On Bans

[Scorpio]

This may be a bit of a controversial topic, so I am prepared.

Right now, Smogon employs two sorts of bans, "blanket" (a single Pokemon/ability is completely broken and outright banned), and "complex" (two factors are found broken together and are banned on the same team), of which only one seems to be allowed at a time. While this may be good for now, there have arisen some problems with this; some Pokemon are banned because one ability breaks it, but it is clear (somewhat) that it's only broken with that ability. Also, our current complex ban's final stage is more complex than its current state. Therefore, I propose we use four types of bans:

1) Blanket/simple ban (all instances of a Pokemon/ability)

The simplest ban. This ban completely banishes a pokemon or ability from a certain tier. Examples of this are: Darkrai, Moody, and any Pokemon with a BST of 670+ without a hindering ability.

A subset is the form ban, in which a certain form of a Pokemon is banned, but other forms are kept. Examples include Shaymin-S, Deoxys-S, and Deoxys-A.

Also, note that all examples are for the OU tier unless stated otherwise.

2) Combo Ban (Pokemon + ability)

The next simplest. This ban prevents the use of a Pokemon as long as it has a specific ability. An example of this would be Shadow Tag Chandelure, which is inplemented on PO.

3) Ability Combo Ban

This ban prevents the use of two abilities on the same team. An example is Aldaron's proposal in its current state.

4) Complex Ban

This ban encompasses three or more (hopefully we won't do more than three) factors, like a Combo + Ability Combo Ban. Only one of these should be implemented at a time. An good example of this is Aldaron's proposal in its 'ideal' stage.

The point in all this is that there are some Pokemon that are clearly not broken unless they have a certain ability, like Shadow Tag Chandelure (I will not name others unless asked because it's too controversial). I believe we should have a standard metagame without broken elements but with as many Pokemon as possible. Therefore, we should reconsider limiting ourselves to two types of bans.

P.S: Before anyone accuses me otherwise, I do not support bringing down, for example, Ho-oh or Lugia. Or anything banned in Round One of suspect testing.

 

[UltiMario]

Can I vote for having as many Pokemon in OU as possible while restricting the kinds of bans we can do?

We shouldn't be banning shit like Brightpowder (or any goddamn existing item, Soul Dew clause is a good exception though because it makes TWO Pokemon broken, while no other item makes ANY Pokemon broken), and keeping open minds on what stays in. Especially we should look at the more controversial bans and look at the metagame now, and ask "Was banning this Pokemon actually a good idea?" (ex Garchomp)

I realize the ideology for bans has spiraled downwards into the wrong direction, away from "banning what's actually broken and unhealthy for a metagame" to "banning random shit because it pisses a few people off", and I agree keeping an open mind to mons and such that are borderline, and keeping them OU, but loosening up on how we ban things is not the way to do it.

 

[melvni]

2) Combo Ban (Pokemon + ability)

The next simplest. This ban prevents the use of a Pokemon as long as it has a specific ability. An example of this would be Shadow Tag Chandelure, which is inplemented on PO.

IIRC, this isn't actually true. PO doesn't do complex bans at all (not even Drizzle+Swift Swim). They do however do seperate Dreamworld and Wifi tiers, which have separate ban lists. Chandelure is therefore Uber in Dreamworld but OU in Wifi, regardless of ability.

 

[Team Amon Amarth]

1) Blanket/simple ban (all instances of a Pokemon/ability)

The simplest ban. This ban completely banishes a pokemon or ability from a certain tier. Examples of this are: Darkrai, Moody, and any Pokemon with a BST of 670+.

Actually, Regigigas and Slaking have a BST of 670, and they aren't banned.

 

[pele]

We shouldn't be banning shit like Brightpowder .... "Was banning this Pokemon actually a good idea?" (ex Garchomp)
QUOTE]

You ever lost against a Brightpowder Garchomp beacause Hp Ice missed 4 times?

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

I really don't like th first option for the poll. It can imply that I agree with all sort of silly bans, like pokemon + certain moves, or pokemon + certain evs. Also I find the complex ban to be a bit out there.

Perhaps a middle option should be added?

 

[Jaetheho]

lol. u can use palkia in ou..


as long as u dont use attack moves.

 

[IcyMan28]

There has only ever been one combo ban (with the exception of an obscure ban in GSC that I can't remember right now; it was done recently aka post Gen 2), and it's purpose was to prevent a cascade of future bans rather than to resolve the issue itself. As it stands, proponents and opponents of the complex ban are still split about 50/50, which is why it is still around.

