Baton Pass. Yes, again.

[Aberforth]

So the other day, I saw that someone posted in the NU stage thread saying that yet another iteration of baton pass should be restricted so as to make it not broken, again. This is after QuiverPass, Smashpass, GeoPass, FullBatonPass, Scolipass, Gliscorpass and 3 members per team Baton pass, as well as certain lower tier examples like ChickenPass all proving Baton Pass's broken-ness. We have never had something so broken that it has been nerfed this many times just to keep a broken thing in the tier, and after the discussion about Dynamic Punch moved into this territory, I thought it would be a good idea to bring up the fact that if we want to be consistent, we really should just get to the actual problem. I felt this way last time we had this discussion, but was willing to wait until it inevitably proved an issue once again and here we are.

Why should this happen? Well, Baton Pass has been broken in some form in literally every tier aside from ubers, where it is currently banned in Room Tours and we're waiting on the co-leader's response to see if we can actually do something about it there too. And now, despite all our previous attempts to nerf it, it still finds ways to be broken. It's speed boost passing from Combusken to Xatu resulting in broken-ness in NU, but from Baton Pass's track record even if we complex ban that there to nerf it once again it will rear its head. SD Pass from Celebi to Sharpedo is such a good strategy in UU that I've heard about it despite never even coming close to touching UU as a tier (apparantly it's not actually that good a strategy in tour games, I wouldn't know), and I'm nearly certain that at some point someone will use Amnesia + Iron Defense Mew to baton pass into something like Espeon in a way that will result in yet another nerf.

But we shouldn't nerf things. We avoid complex banning as much as is possible, and yet we are constantly jumping through hoops trying to nerf baton pass to the point that we can keep something that is clearly broken in a tier. We didn't decide to ban Greninja from learning ORAS tutor moves and leave it with its XY moveset when we banned it, we just banned the broken thing, despite the potentially fun aspects that left with it.

And yes, there will be collateral. Celebi wont escape from Tyranitar's pursuit. Sylveon will not have a move to click to escape from a Heatran it cannot touch. But the sheer number of times that Baton Pass has proven itself to be broken should speak for itself. Sheer Cold is not broken on Spheal, but we banned the move, not just the move on good pokemon or ones that could abuse it better than others. We should not have a glaring exception to our tiering system when a much more sensible solution exists. Ban Baton Pass.

 

[doughboy]

Why can't we just ban baton pass + boosting moves / speed boost on the same set? Simple to understand and something we should have done from the very beginning.

Baton pass ban? #freeblaziken

 

[Aberforth]

Because people wanted to pointlessly preserve stuff like CM Pass and AgiliPass, despite them probably resulting in something broken somewhere in the future (see Xatu with a boost in speed being broken in NU). I also anticipate defensive boost passing to be a problem at some point in some tier and its really annoying to dance around the actual problem to keep a broken move in the game.

E: I'm an idiot and didn't read that correctly, but Drypassing is fine, its just kinda weird to simultaneously have the policy we're having in the PU and Confusion threads, yet nerf baton pass just to keep it around. That's literally what we're saying PU shouldn't do after all.

 

[kokoloko]

ban baton pass


pls




and scald














double pls

 

[g]

Considering Nasty Plot (or rarely SD) + Baton Pass was one of the things that lead to a Sharpedo ban in RU a few months ago as well i really can't see any reason to keep Baton Pass as whole.

Another cool solution would be to disallow [any boosting move or ability + Baton Pass] if you want to preserve dry passing and Pursuit escaping which would also remove the need to limit BP to one Pokémon per team which has proven to be unnecessary in (both) PU (and RU when i played it actively at least). This solution might not be the best if Substitute + BP ot Weakness Policy turns out to be broken as well or for consistently with other complex bans.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

While we're at it, can we please just ban the freaking Leppa Berry? This physically pains me to read.

 

[ryan]

You're right that the Endless Battle Clause is ugly. However, it is the best way to handle the issue because 1) Leppa Berry is not broken or uncompetitive and 2) the complexity of the ban is irrelevant because the only time it has any effect is when somebody is trying to cause endless battles (i.e. it is almost never relevant). I'm only aware of a meager two examples of Leppa Berry being useful in competitive play, but why get rid of it when we could do what we've been doing? If people feel strongly enough to continue this discussion, I recommend making a new thread for it.

