para chance.

My name is a half joke, I feel the way about this tier as I do League of Legends(A lot of invested time to only have a broken heart)

I'm so sorry, but your reqs are unfortunately invalid, even if it was a typo
The prefix was supposed to be "uwu" not "uww". If you'd like to vote, you'll unfortunately have to get reqs again.

 

[Daylight]

Thoughts

I should first preface this by saying that I’m not a BH main. However, after playing 60-70 odd games (I experimented with Sevag’s DrumSpam and French Dispatch teams before building my own), I do have a few thoughts.

Like Mbouchon above, I play much more PH than I do BH, so parahax itself doesn’t really bother me. In fact, I’m somewhat well known among my PH friends for being very good at utilizing and capitalizing upon parahax in my games (sorry NToTheN)—I make my own luck and all. So, keeping that bias in mind, I will say I actually think Nuzzle might be healthier than not for the meta. Sure, the 25% chance to do nothing is uncompetitive (though not nearly so as belly drum), but Nuzzle is an efficient progress maker in a meta where progress-making is very very slow (as evidenced by how 100+ turn games are somehow commonplace). Paralysis is also invaluable against fast threats like Eternatus and Spectrier and I would anticipate checking them becoming noticeably more difficult without nuzzle.

I also want say that I think that paralysis/nuzzle wouldn’t be such an issue if the power level of BH wasn’t as low as it currently is. I feel like paralysis’ uncompetitive aspects are magnified in a meta where progress takes twice or thrice as long to make. Rather than banning nuzzle, I would actually be in favor of unbanning some more centralizing threats—maybe Protean or Parental Bond or even Rusted Sword/Legal Zac-C? I’m not familiar enough with BH to say exactly what could be unbanned, but I think it’s worth considering.

Also: why are we even talking about banning Nuzzle when Belly Drum is right there.

Here’s the team I built for this btw. It’s Nuzzle PixiXern, Knock Off + Aromatherapy Zamazenta, Specstrier, and Rocks Dragon’s Maw Eternatus, supported by Scarf Imposter and Prank Glare Tina. I basically just decided to run paralysis-vulnerable-but-otherwise-busted mons with aromatherapy support and also wanted tools versus drumspam.

 

[MAMP]

As I spoke about here, I'm probably going to vote no ban on Nuzzle. I lost all of my teams just before the suspect so I threw together this and this real quick to ladder with. Both teams are pretty bad, but Imposter + paralysis + a fucked up sweeper or two beats 90% of the ladder for free, so it worked out.

I'm so sorry, but your reqs are unfortunately invalid, even if it was a typo
The prefix was supposed to be "uwu" not "uww". If you'd like to vote, you'll unfortunately have to get reqs again.

pretty cringe imo. let my man vote

 

[dhelmise]

reqs get
View attachment 430521

My Opinions

I have been playing BH for a little bit and gotta say that the issue I have w/ para in general is speed control and the hax factor combined. Both make 100% wins into 75% chance wins and I feel it has such a limit on way of play. I personally don't think the issue is specifically nuzzle, but I mean if sleep gets truly banned from every OM then why not right? There are plenty of moves like glare(which I never understood why it hits ghosts but twave doesn't hit ground types, could someone explain that to me?) which are able to capitalize on these issues. I think the only thing that stops para from being absolutely busted is poison heal and even that requires a teleport user and maneuvering around what your opp does to make sure it is set. Even so, when I have to have a para'd mon it just makes the game much much harder to play properly due to that being my only check to certain threats and it having the 1/4 chance for me to lose the game right there seems a bit unfair. There is always the option of running aromatherapy, but that is limited to certain teams. Kind of a ramble, but I think you get the picture.

TL;DR

BH games can go on much longer than other tiers and it feels bad when you lose a 200+ turn game to para chance.

My name is a half joke, I feel the way about this tier as I do League of Legends(A lot of invested time to only have a broken heart)

I'm so sorry, but your reqs are unfortunately invalid, even if it was a typo
The prefix was supposed to be "uwu" not "uww". If you'd like to vote, you'll unfortunately have to get reqs again.

