I still say ban Ingrain on smeargle or maybe limit the number to 3. I'm pretty sure people said 4 was still broken
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Baton Pass - its role in the metagame and possible solutions to nerf full Baton Pass chains
- Thread starter haunter
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Yet there will never be one team, or pokemon that can deal with them all at once (that stays in OU at least). If you specialize to beat one, you will lose to the others. That's just the game we play. BP in particular has plenty of things that give it trouble, and while it may have some answers to them, it can't do everything at once. From that point, it's really just how each player plays the game.
I think we've looked at constant offensive pressure, flying spam, opposing setup sweepers, hazing, phazing, and all kinds of taunting and trickery. At some point, it stops being "things a BP player might be able to handle" and becomes one person trying to outplay the other. You know...
Like every freakin prokemon battle ever
And I think we've answered how offensive pressure, Flying spam, opposing setup sweepers, hazing, phasing and "all kinds of Taunting and trickery" do not stop or defeat Baton Pass chains. With speed initiative, Baton Pass players have no problem countering any on that miserable list. Offensive pressure and Flying spam are rendered weak and pitiful against trivially acquired Iron Defence, Acid Armor, Quiver Dance, and Calm Mind boosts. Setup sweepers perish before they can gather the strength (or speed) to do anything, and even Belly Drum Azumarill is Roared out by Vaporeon or put to sleep via Smeargle's Spore. Phasing is worthless courtesy of Magic Bounce and Ingrain. Taunt is meaningless by Magic Bounce's existence. Haze has poor distribution, and the Pokemon that viably run it are suboptimal or impractical, and Haze users are worn down and defeated anyways. A Baton Pass chain has no problem restarting the chain, 2, 3, or even 4 times in a given game, on account of Scolipede.
Can you defeat Baton Pass chains? Yes. Can the user even make mistakes? Yes. But is the archetype overcentralizing and unhealthy for the development of the metagame? Yes. Does Baton Pass playstyle limit or hinder the development of other playstyles? Yes.
We've generally concluded the Baton Pass archetype (you know, the one that has dominated the OU metagame?) requires a sort of nerf, be it the direct ban of a Pokemon like Scolipede, or a complex ban or clause.
I was going to refute each of your points to show you how you're yet again mistaken (but yet still act like not only are you right, but like you have authority), but this is probably the most important point to consider here. (cause doing the former is like talking to a brick wall at this point)
So not only are BP chains beatable, but dependent on player competence. How is that not like every team archetype ever? Because you can't ignore BP while team building and smash through it all willy nilly? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that totally seems to be what you want.
pffff..... that's a really good question, and I don't have a good counterargument. Certainly, if we were to take away iron defence scolo, it can no longer do stupid BS like this...
252+ Atk Mega Heracross Rock Blast (5 hits) vs. +2 252 HP / 252+ Def Scolipede: 160-190 (49.3 - 58.6%) -- approx. 99.6% chance to 2HKO
Meaning that a very fast / scarfed offensive pokemon will have a decent chance of killing it before the pass (remember, at +1, scolo is still outsped by timid base 130s and pretty much any scarfer). However, even without iron-defense, scolo is still basically a better ninjask in every way imaginable, but it's generally accepted that ninjask is terrible in OU anyway.
If I had to come up with a reason for the inconsistency, I'd say that it would be because ingrain smeargle has precedent and scoli does not, which is a pretty crummy excuse for many reasons that I do not need to state.
Can anyone come up with a good reason to ban scolo as a whole as opposed to iron defense scolo? If not, I would be perfectly happy with 2 bans, iron defense scolo and ingrain smeargle. I believe that this would be the least complicated set of bans that would still have the intended effect, nerfing BP in a manner that will allow other playstyles to have an even matchup with BP without crippling themselves.
In fact, without iron defense, there isn't much difference between scolo and zapdos, is there? The only real difference is that zapdos is vulnerable to getting taunted on the turn it tries to use agility, but has access to reliable recovery and is more bulky (type-wise and stat-wise) then scoli. I think that's acceptable.
Honestly, I can't think of a counter argument to that ban myself. The major threat that Scoli poses is boosting defense and speed at the same time.
Yeah he could set up subs and try to stall for speed instead, but without the defense boosts, he's even more vulnerable to flying spam than he already is.
