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i think the results mostly speak for themselves, with >50% wanting a ban but a significant majority agreeing with action of some kind. from speaking to players and from my limited tour experience, it seems to me that people are fairly often just agreeing to not bring bp, which to my mind strongly implies something is wrong with bp as it is. i don't think this is a massive surprise, we erred a bit on the side of underbanning with our previous action.
bp is restrictive on teambuilding, fishy, and subjectively not very interesting to play against or with. it doesn't fit the ideals of why i want to play adv ubers. to my mind, ubers keeps its identity by not banning pokemon, not by not banning strategies - we're fine with a ohko clause, for instance. i'm generally opposed to complex bans, because they tend to create labyrinthian rulesets and they make the tier less accessible, but the former seems not much a concern given we're unlikely to take much more tiering action on adv ubers and the latter less concerning because i don't think ninjask is a typical way to begin playing adv ubers.
my preferred solution would be to ban statpass or speedpass. banning ninjask sorta conflicts with ubers' identity to my mind, and underbanning is generally preferable to overbanning to my mind - it's a lot easier to ban more later than unban later. i'm not strongly committed to that preference; i think banning ninjask is meaningfully more banning a strategy than a pokemon, and i think drypassing is niche enough to not be worth undue effort preserving.
I am extremely sorry , i have left mons as well as smogon for some time due to my upcoming college entrance exams . rhm brought this to my notice so here i am , i already dmed mm2 my opinion. I personally think No ban is okay , considering the current baton pass clause that limits to just one user . With the amount of stalls i have personally seen in adv , there is quite a number of phazing in this tier in form of whirlwind or roar , which itself makes it hard for baton pass teams to thrive. And with the amount of boom spam in form of Lax/Forre/Meta , setup can easily be stopped. Most of the ninjask teams i have seen , completely breaks down , once ninjask itself dies. So i dont think its that overly broken with current existing clause. Full baton pass was wht was scary to deal with , because not all teams used to run phazing , and you could get all those Def and Spdef boost and jack up your setup sweeper , but now that thing is history. Again i havent been around adv ubers since last ubers wcup , so i might not have come across any newer types of teams around BP , if they did ever came out.
As mentioned before, I want to share a few personal thoughts and concerns on this subject.
Something that was true before this "vote", but became all the more apparent with the results provided, is that the voting format for the suspect test will have a very large and direct impact and the final result. Offering three options to allow folks to target speedpass would likely split the no ban votes into two factions and would create a result more favorable to a full ban outcome. Likewise, implementing a super majority requirement would heavily favor no changes taking place. Expanding the voting pool could help muddy the waters by introducing more opinions that could change leading into the vote as well as just being harder to anticipate in the first place. However, it would also be argued that introducing more voters would favor no ban as a result since BP is a niche archetype that most end up not being exposed to. (due to its stigma for some, frequent gentlement agreements for others, and assumed inconsistency/inefficiency for yet another group) I'm honestly not sure what the ideal solution for this would be. I find it to be problematic because it puts a lot power in the hands of the tiering leaders which undermines the idea of a community's choice. (I don't expect bias/abuse from the TLs)
The last vote on BP in ADV Ubers is actually a great example of this. The vote was initially going to be a simple two way choice between ban BP or do nothing. However, after community discussion and pushback the vote ended up being a runoff vote with multiple options and we ended up with a complex ban that wouldn't have even been possible if the initial voting format decided by the tier leader had taken place. To be fair, this ability to influence votes via choices regarding the voting process itself (who gets to vote, what exactly is being voted on, when is the vote taking place, etc.) is present in every Smogon vote and is also very frequently taken advantage of. (not maliciously but very clearly not accidents, either) Regardless, I think it would be best for whatever potential voting format to be submitted to community discussion before it officially takes place.