I don't feel too strongly on a more refined Baton Pass ban, but on its effects directly on NU: the problem has always been Combusken. When it was originally banned, people were utilizing Bulk Up + Baton Pass to make all kinds of things ridiculous, including physical attackers and Xatu, which could set up on a lot of stuff thanks to the high Speed and Defense boosts. After the Baton Pass clause came about, we brought Combusken back because passing just Speed has always been available in NU with Ninjask but has never been harmful. However, people starting using Kee Berry Xatu as a slightly less consistent but still very potent strategy alongside Combusken's Speed boosts. Baton Pass outside of Combusken has never been a problem in the tier. Even SmashPass stuck around until the clause came about because it was wildly inconsistent. I'm of the fairly strong opinion that banning Combusken itself would again resolve the problem, but that decision is not up to me.

The OHKO move comparison is weak at best. Moody and OHKO moves are both universally stupid, even when a Bidoof or Spheal is involved.

The drypass/Dynamic Punch is somewhat fair, but there has been a ton of precedent on nerfing Baton Pass to keep it in the game in some form. Meanwhile, there has been no precedent of banning what makes a Pokemon broken rather than banning the Pokemon itself (Protean Greninja, Speed Boost Blaziken) outside of situations where multiple Pokemon are broken for that reason (Drizzle + Swift Swim, Shell Smash + Baton Pass in BW2). The only exception is Chatter, which has been debated in the same thread as the Machoke discussion and is a more difficult case to make because it is not complex and only affects one Pokemon.

 

[Aberforth]

The reason we didn't just ban Leppa Berry is that Zarel found it fun to code a new endless battle clause, and enjoyed seeing how people would get around what he made.

And specifically in Nu the problem has been combusken, yes, but when you look at all the tiers, no other strategy has come close to being broken so often while we contort around it to try and preserve it. If sleep clause is the big exception to our tiering, baton pass is only slightly smaller, and we've dealt with it repeatedly and its still finding ways to be potentially broken (Busken/Ninja Passing) or outright broken (NastyPass to Sharpedo in RU), but it doesn't need to be an exception at all when we can just get rid of the actual problem once and for all.

 

[Adaam]

"SD Pass from Celebi to Sharpedo is such a good strategy in UU that I've heard about it despite never even coming close to touching UU as a tier"

I have no opinion on this topic but this is absolutely not true. Everyone who plays UU knows about Celepass to Shark but I've never seen it actually do damage in a tour (or even ladder games), nor is it anywhere near broken.

 

[Aberforth]

Posting on behalf of TheTraininator because he doesn't have PR access.

All of this convoluted effort to keep Baton Pass legal does certainly seem to be more value than it's worth at this point, and I definitely think that something further needs to be done. However, I really do feel like DryPass is an important tool that contributes to the viability of many Pokemon across a variety of metagames without being unhealthy or uncompetitive. It has been mentioned in passing a couple of times already, but I really do think the best option at this point is to ban the combination of boosts/Substitute + Baton Pass (and by proxy re-allow multiple Pokemon to run Baton Pass on the same team,) because while technically a complex ban, it not only is simpler than the Baton Pass clause we currently have, but it would also permanently eliminate all the problems we have with Baton Pass from now until the forseeable future.

As an example of my point, take Celebi, a Pokemon that just recently dropped into the UU tier and has seen a huge surge of popularity in part due to its support capabilities. A Pokemon that provides very useful support for balance teams while being able to preserve momentum while evading being Pursuit trapped is incredibly useful for balance teams in a tier that is currently having a problem adapting to how strong offense is, (hence the suspect on Alakazam, a Pokemon who while not considered to be inherently broken is potentially far too splashable and customizable a threat on offense to be healthy for the tier.) Yes it also has some questionable capabilities to Baton Pass SD and Nasty Plot, but if you remove its ability to DryPass, you're taking away a healthy element from a healthy Pokemon in an arguably unhealthy metagame.

In all of Smogon history, I can't recall a Pokemon that has ever had its ability to DryPass cited as a reason for it being unhealthy for the metagame, (though if I'm wrong on that, please correct me.) On the other hand, its clear that the ability to Baton Pass stat boosts is an incredibly strong strategy that is growing increasingly hard to build against as more viable recipients continue to arrive that are also getting increasingly hard to phaze. (Yay power creep.) In short, I believe the best course of action is to ban passing any boosts but keep BP itself legal.

My immediate response to that is that I dont really see a particular need to retain drypass, especially given the reception banning Dynamic Punch received from PU suggesting that they be allowed to do something similar, and that if we do decide to keep Baton Pass unbanned in just the instances of Drypassing that PU be allowed to ban Dynamic Punch, because the reasoning for it would be the same. The simplest solution is the one we strive for in every instance other than here, Sleep Clause and Endless Battle Clause (which I admit is convoluted, but I see less fault in being so given that it is not actually just leppa berry related (the clause mentioned on the site is outdated) and that it is an incredibly specific thing that will never effect someone not looking to cause endless battles). And the simplest solution to this problem is just to ban Baton Pass.

