Liepard Suspect Discussion (Read post #202)

[Bughouse]

MikeDec, with all due respect, you need to learn to read what I write better... I never claimed Persian was broken. What matters is whether or not it is a competitive strategy. Assist Persian, though terrible, I'm sure vs many teams still practically auto-wins. It's a noncompetitive strategy, regardless of whether or not it is broken (which it isn't).

And yes... Assist is the problem. Who else uses Assist or ever would in NU?

 

[atomicllamas]

Hey, so I know that I am the one who suggested everyone try out Purrloin to prove that it is prankster assist that is broken, so I decided to take my own advice and slapped together a really cute assist cat team (seriously mine is cuter than all others :)). I have only played 4 battles so far (4-0 bitch, all due to forfeit), but am inclined to say it is probably broken due to how easy it is to force rocks out and beat the opposing team, and their is little to stop it.

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55228449
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55231479

This is a replay that shows how all my games have ended, people getting hopelessly behind and forfeiting, my hardest match so far was one vs. a SR Pinsir (wtf), luckily their wartortle didn't have rapid spin (also wtf, it had aqua jet -_-). So I am inclined to say it is definitely an issue as it makes you less likely to beat unskilled opponents with shitty teams, and more likely to beat semi-skilled teams with a proper team build.

Dual Cute Phasers Team

dog (Purrloin) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Assist
- Protect
- Substitute
- Toxic

cat (Riolu) @ Eviolite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
Impish Nature
- Copycat
- Roar
- Protect
- Counter

dog (Ditto) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SAtk / 3 Spd
- Transform

dog (Arbok) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Tail
- Switcheroo
- Protect
- Snatch

dog (Lopunny) @ Flame Orb
Ability: Klutz
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Switcheroo
- Mirror Coat
- Copycat
- Protect

dog (Drifblim) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Aftermath
EVs: 176 Def / 80 SDef / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Trick
- Destiny Bond
- Thief
- Protect

Edit: liepard is a huge problem though, lol.

Edit 2: I will continue to add more replays as I see fit to this post:
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55254756
this guy knew what was happening and it still worked.

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55257711
Me vs. no SR team

 

[tennisace]

chieliee asked me to play some games with Persian, so I did

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55229618
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55230064
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55230712

Strategy is the exact same, except this time you're vulnerable to all priority (though you can survive weaker priority, like in the third game where I survived two Piloswine Ice Shards. It's nowhere near as good as Liepard, but here's the thing: I still shouldn't be able to win games with this!

 

[Fuzznip]

If we ban Prankster+Assist, I expect to see Persian/Purugly/Sneasel /w Assist to pick up the slack, which is why I prefer a full Assist ban.

Of course, these three are stopped easily by priority not named Sucker Punch (most notably Gurdurr's Mach Punch) as well as extremely fast mons like Electrode, but it is still obnoxious as hell.

There's not one Pokemon that can adequately fulfill Liepard's or Purrloin's shoes when it comes to Assist spam if Prankster + Assist is banned. For one thing, unless they are not Choice Scarfed, anything faster than the Pokemon you mentioned will lose. Anything with priority will beat them as well. Sneasel and Persian are also very frail, so they can't really take hits. Purugly is just awful offensively, so it's more or less a sitting duck. If you do Choice Scarf these Pokemon, you will always lose to Magic Coaters, Natu, Regenerators, priority, Prankster Taunt, and easily Protect stalled, among other things. Assist doesn't have enough PP to weaken a whole team enough for either of the three Pokemon you mentioned to sweep late-game, especially if you don't get any entry hazards up in the first place. Liepard actually has the ability to sweep, while Purrloin still has Prankster that arguably makes the Assist spam broken.

To summarize, Assist itself is not broken and should not be banned across the board because nothing will ever be able to pull it off as well as Liepard/Purrloin. A complex ban is essentially the only way to go about this, so either Assist + Prankster or Assist + phazing should be looked at if people deem this playstyle is broken.