Because "I want to include an OU viable Pokémon to help me deal better with HO/Stall/whatever" is different than "I HAVE to include obscure/outclassed counters/sets to avoid being 6-0'ed after Team Preview by BP".
BP works differently than any other archetype. In that way, it is indeed unlike every other archetype ever.
People still make the point that "BP is counterable". Nobody says it isn't, but most stuff you can include to beat BP leaves you at 5-6 against every other team (at best and that's assuming there is 1 Poke that hard-counters BP, which there isn't, as you said), which is different than changing a moveset or a spread on a single Poke to help against Stall or HO.
This leaves players in a catch-22: Auto-lose against BP because you don't have a counter or auto-lose against everything else because you do? This catch-22 simply should not exist.
Banning iron defence on him is stupid. It has competitive use outside of BP teams. Tho SD is more common
Were trying to nerf it not make baton pass teams suck.
Iron defense scoli has use outside of BP? Please, tell me more.
Yeah, I don't see why not. And I said outside of BP teams. You know there is a thing called (Well to be honest I'm not sure which on it is, but where you boost and then pass to a team mate to sweep. It's like quick pass or something)
Also, why would SD be necessary on offensive Scol, I'd think you could use Iron defence.
While Ingrain on smeargle, nobody uses that outside of BP teams
Subject hahaha unedit Edit: cuz you know that message I quoted wasn't the tiniest bit rude
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Actually, some folks have had decent success with protect + 3 attacks scoli, SD is not nessesary. Also, defense buffs are generally considered to be inferior to offense buffs due to the fact that it doesn't make you any better at muscling past your checks and counters, which is why quickpass exists in the first place.
To address the rest of the "full message" that you claim I didn't read, banning iron defense on scoli would not make BP any more unviable then it was last gen (where it was borderline viable). In fact, without iron defense scoli or ingrain smeargle, overall BP is still in a better spot then it was last gen, due to still having scolo and fairy types, as well weather nerfs and instant offense nerfs.
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I know protect plus 3 attacks with a Lifeorb OHKO's deoxys D apparently. Scolo can't pass Offensive buffs to special attackers, but some appreciate the iron defence. All I'm saying is that iron defence is still viable outside of Baton pass teams. Which is why I'm against outright banning it. Tho yes I agree that defence boost are generally inferior to offensive boost.
Ok, fair point. Scoli is unique for his ability to boost defense and speed at the same time (which I still maintain is the reason why BP is broken against offensive teams). The only real analogue to this is agility + barrier mew, which is inferior due to needing two turns of vulnerability to obtain the needed boosts as opposed to one. That being said, I still maintain that my proposal will have the least amount of collateral damage. It does weaken scoli's ability to support special attackers (and MAYBE some frail phys attackers who need the defense to sweep priority users), but besides that, virtually every other conceivable use for the two bans (being ingrain-smeargle and iron defense-scoli) are directly related to BP. You may claim that my proposal nerfs BP teams too hard / not hard enough (frankly, I was expecting more cries of the latter), but as far as collateral damage goes, I'm simply cannot see my proposal being any worse in terms of collateral damage then any of the other proposals I've seen, and that includes the current favorite of limiting BP users to 3 or 4 mons.
*edit*
I realize in hindsight that part of our misunderstanding was my use of "BP" to mean "full BP teams" as opposed to the move itself. This was my fault for being ambiguous, I apologize.
Banning.Ingrain smeargle nerf it enough, as I' m pretty sure many teams have some kind of phaser.
I posted another option a few pages back. It was to just ban Baton pass on Espeon if the team already has 2 users. Apparently that's to hard of a nerf.
So really limiting the the amount of users is alright. Why not just ban Speed boost Scol from baton pass teams. Zapados is still a viable option, so i've heard.
The problem still isn't in Scol tho. It's more so in Espeon(and smeargle to a lesser extent).
Honestly tho, I think Ingrain smeargle is a big enough nerf. I would say ban magic bounce Espeon but someone would complain(tho those who do cwould use Xatu).
Idk just my thoughts.
Also, banning iron defence on Scol, has some effect on the metagame, while limiting to 3-4 doesn't much.
And I seen your edit, I'm sorry to I'm just sick of people being rude to me on here.
