So I'm glad there's been some really solid posts so far, but there's a couple of others that have been pretty sus af as well. We kinda got those out of the way with
Merritt and his post above. I'm going to go into details with some things that I saw.
I think the first thing that should be noted is its
sheer attacking power. While you can make a near similar care about things like LO Abra, Scarf Meinfoo, and some gastly variants, the thing that makes torchic so much more powerful is its ability to do 2 specific things:
- Outspeed nearly every scarfer in the tier after two speed boosts
- Take care of mons that rely on priority to revenge kill
It's sheer attacking power? You mean the one-time nuke that it has with Firium Z? Comparing it to the likes of some of the best offensive mons in the tier is not doing it justice, because it's simply not that. It has two offensive moves at best and one of them is a 60 BP coverage move. And while Torchic does have a powerful Fire Blast, it does not have the ability to kill many threats from full. So it would require several turns to do so. And to regards to your two other specific things. Okay, it does outspeed almost everything after two speed boosts, but how is it getting those boosts? You could protect for one, sure, but then Torchic needs to tank a hit with it's abysmal defensive stats. With that in mind, it might need to take yet another hit because of the priority that you claim it can remove. You say that it takes care of these mons, but you really only mention Sucker Punch, particularly Pawniard. Pawniard is a Steel type, you should be able to beat him easily anyway. Regardless, that leaves you open to various Aqua Jets, Mach Punches, and Shadow Sneaks. With all of that in mind, I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here.
When faced with a disadvantageous matchup, it is pretty much penalty free to Baton Pass accrued Speed boosts to a teammate who can handle the threat.
This might be true sure, but what Pokemon wants to reliably come in and take a hit. Most mons in LC aren't quite able to take more than two/three hits and be a reliable sweeper/cleaner. If I wanted to pass to say, Snivy, on something that it normally beats like Onix. Onix could easily do some chip damage and explode. Or Endure to get back to full health and steal some more of Snivy's health. In that scenerio, Snivy needs to be able to sweep despite the fact that plenty of chip damage has been taken. In most situations, this is not likely. Many pass recipients are not going to automatically win you the game.
It distorts matches in an unhealthy way, always being the number 1 threat that you absolutely cannot let get a pass off / simultaneously making sure it doesnt just sweep through you.
Torchic doesn't generally just sweep games, there's very few situations where that just happens. Which means you would only really need to worry about not letting it get a pass off. This comes normally with the momentum and pressure in a game, I don't need to dedicate specific things to do this or handle Torchic in an extremely specific way (see: Gothita).
Let's situate ourselves against a fat Water like Mareanie. You have nothing to hit it bar Hidden Power Grass, which obviously doesn't do anything. You try to think, but... Oh, what's this? Baton Pass! Your Pokémon escapes the unbreakable wall to grant to one of your Pokémon a higher Speed to wreck havoc.
Mareanie uses Haze. Threat neutralized.
The Baton Pass containers extend very far, from slow but powerful attackers like Timburr, Bulk Up Rufflet and Nasty Plot Spritzee, to faster attackers like Snivy, as well as solidly maintaining momentum.
All of these Pokemon cannot sweep without taking an extra turn to setup something. Many of these Pokemon cannot take two/three hits and score a sweep. The exception to that is maybe Rufflett, which cannot break many of it's checks, who also check Torchic.
3. Speed Boost allows Torchic to make safe cleaning while being able to avoid any priority attack and outspeeding every threat in the metagame.
Yep, many Speed Boosts make it impossible to outspeed, unless it's with a priority attack, which Torchic is able to bypass by protecting itself and gaining more Speed Boosts
???
But I think that it is way too easy to clean up later in games with Torchic because of how easy it is to wear down LC teams with Knock Off and other stuff throughout the game. Against a worn down team, all Torchic has to do is click Protect one time, and then just click Fire Blast until the team drops because it's almost impossible for a Choice Scarf user can revenge it and effective priority is fairly rare
Torchic doesn't quite work as a late game cleaner as well as you're framing it to be, you can say many of the same things about something like Scarf Mienfoo, Sash Abra, Carvahna, but none of these mons are in remote contention. Not only does Torchic get worn down particularly quickly because of it's weakness to hazards, it also has trouble killing things that do not get OHKO'd by Fire Blast, which is way more mons than you're giving credit for.
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I'm not gonna really jump into the other posts as much, Merritt handled those well, but I'm gonna share some of my opinions on the topics at hand.
This is the first suspect in a long time where I have not been sure of which option is better. I thought about it for quite a bit and I don't think I will be upset with either outcome, but after some thought I think a
no ban on Torchic would be better overall. Torchic certainly isn't the dynamic powerhouse of a sweeper that many people are framing it to be, nor is it the ultimate wincon creator, passing speed boosts and instantly flashing "YOU WIN" with confetti shooting out of your computer and everyone clapping as you are rewarded with money and beautiful women. It's a lot more of a complex Pokemon to use than that and people failing to realize that will get the fire bird banned when in justification it does not answer the ban questions?
Is it broken?
With a 17 Special Attack stat, two solid offensive options, and the ability to Baton Pass speed to another Pokemon, one could say that it's broken. I would argue it isn't. It doesn't win the game, it's not essential to run on a team. There is counterplay, and people have adapted to it quite well, as not many people used it in Exhibition at all. I would even argue that Ponyta is in a better spot because of it, a mon that wasn't really in the limelight at all this gen, proving that the metagame has adapted healthily around Torchic.
Is it overcentralizing?
While there has been a rise in usage of things like Slowpoke, Ponyta, Mareanie and the likes of Tirtouga, none of these Pokemon were particularly bad or improved a drastic amount as a result. Because of this, I would say no, Torchic is not really overcentralizing.
Is it unfun? (to play with and against)
This is where my answer becomes a solid, yes. Torchic is lame as heck man! It creates more variance in what you need to be prepared for and playing with and against Torchic is not enjoyable.
I think this point would hold more weight if either of the other questions were also Yes, but because it's the only yes, I would say it's not quite worth banning. There are plenty of other pokemon that are not fun but are also not broken (Regen mons, Abra).
Finally, I would like to point out that there is plenty of counterplay to Torchic, but it requires more thought than some people put into the game, which is why many people are interested in banning it. My good friend
Heysup compared it many other matchup-based playstyles (Screens in BW, Full BP in XY, Aveil in early SM.) playstyles in LC in particular, saying...
[11:11] Heysup: if you don't know what you're doing 100% before the game starts
[11:11] Heysup: you have a very strong possibility of losing
While we agreed later that Torchic is a bit more variable than that, thinking about what to do when the opposing team has a Torchic is super important. I implore that everyone thinks in team preview just a bit more, especially when the other team has a Torchic. It's something that I always stress quite a bit when I'm working with my tutees, and really makes fighting against Torchic in particular easier.
Good luck to everyone that's shooting for reqs, you'll need it!