 

[atomicllamas]

chieliee asked me to play some games with Persian, so I did

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55229618
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55230064
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55230712

Strategy is the exact same, except this time you're vulnerable to all priority (though you can survive weaker priority, like in the third game where I survived two Piloswine Ice Shards. It's nowhere near as good as Liepard, but here's the thing: I still shouldn't be able to win games with this!

Lol @ Kadabra in replay number two, not using magic guard .-.

Edit: To make this post worthwhile, it should also be noted that only Liepard fares well vs. Kadabra, and it is a really good counter to Purrloin/Persian duplicates of this.

 

[Punchshroom]

chieliee asked me to play some games with Persian, so I did

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55229618
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55230064
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55230712

Strategy is the exact same, except this time you're vulnerable to all priority (though you can survive weaker priority, like in the third game where I survived two Piloswine Ice Shards. It's nowhere near as good as Liepard, but here's the thing: I still shouldn't be able to win games with this!

Turn 4 of second battle: Why didn't he just Spin??? The poor guy just didn't know what to expect, him having non-Magic Guard Kadabra didn't help his case either.

Turn 10 of third battle: Was there a need to switch Persian out, much less weaken Ditto so precariously like that? You were lucky Ice Shard didn't finish Persian off twice, too.

 

[Style_Dota]

Name another use for Assist besides Whirlwind / Roar (/ Divecats) then. The argument against Assist as a whole is that it has no other use besides these uncompetitive teams.

Did I say it had another use in this case? No. Assist is broken when paired with this very specific team building aspect, which makes the mechanics of Assist in this case broken, but the move in its entirety is not broken, which was the base of my claim. People can use Assist for other reasons besides those three strategies outside of Smogon believe it or not (I have seen random people use Assist on the ladder for random reasons), and we shouldn't force them to not have the ability to use it if they so desire.

MikeDec, with all due respect, you need to learn to read what I write better... I never claimed Persian was broken. What matters is whether or not it is a competitive strategy. Assist Persian, though terrible, I'm sure vs many teams still practically auto-wins. It's a noncompetitive strategy, regardless of whether or not it is broken (which it isn't).

And yes... Assist is the problem. Who else uses Assist or ever would in NU?

I'm going to say the same to you, no offense, but you need to read my entire post. I know you didn't claim Persian was broken, I was using that part as a counter example, but the point of my post was "If you feel Assist is broken as a whole, prove it with evidence", mainly as TennisAce attempted to do with his replays (although those opponents...yeah). Also, versus many teams, Riolu is an auto win. Versus many teams, a lot of Pokemon can be auto-wins, and unfortunately, that's the shitty part of Gen V. However, just because one Pokemon is an auto win against certain teams, it doesn't mean that that Pokemon is broken.

You don't know who would use Assist for something else because you are only viewing this one strategy, but I have seen random uses of Assist on the ladder (Not saying they were good by any means, but people do use it for other things).

I still would like to see some better replays, but I could agree that the combination of Assist + Whirlwind / Roar is a viable option.

Edit: Also, do your defensive calcs add in the IV drops needed to make HP Ghost have a base power of 60?

 

[Bughouse]

chieliee asked me to play some games with Persian, so I did

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55229618
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55230064
http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55230712

Strategy is the exact same, except this time you're vulnerable to all priority (though you can survive weaker priority, like in the third game where I survived two Piloswine Ice Shards. It's nowhere near as good as Liepard, but here's the thing: I still shouldn't be able to win games with this!

What are your other moves on Persian? I feel like you should be carrying Assist, Protect, Swift, and HP Ghost 60 (Technician!) or something. Certainly could help against the Haunters and Kadabras that can be very annoying:
0 SpA Technician Persian Hidden Power Ghost vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Kadabra: 124-146 (55.85 - 65.76%)
252 SpA Kadabra Psychic vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Persian: 198-234 (59.28 - 70.05%)

0 SpA Technician Persian Hidden Power Ghost vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Haunter: 146-174 (62.93 - 75%)
252 SpA Haunter Hidden Power Fighting vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Persian: 200-236 (59.88 - 70.65%)

 

[tennisace]

The other moves are Sub and Toxic, much like the Purrloin I was running. I might try HP Ghost or an attack of some sort with Technician, though it's gonna be stupidly weak (and honestly Bite would probably be better for that role because of the flinch chance + higher attack).

