(banning) Dynamicpunch

[Inspirited]

Philosophy should never be static, otherwise it will become the objective's worst enemy. A near perfect philosophy will still keep changing as the requirements for perfection change. The other side of the coin is the objective can change, but the objective changing means we may need to start from scratch again (which may not be a bad idea at this point :p).

Losing Machoke (an S Rank mon) would leave PU in a bad place is what I come to understand, which is a cause for maintaining the tier as far as I am concerned. It isn't that Dynamic Punch is broken either, it is more of the idea that this tier is stable nowas far as Pokemon in it go, how can we make the skill ceiling higher without losing this stability. There is a large amount of confusion deciding games at the top level of play, let's attack that first. PU has gone through its macro-management stages by the sound of things, now they need to change the macro-management philosophy in order to make micro-management for the sake of the tier's playability possible.

Banning Machoke has a ton more risk to it. The tier may never stabilize again before the release of Sun and Moon at this point which would leave it in a bad spot for old gen tournaments that include the tier (a tier leader nightmare I can imagine) etc. It is very possible that other luck based issues that require complex micro-management will still linger and need to be addressed if the tier does manage to stabilize again. Ideally, every tier will need to micro-manage at some point if large luck based elements appear, they just haven't found stability like PU has.

What I see the current philosophy as is a wall to stop us from moving too fast into complex issues before stability is reached through banning every Pokemon that threatens it (it forces us to construct a tier in thought out stages which is a very good thing imo). Once stability is reached, it shouldn't apply anymore and we should look into revising it in order to make the metagame as competitively viable as possible. I assume tier leaders are chosen to tackle this sort of management so that the philosophy is changed on a tier by tier basis so long as the objective is being worked towards by changes in philosophy. I still stand by the PU tier leadership's choice.

 

[Magnemite]

complex bans are the absolute last resort and are only employed if a simpler, more elegant solution cannot FOR THE SAKE OF MAINTAINING THE TIER. bw rain? check. baton pass? check. no guard + dynamic punch? naaaaaah

leppa berry? I'd honestly be fine with suspecting machoke if we banned baton pass and leppa berry as per the other pr thread, even though machoke is actually healthy for the meta unlike leppa berry which is completely irrelevant and baton pass which maybe has a small positive impact on some tiers but even after several bans relating to it still has a negative impact on another tier. otherwise, I don't see why it's okay to nerf moves and items no matter how complicated the bans have to be to do so but it's completely not okay to nerf a pokemon via a simple two part complex ban.

 

[blarajan]

leppa honestly should just be banned

baton pass is different than your little machoke / dynamic punch issue. Baton pass is a move that leads to a game mechanic, switching. Baton passing boosts is also another game mechanic. There are multiple ways to utilize baton pass to the point where an entire team strategy / entire team votes can be built around the mechanic, like in trick room or weather teams. It has been nerfed and "complex banned" this much because it's a different beast than dpunch; it's closer to banning speed boosting abilities in their corresponding weather. If he entirety of the mechanic is broken it will be banned but as of now, that is not the case. More discussion can be had, sure, but I don't get the incessant latching on to entirely different ideas to support the asinine point that 50% of machoke should be allowed in pu

Banning speed boost on blaziken, eviolite on Chansey, and dynamic punch on machoke are all efforts to nerf a Pokemon to make it usable

Banning sand veil and snow cloak on all offending Pokemon as part of evasion clause is removing the abilities for their inherent uncompetitiveness (see eo's gliscor cacturne dpp sand team). The motivation behind banning sand veil might have included keeping gliscor in dpp ou like you want to keep machoke in pu, but it's a completely different justification for doing so and is reasonable in this instance

Banning gravity + sleep moves in doubles is a combination of a game mechanic and its interaction with an entire class of moves that subsequently become broken in that mechanic. As in, Gravity is fine in doubles, sleep moves are fine, but sleep moves in Gravity like grass whistle whimsicott are broken because they no longer have that opportunity cost

Banning sonic boom and dragon rage in little cup is because they are broken as fuck

Banning moody as its own clause is because it's uncompetitive as fuck

Banning dynamic punch on machoke is like banning psystrike on Mewtwo and does not fly

Considering the limited offenders of no guard dynamic punch (machoke, machop, golett), there is not enough abusers or overall tier influence to justify no guard + dynamic punch ban assuming no guard + dynamic punch in tandem is inherently uncompetitive. It does not feature an overarching game mechanic or combination of features worth making a separate clause when it is simply those offenders, with machoke being the only really usable Pokemon of the group

So do we ban dynamic punch? If it's uncompetitive in its own right, sure. Make that argument, that dynamic punch is an uncompetitive part of the game and should not be there

It's not, at the very least in my opinion, but I will not preclude you the ability to argue that it is. Ban dynamic punch, or machoke, or leave it.

