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np: NU Stage 10 - Blackbird
- Thread starter jake
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I'm just going to say this right now: Swagger (and to a lesser extent Confuse Ray and Teeter Dance) needs to be banned. It is straight up uncompetitive and reduces games to a series of coin flips. Once the suspect threads go up I'll make a more coherent post but for right now, I will say that Sand Veil was banned under the same premise (uncompetitive and luck-based). I'll also leave this game I just played here, where the only reason I won was for the sheer grace of Deer God: http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/nu-39114816
edit@below: personally? yes. but there's only one pokemon that uses Dynamic Punch and there are also common immunities to the move. For the other moves, you need to run Own Tempo in order not to be affected (the only mons with it are Ludicolo, which is inferior to SwSw or Rain Dish, and Lickilicky, which alright sure its immune to confusion but it's really easy to take advantage of with the +2 attack boost + foul play).
edit@below: personally? yes. but there's only one pokemon that uses Dynamic Punch and there are also common immunities to the move. For the other moves, you need to run Own Tempo in order not to be affected (the only mons with it are Ludicolo, which is inferior to SwSw or Rain Dish, and Lickilicky, which alright sure its immune to confusion but it's really easy to take advantage of with the +2 attack boost + foul play).
I'm going to go ahead and agree with tennisace, but with caution. Confusion should not be a viable strategy as it can literally tear well-made teams apart by one priority swagger, turning what should've been a 6-0 win into a 1-0 loss simply because you lose a series of coinflips. There is definitely another side to this however, it removes some viability of certain pokemon such as Golurk. Golurk's no guard Dynamic Punch is one of its main selling points as it can possibly prevent rocks for the entire game by confusing the opponent's rock-setter and also makes switching into Golurk a bit harder. Overall though: In my opinion, confusion should not be a viable win-condition for the competitive environment we are trying to create. The more luck we take out, the more fun and skill involved.
Edit: Golurk obviously performs very well still, and I am think that iron fist is better anyways. But, the threat of confusion can play mindgames with your opponent. This applies to any mon that carries a move with a confusion chance. I am however still of the opinion that confusion does have an unhealthy impact on the meta.
Edit: Golurk obviously performs very well still, and I am think that iron fist is better anyways. But, the threat of confusion can play mindgames with your opponent. This applies to any mon that carries a move with a confusion chance. I am however still of the opinion that confusion does have an unhealthy impact on the meta.
I would argue that Golurk will not suffer considerably without Dynamic Punch, since it still has Iron Fist (coincidentally the only ability listed in the analysis). It still sets up SR, hits very hard with a CB set (harder with Iron Fist), and serves as an excellent bulky pivot in the metagame.
I don't think Swagger is that bad to be banned. It's a confuse ray that deals more damage if the opponent hits itself but is incredibly risky if the opponent survives with the +2 boost, then it can wreck your team. However, Swagger in combination with Prankster and/or Foul Play should be. Wiitle said it perfectly, "confusion should not be a viable win-condition for the competitive environment we are trying to create.". Liepard is annoying as hell and sometimes I carry Megahorn on Samurrot just to send it to furry hell before it can do much. Parafusion has a 62.5% chance of leaving you immobile, which a Liepard can abuse Foul Play to kick your ass while vulnerable. OHKO moves have a 30% accuracy but they're banned due to their sheer luck. Parafusion isn't that bad. But Parafusion by Pokemon who abuse Foul Play and Prankster so you can't do crap against them is.
Actually, thinking about it, confusion can be used as a scare tactic. I used it on my Mono-Electric team to encourage a switch where I could usually get a Thunder Wave or Toxic on the switch. And most of them tried to stay in, so I would use TWave just to further encourage the switch and launch yet another TWave on the replacement, thus statusing 2 Pokemon without taking much damage.
I will admit it's as funny as hell having Magic Bounce/Magic Coat deflect Swagger/Thunder Wave.
Actually, thinking about it, confusion can be used as a scare tactic. I used it on my Mono-Electric team to encourage a switch where I could usually get a Thunder Wave or Toxic on the switch. And most of them tried to stay in, so I would use TWave just to further encourage the switch and launch yet another TWave on the replacement, thus statusing 2 Pokemon without taking much damage.
I will admit it's as funny as hell having Magic Bounce/Magic Coat deflect Swagger/Thunder Wave.
