FF Suspect Nominations Round 1: The Beginening

[Princess Ana]

Suspect Discussion

Now, on the table today, there are five possible choices for what will be voted on to possibly be booted out of the FF metagame. Out of the choices, there will be one weather, three Pokemon, and one ability. Suspect discussion will be open for three days for voting and then a new thread will be opened for the actual suspect test, in which one can either choose to run whatever is being suspected or run against it and see whether it can be easily dealt with. More details about this will come when the suspect thread is put up.

Weather:

When one looks at weather, one cannot dismiss its vital importance in the Pokemon world since Gen III, when the first auto-weather inducers were introduced. Sand proved to be a very potent tool that allowed Tyranitar to wear down Suicune, while in the Ubers tier it was no doubt that Groudon’s sun and Kyogre’s rain pretty much shaped it for the next three generations. In Gen IV came Abomasnow, the first and only auto-hail inducer, but Hail proved to be not as powerful as Sand. Neither weather at this point proved to be much of a problem, aside from Sand Veil Garchomp. Then Gen V rolled on it and decided that they should give Drought and Drizzle to two new Pokemon, Ninetales and Politoed. This proved to be a very controversial thing as Rain soon dominated everything and Sun also proved to be extremely powerful. Sand was given a new ability in Sand Rush to play around with, and this led in and of itself a new ban from Excadrill. Hail still lived in its very much non-existence, before dropping all the way to NU. It was then booted out to UU, where it remains today.

Now, one will pretty much instantly know that there is three Pokemon in the FF tier that can induce permanent weather: Vulpix, which can induce sun; Hippopotas, which can induce Sandstorm; and Snover, which can induce Hail. Now, each weather inducer forms a sort of triangle with each other, in that Vulpix beats Snover, Snover beats Hippopotas, and Hippopotas beats Vulpix(though Vulpix has a much better match-up against Hippopotas then Hippopotas does against Snover). In terms of usefulness in the tier, most would agree on it being Hippopotas being the most useful, followed by Snover, followed by Vulpix. Hippopotas is one of the few Eviolite walls that has access to reliable recovery, while Snover has good offensive potential in Blizzard and good speical walling ability since it can use Leech Seed to recover health. Vulpix only has one set, and that is specially defensive set that has its issues, which is its rather poor stats all around. Rain is not being discussed, seeing as it does not have an auto-weather inducer.

A second thing to look at when considering weathers is what benefits can they give a Pokemon? Let’s look at Sun first. Sun is the only weather at the moment that can boost the power of a certain type of move. Fire type moves will gain an extra 50% more power in the sun, while Water type moves lose 50% of their power. This gives powerful but slow Fire types like Camerupt and Heatmor great wall-breaking ability. It also allows the power move SolarBeam to be used immediately, which is a boon to offensive Grass types like Ivysaur who have no access to Leaf Storm. It also lowers the accuracy of Thunder and Hurricane to a mere 50%, severely hindering Pokemon like Swanna. Moonlight, Morning Sun, and Synthesis will heal ⅔ of a Pokemon’s health, a huge boon to Sun stall as it allows Tropius and Meganium to easily take powerful attacks. It will causes Growth to double a Pokemon’s Attack and Special Attack stats, meaning that Pokemon like Ivysaur can use this to reliably boost up and deal with larger threats. Sun gives Chlorophyll Pokemon double speed, damages Pokemon with Dry Skin and increases their Fire weakness, increases the Attack and Special Defense by 50% of Pokemon with Flower Gift, makes Castform a Fire type, makes Pokemon with Leaf Guard immune to status, and gives Pokemon with Solar Power 50% more Special Attack at the cost of ⅛ of their health each turn. Pokemon with Harvest will always recover their berry. Weather Ball will become a 100 Power Fire type move. It also prevents Pokemon from becoming frozen.