Also yeah Punchshroom I got a bit ballsy game 3 but you'll notice that the second time I stalled him out for a turn so that I could guarantee survive it. You have to understand that with Persian, it's not anywhere near as solid a strategy as Liepard or even Purrloin, so I was backed pretty far into a corner. Anyway, again I acknowledge that my opponents were... subpar, and I also begrudgingly acknowledge that the strategy is far less effective without Prankster. I agree that a complex ban is the way to go about this.

 

[Chieliee]

As I see it, the options are as follows:

simple bans:

Ban Liepard (+purrloin)
Ban Assist

complex bans:

Ban Assist+Prankster
Ban Assist+Phazing

(or leave it as it is, but i'm 99% certain that everyone agrees that something should be done)

Since there is not much difference between the Assist simple ban and the Assist+Phazing complex ban (since assist is rarely ever used besides this strategy (except perhaps divecats, which is much, much, MUCH more situational than this), I'll treat them as one and the same. We are not restricting teambuilding at all by banning a move that is not broken at all on most mons, because anyone with an IQ of a chimpansee wouldn't even think of running Assist (altho the average PS user seems to come quite close to that, no offense)

Why we should not ban Liepard:

Liepard has 3 common sets in NU:

1: Substitute/Swagger/Thunder Wave/Foul Play @ Leftovers
2: Pursuit/Sucker Punch/Encore/U-turn @ Dread Plate (or a variation of this)
3: Assist/Substitute/Nasty Plot/Dark Pulse

Set 1 isn't broken, it's merely annoying. Even if some of you argue this is broken, i'm sorry to say that there are a lot more pokemon who can pull off this strategy (e.g. Murkrow, who even has roost) It's obviously not something people enjoy facing, but that doesn't mean it's instantly broken. By using creative sets (for example Lum Rock Blast Golem), as someone pointed out, this strategy can be 100% beaten.

Set 2 is the sole 'positive' set Liepard has. It's a great addition to the metagame, fitting amazingly on momentum-based teams, teams that have trouble with boosting sweepers or teams that simply need it's utility. I'll make this clear: I believe we should NOT ban Liepard solely because of this set's existance.

Set 3 is broken. It has, what we are calling 'counters'. But in reality, i'd say these are the things that come closest to countering it. Even packing 1 or 2 of these counters and you might lose, as illustrated by some of the replays posted in this thread.

So, in my opinion, we should not ban Liepard itself. Then, the choice lies between two sides:

1. (Ban Assist/Ban assist+Phazing)
2. Ban Assist+Prankster

The difference between these two lies in non-prankster assist abusers, most noteably Persian, Sneasel and Purugly

If these are deemed broken, choose option one.

If these are not broken, we should ask ourselves this question:

If a strategy is not broken, but will still allow a less skillful player to beat a top-ranked player mindlessly, do we really want to keep it? Persian might not work in X% of situations, but that means it still works (100-X)% of the time. On the ladder, this might lead to an average result. But in tournaments, this might become a viable strategy. Do we really want this? I believe that is where the question lies at this moment.

 

[Aasgier]

To the guy that says Riolu is an auto-win: No, it isn't. Magic Coat + Taunt screws hazard setters over, meaning stall can actually take Riolu on even w/o faster priority attacks. Riolu also needs a turn of setup, in which a lot of damage can be dealt, and Magic Coat screws Riolu over anyway since it can neither Roar nor setup in its face (unlike Liepard, though it shares this in common with Persian and Purrloin as they are both too weak to Nasty Plot).

Riolu also is not that fast and needs a lot of bulk investment to survive the setup turn where it needs to survive very powerful STAB attacks, which means it cannot be fast unlike Persian, Purrloin and Liepard.