I think we should ban what is broken - the game is not yet so complex as to require complex bans, and it only becomes complex when people start trying to apply their own obscure definitions as to what qualifies as an individual pokemon or forme (eg SB Blaziken is a different pokemon from Blaze Blaziken, DW Chandy is an alternate form of normal Chandy, etc), or other similar arguments made for preserving an aspect of OU that they don't want gone. We've been able to avoid this so far and have actually reduced the ban list when compared to the previous gen, so I don't see why this approach should be discontinued.

 

[Scorpio]

@Ultimario: Whoops, completely forgot about Brightpowder.

Also, I don't think I'm advocating loosening up on bans. I'm just saying there's things that are broken and things that are; for example, Shadow Tag Chandelure is broken but no other varient is. Or is that what you're talking about.

@Melvni: Forgot about that too. Although it still is a valid example wheter or not it's actually implemented.

@Amon Amarth: Why do I keep forgetting this sort of stuff!? Anyways, edited.

@pele: Garchomp is broken with Sand Veil either way. A Garchomp + Sand Veil ban would remedy this while still allowing Garchomp into OU (or at least it will when it gets its DW ability).

@Scarfwynaut: How do I add a middle option?

@bluemon: Obvious trollpost is obvious.

But seriously, some Pokemon are going to be broken regardless of ability (Dialga, Palkia, and the like) unless you make a distinct effort otherwise. Other Pokemon are only broken due to one ability, which highlights the nessecity of a Combo Ban.

@IcyMan28: I don't want it removed, I want it modified.

 

[soul_survivor]

We shouldn't be banning shit like Brightpowder .... "Was banning this Pokemon actually a good idea?" (ex Garchomp)
QUOTE]

You ever lost against a Brightpowder Garchomp beacause Hp Ice missed 4 times?

I agree with ultimario. I remember back when brightpowder chomp was around people got pissed and angry because of it and thus got banned. pokemon is still a game of luck, so banning something because of luck was plain dumb.


On the subject now. Its wouldn't be bad to add more ways to ban things, but not stupid crap like moveset ban, item ban(except soul dew), etc

 

[Scorpio]

@soul_survivor: Yeah, I wasn't advocating item or movepool bans; not only is it just stupid, it doesn't change the Pokemon at all, it just nerfs it, which nobody likes.

 

[Matthew]

I'd like to point out that I'm going to be monitoring this thread very closely as to make sure that people aren't being offensive to other people and the staff behind the suspect process. Until then remember that!

On the topic of bans the way I feel is we either have way to many bans or way to few. I could argue either side, but I mostly lean towards the idea of less bans as opposed to more. You could say that in things like GSC Snorlax was everywhere. You needed to run counters for it, but I can't be helped to say that if this process and mindset was around in GSC then Snorlax would most likely be removed. There's flaws with every metagame, my main issue is how we should go about these flaws. I think instead of having a suspect test every month it should be every few months (3 or 4 or whatever). That way we can heavily test the metagame and see where things are over a much longer period than one month.

 

[moil23]

The problem with this Gen is that there are so many Pokemon. In previous Gens it was way easier to have a more dedicated counter to everything, in this Gen it is impossible to even have a half check for everything. For example you may build a team that can counter hyper offense quite effectively, in previous gens this would be straightforward, you could run 4 'anti-offense' Pokemon (and 2 other Pokemon) to be able to counter most if not all forms of hyper offense, nowadays, you would need to run 6 'anti-offense' Pokemon to be able to counter hyper offense teams because now, the spectrum of possible hyper offense teams is so large. this laves you vulnerable to other forms of battling e.g. bulky offense or something. The point is that it is way to easy to have a major weakness in your team these days, and by consequence the probability of you battling a 'broken' poke increases. Anyway I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here anymore... I guess that I'm just trying to explain my theory as to why so many Pokemon are getting banned or nominated for bans.

Take from this rather lengthy paragraph what you will, but in conclusion I think that maybe more Pokemon need to be banned because there isn't enough room in a team to even dream of defeating all the powerhouses consistently.

