BH Balanced Hackmons Suspects and Bans Thread

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SuperSkylake said:
Do we have to wait for the mix and mega suspect on pheramosa to finish up before we can suspect anything? I am really getting tired of playing against shell smash because most of my teams have to run at least two different checks to it and they are still beaten, because there is no surefire way to beat multiple shell smash users.

Here are the various ways to fight shell smash and how they can be beaten:
1. prankster haze, but you probably lose the prankster hazer in a trade with the shell smash user. If they carry another one, which is often the case, you have lost now that your counter is dead. I've seen teams running 3 or even 4 shell smash users simply mowing other teams down.
2. Spectral thief doesn't work against normal types and since it doesn't have priority, your spectral thief user has to take a hit first, probably causing it to die.
3. Unaware users can easily be beaten by sunsteel strike/moongeist beam, and even if you use unaware Mega Gyarados which is fortunate enough to resist both of those, you can still be beaten if the shell smasher is a Dark-type Simple variant with a STAB 260 BP Power Trip. Yveltil is a really potent simple smasher thanks to its great bulk allowing it to take a single Extreme Speed from anything, and kill with a 260 BP Power Trip.
4. Topsy Turvy shuts down a Shell Smasher if you predict it right, since it now requires two turns to set up, but it doesn't work behind a substitute or against a Magic Bouncer, and if you run it with prankster, Dark-types are immune to it too, so usually it's ran without priority. So you still have to take a hit from one of three unknown coverage moves.
5. Priority is extremely unreliable against it because many smashers run dazzling. If they don't, they are probably running simple with a White Herb, which means that they don't even have to worry about defense drops, so they probably survive your priority and kill you anyway.
6. Imposters have to hope that they don't lose a speed tie. If they lose the speed tie, Shell Smash's defense drop ensures that the Imposter is at least severely damage, if not KOed. If the Shell Smash user also carries Spectral Thief, an Imposter must lose the speed tie in order to beat it, but it will still take huge damage if doing so. If the Shell Smasher is at full health and wears a focus sash, the Imposter almost always loses.
Shell Smash is so widespread that there are no true counters to it. Unskilled players can simply slap it onto a mon and totally turn their game around, even from a 5-2 clearly losing position. i've seen it happen. It constrains teambuilding because you have to run multiple checks to it and those checks can easily be beaten with a small amount of residual damage. For Example, Assault Vest Solgaleo takes 83-98% from a +2 Blue Flare from neutral natured Mewtwo-mega y. So it needs to be at full health to actually take that and Spectral Thief the boosts. Assault Vest Solgaleo is generally seen as a pretty solid counter to mewtwo Mega Y since it can take any move twice at +0, deal a lot of damage, and pivot back out, but all of that just goes away with Shell Smash. THe same thing can be said for things like Giratina countering Primal Groudon. It doesn't once Groudon has Shell Smashed, unless Giratina runs Spectral Thief which it probably does not, or is an Unaware variant. These can easily be lured. So there really are no counters to Shell Smash.

TLDR: Suspect test shell smash as soon as possible plz
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You forgot about Sash/Scarf Imposter, Prank Dbond, and Mguard Sash Spectral Thief XP.

I personally run Prank Dbond Registeel, Scarf Imposter Blissey, and Unaware Yveltal, and those mons together usually soft checks Smashspam on their own. If that doesn't work, I always have my SashSmash Psysurge MMY and Pixilate Diancie-M in the back with Spectral Thief. Shell Smash is totally not centralizing, as you can tell XP.

(If you can't tell, I am 100% in agreement that Shell Smash is broken as fuk and needs to burn in Regular Hackmons with Chansey BOOMs, Sheddy's evil ability, THE POWR, Random 180+ base power moves (hmmm V-Create...), and Trapping abilities not named M-pull.)
 
I haven't played earlier generations, so I have no experiences with Gen 5 sleep machnics.