I'm starting to stray from the subject at hand but I think this issue gets amplified by how tiering leaders are picked in the first place. They are directly chosen by SS and the prior/existing TL(s) without any real community input. As a result, a decision taken by the TL(s) regarding a vote can't even be argued to be "representative" of the community nor does the community have a real way to pushback against unpopular decisions besides hoping that the TL(s) in question are receptive to their complaints. FC very much could have just put his foot down on not allowing complex bans; there's more than enough precedent for doing things that way and any complaints would die out relatively quickly in view of how small the ADV Ubers community is in the first place.
Since I'm digressing with old gens voting systems, I'd also like to complain about issues I have with the way voting pools are selected. Reducing an already niche and small playerbase into an even smaller group of voters by deciding on arbitrary metrics for voting qualification completely undermines the idea that the process is democratic. The idea that being popular enough (to be drafted for a team tournament slot) or lucky enough (to win a few games in world cup or an unseeded single elim bracket) makes a player's opinion on the subject in question more qualified than anybody else who participates in the metagame is a complete farce and demonstrably false. The best players (who? we don't seed our tournaments...) are almost always in disagreement over simple two-way choices. There just isn't a "correct" opinion for a fanmade ruleset, everybody has different premises, ideals, and perspectives regarding a constantly evolving and very complex metagame. Looking at the last ADV Ubers vote, one of the voters won ZERO of the games that they played to qualify. How can you then argue that other voices shouldn't be heard because they come from players that just aren't "good enough" at the game? At least modern metagames have playerbases large enough to support a suspect ladder where everybody has an equal chance (sorta....) at qualifying for the vote. Smogon's fanmade rulesets only exist because enough people think they would be fun to play. I'd argue that the rules should therefore reflect whatever the players think would be the most fun. (and that it should be prioritized over the internal consistency that we don't even respect in the first place) The most effective way to accomplish that is to make voting pools more inclusive rather than exclusive, especially for the niche rulesets that barely have a playerbase in the first place.
As a player, I'll admit I was surprised to see so many other players concerned more by Ninjask BP than any other variant. For me, Ninjask BP is the weakest of the major BP archetypes besides maybe Shedinja drypass. In hindsight, though, it does make a lot of sense. Ninjask BP is by far the most explored and played with the most tournament successes to show for it. The only other archetype with a public paste getting passed around and used in tournaments is an outdated version of Umbreon BP. Ninjask is also the easiest and most intuitive of the Baton Pass abusers, Sub/Protect into Baton Pass is almost always the optimal line of play for it in just about every given matchup and situation. Subtect stalling inherently limits boom as counterplay (it only works for a single short term pass denial by booming then sending out a espeed user) as well as Ninjask's Spikes immunity makes Roar/Whirl only a short-term solution. I do still think the other archetypes are more powerful overall but the onus is definitely on others and me to prove that point. A speedpass complex ban could address a lot of those archetypes, even if it's meant to target Ninjask specifically. Most notably, it would virtually kill Drumpass since Smeargle is very dependent on the Salac Berry proc to consistently pass vs teams with faster pokemon. (like the omnipresent Lati@s) However, Umbreon meanpass would very much avoid being impacted at all by such a ban, which seems to be the intent of adding another complex ban in the first place.
I find the goal of sparing Umbreon BP to be a bit dubious. As it stands, its usage rate is about once per tournament, if even that. Introducing two complex bans just to avoid collateral as obscure as Umbreon BP seems unjustified. Umbreon without BP is plenty viable as a sun special wall (moonlight + thunder acc nerf) with unique taunt/pursuit/wish support so it can't even be argued that losing an entire pokemon is the collateral in question. However, if Umbreon BP were to become more popular, it would be because the assumption that the archetype is weak/inconsistent turned out to be false once further explored by the general community. In this case, we would very likely be revisiting the same subject for a third time.
Possibly a fourth because I'm sure folks will try to argue that drypass should be preserved. God forbid we just ban a problematic element if it happens to be called Baton Pass. Let's not learn from the excessive examples in Smogon's tiering history with this move. Apparently, it's best to go through numerous attempts to nerf it with complex bans first...