 

[skies]

Wholeheartedly disagreeing with banning Baton Pass entirely. The issue in every single "VariantPass" we've had so far includes Speed. Quiver Dance, Shell Smash, Geomancy, Scolipede, Full-Pass, Gliscor (unsure if this is strictly SD.). Now ChickenPass is a thing, also involving Speed. I propose we ban Baton Pass + Speed Boosts (includes any Speed boost or Speed Boost itself.) because this appears to be the root of the problem in my eyes. Banning Baton Pass entirely is just harmful. There are so many applicable uses of Baton Pass, and only one is broken, and that's involving Speed.

Baton Pass + another stat is just not broken in any instance. Boost -> Sharpedo has been a thing for a long time, even if not in UU (Togetic provided Nasty Plot in RU for example) and if that became an issue, then yes, it should be reconsidered. Until that occurs, however, I just can't get behind this form of banning.

Speed + Baton Pass isn't exactly a complex ban either, and it's very sensible I believe.

An edit from before since I had to think about how to rephrase: I believe Speed + Baton Pass should be banned entirely. Meaning Quiver Dance + BP is illegal, Agility + BP is illegal, and Calm Mind + BP is legal. If that makes more sense!

 

[Aberforth]

I dont really agree tbh. All the examples have been broken with speed (aside from trap-passing but whatever) but Greninja was only broken with a Life Orb, Aegislash was only broken with Kings Shield, ext ext. We dont go around nerfing any other broken thing just to keep a fraction of it in the tier, we just ban the broken thing including the not necessarily broken elements of it. Simple is best and the simplest is just outright banning the move.

 

[doughboy]

Simple is best and the simplest is just outright banning the move.

Not when the collateral damage adversely affects the way a wide range of pokemon play and adversely affects metagames. As an example of this idea: Do you believe that implementing a complete baton pass ban for BW would result in a better metagame than the current baton pass implementation? No, because Celebi defenseless against Pursuit makes makes Keldeo (one of the best pokes in OU) waaaaay better than it already is.

People have been playing with complex bans since GSC. Misdreavus was "nerfed" in GSC OU through the Perish Song + Mean Look / trapping move + Sing Sleep move ban. So it isn't unprecedented. I honestly think the obsession over simple bans is silly. The goal should be as simple as possible / needed, not simple only. The people who play this game aren't idiots. To start off you have to memorize 324 type interactions, hundreds of pokemon move combinations, and 30 pokemon + a bunch of weird clauses. I really don't think adding King's Shield Aegislash only is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. If King's Shiedless Aegislash, Sand Rushless Excadrill, No Boost Baton Pass Celebi, and Hypnosisless (heh) Misdreavus make the game better just do it. The playerbase (even new players) will appreciate that a lot more than having to not memorize 1 additional rule.

 

[Jibaku]

Encouraging complex bans can easily open up a can of worms. What's stopping the list from extending to: Recover/Roostless Lugia, U-turnless Genesect, No Water Move Kyogre, Sacred Fire-less Ho-Oh (on the offtopic of 50% stuff...), Ice Beamless Kyurem-W, Psycho Boostless Deoxys-N, and so on? Where do we draw the line before we have a load of things added on to the ruleset to reduce the number of actually banned Pokemon in favor of nerfed ones? What justifies keeping, say, Sand Rushless Excadrill over Recovery-less Lugia? What makes Excadrill oh so special?

 

[Zarel]

So the other day, I saw that someone posted in the NU stage thread saying that yet another iteration of baton pass should be restricted so as to make it not broken, again. This is after QuiverPass, Smashpass, GeoPass, FullBatonPass, Scolipass, Gliscorpass and 3 members per team Baton pass, as well as certain lower tier examples like ChickenPass all proving Baton Pass's broken-ness. We have never had something so broken that it has been nerfed this many times just to keep a broken thing in the tier, and after the discussion about Dynamic Punch moved into this territory, I thought it would be a good idea to bring up the fact that if we want to be consistent, we really should just get to the actual problem. I felt this way last time we had this discussion, but was willing to wait until it inevitably proved an issue once again and here we are.

Before we go too far yet, is it even broken?

Some people complaining it's broken doesn't necessarily mean it's broken.

While we're at it, can we please just ban the freaking Leppa Berry? This physically pains me to read.