 

[Fuzznip]

To the guy that says Riolu is an auto-win: No, it isn't. Magic Coat + Taunt screws hazard setters over, meaning stall can actually take Riolu on even w/o faster priority attacks. Riolu also needs a turn of setup, in which a lot of damage can be dealt, and Magic Coat screws Riolu over anyway since it can neither Roar nor setup in its face (unlike Liepard, though it shares this in common with Persian and Purrloin as they are both too weak to Nasty Plot).

Riolu also is not that fast and needs a lot of bulk investment to survive the setup turn where it needs to survive very powerful STAB attacks, which means it cannot be fast unlike Persian, Purrloin and Liepard.

Just saying but Bastiodon and Probopass, the only two users of Magic Coat really, are crushed by Drain Punch. Riolu can also use Substitute on the Magic Coat and its Roar will go first if Bastiodon tries to Roar it.

 

[atomicllamas]

Sorry to go off topic but can somebody explain me what divecat does?

Use liepard with a lagging tail (moves last in priority bracket). Make assist team that only calls dive/fly/bounce or w/e, and you will become unhittable with +1 priority turn one, and move last turn two, staying impossible to hit. This strategy loses to anything with priority, protect, or bulky mons with instant recovery.

 

[Bughouse]

Sorry to go off topic but can somebody explain me what divecat does?

Divecats uses Liepard (and Purrloin) holding Lagging Tail using Assist with the only callable moves being Fly/Bounce/Dive/Dig etc. The Assist gets Prankster priority and outspeeds any non-priority moves, since it is holding the Lagging Tail. Then, the second turn of the 2-turn attack goes last, since it is holding the Lagging Tail. Effectively, if they lack priority, you just get to hit them over and over again without taking damage.

It struggles against many things, for example Tangela, which can just regenerate, but with decent team support you actually can beat a good number of unprepared teams. It's ultimate troll.

This strategy is (much) worse than Roar/Whirlwind, but it can still win. I tested it as altlanta braves and went 6-1 (the first match I accidentally had whirlwind callable because I forgot to sub out FLCL's Shiftry -.- oh and I lost that one oops, but 6-1 once I switched to proper divecats)... which is part of why I'd rather just ban Assist than a combo ban on Roar/Whirlwind.

 

[Shuckleking87]

Use liepard with a lagging tail (moves last in priority bracket). Make assist team that only calls dive/fly/bounce or w/e, and you will become unhittable with +1 priority turn one, and move last turn two, staying impossible to hit. This strategy loses to anything with priority, protect, or bulky mons with instant recovery.

Also No guard dynamic punch golurk hits liepard regardless, which was hilarious (also it's third link in my signature).

 

[Fuzznip]

This strategy is (much) worse than Roar/Whirlwind, but it can still win. I tested it as altlanta braves and went 6-1 (the first match I accidentally had whirlwind callable because I forgot to sub out FLCL's Shiftry -.- oh and I lost that one oops, but 6-1 once I switched to proper divecats)... which is part of why I'd rather just ban Assist than a combo ban on Roar/Whirlwind.

If it's much worse, which it undeniably is, then there's no reason to ban Assist itself. The fact that you went 6-1 means nothing because the ladder is filled with underwhelming players and you only did 7 battles, so your rating probably isn't high enough for you to face an actual competent person. I can win games with obscure gimmick crap as well and it doesn't mean anything in regards to banishment.

I mean, if we want to shut down Assist + phazing and Assist + 2-turn moves, then the only way to go is Assist + Prankster. This solves all of our issues with the arguably broken Assist Liepard and it does not interfere with others wanting to use the move Assist itself for shits and giggles. Most importantly, though, it keeps Liepard's awesome utility in tact.

 

[Bughouse]

If it's much worse, which it undeniably is, then there's no reason to ban Assist itself. The fact that you went 6-1 means nothing because the ladder is filled with underwhelming players and you only did 7 battles, so your rating probably isn't high enough for you to face an actual competent person. I can win games with obscure gimmick crap as well and it doesn't mean anything in regards to banishment.