We aren't making a separate clause for an overall innocuous combination of ability + move that affects three Pokemon, one of which is usable, in order to keep that usable Pokemon in the tier. That's simply ridiculous. PU is an official tier now, and it can't just do whatever it wants. An OM can do whatever it wants, but officiality comes with its perks and its limitations. Complex bans are a big deal. Recognize that.

 

[Aberforth]

The reason Leppa Berry wasn't banned is really simple actually.

Zarel found it fun.

Not the item itself, just the challenge of adapting the endless battle clause to cover everything without banning anything.

Edit to below: Yep.

 

[Anty]

The reason Leppa Berry wasn't banned is really simple actually.

Zarel found it fun.

Not the item itself, just the challenge of adapting the endless battle clause to cover everything without banning anything.

Is that actually serious? If so then why is there any issue in banning some form dpunch + machoke or no guard or whatever combo if the precedent set is a joke. Smogon can't say they try to reduce complex bans, and stop us from making one, when the most complex ban (well, clause) was made for the staff's fun, instead of banning an item which would have no competitive repercussions.

 

[Vinc2612]

Everytime someone wants to play BW and loses his time because he doesn't understand the complex ban, a baby red panda dies.
Everytime someone wants to cause an endless battle and loses his time because he didn't understand the complex ban, a baby red panda is born.

That's the difference and why there is absolutely no problem with a complex ban on Endless battle.

 

[Anty]

Everytime someone wants to play BW and loses his time because he doesn't understand the complex ban, a baby red panda dies.
Everytime someone wants to cause an endless battle and loses his time because he didn't understand the complex ban, a baby red panda is born.

That's the difference and why there is absolutely no problem with a complex ban on Endless battle.

I'm not necessarily saying there is a problem with a complex ban in the endless battle situation, if there are ways outside of using Leppa Berry to cause an endless battle, but I was responding to the reasoning that we didn't ban Leppa Berry because 'Zarel found it fun', as that is clearly not legitimate.

 

[blarajan]

you make a simulator then

 

[aurora]

I have no concrete opinion on the subject matter of this thread, as I do not play any metagame where No Guard + Dynamic Punch is concerning (besides BW UU, where Machamp is kind of a bleh Pokemon as is). I was, however, under the impression that such convoluted bans were against Smogon banning philosophy. I feel doing something such as this would open up a rather unappealing can of worms.

However,

you make a simulator then

I get this thread isn't about the Endless Battle clause, but posts like these really irk me. Come on. You can't just disregard a valid concern about the needless complexity of a clause that:

a) is so complex purely because Zarel made it so for his own amusement
b) could easily be made less complex by simply banning Leppa Berry, as it has zero practical use

by implying that Anty / PoMMan et al. are ungrateful for the work Zarel does solely because they have a grievance with something that is quite obviously silly and quite easily fixable. Such comments only serve to antagonise.

 

[MZ]

Also why are we still pretending there's a slippery slope argument to be had here? We want Dpunch gone one way or the other because it makes Machoke an uncompetitive Pokemon. Speed Boost isn't going to be complex banned on Blaziken because it makes Blaziken a broken Pokemon. Removing Psystrike on Mewtwo is not like trying to remove a purely uncompetitive aspect from the game while keeping the theoretically healthy, competitive parts, because OHKOing the entire metagame and only winning through confusion are two things we see as fundamentally different. People who hate the chatter ban are blaming inconsistency, not the fact that it might somehow lead us to unbanning Aegislash and banning King's Shield.

 

[YABO]

The slippery slope argument here isn't that retroactively things like aegislash are going to be unbanned. The argument and concern is with the increasing deviance from traditional tiering philosophy displayed in pu. If anything, I'd say the slippery slope is actually fairly relevant here as a previously dubious ban in chatter is being used to justify a second questionable decision, following the traditional pattern of x will cause y displayed in the fallacy. Therefore, these precedents that are being set could in theory be used to create more complex bans that violate tiering ideology in other tiers.

 

[MZ]

Tell me one other wholly uncompetitive aspect that exists in PU that anybody wants to ban and not ban its abusers and I'll believe that there's a slippery slope to be had. Right now banning is all over the place with really inconsistent precedents anyway, so I don't see why this decision has to impact everything following. Every single incident of this inconsistent banning is because every case is different, from not banning Speed Boost to banning Sandshrew to banning Chatter because it's a unique move. It's not like the Supreme Court where you're laying down one rule which will apply to hundreds of other cases which hinge on that same rule.