Snark aside, I personally have the least to lose from whatever outcome may eventually occur. Most other players accept BP Ban gentlemen agreements with me. Those that don't end up not even bringing BP, anyways.
I'd like to bump this and state that we should take action on speed passing. BP as a whole is dumb but seems like the adv genes are strong so we'd rather have dumb clauses than ban the core issue, but oh well.
From MMII's post, we could tell that most people at the very least wanted some sort of action. Personally after playing adv ubers in the last upl ive also joined the "we need to do something about bp" gang. IMO mean pass is also dumb as shit when you can bp to latios or groudon while also preventing phazing with taunt, but i may be alone in that one.
Speed passing on the other hand is very much widely seen as problematic. Ninjask is of course the main problem, but i dont find it difficult to believe another mon would replace it if we were to nerf ninjask by itself rather than speed passing in its totality.
I'd like to hear other people's oppinions on this as well and maybe get an idea of how we could set up an official vote on the matter. Thanks!
BP should ve restricted on all forms, I would say Meanpass should be the only one allowed and its a hard thing still, honestly I dont find meanpass broken af and it allow have tools to break stall or other teams without being a safe win 100% agaisnt these, outside Meanpass Id suggest ban every BP variant, this was for ADVPL if im not wrong were I toyed w Drumpass and owned very easy.
Thanks for the great post. I’ve been in talks w Lasen recently since he’s the general old gens leader for resources and stuff, we have plans for another pr post in the near future because there’s still been some vocal dislike for the state of bp post restriction, and a follow up would probably be beneficial for most people. Keep an eye out for whenever we put that up, not sure on an exact date but we just talked about “after uwl”.
So, it has been over 8 months and we have had no "follow up" from either you, Aberforth , nor Lasen regarding bp in adv ubers. I understand cg ubers takes priority and it has a lot to work through with the constant dlc but I feel this only helps to underline a problem in the way this system functions. Anyways, in the time since this post, baton pass has resurfaced repeatedly especially so in the ongoing adv ubers open for the adv grand slam. For those who haven't followed as closely, here are the replays in question: (chronological order)
The tournament hasn't finished yet (and I may update this post as more games occur) but so far we have 22 games featuring a bp team with 12 out of 21 games (I excluded the mirror match) being a victory for bp (~57% winrate). This isn't the only tournament where bp has taken wins but it is the most recent and the most significant in terms of raw sample size.
Seeing as there was already an overwhelming majority opinion in favor of some sort of action nearly a year ago now and that there is a nearly 60% winrate for bp teams in the most recent adv ubers tournnament, I think the community deserves to have at least an official response to the issue without further delays.
(I plan to make a second post shortly to share some pastes for more optimized bp teams than what I've been seeing used in general)
So, it has been over 8 months and we have had no "follow up" from either you, Aberforth , nor Lasen regarding bp in adv ubers. I understand cg ubers takes priority and it has a lot to work through with the constant dlc but I feel this only helps to underline a problem in the way this system functions. Anyways, in the time since this post, baton pass has resurfaced repeatedly especially so in the ongoing adv ubers open for the adv grand slam. For those who haven't followed as closely, here are the replays in question: (chronological order)
The tournament hasn't finished yet (and I may update this post as more games occur) but so far we have 22 games featuring a bp team with 12 out of 21 games (I excluded the mirror match) being a victory for bp (~57% winrate). This isn't the only tournament where bp has taken wins but it is the most recent and the most significant in terms of raw sample size.
Seeing as there was already an overwhelming majority opinion in favor of some sort of action nearly a year ago now and that there is a nearly 60% winrate for bp teams in the most recent adv ubers tournnament, I think the community deserves to have at least an official response to the issue without further delays.