Sleep/Spore is in my opinion similar centralizing as Shell Smash, and the problem could be solved by adding a sleep clause.

Very often I ran into situations, where I had a check to the opponent's sweeper, but lost because of the absence of a sleep clause - he spored one of my mons, so that he got a free setup turn. I switched to a check/counter to this sweeper, but despite having one mon already sleeping, he could put this one to sleep too and 3HKO it - I would be able to OHKO, but couldn't due to being asleep.
 
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AbuseroftheBroken said:
Looking at this now, how are Sleep-inducing moves any more OP then they were in, say, Gen 5? Prankster Spore was even more unblockable then (only M-Bounce and Poison Heal/Guts/Flare Boost/Quick Feet/wutevr). No Safety goggles then, no grass immunity to Spore either. Also, the sleep mechanics in Gen 5 made Sleep even more obnoxious. Sleep-inducing moves have only been nerfed since then with the lower # of sleep turns and no reset. No Guard/Moldy Dark Void existed back then too. So why is it suddenly a problem now, after all these years?

Also, plz do sumthin bout Stall, it's stealin' may soul :/.
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just to note: many people who have played gen 5 bh (myself and flint included) believe that sleep is broken in that generation, and something likely would have been done about it if the bh community then had the same attitude towards bans that it has now.

also if you're losing consistently to stall, that's because either your teams are bad or you're playing bad
 
MAMP said:
just to note: many people who have played gen 5 bh (myself and flint included) believe that sleep is broken in that generation, and something likely would have been done about it if the bh community then had the same attitude towards bans that it has now.

also if you're losing consistently to stall, that's because either your teams are bad or you're playing bad
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Ah, so Sleep is considered broken as well. Apologies, I assumed that something that was stronger in earlier generations, but were completely untouched in those generations, was a logical argument against touching it now. I'm was not aware how difficult it was to get something suspected in BH back then, my bad :/.

Also, I am mildly insulted by your assumptions :P. I didn't say anything about not being able to beat Stall (the players that win against me with it are just lucky that they got a good matchup :] ). I know that 140+ turns of Stall between 2 players is considered the peak of skill on Smogon, I do not need you to tell me that I suck for not playing it X). (Btw I am totally, 100% serious and you should definitely take this bait and argue with me. :] )
 
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i think we need to nerf setup.

the thing about setup is that speaking from the perspective of someone who builds fat teams, you absolutely need three checks to setup on every team.

1) prankster haze. if you don't use this, you will straight up lose to unburden and aps.
2) unaware. this is necessary to wall triage sets; you can try doing this with chansey but it's a very shaky check given that triage often carries countermeasures.
3) imposter. you need imposter or else you lose to certain contrary users.

now i know that these mons are perfectly viable outside of this but slapping all three on every team is just getting ridiculous at this point especially considering the long checklist you still have to go through like pdon check, ph regigigas counterplay, ph xern counterplay, ate check (with a shed shell!), and of course something with actual offensive presence. tl;dr setup really restricts teambuilding right now imo and we should do something about it.
 
Thinking about it, there's a few new things that collectively "broke" set-up this generation.

1. Anti-priority, preventing priority checks from functioning.
2. Sunsteel Strike and Moongeist Beam. Set-up no longer must run Mold Breaker to beat Unaware (and make themselves vulnerable to Prankster in the process.) The moves are also super-effective against some of the previously best Unawares such as Audino and Cresselia.
3. Power Trip. Stored Power had immunities and Dark wasn't uncommon. Power Trip has no immunities and can break through even resistant Unaware with enough boosts.
4. Triage. Outspeeds nearly all other priority, which makes priority checking even less useful.
5. Fleur Cannon gives Contraries even more coverage, making them harder to check and less predictable. Giratina still scoffs at physical Contrary at least.
6. Core Enforcer. Less relevant since most set-up also boosts speed and loses the effect, but it can remove a necessary defensive ability.
7. Anchor Shot. Again, less relevant since not much set-up runs it AFAIK, but it can trap a defensive threat with no escape options and use it as set-up fodder.