Well, what does all this mean for Sun? Quite simply, Sun does more than any other weather, and by extension, has more abusers than any other weather. Fire types gain the amazing ability to break through special walls that do not resist the Fire type. Grass types are often given amazing sweeping ability or even more defensive ability. It reduces the threat of Pokemon such as Swanna and Electrode, neutering their trump attacks. Tropius can either go offensive with Chlorophyll or Solar Power, or it can go defensive with Harvest, abusing Sitrus Berry or Lum Berry to easy effect. Charmeleon becomes a massively huge threat under Sun because it almost assures that no Pokemon can come in on it. However, on the flipside, many of the abusers become a lot less potent out of Sun, plus, they all are either weak to SR or weak to Ice type moves, meaning that a Pokemon like Piloswine can be a huge threat for any sun team.

Now, onto Sand. Sand will damage an opponent for 1/16 of its health every turn if it is not a Ground, Rock, or Steel type. It will also raise the Special Defense of all Rock type Pokemon by 50%. SolarBeam will only have 60 BP under sand. Moonlight, Morning Sun, and Synthesis will only recover ¼ of a Pokemon’s health under sand. Pokemon with Sand Veil gain a 25% boost to their evasion, Pokemon with Sand Force double their speed, and Pokemon with Sand Force gain a 33% boost to their Rock, Steel, and Ground attacks. Weather Ball will become a 100 Power Rock move.

Now, one will notice that Sand doesn’t have as many tangible bonuses as Sun does. But, what it does do makes it one of the most powerful weathers in the tier, and for good reason. Rock, Ground, and Steel types become very reliable walls in Sandstorm, as they are immune to its passive damage, while other walls, especially Eviolite walls, are rendered a lot more vulnerable in Sand because of this. Rock types are even better walls under Sand than Ground and Steel types because of the 50% special defense boost. This in turn makes Lileep on of the most bulky Pokemon in the tier and makes it nearly impossible to beat with the right support. Sun stall is heavily neutered by Sand. Herdier becomes a huge offensive threat under Sand, immediately bringing huge offensive presence. Gastrodon can even becomes a viable offensive Pokemon by investing in Special Defense and using Curse and Sand Force to unleash massively power Earthquakes. Cacturne and Gabite have an easier time setting up hazards due to the protection of Sand Veil, making them harder to hit. As a plus, many Sandstorm Pokemon are effective outside of it too, meaning that match-ups are far better out of weather. Sand is also the most easily splashed weather due to Hippopotas’s great physical bulk.

Hail is the last one, and interestingly enough is the one the has gained the most notoriety. Hail, like Sandstorm, does passive damage each turn, but, it will deal damage to all Pokemon that are not Ice types. Ice Body Pokemon will gain 1/16 of the their health each turn, Snow Cloak Pokemon gain 25% more evasion, and Castform becomes an Ice-type. Blizzard becomes an always-hit move. Solarbeam and other sun moves are greatly neutered in hail. Weather Ball becomes an Ice type move with 100 Power.

Hail has even less tangible benefits than Sand does, and its always why it was considered the least useful weather in pretty much every tier it was in. But, in this tier, it doesn’t need many benefits to become increasingly amazing. For one, Hail has amazing defensive ability. Many, many Pokemon in FF have Ice Body, from Sealeo to Dewgong to Glalie. Each one of them can use it to easily shrug other things off. Even their Stealth Rock weakness it reduced because of it. Snow Cloak boasts some of the most powerful Pokemon in FF, Glaceon and Piloswine. But Hail also has many weaknesses, such as a SR weakness and difficulty dealing with Sun teams.

However, Hail has been regarded by many a player to easily be the most powerful weather. While I myself believe that Sand is the true most powerful weather, in this matter because of your opinions, the weather being suspected will be Hail.

Pokemon:

In a metagame with this many Pokemon, it is difficult to decide what is too powerful or over-centralizing for the FF metagame. Every Pokemon can probably check or counter another, and with so many possibilities a counter can arise out of the blue for practically no reason at all. However, there are three that I think are either too powerful for FF, or are too over-centralizing.