I've seen it suggested as a teammate for m-gardevoir a few times, since mgarde has such terrible physical bulk and dies to pretty much any priority
Battles 1,3, and 4 were won on critical hits. Battle 5 was just a ragequit because sashed Crawdaunt. And battle 2 wasn't even played out; just a ragequit on Lava Plume damage rolls, burn, and Taunt on the predicted switch. It's obvious that the BP player's just fishing for unprepared teams, and quitting whenever the opp has an answer. 1755's a good rating for someone that's forfeiting this much.
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Ive been playing bp quite a long time myself with great success, and I agree on it being op. Anyway, bp is a playstyle that shudnt be totally erased because it has its part in the game; making certain teams, like stall not too op.
On the past few weeks people have started to get more and more prepared for encountering bp teams, and i know myself that it can be countered quite easily, if u play a hyper-offensive team, which is the most common play style atm. This is another reason for bp not to get ruled out by banning the ability magic bounce.
The best way to solve this problem is to ban the ability speed boost, when using baton pass. This makes the playstyle much harder to play, but still a descent playstyle.
On the past few weeks people have started to get more and more prepared for encountering bp teams, and i know myself that it can be countered quite easily, if u play a hyper-offensive team, which is the most common play style atm. This is another reason for bp not to get ruled out by banning the ability magic bounce.
The best way to solve this problem is to ban the ability speed boost, when using baton pass. This makes the playstyle much harder to play, but still a descent playstyle.
I thought of that but it would require a game changing mechanic I think. Besides they would still have to cap it. Scol doesn't only use Baton pass and speed boost on baton pass teams.
The problem is: scolipede is not too good when used in a semi-pass team, and shud therefore not be banned, but it is too op in a full bp chain, so its tricky...
But anyway i think semi-passing is never used, and can still be used by other pokemons, for instance mew. In gen 5, some people used celebi as nasty plot baton passer.
But banning Ingrain smeargle makes the team way more manageable to take out as you can use roar, whirl wind, dragon tail
That is not a solution really, because of espeon covering roar and whirlwind and sylveon/substitute covering dtail. I added a potential solution to my firts reply.
The thing is, and this has been reiterated multiple times, Scolipede is not the only Problem in this team of 6. When you throw in your first Pokemon, it's that Pokemon vs. the entire team of 6 working as one big set up Pokemon. Taking away one Pokemon wouldn't stop it, it'd just make it a bit more difficult to set up. . .
Tell that to soundproof Mr.Mime, Espeon and Sylveon.
The playstyle is not broken! It has its part in the game and is just too good atm. The only thing that is broken is that its too hard to counter as it is now, if that is restricted, it will not be a problem. Besides there are many other things op atm, that will get much better when bp is gone; Medicham-Mega and Bisharp
I'm not going to bother to go into much detail because it's really no use with you. All I can say it that if you use words like "overcentralizing" in the context of Baton Pass then you really have to reconsider if you should be posting at all.
Yeah I pretty much agree. I'll just add that I run haze Quagsire on my team. I have 4 alts in the top 500 (Cyumown, Crocy, Gwerks and Pwocy) and I needed to prepare for BP in order to stay there. I found that the only way to make Quaggy truly work (without leaving me at 5-6 as you mentioned) was to run a dedicated stall team. My current team was built around this Pokemon, and it is achieving successful results. But honestly, I don't enjoy the playstyle I've found myself using. Battles take so long, and opponents feel obliged to stall out the clock when they get irritated (not saying I'm unbeatable, but the matches I do win usually take a while because of time stall). To cap things off, Haze Quag beats BP about half the time if that.
In saying all this however, I do like that Quagsire is emerging with quite an impressive niche. What makes things better is that with the right support (i.e. fellow stallers), it is an incredible asset even against HO (e.g. I have stalled out a x 4 Adamant Charizard X against a player ranked 1856). Don't get me wrong, I am 100% for the nerf, I just like Quagsire. Fortunately, it will not completely lose this niche when or if BP is nerfed.
Just in case anyone was wondering what kind of support is needed for Quagsire, the team I run consists of Skarmory (with counter); Chansey (SR); Clefable (Magic Guard); Gliscor (Sub-Toxic); Quagsire and Roserade (Rest).
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That is the whole point. The point is not to stop baton pass, it has to be done less effective.
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