Banning all of those would fix set-up, but would be waaaaaay too heavy handed for one issue. In fact, killing them all might make set-up a little weak. I've been thinking about Shell Smash and stuff off and on and I'm still not sure what the best solution is. Too many little causes that contribute to one big problem.
 
Banning Shell Smash is which should be done first, since it allows to get strong enough for a sweep in just one turn, while also lowering defenses, making killing an imposter easier. Other Setup Moves like Shift Gear or Quiver Dance 1) don't boost the offensive stat by two stages (unless when run with simple), so that using them one time is usually not enough for a sweep and 2) don't boost both offensive stats at the same time, so that running both physical and special moves on the same sweeper isn't that rewarding anymore.

Next should be the addition of a sleep clause, since putting an opposing key mon to sleep often is what allows setting up safely (keeping the focus Sash intact). With a sleep clause, it would be possible to use one mon, which would not be needed for smeothing else as sleep fodder (you can even use sleep talk on it to be still able to attack with it while sleeping), and so protecting other mons from being put to sleep.

And as the third step, Sungeist should be suspected (I'm explicitely saying suspected as they might no longer be banworthy after shell smash ban).

Maybe, we should include STag Gengar here too, as it can easily remove opposing setup-stoppers like Unawares or Prankster Hazers, allowing another mon to sweep the opponent's team away.
 
I don't think that Gengarite needs a suspect since it's obvious at team preview. The common illusion set can get max 1 kill before the game is up for it. The addition of Core Enforcer and Moongeist Beam keeps shadow tag Gengar in check since it can be easily 2hKOed or having its trap effect removed that way.
 
Semako said:
Banning Shell Smash is which should be done first, since it allows to get strong enough for a sweep in just one turn, while also lowering defenses, making killing an imposter easier. Other Setup Moves like Shift Gear or Quiver Dance 1) don't boost the offensive stat by two stages (unless when run with simple), so that using them one time is usually not enough for a sweep and 2) don't boost both offensive stats at the same time, so that running both physical and special moves on the same sweeper isn't that rewarding anymore.
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why are you sleeping (no pun intended) on Belly Drum Unburden? it does basically the same thing except with an even better attack boost allowing it to kill everything with even non-stab sunsteel. also it flat-out wins vs imposter. i think that if smash is suspected then drum also deserves a suspect.

SuperSkylake said:
I don't think that Gengarite needs a suspect since it's obvious at team preview. The common illusion set can get max 1 kill before the game is up for it. The addition of Core Enforcer and Moongeist Beam keeps shadow tag Gengar in check since it can be easily 2hKOed or having its trap effect removed that way.
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that post is so theorymon-y to me. have you even used or faced Gengarite Gengar? it doesn't blindly switch in on a u-turn from an 80% registeel; instead, it comes in on stuff like a 60% audino forced to click recover, on a solgaleo trying to remove the numerous hazards stacked up.

mamp said it better than i did:
MAMP said:
It doesn't matter if you've got a bunch of counters and pivoting moves on every mon because Gengar has shadow tag and encore. The very presence of gar on the opposing team skews risk/reward analysis to an absurd degree -- it turns every turn into a 50/50 whenever you send out a mon that it can trap. Every single time you click shore up with your FC Zygarde, facade with your PH Gigas, or rapid spin with your regenvest Solgaleo you are risking losing a key member of your team. And like, you can say that you can just pivot out or w/e if you predict Gengar to come in, but you can't expect to be able to make that predict every time, and as soon as you mess up, a mon dies.