Number 3: Wartortle

Wartortle may seem like an odd choice for a ban. It isn’t an offensive threat at all too most team. It’s an Eviolite wall with no reliable recovery or immunity to passive damage. So, what is Wartortle’s deal? It’s pretty obvious once you look at its movepool. Wartortle is the most reliable rapid spinner in the FF metagame. It’s not just that. He is so reliable that he completely outshines any and all other Rapid Spinners. For one, he is not weak to any hazard. This gives him a huge edge over Torkoal, who while packs a much more immediate offensive presence is weak to SR. For two, he has a guaranteed Rapid Spin. There are only two other Pokemon in the FF meta who has the combination of Foresight and Rapid Spin. The first is Tyrogue, who is completely and totally useless. The second is Kabuto, who can be a decent defensive wall, but why when you have Wartortle. And that’s the problem. There is almost no reason not to use Wartortle as a Rapid Spinner. And in that vein, there is almost no reason to use a Ghost other than Misdreavus as a spin-blocker. Misdreavus can Taunt Wartortle preventing it from using Foresight and then Calm Mind on it until it can 2HKO Wartortle with Thunderbolt. And the one has to run a Normal typed wall like Lickitung or Audino, which normally are run with Wartortle because of Wish and Heal Bell support. Wartortle is highly over-centralizing.

2. Basculin

Ask anyone about having to face the almighty Hero!Basculin and they will say the thing is just insane. For one, its 98 base Speed. That outspeeds pretty much every other offensive threat in the tier outside of weather. Literally. There are a few that outspeed Basculin and can kill it, but that is where its priority move Aqua Jet comes into play, allowing to revenge kill weakened checks(one can notice that Stealth rock will make one of his checks a lot harder to use). But that’s not the dangerous part. His ability is. It’s Adaptability. This what makes him one of the most powerful Pokemon to slap a Choice Band onto. If you don’t resist its attacks and don’t run defense, he is going to 2HKO every wall with Waterfall. Not to mention that he OHKOs Audino with Superpower after SR. He comes out onto the field and he will probably kill something. Or more than one thing. Or clean up an entire team. He does that. He can completely turn matches around. Stall teams can run just so that he can finish off teams after being worn down by entry hazards. If you thought that you were safe from him because you had Cacturne’s Sucker Punch, don’t think so haughtily. He almost never OHKOs with Life Orb, not to mention he isn’t doing nearly enough to beat him without it. Even if you don’t run a Choice Band on Basculin, using Life Orb is a great way to not only still have amazing wall-breaking ability but also to have the ability to revenge-kill and sweep while being able to change up moves.

1. Piloswine

Piloswine isn’t an odd choice. He definitely has come out as one of the strongest contenders of the FF tier, being able to wall-break and revenge kill all in one shot. His amazing 100/100/60 bulk means he is still pretty bulky even without Eviolite and his 100 Base attack means that he hits really hard with a Choice Band. Plus, Piloswine is completely splashable. He is the only Pokemon in the FF meta who has a no weaknesses to any of the weathers. He can neutralize his Fire weakness with Thick Fat, and is immune, due to having both the Ice and Ground typings, to the passive damage of Hail and Sandstorm. In Hail he can Snow Cloak as well in order to get his hax on. He is one of those Pokemon that not only is hard to counter, but he can be found bloody everywhere. He single handedly can handle Sun teams. Sand teams heavily dislike his Icicle Crash or Icicle Spear. Hail teams just hate his Stone Edge or Superpower. Piloswine is just too useful and too splashable a Pokemon to even justify.

Ability:

Snow Cloak: If you do notice, we are not going to be suspecting Sand Veil. Cue hypocrisy slurs, but the reason is simple. The abusers of Sand Veil are either not nearly as good as the abusers of Hail, or, they also have other things that could be doing(Gabite has Rough Skin while Cacturne has Water Absorb).