Honestly, I do think confusion moves ( Confuse ray, Swagger, etc.) are uncompetitive because it's just a coinflip, which if won, gives you free turns to setup. Let's say your oppenent uses Swagger on the switch ( and hit, ofc.), you have 2 choices :
- Stay in and risk it, giving the oppenent 50% to have a free turn to setup a sub or use t-wave to give himself more possibilities to get free turns. If you end up not hitting yourself in confusion, the oppenent didn't had a free turn.
- Switch out not wanting to risk a coinflip, but you then give your oppenent a free turn to setup / do damages for free.
Obliviously, if a pokemon uses Swagger or Confuse ray they usually run substitute, which make the choice to switch out a bad idea. All it does is forcing you to risk a coinflip which will, at the end of the day, benefit the people using those confusion moves.
EDIT: Tried my best to make some of my points more clear, as my first language isn't english I always seem to confuse people myself :oops:.
- Stay in and risk it, giving the oppenent 50% to have a free turn to setup a sub or use t-wave to give himself more possibilities to get free turns. If you end up not hitting yourself in confusion, the oppenent didn't had a free turn.
- Switch out not wanting to risk a coinflip, but you then give your oppenent a free turn to setup / do damages for free.
Obliviously, if a pokemon uses Swagger or Confuse ray they usually run substitute, which make the choice to switch out a bad idea. All it does is forcing you to risk a coinflip which will, at the end of the day, benefit the people using those confusion moves.
EDIT: Tried my best to make some of my points more clear, as my first language isn't english I always seem to confuse people myself :oops:.
Don't believe this is what you meant, but I get the post. The idea of banning confuse ray is similar to moves like banning double team or minimize; you are preventing moves from doing damage from random more than tactical measures. Yes, thunder wave can do the same thing, however, the likelihood of this preventing an attack is not as common. The fact that one move can potentially disable the opponent from attacking for up to 4 turns, in the usual 20-30 turn matches, is huge. If the opponent doesn't want to chance this, then yes, they can switch out; however, with hazards, plus the user's chance of setting up may not be worth it. Minimize aims to do the same as confusion, it prevents your opponent from hitting with moves that should hit 100% of the time.
So ok. You switch in your Samurott in on my Liepard, face up after a KO. I swagger you, outspeeding any move you can throw at me. This means: you have a 50% chance of koing me, which is actually only a 42.5% chance with Megahorn's miss chance. You wanna take those odds consistently over the course of a match?
I don't know about banning all confusion in the tier, but swagger and confuse ray are obnoxious as all hell. I can live with DynamicPunch. It's also an attack and the only real user of it (Golurk) is pretty darn slow. Prankster swagger is ridiculous. I have both won and lost matches 6-0 or 5-0 because of a Liepard doing that.
Here are my thoughts about prankster confusion abuse in the current meta (and pretty much all metas). My problem with it isn't that there is luck involved, because luck is a part of pokemon, critical hits happen, freeze happens, high damage rolls, long sleep turns, etc. My personal problem with prankster parafusion sets are that they rely on luck. As seen in the replay, it hardly matters what team you are using when you are playing a team like the one Tennisace played. Tennisace managed to win, but he just as easily could have lost. The same team also has (slightly over) a 50/50 shot against a team with zero wins, ignoring many (not all, as magic coat/taunt users can be added to teams) aspects of team building, as well as player skill level. The case isn't the same with using thunderwave, as I'm not using it to get those full-paras, it is to speed control the other team. A full-para is really more of a bonus, that stops pokemon from being extremely predictable. I guess my question is how we go about this, as Murkrow, Purrloin, Illumise, and Volbeat also have prankster and access to the same moves (bar foul play for the latter two). Are we considering banning all of these, because banning prankster parafusion is a complex ban?
TL;DR: Prankster parafusion is unhealthy for the meta game, not because it introduces luck, but because it completely relies on it, disregarding the competitive aspect of pokemon.
Edit: @below, that makes sense, although I don't know if I feel none prankster confusion moves are broken or unhealthy, they very well might be. I think interesting discussion will come from this though.
TL;DR: Prankster parafusion is unhealthy for the meta game, not because it introduces luck, but because it completely relies on it, disregarding the competitive aspect of pokemon.
Edit: @below, that makes sense, although I don't know if I feel none prankster confusion moves are broken or unhealthy, they very well might be. I think interesting discussion will come from this though.