And 'playing better and paying more attention to the game' isn't really a reasonable argument either bc gar frequently creates lose-lose situations for the person playing against it. Here's an example from a game I had the other day: I had life orb triage Ray + Gengarite Gengar, opponent had unaware Audino as their only surviving answer to Ray. The Audino was like shore up/spectral/bpass/moonblast or something similar. Audino switches into Ray, Ray oblivion wings. It does enough to 3hko. So now my opponent is in a bind: I can switch to Gar entirely for free and it works out for me no matter what they do. If they shore up, then Audino dies and Ray wins. If they bpass or switch then they're in range of 2 oblivion wings so they can't switch into Ray anymore. This situation isn't uncommon either, mons having to choose between healing up and not getting trapped by Gar happens all the time. And it really doesn't strike me as a fair scenario -- my opponent had no counterplay to Gengar here, not because their team was bad or because they misplayed, but because trappers with encore are stupid as all fuck.

The brokenness of a mon with shadow tag can't be judged in terms of what counters it, bc that really doesn't get at what makes it so dangerous.
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Belly Drum with Unburden is an one-time setup, so if you get (p)hazed on the setup turn, you can't set up a second time. You're vulnerable to priority and you may get hit by a core enforcer, so that you lose to imposters
You're strictly limited to physical attacks, so that you may get stopped by physical walls like Fur Coat Zygod.
Also, without Sunsteel Strike, Bellydrum-Unburden is stopped by every Unaware user.
 
Semako said:
Belly Drum with Unburden is an one-time setup, so if you get (p)hazed on the setup turn, you can't set up a second time. You're vulnerable to priority and you may get hit by a core enforcer, so that you lose to imposters
You're strictly limited to physical attacks, so that you may get stopped by physical walls like Fur Coat Zygod.
Also, without Sunsteel Strike, Bellydrum-Unburden is stopped by every Unaware user.
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it doesn't matter if you could get hazed or phazed on the setup turn because you can't always have a mon in that is able to do that, and as soon as one slips, it's often too late.
it does not matter what happens if you get hit by core enforcers, since at +6 chances are the things that run core enforcer die.
fur coat doesnt make a difference with sunsteel.
it also doesn't matter if unburdeners without sunsteel are walled, because they are able to run sunsteel.

also threatening to unburden sweep like this is just dying to be paired with gengarite gengar but whatever
 
I don't know what mons you used, but Zygod survives a +6 sunsteel from Kartana and Groudon, can suppress Unburden with Core enforcer and so the Belly Drum sweeper can be killed by either its own imposter (and how do you improof a bely drum unburden sweeper if unburden is supressed?) or by a scarfer.
 
Semako said:
I don't know what mons you used, but Zygod survives a +6 sunsteel from Kartana and Groudon, can suppress Unburden with Core enforcer and so the Belly Drum sweeper can be killed by either its own imposter (and how do you improof a bely drum unburden sweeper if unburden is supressed?) or by a scarfer.
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its not that belly drum is unbeatable, but that it is centralizing. the same things that are able to beat those unburden belly drum sets are able to beat shell smash, which you have been calling for a ban. either forcing teams to pack things that can beat unburden and shell smash is worthy of a ban, or neither is. you can't just pick and choose which equally broken things you don't like.
 
Semako said:
I don't know what mons you used, but Zygod survives a +6 sunsteel from Kartana and Groudon, can suppress Unburden with Core enforcer and so the Belly Drum sweeper can be killed by either its own imposter (and how do you improof a bely drum unburden sweeper if unburden is supressed?) or by a scarfer.
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Zygod survives 50% of the times when Kartana uses Sunsteel at +6 only when it has a boosting nature if at full health (Kartana is advised to run Adamant since it already outspeeds the meta at +2), otherwise it's a OHKO. It really needs a scratch more to fall instantly. Something pathetic like U-turn from Solgaleo (minimum roll) leaves Zygod with less than 10% chance of surviving.
 