View attachment 571747
(I plan to make a second post shortly to share some pastes for more optimized bp teams than what I've been seeing used in general)
Im not a mainer in ADV Ubers but im someone who plays it good and constantly, I think Bpass should be banned in all forms, its just stupid and unhealthy for ADV Ubers metagame, I have tried BP into tour scenario and won 2 of 3 times I used it, mainly for Drumpass and Mean Pass, Mean Pass owns Stall easy if paired with Taunt, while Drumpass can prevent Boom or ESpeed passing the boosts to Gengar or some ghost adapted to phys off sweep, also I ve seen Speed Pass w Ninjask and Wobbu which its p insane, another BP use I ve seen is Celebi SD or Celebi Tank, but still BP enables too much pressure even if its defensive BP, metagame would be better without BP
A little late but here are the teams that I wanted to share. I'm mostly writing this post to target audiences that aren't super familiar with the metagame so I'm going to spend a fair amount of it stating the "obvious" for the sake of clarity.
This is a slightly edited version of the drumpass team that I brought in upl. (no, I didn't test the changes) It may look strange to see an offense without a Latios but bp teams can easily afford to be weird and I really wanted to exploit the bullshit synergy between Mewtwo lead, Wobbuffet, and drumpass Smeargle. With this combo, you are punished for making good plays vs boomtwo with your Snorlax. If you successfully read the Mewtwo's boom click with your Snorlax Protect (a great play in a normal game), the drumpass player just sends out their Wobb afterwards to Encore the Protect click and win the game on the spot. That's not even optimal sequencing on the part of the bp player, it's almost always better to just immediately send out Wobb when the opponent tries to counter your boomtwo with their Snorlax. Doing so still punishes the Protect click but it also wins the game if they decide to Curse instead!
The exchange between special boomtwo and snorlax is usually a 50/50 choice between curse and protect. protect is obviously best if the mewtwo clicks boom but the mewtwo might try to bait a premature tect click by using cm/special attack first. snorlax using curse on that turn allows it to threaten mewtwo with a 2hko from +1 bslam but also have +1 def to deny the boom trade even if the mewtwo doesn't boom into the snorlax protect.
Even if you don't manage to setup a drumpass sweep, you aren't out of the game with this team. Mewtwo's boom, Wobbuffet's dbond, Smeargle's Spore, and Metagross's boom all nearly guarantee that the four mons will at least make a 1for1 trade which means that your SD Twave Groudon and your Deoxys-Attack just have to kill one Pokemon each to win the game.
Quick how-to-play: Play boomtwo straight, any trade is a good trade. However, you want to use your Wobbuffet instead of boom if your opponent sends out a Blissey or Snorlax against it. Main goal for the team is to Encore lock any Pokemon into a non-damaging move so that you can send in Smeargle. If you are unlucky, Encore will only last 3 turns so make sure to send out Smeargle immediately after using Encore (if you need to use Safeguard, set it up before the Encore that you switch on). Once Smeargle is in, always click Substitute first and then you Spore their Pokemon if they have a move that can interrupt the drumpass, otherwise you Belly Drum from behind the Substitute and Spore right before you pass to a receiver. As far as receivers go: if you still have your Substitute intact or if they switch on the turn that you click Baton Pass, then Deoxy-Attack is very often the best choice. If you don't have your Substitute anymore and they don't switch their sleeping Pokemon out, then you probably want to pass to Groudon since you could get unlucky with a one turn sleep.
Potential variations: If you aren't comfortable playing a team without Latios, you can replace the Mewtwo with one and change sets/leads accordingly so that you have a more typical Sun HO structure (don, meta, deo, lati +2). If you don't like not using metalax, you can further go weatherless and drop Groudon for a Snorlax. I don't think either variant are as effective at exploiting baton pass but it may make it easier to win games where the drumpass doesn't happen.