 

[PK Gaming]

DynamicPunch as a move isn't even remotely broken.

It wasn't broken in gen IV OU when lead Machamp became the hottest shit.
It wasn't broken in gen V UU when people would occasionally bust out their Machamps for fraudulent wins
And it's sure as shit not broken now.

Sure, Machoke isn't unhealthy without DynamicPunch, but who gives a shit? There are countless Pokemon who weren't broken without that one move™ pushing them over the edge (ie: Outrage/Draco Meteor for mence in DPP, Gunk Shot Greninja, etc). The only difference in this case is that DynamicPunch has that 100% confuse chance, but that's very clearly not a problem in formats outside of PU.

Just ban Machoke. Don't make this into a bigger issue than it has to be.

 

[The Immortal]

we. ban. pokemon. not. parts. of. them.

don't know why people are still arguing about machoke and dynamic punch because ^.

if you have a problem with smogon's tiering policies then bring that up, in a separate thread perhaps. pu is an official metagame and needs to adhere to the standards set. end of story.

best example pk gaming didn't mention is king's shield aegislash. also, pu needs to change chatter ban to chatot ban.

 

[Magnemite]

also, pu needs to change chatter ban to chatot ban.

what authority do you have to just tell us that? that isn't what the thread is about and no one else is suggesting that we should be forced to change it. going back and changing a year old ban that no one cared about until now is also pretty pointless.

@ below: then don't sound so demanding about it, "pu needs to ban chatot" is not the same thing as "i think pu should ban chatot as well"

 

[The Immortal]

zero authority. i didn't tell you anything. i was stating what pu should do based on smogon's philosophies, just like how every post in this thread is stating what pu should or shouldn't do.

 

[Bughouse]

We ban Pokemon. Except when it's Gliscor. Gotta keep that Gliscor. But screw Froslass. And Cacnea.

 

[Magnemite]

This will probably be my last post on this subject because I'm honestly sick of how circular this discussion is getting at this point but I feel like there's a bit more I can say.

If you look at this from our perspective, there isn't really a great solution to this problem. There are legitimate objections to banning Dynamicpunch or Dynamicpunch + No Guard, but banning Machoke could potentially largely upset the balance of the ORAS PU metagame very late into its lifespan with little to no chance to recover. We only want to do a complex ban / move ban because it is by far the best option, as well as the only remotely good option, for PU as a tier. As tier leaders, galbia and I simply want what is best for our tier. Dynamicpunch is a big problem, but galbia and several of PU's council members have said that they would rather do nothing than completely ban Machoke, which says something about how negative the impact of banning Machoke would be.

Banning No Guard + Dynamicpunch will not lead to a slippery slope of complex banning random other things when the Pokemon in question is broken, mainly because in the vast majority of cases, the main thing that makes it broken is central to how it is as a Pokemon. This is not the case for Machoke, as Machoke is only broken because of the confusion side-effect of Dynamicpunch. If it could no longer use No Guard Dynamicpunch, it could use Cross Chop instead and it would still be the same Pokemon with the same roles, uses, and healthy impact on the metagame, just without the large chance to turn the tides of games completely based on luck alone.

I honestly don't see why it matters that this is a complex ban or a move ban on a move that isn't broken on everything that gets it, so long as it fits the situation (which it does, as I hope we've shown). I get that we want to avoid complex bans whenever possible, but what I don't get is why we shouldn't be able to implement complex or otherwise irregular bans sparingly in situations where it is the best solution for the metagame at hand, just because the situation is a bit different compared to other situations that have resulted in complex or irregular bans. Smogon policy is not set in stone, so I don't see why a complex ban or a move ban should never be allowed when the banned move / combination is only broken on one or a few Pokemon and not on others. This ban is not overly complex or difficult to understand either, so the issue of it being a complex ban in the first place isn't relevant.

Finally, if we are not allowed to outright suspect or ban only Dynamicpunch or only Dynamicpunch + No Guard, I am proposing that we be allowed to do a runoff vote with the options being do nothing, ban Machoke, and ban Dynamipunch or ban No Guard + Dynamicpunch, whichever is seen as more acceptable (or maybe both?). This solution would allow people who disagree with a complex ban / move ban to still have a say. There is plenty of precedent to this situation, as a runoff vote has been done plenty of times before (BW NU Liepard, BW RU Hail, etc), and have included options that would have (and did, in Liepard's case) result in complex bans, ability bans, or item bans. Yes, our case is a bit different, but as I've said before this really shouldn't matter.