 

[Ilios]

I think the less bans, the better. Trying to have a counter for every single thing in this metagame is ridiculous, there are way too many Pokémon. Instead of trying to cover every threat, I think we should make teams with a strategy in mind, and focus on pulling off our own strategy during battles. It's just not possible to be prepared for everything anymore, and I believe that we tend to whine too much and ask for more bans because we aren't used to it. Complex bans can be useful in some instances, but I'm afraid they will end up making the ruleset overly complicated. For instance, if we ban SB Blaziken but not Blaze, why shouldn't we do the same for other Pokémon? By that logic, things like Technician Scizor should remain OU and we should let Swarm Scizor be used in the lower tiers. It would add an unnecessary complexity to the rules, IMO.

 

[Chieliee]

Yes! Let's put Mewtwo in OU, but make it only use Tackle!

That's what will happen if we keep using more and more combo bans.

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

just because it's allowed doesn't make it viable.

you can, but there isn't a point.

 

[Scene Kid]

I think it shows that Nintendo themselves only ban Ubers from the random wi-fi portion of their game.

In Halo, MLG breaks the core gameplay down to highly controlled variables. Changing everything from the speed of the players, down to which weapons they are allowed to use. Esentally, it's a list of "honour rules" the players must abide by.

Smogon is to Pokemon what MLG is to any video game. They want the game to become more structured, and highly controllable. However, this leads to predictability with most of the top "smogon" teams being highly similar.

The one thing I can't comprehend is that unlike MLG, Smogon rules have yet to be acknowledged by Gamefreak, and implimented into the game. You can't go up to the nurse on the second floor of the Pokemon Center and play a random match using Smogon's rules. You never have been able to do that, and probably never will. For as long as it has been around, it's still not formally addressed in the game at all. For me this says everything. Gamefreak doesn't let you use Ubers, so they acknowledge that yes some things are "gamebreaking". They DO however let you use things like Brightpowder, Fissure, Moody, Drizzle + Swift Swim. Why is this?

Does it make sense to trust a 3rd party site, over the game developers?

Does being good at MLG make you good at "halo"?

The answer is no.

People will fall back on cheap strategies like minimize, "Drizzle + Swift Swim", and "Garchomp" because they are apart of pokemon.

As long as we have counters to them, and we do. Gamefreak gives us moves that can't miss, psych-up, Drought + Chlorophyll (Which isn't banned ..because?)

To some, this makes for a metagame that is even more predicable, and forces players to bring their own weather, use moves that can't miss, and have a counter to Garchomp on every team.

Getting beat by a "cheap" team utilizing these "banned" strategies is frustrating, but it shouldn't be. You got beat by a cheap team, know in your heart they used the cheap way out of a fair fight.

People will ALWAYS be inclined to use the "biggest, baddest" pokemon. Even though Smogon has cut the worst of them out, there are the top few that sit right on the borderline of useable and banned. These are the ones people will aim for, overuse and abuse, thus staling the gameplay in the same way.

The main argument for banning some of the ability combos, and evasion techniques is that "I shouldn't have to prepare my team around a few certain tricks."

However, under Smogon's rules you're essentially doing the same thing.

 

[Stratos]

I voted yes without reading the question, now I feel sad. Teambuilding bans are acceptable, Pokemon nerfs are not, and we need to know the difference.

Furthermore, Shadow Tag Chandelure isn't broken

 

[Scene Kid]

I voted yes without reading the question, now I feel sad. Teambuilding bans are acceptable, Pokemon nerfs are not, and we need to know the difference.

Furthermore, Shadow Tag Chandelure isn't broken

It really isn't, but man does it stink to have it come in on a choice banded fighting move, and get to stat up like crazy. Then the only thing that can really interfere with it's sweep is a Ditto. So after shadow tag chandelure, make sure to bring a choice scarfed Ditto in every random wi-fi match. :|

 

[Lirg]

I'm not against combo ban (for ability+ability), but I can understand people who don't like it. It's more simple blanket ban.

About the bans themselves, I think we have two possibilities. Stay as we are now. Metagame pretty much stable but very powerful. All (over)powered poke balance themselves. And so, if you let only one turn to your opponent to set up, it's generally all over. (I'm a little extreme by saying that but after playing some games with my friends who haven't touched the game until a few months ago, I realised that I could stop the poke setting up but my friends was swept as soon as I put one of my poke at +2)
Or, we could ban all the overpowered pokemons but we'll have a gigantic ubers and we aren't sure that we retrieve the stability of the actual metagame. It's also very time consuming and we'll have a lot of disagreements. But we'll have a metagame somewhat less brutal.