What is important to note with this archetype is that your opponent won't know that they are fighting against bp since there is no team preview. Mewtwo lead is already very powerful in the metagame for the way that it dictates how the opponent must play their opening turns and, as already stated, Wobb drumpass often punishes you for making the would-be "correct" plays against it. Wobbuffet itself is much harder to deal with when bp is an option because the optimal play against a regular Wobbuffet trap is often the inverse of what is the right choice against a drumpass Wobbuffet trap. Phazing, Taunt, Encore, boom, etc. may complicate the winpath for this team but they don't actually stop it assuming correct play. I can elaborate more if necessary but I want to avoid bloating this post too much. (tl;dr subpass first time, drumpass second time)
I used this team in my first game vs Lasen in the adv open. I think Sun is really important for meanpass Umbreon which I guess is kinda novel based on the sorts of teams that meanpass has been traditionally featured on. Umbreon has a really good defenses with 95/110/130 base stats and a typing that avoids any big weaknesses to special attacks. This is significant because Umbreon also learns Moonlight which is an instant 66% recovery move as long as Sun is up. On top of all of that, Sun also nerfs Thunder accuracy to only 50%. In short, what all this means is that Umbreon can reliably and repeatedly setup meanpass traps against the omnipresent Lati twins that switch in to counter your Groudon. Moonlight only requiring a single turn and moveslot (as opposed to Wish + Protect) also means that Umbreon easily has the room to fit Taunt to deny enemy phazing attempts. So, with all that in mind, I wanted to build a simple Sun MetaLax team with Umbreon since the Sun MetaLax archetype is very easy to play, flexible, and consistent. More experienced players surely instantly recognize the massive Heracross weakness that this team has but that was a deliberate building decision on my part. Offensive Pokemon that resist Megahorn are in very short supply and that list gets even shorter when you assume that it has to beat a Salac Hera that is behind a Substitute already. Of the options that remain, none of them can check Heracross at the frequency that Umbreon would require (since it does zero damage to switch-ins). So my solution to this is to simply assume Heracross as a problem matchup and to not rely on Umbreon at all when playing against it, which is very possible thanks to MetaLax! Snorlax is a great Lati@s counter even without meanpass support and Umbreon itself won't be completely useless since you can still switch it into Shadow Balls and assorted special attacks for the quick Baton Pass pivot. Heracross is only punishing if you try to Mean Look but by just abusing Umbreon's natural bulk and ability to scout the opponent's choice with Baton Pass, you force the Heracross to take risks and try to double switch. Heracross still isn't a great mu for this team but it's not an autolose and it's not so popular to be damning for the team.
Quick how-to-play: When Sun is up and the opponent's Lati is in play, send out your Umbreon! Using Mean Look immediately and then responding to the opponent's decision is almost always a fine play. If you trap a Pokemon that can use Roar/Whirlwind, use Taunt to shut them down before passing. AmnesiaLax can cap its stats against a lot of Pokemon but you don't need to convert every trappass into a setup sweep. Simply forcing a "free" kill is great value for Umbreon, especially since it has the bulk to do so multiple times in a single game. Raw Baton Pass is a good play if you are worried about a potential Heracross or expect the opponent to use CB Deo Superpower to prevent a meanpass. Special attack Metagross OHKOs Deoxys-Attack with Pursuit even if it doesn't switch so be sure to take advantage of that if you can setup a free 1v1 off of a raw bp. Metagross may be your only boom resist but that doesn't mean it should always be the one to take a predictable boom, be sure to analyze the game and determine which Pokemon is best for you to trade. Always remember that Umbreon is a support Pokemon, in some matchups and/or gamestates meanpassing isn't the role that it should be playing. Taking advantage of its raw bulk and relative slowness to safely pivot with drypasses is sometimes more optimal as maintaining momentum and converting Umbreon HP into beater clicks is very powerful.
Potential variations: Choice Band or Dragon Dance Rayquaza is easily an option over Deoxys-Attack if you want a bit more insurance against Heracross. HP Fire over Psychic on Latios is technically more optimal since it gives you perfect coverage and easily roasts Hera under Sun. You need Psychic to OHKO lead Heracross, but in higher level play strong players usually scout that option. For general use, keeping Psychic is best but HP Fire is worth considering if you think your opponent will be wary of the STAB move.
I think what this team shows is that fitting Umbreon on your team doesn't actually require any support beyond Groudon.