@ below I'm going to wait for galbia or anty to explain this, as I've been busy lately and haven't been able to play Pokemon a huge amount but they were the main people arguing against simply banning Machoke and I highly trust their opinions on the state of the meta

 

[trc]

Why is it best for the metagame to not ban Machoke?

This will probably be my last post on this subject because I'm honestly sick of how circular this discussion is getting at this point but I feel like there's a bit more I can say.

If you look at this from our perspective, there isn't really a great solution to this problem. There are legitimate objections to banning Dynamicpunch or Dynamicpunch + No Guard, but banning Machoke could potentially largely upset the balance of the ORAS PU metagame very late into its lifespan with little to no chance to recover. We only want to do a complex ban / move ban because it is by far the best option, as well as the only remotely good option, for PU as a tier. As tier leaders, galbia and I simply want what is best for our tier. Dynamicpunch is a big problem, but galbia and several of PU's council members have said that they would rather do nothing than completely ban Machoke, which says something about how negative the impact of banning Machoke would be

Can you explain this? Why would banning Machoke be bad for the tier at all? I haven't read any reasons as to why except for Dundies saying it checks Golem and Pawniard, of which it is a bad check to both and they have multiple other offensive and defensive answers.

 

[Anty]

I said stuff earlier in the thread, but to expand, Machoke is healthy for the tier due to its role on defensive teams. Not only does it check a lot depending on its EV spread, phdef beats stuff like Golem, Relicanth, and Monferno, whereas SDef can beat stuff like Regice, Rotom-f, and Raichu, and in PU its hard to cover every slot, but Machoke can check a good amount in one slot, without necessarily resisting these Pokemon's STAB moves. Additionally, Machoke is better than most other defensive mons due to its ability to apply offensive pressure, between a strong Knock Off as we don't have great absorbers, and its Fighting STAB. This means it doesn't invite in wallbreakers like other walls such as Gourgeist and Stunfisk. It offensively pressures pretty every hazards setter, and hazards + pressure to stop defog tend to be weaknesses for these teams. If you look at the recent history of the tier, defensive teams (non-stall) started to get more popular as defensive Machoke was hyped, and its the reason which pushed it up to S-rank on the VR. Overall the council think its a good presence in the tier as it makes it more balanced, which is shown by it being arguably the best mon (definitely at least top 2) in the tier, and we really don't want to suspect it.

 

[Slimmer]

I don't agree with DynamicPunch being compared with Sand Veil issue, especially when you talk about this last one in Gen 4, since this ability gets its effect like always due to lack of Drizzle/Drought and omnipresence of Tyranitar (Top 1-3 mon in usage) and/or Hippowdon. Evasion boost is an issue that involves self-inducted luck (you won't even need to use Sand Stream mon due to huge SSmons usage as said above) definitely different from confusion since this last one is somehow manageable with smart switching and/or Lum Berry, while you can't counterplay evasion boost if not with obscure accuracy boosting moves/items. Also, evasion boost can be managed in order to increase luck chance in your favor (Sub Gliscor anyone? But every other SVeil mon can easily work that way) while DynamicPunch has not too much ways to increase your luck factor, besides playing Sub Machoke in PU. We have to see also that DynamicPunch is an 8 PP move that can't hit Ghosts and resisted by Psychic/Flying/Fairy types. Machoke coverage is an issue? You can work that out using Colbur Berry I guess? And obviously, you need No Guard to make the move broken. Rather, you need No Guard Machoke since Golett and Machop do not have the same impact even having the same move/ability combo.
So, the problem is definitely Machoke running DynamicPunch and this definitely goes near Greninja/Protean, Landorus/SheerForce, Aegislash/King's Shield, etc. Wasn't Aegislash a good mon for OU? It was too good indeed it got an incredible high usage and it radically changed the tier. But who cares it's broken so it had to get out, no matter how it could had been useful. The same reasoning can be applied to PU Machoke, imo. Ok it has healthy uses when it does not run DynamicPunch (which is not a broken/annoying move in any situation but just on No Guard Machoke) so the issue is just Machoke, using the same reasoning that was behind every other ban, so just find a Machoke replacement ?_?
"Gen 4 Gliscor should had been banned with this logic". False. The "missing everything" issue worked in the same way also for every other Sand Veil mon. You could say "unban Snow Cloak" due to Abomasnow bad usage in the metagame, but that would be inconsistent in the "Evasion Clause" principle which is definitely fine and it didn't touch any too much useful mon so I don't see any strong reason to complain about it.

 

[Magnemite]

trc 's post is a valid objection; however, this possibility is a reason why I suggested a runoff vote. Anyone who thinks that Machoke is not healthy enough for the tier to warrant a complex ban or move ban is free to vote to ban Machoke in this scenario.