The mod team has decided to let these reqs count; however, this is the exception and not a precedent to be set. We understand it was a genuine mistake. Everyone else, make sure to double-check your names, because this won't become a regular thing.

 

[Ivar57]

Will be voting DNB, I believe nuzzle to be a necessary evil and do not believe in it being broken.
I am more worried about the presence of glacial lance and belly drum and would support tiering action on those moves.

 

[Bahamut]

This took me a bit longer and more runs than I would like to admit. I learned a decent bit about BH as I am not a usual player. I am mostly playing PH and older PH. same as Mbouchon. I lead gen 6 and 7 PH and I think about those tiers in comparison. Every mon in those tiers can have nuzzle,glare, and any move just like here. However, it doesn't seem overpowered but perhaps that's more because sleep is broken there. as for this tier and BH as a whole, I think there are many more issues. There are a lot of just weird things with this tier and it doesn't feel that great overall to play. Perhaps that's more of my thing but it doesn't seem like BH is in a good state. Most people in the PH discord seem to think this tier is cursed. IDK if it's cursed but it needs some reworks in my eyes. Nuzzle and para as a whole IMO should not be banned. Instead, look to ban other things or better yet unban a lot of stuff.
There's very few checks to Xerneas for example right now. Sure icescales mons,ho-oh, zamazenta as a soft check. But it seems extremely strong because stuff like even legal zac-c is banned. Glacial lance seems like insane coverage and seems to me like its almost as strong as fishous rend or even bolt break yet bolt break is banned. Poison is not even the biggest status because of how many poison heal and steel types there are in the meta. WE EVEN HAVE TOXIC ORB CHANSEY on the VR. So poison heal needs looked into as well. Maybe not a ban but some things that need to be reworked so it's not so overwhelmingly spammed. Perhaps you should take my words with a grain of salt because I am new to the tier but I really think this tier as a whole needs big reworks and if Nuzzle is broken so are Glare and other paralysis options. But I don't think either of these should be banned. I don't see paralysis bans for other tiers however tbf they don't have it able to be spammed on every mon. Even so, we should learn to live with paralysis to gain momentum and look to redo big things with this tier in my eyes so it's not so insanely overwhelming. Overall Paralysis is only broken because of the bans and limitations we have put on this tier over time. For these reasons, I am voting DNB and saying go ban/rework a ton of other stuff in this tier. Like also quick banning belly drum. Also credits to Daylight for the team that helped me get reqs.

 

[a loser]

tfw you misread the reqs and post at 80% gxe instead of 82% and then lose some more battles but play it off by claiming you want to get more ladder games in to test out nuzzle

I played most of my games with my rejected sample submission and only lost one game on that due to a crit from a Spectrier. This was even after making the Cresselia Kasib Berry after anticipating seeing more Spectrier, so that's fun. The losses came when I was using an unreasonably bad Pikachu team that was adapted from a non-pika OMPL draft that sevag said "i'm not sure how i feel about this team. i like trick + regen ofc. but it seems like paraspam w/o a real wincon"
Both teams are below:

Imposter Pikachu is a wincon right???

Currently undecided on my vote

 

[tzaur]

Confirming as uwu junjiyake. Actually attempted reqs on two accounts simultaneously ([uwu loveclue], which was on track to have a cleaner record), but I got reqs on this one first. Shuffled between Greybaum's Steely Kart team he dropped in OMCord like last year and Sev's Ghibli and Friends stall team he posted during the Zacian-C era on this account. Used Onyx Onix Magic Guard + Boots spam stall team all the way through on the other account. My 3 favourite BH teams that never let me down on ladder.

Abstaining for now leaning ever-so slightly towards do not ban. I plan on scanning OMPL matches and a loser's weekly OMPL BH reviews this weekend so my vote can be more well-informed. Will edit my final opinion here if I do so before voting takes place.

Would also like to echo the grievances regarding Belly Drum; seriously, ban that shit.

 

[Tuthur]

With that tag I felt as kawai as PandaDoux