Honestly, wishtect meanpass Umbreon is probably viable for Rain teams. It just won't be as effective as you won't have the very valuable Taunt and your recovery move is weaker. You also have to eat big Latios Thunders, which always hurt, as well as deal with the 30% para rate, although synchronize helps. Wish support is cool, though, and Kyogre itself opens a host of different possibilities so it may be worthwhile. I've not really tried it, though.
Meanwhile, putting Umbreon on your team opens up teambuilding options that aren't as available otherwise (such as AmnesiaLax without spikes support) as well bringing value just by itself (hard punishes Lati clicks).
I used this team in my second game vs Lasen in the adv open. It's probably strange to see a meanpass stall in adv but I wanted to show that offense isn't the only archetype that can abuse this mechanic (for all the stall haters out there) as well as take advantage of the sturdier Heracross counters that the archetype can afford. In exchange, Umbreon gives stall a wincon against other fat teams as well as an extra special wall to ease pressure on Blissey. Blissey's cleric support also opens the door for setup mons like BU Groudon and CM Latias that Umbreon can meanpass to. Skarmory's double Megahorn resistance isn't the only thing it supports Umbreon with; Spikes are always super valuable and they help break down repeated Heracross and CB Deoxys-Attack switches and enables the use of Sub CM Ho-Oh for yet another wincon.
Quick how-to-play: Trap them, stall them. You can play a lot more reactively with Umbreon since your teammates are fat af and you can also play more aggressively with Umbreon since the games will be long enough to find opportunities to bring it's health back to safe levels. If you trap a Lati twin with Refresh, pass to CM Ho-Oh to setup on it. If you trap a Lati twin without Refresh, it's generally safer to pass to Blissey so that she can Toxic it (Ho-Oh can setup on sets like 4 attacks Latios, though). BU Groudon can setup on a trapped Snorlax or Metagross but sometimes it's better to just get Skarmory in for the free 3 layers. Be careful when trying to setup Latias on a trapped kaiju, some Kyogre sets use Roar and Thunder Wave variants of Groudon and Kyogre are always too dangerous to be greedy against. When playing against Forretress or Skarmory teams, it's generally better to prioritize Umbreon as your early-mid game special sponge since it can Taunt Spikes clicks (note that Skarmory vs Umbreon is a creep war that Skarmory has a slight advantage for).
Potential Variations: Flamethrower on Blissey over Seismic Toss roasts Skarmory and Forretress which makes those matchups easier to play without having Rapid Spin. Rock Slide over HP Ghost on Groudon can be useful to quickly kill an enemy Ho-Oh that you trap. Pursuit on Skarmory over HP Fire or Toxic is always valuable since it makes dealing with Deoxys-Attack easier.
Again, this team exists to mostly show that different Sun archetypes can exploit meanpassing in their own ways. This makes it that much more difficult to account for meanpassing in tournament prep since the associated team can vary so fucking much.
Anyways, this post is getting pretty long so I'll end it here. There's a lot more to talk about so if anybody has questions or comments then I'd be happy to engage.
(Disclaimer: all the ev spreads featured in these pastes are deliberately suboptimal. They should be plenty good enough for general use but there is definitely room for further optimisation if desired.)
Can someone tell me why baton pass is still allowed in the tier? I’ve casually followed the tier for years and it seems more broken than it ever was in ou? In ou, at least there’s sand to prevent ninjask from freely subbing+tect + gimping umbreon, phazing seems more common, and there’s no “non-cheese” strategies that use it. Zapdos and celebi, largely the reasons why baton pass has stayed free in ou despite philosophy changes over the years, are nonexistent in Ubers and no Uber learns baton pass.
The only common baton pass users in Ubers are ninjask, smeargle, and umbreon w shedinja being less so. The main real argument I see for keeping baton pass in the tier is to limit how strong something like sun stall can be without mean look pass umbreon. My question is does such a strong tool need to exist in the tier? My answer to that question is a resounding no imo and the move itself should be banned, full stop. I think the posts above from MMII are great examples in how this style can and will be optimized further. I think the process of how baton pass has evolved in ou over the years, where players have continually found ways around the piecemeal bans, is another great example.
