banlist discussion

sreservoir said:

skill link standard utility cloyster 2hkos with icicle spear, while requiring at least two +2 outrages or stone edges to kill, effectively a 3hko, with its lowest-def common set. scarf glaceon safely switches into +0 outrage, or, with minimal defense investment, +0 stone edge, outspeeds, and ohkos with ice beam through yache, unless garchomp has significant defensive investment, in which case either it won't be able to 2hko glaceon or will be horribly slow.

the cloyster is generally dead weight unless the enemy has a garchomp, but glaceon is dangerous to most things not resistant to ice or highly defensive.

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Which makes me really want to use Glaceon, if Garchomp returns. :P

Starmie can -revenge kill- Chomp if you've killed its Yache, which once again equates to requiring two counters. Will Starmie win in a one-vs-one? Yes, its faster, and can reasonably survive an Earthquake and deal two hits. But Garchomp is never a one-vs-one. Its a mid-to-lategame-sweeper on full teams. You cannot switch any Starmie in on a Garchomp and win, and unless backed into a corner noone will send a Chomp out -onto- a Starmie.
As for Gyarados, it's worth noting that like the HP Ice days of old, Ice Fang was carried exclusively for Chomp. It's sacrificing its move slot in place of the far better Stone Edge to deal with one Pokemon. In addition, once again, it cannot be sent in on a Chomp unless you predict an Earthquake. If it does anything but, you lose. If it SD's, it still has +1 attack. If it Stone Edges or Outrages, you're dead.

As an addition to the point of Glaceon being able to switch i and OHKO, if said Glaceon had a maxed out Sp. Attack then Ice beam would OHKO even the most defensive non-Yache Garchomps.

modest glaceon outspeeds max+ garchomp, and ohkos even yachechomp unless it's been investing heavily, so. it can also probably destroy the countercounter.

but that line of argument is probably invalid.

Well if it can switch into Outrage, Stone Edge, any Ice attacks Garchomp may have, and probably many more, and it can 1HKO it even with Yache Berry, I believe it can be called a counter, correct?
Let's see - Most Garchomps have no EV investment in Special Defense, making the stat 206 at the best. At this point, a Glaceon with a hindering nature for Sp. Attack, and no EV's or IV's in Sp. Attack, would have a 266 Sp. Attack stat and 2HKO YacheChomp with Ice Beam.
One small problem - Glaceon doesn't outspeed Garchomp. Max+ Glaceon Speed is 251, while Garchomp's is 333. If there were a way it could attack first, and the only way I can think of is Quick Claw, then it would be a safe counter.

And in an attempt to stay on topic, I think the only "questionable" pokemon tier-wise is Garchomp - I think the rest on the ban list are fine as they are, and I can't name any other pokemon in other tiers who are so powerful as to be banned.
And before anyone says anything about it... Wobbuffet must stay banned. Even though the primary reason for it's removal, and infinite Wobbu-battle, is not possible anymore, it should stay Uber/banned because it has no counters. I know that was obvious, but I don't want to worry about even a possibility of Wobbuffets running around in the Wi-Fi League... that would just be utter chaos.

I believe sreservoir is referring to scarfed glaceon, as e mentioned earlier. Timid scarf glaceon has 376 speed and will outspeed an unboosted garchomp.

That said, I still don't see garchomp (or scizor, or anything, frankly) as overcentralizing anything in this environment, counters or no. People here, even competitive players, just aren't as tied down to things like that as clans, Smogon, etc. are, unless things make a sudden about face with the restart. Most people probably don't even care that garchomp is banned because there are plenty of other things they'd just plain rather use. Couple that with the fact that not everyone is going to use the yache variant, and, well... where's the harm?

Ahh, I see. Scarfed. I need to pay attention a bit more. >_>

Oddly, though I'm the one who brought up 'Chomp in the first place, I was planning a competitive team just minutes ago with no 'Chomp, but instead a Flygon. Granted Salamence was on the team, but still.

...The harm with letting Chomp in is even in a less serious ring it's an easy button to anyone who knows what they're doing. Now, a -TRUE- counter is able to switch into their target semi-continuously, since switching is involved, but Glaceon half-qualifies to be able to go into it once... if unboosted. It's shakey, and besides that, even if not everyone uses Chomp, everyone will then have to carry a Scarf Glaceon just in case.
The fact is.. the thing has just been tested to be overpowered and overcentralising over and over again. Myself I don't.. REALLY care where it lands, but all the logistics leave it as better off banned.

...I will say this though, Cloyster is one of the amusingly only decided 'Chomp Counter' that has the means to really back up the claims. P: Poor thing could use more attention, but besides bonking dragons... there isn't much to do with it.

....As a side note, Quick Claw? ....Ahem, it has a 10% activation chance. That's anything but a 'safe counter'. In addition it's banned in most competitive-tier play, anyway, as a luck item. The same with Brightpowder, as it happens.

But if it's not as common, how is being defeated by the occasional garchomp any worse than being defeated by anything else you aren't prepared for? Being "required" to carry a counter/pseudo-counter/whatever is only necessary if it's legitimately going to be common, which again I will insist it probably won't be. If your team otherwise has no place for glaceon and nine out of ten teams you face don't have garchomp, you're basically running those nine battles with five pokémon. Players can be paranoid about it if they want to, but I think most will be fine with whatever decent ice-type attackers they're already comfortable using.