I specifically said in my post I would like the move Swagger (and other non-damaging confusion moves) suspected, regardless if the Pokemon has Prankster or not. Every Pokemon that can learn TMs can learn Swagger, which still leaves the option for either fast Pokemon or bulky Pokemon to use it and rely on the coinflip in order to gain free turns. Just banning the moves that cause confusion and do no damage wouldn't bring about the issue of complex bans, and it is in line with previous bans in other tiers.
Just have Pokémon of both genders and you're fine. Also, with Attract, Foul Play's damage isn't boosted and you won't hurt yourself in confusion even if you might not do anything for the turn.
That being said, I expect that once Swagger is banned, Liepard will run T-Wave/Encore/Foul Play/Rain Dance, Sunny Day or Taunt. That's still a decent niche, but not as luck reliant as the typical Swagfag strategy.
Liepard has only been a thron in my side once. Every other Liepard I faced died almost instantly because of my multi-hit moves, walls with piss poor Attack, or succumbing to the very 50% chance it relies on just to survive that 1st turn. I'm surprised people haven't realized how unreliable Swagger is: while I still have Swagger on my Liepard, I only use it once in a blue moon, because Encore harrasses enough things and I'm heavily considering something like Taunt or Torment (to go alongside Encore), Toxic, Nasty Plot (+ Dark Pulse over Foul Play), Charm, Yawn, or Knock Off, all of which can be more useful depending on your troubles.
I am neither supporting to the Swagger ban (because most users will soon get fed up with it themselves, as it can still miss) but at the same time not opposed to it because I can see why. Call it a neutral opinion if you will. Mixed feelings regarding how many more Liepard would run Thunder Wave as a result: either less because no Swagger to go with it, or more because they now have a free slot to replace Swagger.
I am neither supporting to the Swagger ban (because most users will soon get fed up with it themselves, as it can still miss) but at the same time not opposed to it because I can see why. Call it a neutral opinion if you will. Mixed feelings regarding how many more Liepard would run Thunder Wave as a result: either less because no Swagger to go with it, or more because they now have a free slot to replace Swagger.
As always, I'm always up for suspecting things, but I really don't think that Swagger should be banned. Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, Smogons previous luck based bans, are very different from Swagger in that they are completely passive abilities. You don't need to actively set them up, and can reap the benefits from the get go. Jirachi's Iron Head is in a similar situation to Swagger, as you have to actually attack. However, Jirachi wasn't and never will be suspected for this, despite it actually having a higher chance to immoblize the opponent, especially due to its excellent stats and typing.
Swagger/Liepard whatever should not be banned. The move is irritating, nothing more. The advantage actually often lies with the thing that you're going to be swaggering, not only because of the moves miss chance, but because if the opponent doesn't hit itself in confusion, the swaggerer is most likely screwed. Punchshroom brings up good points as well, which I agree with. Just send in a ground type, a bulky special attacker, or simply a pokemon with low attack and or high defense and most of the time you can win against the swaggerer.
Swagger/Liepard whatever should not be banned. The move is irritating, nothing more. The advantage actually often lies with the thing that you're going to be swaggering, not only because of the moves miss chance, but because if the opponent doesn't hit itself in confusion, the swaggerer is most likely screwed. Punchshroom brings up good points as well, which I agree with. Just send in a ground type, a bulky special attacker, or simply a pokemon with low attack and or high defense and most of the time you can win against the swaggerer.
I basically agree with what cherub said.
I don't think swagger is broken, just an annoyance. It can certainly be dealt with by using the methods punchshroom suggested. I find multi hit and priority moves to be the most effective (priority if the liepard doesn't have a sub up), though phasing is also a good strategy to get it out, ready to deal with later. If you set up toxic spikes early game, providing they don't have a grounded poison type (which they very well might), then the liepard is effectively shut down for the match. Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent. There are several ways to deal with swagger, though it is very annoying. So I don't think it should be banned.
I don't think swagger is broken, just an annoyance. It can certainly be dealt with by using the methods punchshroom suggested. I find multi hit and priority moves to be the most effective (priority if the liepard doesn't have a sub up), though phasing is also a good strategy to get it out, ready to deal with later. If you set up toxic spikes early game, providing they don't have a grounded poison type (which they very well might), then the liepard is effectively shut down for the match. Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent. There are several ways to deal with swagger, though it is very annoying. So I don't think it should be banned.