There's also the fact that against belly drum unburden you can revenge kill with priority; prankster haze/heart swap/topsy turvy/destiny bond/spore/encore/will-o-wisp/gastro acid or basically use any move a prankster is likely to have; have unaware sunsteel resist as long as you're not OHKO by their coverage; use king shield to get them to a level of attack you can tank; outspeed with some fast scarf; have a focus sash, and that is all assuming you're in a position where you've let them boost without doing anything to stop them.
Having to prepare for a threat doesn't make it broken, it just makes not preparing a stupid thing to do...
 
Well I retract my statement about gengarite Gengar. It's crazy, and it synergizes alarmingly well with all the other broken stuff in the meta right now such as shell smash and bulky unburden belly drum users. I think that the prevalence of setup though is a big part of the problem with the meta now and Gengarite Gengar is simply an accessory to it. If we nerf setup, Gengarite Gengar becomes a lot less threatening, since it often comes in on recovery moves or anti setup, both of which have to be used less with less powerful ways of setting up.
 
was "lucky" enough to run into gengarite stall today so here's a replay for you

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-566620275

[turn 13]
Red+White=Pink used Stealth Rock!
Pointed stones float in the air around the opposing team!

sr is set up against me putting the pressure on. my two methods of hazard removal are audino's defog and solgaleo's rapid spin. like every other form of hazard removal, these are susceptible to having gengar switch in and trap the mon. the only method of escaping this is to somehow have a mon faster than gengar (base 130) for hazard removal or prankster parting shot.

[turn 26]
The opposing 癒し妖精 used Defog!
Actually Pink's evasiveness fell!
The pointed stones disappeared from around the opposing team!

Actually Pink used U-turn!
It's not very effective... The opposing 癒し妖精 lost 4.2% of its health!

Actually Pink went back to Anna says hi!

Go! Almost Pink (Gengar-Mega)!
unfortunately chansey loses the speed tie and gets the slow u-turn to gengar. luckily for me however my audino is soundproof (imposter-proof shenanigans) so gengar is unable to outright remove it, however it's still able to waste a few pp with encore.

[turn 32]
Red+White=Pink used U-turn!
It's not very effective... The opposing 癒し妖精 lost 6.7% of its health!

Red+White=Pink went back to Anna says hi!

Go! Almost Pink (Gengar-Mega)!
The opposing 癒し妖精 woke up!

The opposing 癒し妖精 used Roost!
The opposing 癒し妖精 restored its HP.
so I slip a bit here using roost on a sort of obvious switch to gengar but my audino is at 40% with sr up like what are you gonna do man. the only completely safe time to roost is against a core enforced gengar but even then it can just troll me with spore and switch out. basically it's a no-win situation.

in the ensuing turns although gengar can't KO with perish song it can still stall my audino out of recovery pp by spamming encore and spiky shield.

[turn 47]
☆the ultimus: encore can die

[turn 52]
☆the ultimus: if i want to remove hazards
☆the ultimus: i can
☆the ultimus: 1) rapid spin on the u-turn and lose to gengar
☆the ultimus: 2) let my audino get worn down because trapping + encore is garbage
☆the ultimus: this isn't even fair

[earlier]
The opposing 電嘨 used Boomburst!
Monochrome Pink lost 85.2% of its health!
[turn 60]
The opposing 電嘨 woke up!

The opposing 電嘨 used Recover!
The opposing 電嘨 restored its HP.

Monochrome Pink used U-turn!
The opposing 電嘨 lost 15.1% of its health!

Monochrome Pink went back to Anna says hi!

Go! Almost Pink (Gengar-Mega)!
xurkitree is the main mon i rely on to beat this team. its set is boomburst/earth power/ice beam/recover and it's at 60%. registeel is in range of boomburst. here is a 50/50: do i boomburst and risk imposter switching in (keep in mind that audino is my imposter answer) or do i recover? in retrospect i made a bad play but i probably would have lost to imposter either way.