Snow Cloak is a rather interesting ability in that it gives a Pokemon a 25% boost to their Evasion. What does this mean exactly? It means that the boost is not a big as a Double Team boost, but it is still large enough that it can have an impact in most battles. The most notorious of Snow Cloak abusers is Glaceon, who can use its good bulk and amazing power to sweep teams with the help of Snow Cloak to avoid things like Superpower, Fire Blast, and Stone Edge. Piloswine can also use it in Hail teams to avoid similar moves, but also make Will-O-Wisp much more difficult to use against him and help with Scald. What does this mean though? Snow Cloak is part of the reason why Hail is so god-damn powerful in the meta, so much more than Sand Veil. It simply has more powerful abusers, even though having less of them. Look at the list: Glaceon, Piloswine, Beartic for Snow Cloak. Sandshrew, Diglett, Graveler, Phanpy, Larvitar, Cacturne, Gabite, and Stunfisk for Sand Veil. It’s obvious which side is more skewed. Snow Cloak is just much more powerful in application than Sand Veil, and that’s why it is being put up for possible suspect.

There is a poll at the top of the thread which will allow you to vote on what should be suspected. Post telling what you picked and why.

[Kindrindra]

So I accidentally voted Nothing when I meant to vote Piloswine.

Not only is the guy a great weather check and a monster with a Choice Band, he's also capable of running Eviolite.

[Loki]

Not sure why it's a vote. You should just be aggressively testing all the suspected offenders and see if they are the game changing and tier breaking.

[Princess Ana]

Law of Objective Testing: The more variables that are tested at once, the more complicated the testing becomes and the less certain the results become.

For example, one could test all three Pokemon that are being put up, but each one can counter/check the one of the others. So it won't make sense to test them all at once. This is the same tactic Smogon uses, because testing more than one Pokemon is not only difficult and may actually be inhibition.

[hen da man]

I think that Hail needs a buffer and that fits with Snow Cloak and so I vote for Snow Cloak taking the ban.

[Red Panda]

I agree with Blaze that Sand is the more powerful weather. What gives Hail the upper hand is Snow Cloak, which is an obvious fact. Hence my voting choice.

[Fallen Icarus]

Why must you write a wall of text Blaze? :/

I voted Snow Cloak although I feel like hail is the bigger culprit.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Fallen Icarus

Why must you write a wall of text Blaze? :/

I voted Snow Cloak although I feel like hail is the bigger culprit, only because SOME people here are obviously biased towards hail. (Yes, I'm looking at you Lost)

Because it also reflects my opinion on the subject. Tis why I didn't answer the questions I put up, because I didn't want people making assumptions because of it.

And try to be nice please. If they believe Hail is stronger, they probably have good reason for it and it isn't bias. Understand Lost is yo rival and all but please none of that sass.

Oh yeah, I voted for Basculin. Snow cloak is good but haxy, and while it could work it also might not. Basculin has proven to be extremely effective and it almost always work. [/2 cents]

[Fallen Icarus]

thus my edit

[Firewater]

I don't want to risk us going down the same route as OU, where we ban things too fast, but while I think nothing's really broken just yet, I'd think banning Snow Cloak/Sand Veil might be better though.

I am anti- banning weather though.

[Escalion]

I've voted Snow Cloak too. It just makes already powerful mon too powerful with their evasion boosted. It makes countering mons like Glaceon quite difficult because most of the SE attacks against it already don't have perfect accuracy making hitting it too much relying on luck. And combine that with a STAB and 100% accurate Blizzard and the combination becomes just too much.

[Slash]

I'm not so into ability bans, for one, so I chose Piloswine.

And seriously, let's face it, Piloswine would still teamkill with Thick Fat buffing him

[Haymez]

I voted snow cloak. I'm against banning a weather unless all of them are being banned. As for the Pokemon, I haven't had too much trouble with them, though Basculin looks to be the biggest threat there.

[Firewater]

to clarify- if the alternative is to make a pokemon useless/soft banned because it doesn't have a separate ability I vote to not ban anything. Though Basculin isn't that bad, neither is Piloswine, but Pilo is definitely better.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Firewater

to clarify- if the alternative is to make a pokemon useless/soft banned because it doesn't have a separate ability I vote to not ban anything. Though Basculin isn't that bad, neither is Piloswine, but Pilo is definitely better.