I mean, if we want to shut down Assist + phazing and Assist + 2-turn moves, then the only way to go is Assist + Prankster. This solves all of our issues with the arguably broken Assist Liepard and it does not interfere with others wanting to use the move Assist itself for shits and giggles. Most importantly, though, it keeps Liepard's awesome utility in tact.

Well the reason to just ban Assist alone is to also avoid the Purugly/Persian/etc shenanigans. Again, not saying they're good. But they're noncompetitive.

I don't see why we should make some complex ban just so that people can continue to use Assist on random teams for shits and giggles.

 

[Fuzznip]

Well the reason to just ban Assist alone is to also avoid the Purugly/Persian/etc shenanigans. Again, not saying they're good. But they're noncompetitive.

I don't see why we should make some complex ban just so that people can continue to use Assist on random teams for shits and giggles.

It's because banning Assist itself is stupid, as only Liepard and, to a lesser extent, Purrloin, are the only ones that can execute it properly. We don't care if people want to continue using Assist spam in other horribly effective methods. That's just free points for us, is it not? You're going to get an influx of newbs ignorantly asking why is Assist banned, and then you're going to respond with "it's broken on Liepard," to which they will reply with something along the lines of "but I wanna use it on my Persian!" I mean, it just doesn't make sense to ban Assist across the board because of one Pokemon using it well.

There are dozens of moves that are uncompetitive. Does this mean we should ban them? Absolutely not.

 

[Bughouse]

There are dozens of moves that are uncompetitive. Does this mean we should ban them? Absolutely not.

OHKO Clause
Evasion Clause


also, here's a better divecats (flycats) match showing that it really deserves to go too: http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55266551
Opponent has Regirock, SleepTalk Regice, Musharna, and most importantly a Gurdurr and still loses.

(this is for people who are in favor of Prankster + Roar/Whirlwind... if that wasn't obvious which apparently it isn't)

 

[Style_Dota]

To the guy that says Riolu is an auto-win: No, it isn't. Magic Coat + Taunt screws hazard setters over, meaning stall can actually take Riolu on even w/o faster priority attacks. Riolu also needs a turn of setup, in which a lot of damage can be dealt, and Magic Coat screws Riolu over anyway since it can neither Roar nor setup in its face (unlike Liepard, though it shares this in common with Persian and Purrloin as they are both too weak to Nasty Plot).

Riolu also is not that fast and needs a lot of bulk investment to survive the setup turn where it needs to survive very powerful STAB attacks, which means it cannot be fast unlike Persian, Purrloin and Liepard.

Please read my post. I said "Riolu is an auto win against certain teams".

OHKO Clause
Evasion Clause


also, here's a better divecats (flycats) match showing that it really deserves to go too: http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55266551
Opponent has Regirock, SleepTalk Regice, Musharna, and most importantly a Gurdurr and still loses.

I don't understand how stating two clauses that remove moves where the moves in their entirety are broken and uncompetitive have any backing against Fuzznip's claim. I think Fuzznip was referring to something like Splash.

Second, that replay uses both Liepard and Purrloin, which means, if we removed Prankster + Assist, I see nothing wrong.

 

[Moose V]

Jesus Christ stahp voting for SwagPard.

Oh and finally, it seems your beef is with the set and not Liepard itself, so no doubt you'd present us with a similiar case with Murkrow, Purrloin, or even any fast Pokemon with those 4 moves (like Purugly), so no, you don't want to ban Liepard, you want to ban parafusion, which means stuff like Rotom-S and Dunsparce would also fall under this category (Dunsparce is outright ruined). Also, there are even more broken parafusioners like Togekiss and Jirachi that even boast fantastic bulk and recovery, but they've never gotten banned (or even suspected, correct me if I'm wrong here), so while SwagPard is 'unethical', it's not even really "uncompetitive" as there are still ways to beat it. The biggest factor here is that you don't even have to really "prepare" for SwagPard: it either pulls it off with success or flops completely (oh so many times).