[grand finale]
☆Anna says hi: the whole reason why im using this is to get it banned

also the replay didn't save this but i lost 27 elo simply because my opponent brought gengarite and i didn't bring shed shell sticky hold on everything. although i certainly didn't make optimal plays, at some point it didn't seem like i had much of a choice.

imo semako's replay wasn't a very good example of how gengarite is broken because he brought a more offensive squad meaning that there were more genuine 50/50s such as trick groudon (but idk about that diancie set). with a fat team you basically just get slowly chipped down by u-turn and possibly hazards as well and if you make any prediction wrong at all then you lose.

i'm going to try building with gengarite myself. don't wish me luck because i don't deserve it. see you later.
 
Semako said:
And here is another example which shows how broken STag is:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-567179095
I made a single mistake - switching Zygarde into Giratina's 1k waves - and lost the game, couldn't do anything. Even Unaware Gyarados couldn't stop Tyranitar.
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You do realize the shadow tag wasn't needed at all, right? If they had had acupressure on Giratina, they could have done the exact same thing with trapping/(skill swap/entrainment)/acupressure/bp, and you would have lost just as badly. While Shadow Tag is an issue in general, in this match it being banned wouldn't have helped you.
 
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Nope, it was needed for this setup. Trapping, Skill Swap, Acupressure and Baton Pass already take up four moveslots, so that there's no space left for Substitute or Ingrain. Gengar in this match did nothing else than providing additional moveslots for Giratina, which are needed to make Ttar unstoppable. Ingrain prevents phazing via Whirlwind or Dtail, while the substitute renders Imposter useless - otherwise I would be able to at least bring Ttar down to a sash (if he has one) and finish it with priority. Because my Chansey is scarfed, I don't ahve to worry about losing the "speed tie".
Without Shadow Tag Gengar this wouldn't be possible at all, as I could simply switch out after Giratina baton passes Ingrrain and Sub, allwoing me to stop this strategy by either threaten an OHKO with Rayquaza or ScarfDon or tricking a choice item.
 
Here's a set that just shuts strategies like that down:

Solgaleo @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 84 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Spectral Thief
- Revelation Dance
- U-turn
- Core Enforcer

Spectral Thief takes away the boosts even through sub. Revelation dance 2hKOS normalize genggar if it tries to do stupid stuff to you, and has a chance to ohko after rocks, doing aobut 80%. U-turn lets you switch out and regenerator. Core Enforcer shuts down shadow tag. Solgaleo still does a fine job of checking boomburst users and MMY as well. So that's what i am using now to beat this trapping stuff, along with a parting shot mon, since parting shot isn't affected by normalize.
 
Semako said:
Nope, it was needed for this setup. Trapping, Skill Swap, Acupressure and Baton Pass already take up four moveslots, so that there's no space left for Substitute or Ingrain. Gengar in this match did nothing else than providing additional moveslots for Giratina, which are needed to make Ttar unstoppable. Ingrain prevents phazing via Whirlwind or Dtail, while the substitute renders Imposter useless - otherwise I would be able to at least bring Ttar down to a sash (if he has one) and finish it with priority. Because my Chansey is scarfed, I don't ahve to worry about losing the "speed tie".
Without Shadow Tag Gengar this wouldn't be possible at all, as I could simply switch out after Giratina baton passes Ingrrain and Sub, allwoing me to stop this strategy by either threaten an OHKO with Rayquaza or ScarfDon or tricking a choice item.
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No, he had imprison on ttar. There was no way for you to brin git down to sub, because he has a free turn to set the imprison when you have to switch zygarde out. Rewatch your match if you don't beleive me, but sub and ingrain were unneeded.
 
Quantum Tesseract said:
No, he had imprison on ttar. There was no way for you to brin git down to sub, because he has a free turn to set the imprison when you have to switch zygarde out. Rewatch your match if you don't beleive me, but sub and ingrain were unneeded.
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Unless Zygarde used U-turn the turn Tyranitar switched in (and successfully hit Tyranitar with it), which would have allowed Chansey to switch in, transform, and use Imprison.
 
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