Every Pokemon that learns Snow Cloak gets another viable ability. Piloswine gets Thick Fat(which is pretty damn good), Glaceon gets Ice Body(which gives it another role as ToxicStaller and resilient LO attacker) and Beartic gets Swift swim, and is pretty damn important on rain teams.

[Loki]

Originally Posted by blazeVA

Law of Objective Testing: The more variables that are tested at once, the more complicated the testing becomes and the less certain the results become.

For example, one could test all three Pokemon that are being put up, but each one can counter/check the one of the others. So it won't make sense to test them all at once. This is the same tactic Smogon uses, because testing more than one Pokemon is not only difficult and may actually be inhibition.

Then why make a vote? It seems like an entirely wasteful effort. Just announce "WE ARE NOW TESTING SNORUNT!" and have it tested for a week instead of having everyone vote for a week followed by a test phase. Just run down the list.

You have like 5 items on the list of suspect currently. Just run it through in like 5 x test phases instead of 5 x votes and 5 x test phases.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Loki

Then why make a vote? It seems like an entirely wasteful effort. Just announce "WE ARE NOW TESTING SNORUNT!" and have it tested for a week instead of having everyone vote for a week followed by a test phase. Just run down the list.

You have like 5 items on the list of suspect currently. Just run it through in like 5 x test phases instead of 5 x votes and 5 x test phases.

I want to make it more objective. One of the points that Talon brought out in a discussion of smogon bans is that only a certain few people pick who get suspected. I didn't want that. I wanted people to feel they were going to be involved.

[Loki]

Okay, what you're saying is slow, silly and ass-backwards.

"I was this to be objective for this subjective tier."

The way you should be working this is to say what you suspect is overpowered, then test it to death. This is objectively showing if something is OP or not.

Then if you want to include the people to making a decision, you should then have a 'trial' using testing examples to show whether or not the suspected OP Pokemon is in fact OP or not.

By voting on the suspect list is like adding an extra unnecessary step to the whole process. Does the Detective of the murder trial go to the Jury before he arrests the suspect? No. Or it would take forever.

Find a suspect. Test it. Then have a vote/trial. Don't vote prior to testing just to then make a hard decision yourself or vote again. It's silly and unproductive.

EDIT: If anything, you shouldn't be having a vote on the suspect list. You should just ask people what they believe is suspect. You're saying you want this to be for the people, but you already have your suspect list which you're already feeding to the people. It's not necessarily what the people have chosen and they don't even have an option to choose their own suspect if it should differ from your current list.

[Lil'twick]

Hey Hey Lookie Lookie the hail lover is making a post to defend his beloved hail. Right, right? Well, if you thought that you're DEAD WRONG. *ignores above discussion since I have no part in that*

I actually am among the people who voted for Snow Cloak. Let's see why, alright? Snow Cloak easily makes some Pokemon under hail have a lot of bull shit hax, but there is one Pokemon in particular that I'm talking about, Glaceon. In this tier, Glaceon has respectable bulk for an ice type, a pure ice type. A bulky pure ice type is unheard of, but Glaceon here has the bulk, and the power, to handle most of it's checks and counters with the appropriate move set and item. Now, with Snow Cloak's accuracy boost, every move has the chance to hit like how blizzard would hit under weather. Moves like thunder and hurricane against a Snow Cloak user is basically how they are in the sun. Focus miss really lives up its name, and has less than half a chance to hit. Now, what does this mean. Is Glaceon like Jirachi with hax? No, but it certainly has the abilities to rip teams to shreds with the appropriate tools. Don't even get me started on pig. Honestly, with Snow Cloak gone from pig, most pig will run a bulky attacker set with thick fat, and that can just sit on a sun team and wall it all day long (Well, minus Shiftry). Though, Hail will become really stall oriented if Snow Cloak is banned, so that's something to think about.