I suppose the main reasons why baton pass is still around is the power level of Ubers can make it hard to pull a pass off and general malaise to ban baton pass in old gen Ubers (it should 100% be gone in dpp, but that’s for another day) but really? Belly pass smear often outspeeds most ogre/don/many common pokes, can pull off spore, and then if you don’t have strong priority or phazing, it’s gg? Even if you do, wobb can encore to give smear the set up opp it needs and then it’s gg without both ray and deo-a or multiple phasers? Ninjask can easily get around Pokemon without phazing and priority and it can get off swords dance too? Does belly pass smear, mean pass umbreon, and ninjask really need to be in the tier? Is there any other collateral damage besides shedinja, a rare poke as is?
in ou, a common counter argument is that there’s absolutely tools to beat baton pass. But even here, I both think these tools, while very common, don’t have to be ubiquitous and that the tier doesn’t need baton pass in it. If someone needs to put a policy review thread to finally get old gen council to do something after 2 years, hell I’ll do it.
Hey folks, since Baton Pass has been the focus of the thread for quite a while, let's celebrate the ban with some renewed discussion! So here's a ridiculously dumb (but still pretty cool) idea for y'all to laugh at and maybe try out in a roomtour or two. I really enjoy this tier and it's nice to see it get ever-so-slightly more attention from the suspect test.
In reference to RBY, a wise man once said Dodrio is cool (not good, but cool) because "it's cool to have the power of a Snorlax but with a Speed stat," and after I got the smoothbrain idea to try it here, that's shown to be true. Dodrio is really fun; it hits as hard as Lax and is actually a surprisingly decent team player if you squint thanks to Pursuit and priority. Being a Spikes-immune CBer is always nice too, especially when your main archetype is inevitably Mag offense teams that can't keep the first layer from going up too often. My interest in this guy started when I was trying to find a CB Lugia replacement that didn't make the team worse against garden-variety DeoA Sball spam, and it actually fits the bill really well! Of course it's not as titanically bulky as the Big Lug, leaving little room for error when using it, but EQ and Shadow Ball / HP Ghost immunities give it real use against demons like Groudon / DeoA / physical Mewtwo, and its meager bulk is actually workable in specific scenarios to check stuff, mainly Heracross (more on that soon).
Here's the set:
Dodrio @ Choice Band
Ability: Early Bird
EVs: 236 Atk / 48 Def / 224 Spe
Naive Nature
- Return
- Quick Attack
- Pursuit
- Hidden Power [Ground] / Some other stuff maybe
Simple set for a simple bird, but there are some interesting bits here. Normal STAB is obviously great, neutral targets should be afraid, blah blah blah. Calcs here are similar to Bandlax, which is to say very good. The next two moves are what separate Dodrio from Generic CB Normal #4923: STAB Quick Attack is a rare thing on decent mons and it's great for picking off weakened foes and 25% Salac users that just run over Lax or Slaking. This is nice for letting your team's DeoA drop Espeed comfortably in a way that would usually be kinda limited to weather-dependent Chloro/Swim mons or maybe a Wobb; you could also just not use DeoA in favor of something else that hates DeoA spoiling its fun, like Mewtwo or CM Lati@s. Pursuit is great alongside QA to put DeoA in a rough spot, since you always KO it on the switch with your massive 60 Special Attack. So if they're CB and you switch into the Shadow Ball they want to spam whenever possible they're just kinda boned, and even if they're not they still can't kill you with Espeed while you pick them off with your own priority. Not that useful against Sub sets though, you need an extra check for those since it can't take a special hit to save any of its three lives.