You seem to have missed my general point which is understandable since it didn't come across as very obvious. What liepard does is it either gets kills by chance or it dies by chance. Using this set it primarily sends the message that you'd rather win via hax than your own skill. The trouble with liepard is that it is an "auto use" pokemon meaning that it takes no skill to use and the game pretty much does your job for you. A pokemon absolutely does not need to be "broken" to be banned, it simply needs to compromise the integrity of the tier. Do you think Froslass was "broken" in UU? Hell no. But I, along with a majority of voters, decided it was another "auto use" pokemon and hurt the metagame. If you were to ban the assist set, is it really worth it to keep this one?

 

[Fuzznip]

also, here's a better divecats (flycats) match showing that it really deserves to go too: http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nucurrent-55266551
Opponent has Regirock, SleepTalk Regice, Musharna, and most importantly a Gurdurr and still loses.

Can you gather me a log or two of you fighting an actual competent player who knows Assist Liepard exists and what it does? The kid had no idea what was going on. Focus Sash + Earthquake Regirock, saccing Ludicolo when Regirock was still alive, Shadow Sneaking when Golurk was still in the air, and didn't bother to stall you of Assists late-game are just some pieces of evidence that he has much to learn (his NU ladder ratio is 151-135...).

 

[Punchshroom]

You seem to have missed my general point which is understandable since it didn't come across as very obvious. What liepard does is it either gets kills by chance or it dies by chance. Using this set it primarily sends the message that you'd rather win via hax than your own skill. The trouble with liepard is that it is an "auto use" pokemon meaning that it takes no skill to use and the game pretty much does your job for you. A pokemon absolutely does not need to be "broken" to be banned, it simply needs to compromise the integrity of the tier. Do you think Froslass was "broken" in UU? Hell no. But I, along with a majority of voters, decided it was another "auto use" pokemon and hurt the metagame. If you were to ban the assist set, is it really worth it to keep this one?

The point of my argument is to identify what you're targeting. Liepard isn't the only one to use T-Wave SwagPlay, other Pokemon can do it too (most notably Murkrow, which is likely what you'll be targeting next if SwagPlay Pard somehow does get the boot, making the ban moot). Are you looking to ban SwagPlay Liepard or parafusion in general? Froslass was banned because it almost always did its job, like 90% of the time in the hands of a remotely decent player: she can spinblock her own Spikes, Taunt Foresighters, and Destiny Bond opponents to KO them and send in something threatening to said spinner to deny the spin & keep the hazards around longer (the fast, offensive version of a "slow Volt Switch"). SwagPlay Liepard has less than a 50% success rate on the first turn (except against opponents who only have / are locked into Psychic) and is likely to get crippled because of it, and you want this banned because...?

Also, Prankster + Assist ban is really the way to go: Liepard is only especially potent because of priority Whirlwinds, and is really crippled without it, especially since numerous Pokemon can outspeed it (and that's without Scarf) and can be sniped down by priority which absolutely wrecks its pitiful defenses. Well-built teams usually have one or both of these, so Assist + Whirlwind without Prankster can help to single out the victims who do not have either, while flopping completely for the most part against the better teams (making it less effective than Riolu as a whole :D), making this strategy not broken or unhealthy for the meta.

 

[Golemman]

I've found a great stop to Liepard! Own Tempo Lickilicky! Swagger only boosts his offenses allowing him to destroy the cat and ruin any paralysis it inflicted with Heal Bell! Seems like the best counter to me

 

[Nozzle]

I've found a great stop to Liepard! Own Tempo Lickilicky! Swagger only boosts his offenses allowing him to destroy the cat and ruin any paralysis it inflicted with Heal Bell! Seems like the best counter to me

Sorry but SwagPard is not the reason we are suspecting Liepard. We are mostly planning on banning assist shuffle. (read through the rest of the thread for more info)