I think the problem with the bans actually is that people don't have the same idea about brokeness of a pokémon. We need to have rules to define what is broken.
Examples (it's only examples) : If a pokémon can at +2 at least 2HKO all pokémons of OU, he's Uber. (or) If a pokémon can be 2 or 3HKO by any pokémon of OU, it's Uber... (It can be a little more complicated, I didn't search during hours about THE rules)
We'd only need to find these rules, and as soon as accepted, the suspect test will be easier.

Anyway, there will be always people who'll complaint. As I see now, there're people who want some ubers to be bring back and people who want to ban the half of the OU at the same time. Everybody can't have what he want.

 

[Percussionist]

I think the problem with this gen is the mentality of "my team is weak to it therefore it should be banned". Obviously team building is a lot harder in a gen with this many threats, but the players have to adapt to the metagame. Banning Darkrai, Mewtwo, Kyogre, etc. I think everybody can agree on. Garchomp and Blaziken are a different matter. If we allow Blaze Blaziken to be used in lower tiers, or lets say Rough Skin Garchomp, then that opens up a whole new world of possibilities. You have Cloyster without Shell Smash in UU, and without Skill Link in NU. You have Shadow Tag Chandy in Ubers, and Flash Fire in OU. Technician Scizor in OU, Swarm Scizor in RU. Haxorus without Outrage and Mold Breaker/ Rivalry in UU. You get the point. Banning certain aspects of a Pokemon so it is not only brought down from Ubers, but can be used in any tier with an appropriate nerf. And many of these arguements have been used before, so it's not like people haven't wanted complex bans like these.

 

[WinstonShnozwick]

I agree with straightforward bans on broken pokemon. Blaziken had basically no excuse to be used with blaze in the first place, so letting blaze blaziken in ou or UU would be completely stupid, only to help little fanboys play their favorites. And with garchomp, I disagree with any argument saying he was only broken with sand veil. Garchomp is fucking powerful and was only more broken with the misses. Without, you still were swept, just sometimes able to save yourself.

On Chandelure, I don't believe ST would be broken, but FF is actually incredibly useful, and should stay in OU. FF is a good choice if your team needs the fire immunity, and it powers chandy up.

 

[shinyskarmory]

In my humble, less-than-200 post opinion, I think the criteria for banning should be based on overcentralization. If something is severely decreasing the number of viable pokemon, I think we need to ban it to keep the metagame fresh and enjoyable to play.

For example, during Gen 4, Tyranitar became extremely popular because it could do many different things (sometimes on the same set!) that made it almost impossible to predict against. Yet Salamence, who had a similar amount of options, ended up banned while everyone pulled out their Scizor, Skarmorys, and Lucarios to stop Tyranitar before it crushed their teams.

This kind of scenario begs the question: What are the criteria that makes a pokemon "overpowered"? Where do we, the Smogon community, draw the line on balance?

Take CM Reuniclus. The standard variant can't be phazed, statused, or reliably KO'ed after a Calm Mind. The only real way to beat it in my experience is to switch in a powerful sweeper who doesn't need setup and blast away with STAB, praying for a crit. In the process, the sweeper used gets hit hard by Reuniclus, crippling its sweeping ability.

Or Ferrothorn, who can be very bulky both specially and physically and at the same time dish out status and Power Whips. Disposing of it (since it can almost always switch out safely) requires allowing one of your pokemon to be crippled, once again making it useless for the rest of the match.

IMO we've been thinking so much about powerful offensive threats (like Blaziken, Garchomp, Lati@s, Salamence) to consider some of 5th gen's almost unbreakable defensive threats (Ferrothorn, Jellicent, Reuniclus). Let's try suspecting Ferrothorn, Jellicent, and Reuniclus at the next round of suspect testing and see what we come up with.

 

[StallMandibuzz]

Chandelure isn't broken as of yet because you can switch to a threat to it and destroy it with a fast attacker. With Shadow Tag, it will suddenly seem a lot more threatening when you have something that can't touch it in, and Chandy can easily destroy your team if you don't have a counter to it specifically. Straightforward bans on broken Pokemon seems like the best idea. Chomp was pretty broken regardless, since the Sand Veil misses were a death sentence, and Chomp has power behind it. Same thing with Chandy. They're manageable until an aspect of them gets to be too much to handle. Hell, you could say the same with Excadrill. It's "broken" in sand, and not too much of a threat outside of sand.

 

[StallMandibuzz]

And some defensive threats are nearly impossible to break through without crippling a Poke in the process. CM Reuniclus, Ferro, Jellicent, Gliscor (somewhat), and others. Just because it's powerful doesn't make it 'broken' unless there's no way to safely counter it.