I completely agree with Cherub Agent, Swagger and other confusion moves simply aren't worth suspecting given how easy it is to counter such tactics and how quickly they can backfire.
I would instead like to suggest another topic to suspect based on certain assumptions:
a) We know at some point Contrary Serperior will be released
b) We also know that when it is released, everybody will want to ban it which will lead to it being banned after a suspect test
Right now, we have no "broken" factors in the meta to test. Everything has got hard, solid counters and as such nothing is broken.
So why don't we suspect Contrary Serperior now itself?Rather than waiting for it to be released and THEN panicking and suspecting it, we can always pre-suspect it. If we find it to be broken(which it will most likely), we can pre-ban contrary serperior - the moment it released, it is banned to RU.
This means we can carefully judge the merits of DW Serperior and take our time in coming to a conclusion rather than rushing with it when it is released(for instance, if it's released 2 weeks before the X and Y release.)
What do you guys think?
I would instead like to suggest another topic to suspect based on certain assumptions:
a) We know at some point Contrary Serperior will be released
b) We also know that when it is released, everybody will want to ban it which will lead to it being banned after a suspect test
Right now, we have no "broken" factors in the meta to test. Everything has got hard, solid counters and as such nothing is broken.
So why don't we suspect Contrary Serperior now itself?Rather than waiting for it to be released and THEN panicking and suspecting it, we can always pre-suspect it. If we find it to be broken(which it will most likely), we can pre-ban contrary serperior - the moment it released, it is banned to RU.
This means we can carefully judge the merits of DW Serperior and take our time in coming to a conclusion rather than rushing with it when it is released(for instance, if it's released 2 weeks before the X and Y release.)
What do you guys think?
Uh, there's no point in suspecting Serperior now, because a) the meta will have likely changed by the time it's out, b) it may not even come out until gen 6, c) there is very high chance it will be suspected when it's released (or if usage stats update in that time, it'll move up at least one or two tiers), and d) to judge the merits of DW Serperior you can do that in the theorymon thread.
Also, other people might find things broken - things just aren't broken in your opinion, which is why the entire point of suspect tests occurring, to allow more than one opinion (or instead, the community's opinion assuming they've ticked all the boxes for qualifying to vote) rather than quickbanning something.
Also, other people might find things broken - things just aren't broken in your opinion, which is why the entire point of suspect tests occurring, to allow more than one opinion (or instead, the community's opinion assuming they've ticked all the boxes for qualifying to vote) rather than quickbanning something.
Imo Prankster is a pretty broken ability in general. If you read the analyses for pretty much all the Prankster mons (bar Tornadus/Thundurus), you'll notice that nearly all of them mention Prankster is their only saving grace. If there's only one aspect of a Pokemon that keeps it from absolutely sucking, it's pretty fucking powerful. And as you guys mentioned, Prankster on stuff like Liepard takes away the "competitive" aspect of the game, rather than building up skill you rely on luck to win you a match. Not to say there aren't ways to deal with it, but the ability is pretty defining for the mons who get it.
I don't think Prankster as an ability should be banned. Some Pokemon (Volbeat, Riolu) can abuse it without being broken. Instead, Swagger should be the move worth banning, but not Confuse Ray or Teeter Dance as these have low distribution and aren't used anyway.
The thing is, even if you have those methods, they can't stop Liepard easily. Not all mons have priority or multi-hit moves and you will have to switch them in, leaving you vulnerable to Prankster Swagger (priority can't really outspeed it anyway).
Prankster Swagger in NU is different from Iron Head in OU. In OU, Steel Is a bad attacking type and you actually have to attack to get the flinch, and outspeed. Swagger on the other hand gets Prankster-ed, and is a status, so you can neither outspeed it, and while you hit yourself, Liepard can continue setting up on you.
Sure, it can and will sometimes backfire but the fact is that it is luck based and skill less
The thing is, even if you have those methods, they can't stop Liepard easily. Not all mons have priority or multi-hit moves and you will have to switch them in, leaving you vulnerable to Prankster Swagger (priority can't really outspeed it anyway).
Prankster Swagger in NU is different from Iron Head in OU. In OU, Steel Is a bad attacking type and you actually have to attack to get the flinch, and outspeed. Swagger on the other hand gets Prankster-ed, and is a status, so you can neither outspeed it, and while you hit yourself, Liepard can continue setting up on you.
Sure, it can and will sometimes backfire but the fact is that it is luck based and skill less
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