Pig = Piloswine.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Loki

Okay, what you're saying is slow, silly and ass-backwards.

"I was this to be objective for this subjective tier."

The way you should be working this is to say what you suspect is overpowered, then test it to death. This is objectively showing if something is OP or not.

I have every intention of doing that.

Originally Posted by Loki

Then if you want to include the people to making a decision, you should then have a 'trial' using testing examples to show whether or not the suspected OP Pokemon is in fact OP or not.

By voting on the suspect list is like adding an extra unnecessary step to the whole process. Does the Detective of the murder trial go to the Jury before he arrests the suspect? No. Or it would take forever.

We are going to do a trial. And I don't believe your analogy fits, its more the CEO going to the board to discuss among fellow peers on a subject.

Find a suspect. Test it. Then have a vote/trial. Don't vote prior to testing just to then make a hard decision yourself or vote again. It's silly and unproductive.

EDIT: If anything, you shouldn't be having a vote on the suspect list. You should just ask people what they believe is suspect. You're saying you want this to be for the people, but you already have your suspect list which you're already feeding to the people. It's not necessarily what the people have chosen and they don't even have an option to choose their own suspect if it should differ from your current list.

Read the FF thread and come back. In fact, just read in general Loki. If this list was purely by my own invention, Hail would not be put up. It would be Sand. I already said this. Wartortle? Easy freaking experience man. I not only ask people questions in the FF thread itself in order to gauge public opinion, I also watch over every battle replay that is posted and read the comments. Wartortle is easily used over the most other common Rapid Spinner, Torkoal. And the rest are non-existent. I believe I'm the only one who even tried to use Baltoy.

Basculin was not only public experience, but many people(including Escalion and hen da man) saw it in action and went "Damn shit this thing is incredible." And its the same thing with Piloswine and Snow Cloak. Many people spoke and said these things were really powerful or unfair.

Now, other Pokemon have also been brought up Loki. Butterfree, Zweilous, Shelgon, Glaceon. But not enough people have spoken up for me to say, "Oh, well this must be a resounding opinion or at least is supported by the majority of people." Haymez even said that Glaceon and Hail weren't problems, but Snow Cloak was and that is what was making Glaceon and Hail too powerful. Granted, I can only gauge so much from random questioning and battles, but the point is I'm not pulling this out of my ass. Believe what you want, you have every right on that, but I'm leaving it up to the other people in the tier what they think is the most-suspect worthy thing.

Cause if it was me, I would have immediately put up Basculin and Piloswine before Snow Cloak.

[Loki]

A CEO doesn't go to the board to vote on every subject. Almost always, a CEO states what his goals and intentions are for each year, acts on them, then when he fails to meet expectations, he answers to the board for his short comings. If he succeeds, he keeps working as there's no reason to go to the board.

And as you already said, people pretty much already voted in the FF thread. So just go off of that. I don't see a single reason to make a voting thread every... what? Week? Two weeks? Month? It's a time frame where you could have already started testing if you would just take charge. Like you said, you're like the CEO. Just start the project, don't dance around it. Then get it done and use your time more effectively on testing and the following trial and decision.

[Princess Ana]

WE HAVE OUR RESULTS!

As you guys have voted, we will be suspecting Snow Cloak in the FF metagame.

Here is how the suspecting will go. You will post in this thread telling us whether you are A) running the suspect in question, or B) running against the suspect in question. Then, testing will go for a week(so until midnight 9/17/13), and then the voting thread will be posted. Here is some of the questions we will be asking in the testing:

1) How easy is Snow Cloak to use?
2) How easy is it to team build against Snow Cloak or to counter it?
3) How much of a boost does Snow Cloak give a player?

I am going to be running against Snow Cloak. Have fun and happy testing~!

[Escalion]

I don't have a Hail team just yet, so I will be building one, focusing on abusing Snow Cloak as much as possible.

[Lil'twick]

I'm going to be running snow cloak :p

[Firewater]

I'm indifferent to snow cloak. May or may not make a team