I don't agree with DynamicPunch being compared with Sand Veil issue, especially when you talk about this last one in Gen 4, since this ability gets its effect like always due to lack of Drizzle/Drought and omnipresence of Tyranitar (Top 1-3 mon in usage) and/or Hippowdon. Evasion boost is an issue that involves self-inducted luck (you won't even need to use Sand Stream mon due to huge SSmons usage as said above) definitely different from confusion since this last one is somehow manageable with smart switching and/or Lum Berry, while you can't counterplay evasion boost if not with obscure accuracy boosting moves/items. Also, evasion boost can be managed in order to increase luck chance in your favor (Sub Gliscor anyone? But every other SVeil mon can easily work that way) while DynamicPunch has not too much ways to increase your luck factor, besides playing Sub Machoke in PU. We have to see also that DynamicPunch is an 8 PP move that can't hit Ghosts and resisted by Psychic/Flying/Fairy types. Machoke coverage is an issue? You can work that out using Colbur Berry I guess? And obviously, you need No Guard to make the move broken. Rather, you need No Guard Machoke since Golett and Machop do not have the same impact even having the same move/ability combo.
So, the problem is definitely Machoke running DynamicPunch and this definitely goes near Greninja/Protean, Landorus/SheerForce, Aegislash/King's Shield, etc. Wasn't Aegislash a good mon for OU? It was too good indeed it got an incredible high usage and it radically changed the tier. But who cares it's broken so it had to get out, no matter how it could had been useful. The same reasoning can be applied to PU Machoke, imo. Ok it has healthy uses when it does not run DynamicPunch (which is not a broken/annoying move in any situation but just on No Guard Machoke) so the issue is just Machoke, using the same reasoning that was behind every other ban, so just find a Machoke replacement ?_?
"Gen 4 Gliscor should had been banned with this logic". False. The "missing everything" issue worked in the same way also for every other Sand Veil mon. You could say "unban Snow Cloak" due to Abomasnow bad usage in the metagame, but that would be inconsistent in the "Evasion Clause" principle which is definitely fine and it didn't touch any too much useful mon so I don't see any strong reason to complain about it.

As I said in my post, this isn't the exact same case as Sand Veil or any other complex ban. However, as I also stated, we do not believe this should matter because it is a) what's best for our tier and b) not horribly different from any of the other cases. Smogon policy is not set in stone, each of the past complex bans was a slightly different case than the ones that preceded it and set a slightly different, yet still new, precedent. This is a discussion forum for a reason, and I believe people are being a bit too narrow minded in how we can vary from past decisions a bit, especially since, as I explained in my last post, a Dynamicpunch ban or a Dynamicpunch + No Guard ban would not lead to a slippery slope unless nearly the exact same situation were to come up again. I frankly can't take Greninja / Aegislash / whatever comparisons seriously at all since this is a clearly different situation as I again explained in my post:

Banning No Guard + Dynamicpunch will not lead to a slippery slope of complex banning random other things when the Pokemon in question is broken, mainly because in the vast majority of cases, the main thing that makes it broken is central to how it is as a Pokemon. This is not the case for Machoke, as Machoke is only broken because of the confusion side-effect of Dynamicpunch. If it could no longer use No Guard Dynamicpunch, it could use Cross Chop instead and it would still be the same Pokemon with the same roles, uses, and healthy impact on the metagame, just without the large chance to turn the tides of games completely based on luck alone.

Finally, you say it's different from Sand Veil because Sand Veil is uncompetitive on Cacnea just as it is on Garchomp, but this applies to No Guard Dynamicpunch as well, if you look at Anty 's previous post (a post which everyone posting against a complex / move ban has seemed to ignore) which provides replays of a team that can take advantage of luck to completely turn around games with Golett and Machop just the same despite them being terrible, unviable Pokemon. This is also not nearly as extreme a case because in this case we are just slightly nerfing two random LC Pokemon instead of effectively completely banning LC Pokemon like the Sand Veil ban does. Neither of these has a considerable impact, but our case has a significantly less objectionable impact.

 

[Sam]

The issue is that no one in this thread has been making the case that Dynamic Punch is broken, so a non-broken move is being banned to nerf a specific Pokemon. The argument over whether or not the move is uncompetitive can be taken to the confusion thread. The thing is, if something is uncompetitive it should be universally uncompetitve across the entire format (again why this is better for the confusion thread, which is more general). Dynamic Punch can't just be uncompetitive in PU. I've already told this to the tier leaders, but if PU wants to get rid of Dynamic Punch + Machoke they're going to have to suspect Machoke.

Closing this because it's mostly circular now, anything relevant can be taken to the confusion thread.