Last moveslot is where things get a bit theorymon-y since it's hard to get friendlies to properly test one move option in this tier, let alone six, but I think there's plenty to be explored:
HP Ground: What I've actually used the most since it makes you better into the Normal resists that your Mag BFF isn't as reliable against on its own (Meta, Rachi, other Mag, TTar which isn't a Steel but ykwim), makes you a bit more flexible overall and lets you chip those fellas into trap range. Ghosts become a big problem though.
Drill Peck: Other Normals wish they had this. Secondary STAB, good neutral damage, 3-shots Forry and deletes Gengar on the switch + 2HKOes Dusclops with Spikes. Nice midground move if you're not sure whether an unrevealed Ghost might ruin your fun. Probably the best if you want to use it on Magless, especially with Dug to remove those grounded Steels + TTar. I didn't default to it since I like the Meta/Rachi/Tar insurance of HP Ground and the Ghost calcs are prediction-reliant anyway.
Hyper Beam: HAHAHA BIG NUKE GO BRRRRT a nice farewell to your enemies from low health. Calcs are pretty similar to the ones SEA shared for her Tauros a while ago but a little bit worse, mostly remedied by Spikes to secure big OHKOs like Kyogre. Unlike Tauros, don't lead with it because it loses to any lead it can't outspeed and insta-nuke, which is a lot.
Sunny Day: Could be useful for surprise resetting the weather against Mr. Ogre. I think this has potential since I feel Groudon is the better of the two kaiju as a teammate, sun offense is definitely Dodrio's main home.
Sleep Talk: Nobody loves CB Sleep Talk and sleep isn't super common here, but it could be useful against something like Sing Blissey since Early Bird means you probably only need to use it once before waking up and having an actual functioning mon again later.
Taunt: Pre-emptively use against Forry/Skarm/Gengar switches to deny Spikes or Wisp maybe? Not too sure about this one, a good move but probably not a good user. Maybe good for stallbreaking DeoD if it knocks your band off, but that's reeeeeally stretching.
Baton Pass (honorary mention, RIP drypass): Yeah, this might've been nice for pivoting into Steel trappers, but the ban was for the best so I'm not torn up about it. I think I've adequately shown there are other productive ways to use this slot.
So what was that bit earlier about this weirdo bird from BL being able to check Heracross? The devil's in the details of the EV spread: 252+ Atk Heracross Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 48 Def Dodrio: 221-260 (84.6 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
236 Atk CB Dodrio Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Heracross: 280-330 (92.7 - 109.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes (bulkless) 236 Atk CB Dodrio Return vs. 56 HP / 0 Def Heracross: 280-330 (88.8 - 104.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes (spdef)
48 Defense EVs are all you need to live Heracross Rock Slide from full, letting you KO it with Return even if it subs as you switch in. Combine this with the ability to live CB Megahorn and pick off Salac-boosted beetles with Quick Attack and you've got yourself a decent gameplan for the scariest bug in the game. Does Dodrio need to stay at full health to do this? Yes, but since you're immune to Spikes and rely on immunities rather than resistances to get on the field, I don't think that's totally unreasonable here. Much like with Sub Deo-A, you'll need a backup check for CB in case you get the set wrong, but that's not super unreasonable either. Just make sure you have the right tools for pivoting around it, or are offensive enough to sack something to it and still be okay.
The rest of the spread is really simple. The Speed lets you creep Mew, Mewtwo and CB Lugia sets that benchmark for Modest Lati@s. Naive goes over Jolly to guarantee the Pursuit calcs against Deo-A, but you could honestly do with Jolly if you live on the edge: 0 SpA Dodrio switching Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Deoxys-Attack: 234-276 (97 - 114.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
0- SpA Dodrio switching Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Deoxys-Attack: 210-248 (87.1 - 102.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
So yeah, thanks for coming to my BIRD talk. I may not be a pedigree'd player, but I know most people who watch this thread a lot are, so maybe you can make something of Dodrio after this sales pitch. Hell, I might even make my own RMT with it soon-ish (sneak peak below). I genuinely believe in the mon and think it has a niche beyond the theoretical, and I hope this has given y'all the tiniest bit of faith that I might be right.