And it's not as though the banlist can't be amended on the off chance that it does become a problem. Wobbuffet I can see a solid argument for, but the mentality of the average player here, based on my experience, doesn't elevate garchomp to the must-have/must-counter status it has elsewhere. There's enough of a lack of interest and enough desire for flexibility that I feel it's worth an experiment.

Ban Scizor. Bullet Punch is a 90 BP priority move (with STAB and Technician) coming off some monstrous Attack that hits the likes of Weavile, Salamence, Starmie, Tyranitar, and other safely. And, it can also 80 BP Pursuit on the switch for the opponent, as well as a bevy of other top-notch moves. Scizor for Uber.

enough stuff counters scizor, including heatran, which resists anything not names superower, outspeeds, and ohkos. (not that anyone's going to leave scizor in.) anything not 2hko'd by bullet punch, faster than scizor, and can use a fire move, really. hell, even infernape, however fragile it may be, fits that criteria.

it's pursuit should be bp 120, though, no? does the doubling apply before technician?

incidentally, isn't manaphy is kind of in the same boat as garchomp with the immediate +2 and hard-to-counter-ness?

You can fix Scizor with Infernape in seconds. The weakest Infernape resists even a +3, Choice Band and Technician boosted, max Attack Bullet Punch, and then it OHKO's with any Fire Attack.

does that punch require two hits, or three? because if it's two, it can't just switch in, you know? still, how do you get +3 and CB at the same time?

Really I don't know how to get them at the same time, I'm just saying that it woud take an awful huge hit to KO Infernape. If someone attacks without +3, then any Infernape will survive 2 Bullet Punches and will survive even a third, if it's HP is boosted enough. I think a 3HKO or 4HKO is pretty bad if you have a 4x weakness against the other Pokemon. If an Infernape switches into Scizor, then Scizor would be better off switching himself out. Or using U-Turn.

u-turn is too slow.

that said, you need +6 to 2hko infernape, means infernape is a decent counter. of all thing.

Kratos Aurion said:

But if it's not as common, how is being defeated by the occasional garchomp any worse than being defeated by anything else you aren't prepared for? Being "required" to carry a counter/pseudo-counter/whatever is only necessary if it's legitimately going to be common, which again I will insist it probably won't be. If your team otherwise has no place for glaceon and nine out of ten teams you face don't have garchomp, you're basically running those nine battles with five pokémon. Players can be paranoid about it if they want to, but I think most will be fine with whatever decent ice-type attackers they're already comfortable using.

And it's not as though the banlist can't be amended on the off chance that it does become a problem. Wobbuffet I can see a solid argument for, but the mentality of the average player here, based on my experience, doesn't elevate garchomp to the must-have/must-counter status it has elsewhere. There's enough of a lack of interest and enough desire for flexibility that I feel it's worth an experiment.

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Eh, fair enough.. I'm always up for experiments, it's just in my experience, I've seen what feels like hundreds of them done that always comes to the same conclusion, Chomp just becomes disproportional once it's unbanned.

As for Skizzur, it's pretty absurd (and I must admit I hate the thing) but what holds it back is that Steel is an absolutely awful attack type. Too many things can actually have a field day with it. Zapdos will wall every single variation all day long, Heatran just giggles maniacally in its face, Rotom-H is a decent bet, a bulky Gyarados can use it at potential buff fodder, a Scarfed Magnezone outright trapkills it.. And none of them are deadweight to a team, either. All in all it's high-tier OU, but not really Uber.

what makes manaphy's situation significantly different from garchomp's? it has instantaneous +2, reasonably good coverage, and not much else; or suffers 4mss.

also: zapdos does not wall +6 quick attack that well.

Manaphy has veritable status immunity and an on-demand full heal with Hydrate. This especially combined with Tail Glow and the classic 100-all stat spread pretty much mean its never coming out of Ubers. The only thing it really has a problem with is coverage, but a Rain Dance / Rest / Surf / Ice Beam set can pretty much sit in front of whatever it wants indefinitely. Not to mention, a +6 Double-STAB surf will hurt -anything- not named Vaporeon, Quagsire or Poliwrath.

it suffers from 4-move-slot syndrome, though. it can do either, but not both. rain/rest/surf/beam is vulnerable to tricking a scarf or something, too.

ED: and you forgot politoed. :P

Kratos Aurion said:

That said, I still don't see garchomp (or scizor, or anything, frankly) as overcentralizing anything in this environment, counters or no.

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Well, I suppose one reason Garchomp hasn't been overcentralising is simply because it's been banned for so long. :x

Maybe it would be an idea to remove everything questionable from the banlist; Garchomp and Rotom Formes, for example. Then, we could run a few battles or tournaments and see which Pokémon dominate excessively and ban as appropriate. There's no way that we can draw a valid conclusion as to which Pokémon is overused in our little battling community until we've actually had a significant number of battles. As good as it is to theorise, there are always going to be things which we have missed too. Without the "evidence" to back up our claims, there are always going to be unhappy people.

It would be possible to do if people were willing to keep track of which Pokémon were killed by all Pokémon in question of being banned.
E.g: If Kratos and I were to battle and one of us used Garchomp, the other would note down which Pokémon it KO'd. (and possibly which Pokémon Garchomp was KO'd by.)
We could then possibly pool results into this thread and keep track in the first post.