That is not Endless Battle Clause. That's a very outdated version.

Endless Battle Clause is currently very simple: Players cannot intentionally prevent an opponent from being able to end the game without forfeiting.

 

[Luigi]

fam if baton pass is still broken in NU why are you trying to ban the whole move? Do the same thing that was done in bw ru/nu with smash pass and ban it there. Literally no one considers bp broken in OU o_o

 

[AM]

fam if baton pass is still broken in NU why are you trying to ban the whole move? Do the same thing that was done in bw ru/nu with smash pass and ban it there. Literally no one considers bp broken in OU o_o

It's not broken in OU because it's been nerfed to the point, 3 times, where you might as well have just banned the move instead of trying to save it for some competitive applications.

 

[Aberforth]

From no restrictions (6 mons per team) to 3 mons per team to only one mon per team to only one mon per team with the best users of it banned (lower tiers only admittedly) to only one mon per team but not when passing multiple boosts of which at least one is speed.

And Zarel, the ex-tier leader says he'd ban a pokemon because of how well it'd baton pass, but given Baton Pass's track record and the fact that it is already being suggested by some to be broken, I would suggest that it is not a matter of if Baton Pass will be broken again, but when.

 

[Arcticblast]

Baton Pass + self-incurred boosts (to avoid Flatter shenanigans) seems fine to me for metas that need it

 

[dEnIsSsS]

reading this thread gave me cancer

It's not broken in OU because it's been nerfed to the point, 3 times, where you might as well have just banned the move instead of trying to save it for some competitive applications.

isn't the current ou bp clause just fine? if bp becomes an issue again (it won't trust me), then we can try to figure something else out. it was also the first time i got involved into the bp discussions, and my proposed solution is pretty good imo (it's been a year since the bp clause got updated), so please stop talking about ou, let's deal with the issues in each tier separately

and I'm nearly certain that at some point someone will use Amnesia + Iron Defense Mew to baton pass into something like Espeon in a way that will result in yet another nerf.

as someone who tried iron defense + amnesia mew, I could notice most of the bp recipients still face a lot of issues, so they are inconsistent most of the time.
- Espeon sucks
- Sableye: solid recipient thanks to magic bounce, good defensive type and good overall bulk, especially after a few boosts. with wow and some defense boosts and it can even take on azumarill! however, this thing still hates cm clefable (a very popular mon), who can just beat it 1x1 100% of the time. Gardevoir and Diancie are also troublesome threats. Dragon Tail chomper phazes it too. this thing hates scald and lava plume
- Clefable: another solid recipient with good defensive type, good overall bulk and magic guard. hippowdon and skarmory phaze it all day, heatran, talonflame and mew stop it with taunt, SpD jira can paralyze it with body slam and then spam iron head (if it manages to get one crit, then its over for clefable), amoonguss and curse quagsire say hi, without flamethrower scizor is able to set up alongside and kill it with bullet punch. unaware clefable sucks.
- Mega Slowbro: phazed by skarm, hippo, chomper. taunt mew stops it. leech seed ferro is annoying, encore zam and clefable annoy it. needs rest to get rid of status, which sucks.
- Reuniclus: phazed by skarm, hippo and chomper, mew and talonflame stop it with taunt, Encore Zam and clefable annoy it. relies on the right coverage move to be able to sweep the opposing team (if it lacks focus blast or signal beam then it loses to ttar, for example), scizor is able to set up alongside and kill it with bug bite (uturn variants aren't as reliable)
- Altaria: hippo and skarm phaze it all day. ferrothorn is very annoying with leech seed. since it cant afford to run a fire type atk (the most common bp recipient set is: dragon dance, roost, return/facade and earthquake/refresh), scizor is able to set up alongside and kill it with bullet punch. if it lacks refresh it loses to burn + a fairy resist mon, it if lacks earthquake it loses to Taunt heatran holding leftovers and body slam + iron head jirachi

Taunt tornadus is also an annoyance because it is faster than everything

so yeah iron def+ amnesia mew is just a gimmick that only someone like me, njnp or shakeitup would use just for the "keks"

But we shouldn't nerf things. We avoid complex banning as much as is possible, and yet we are constantly jumping through hoops trying to nerf baton pass to the point that we can keep something that is clearly broken in a tier.

when i came up with the solution for the bp issue in OU, i never had the lower tiers in mind. i don't think stealing our clause was the right thing to do (having the same bp clause of all tiers is good blah blah blah ik, but i think it was a lazy move from the tier leaders imo). regarding the bp issue in NU, i thought banning combusken would be a much simpler thing to do and there wouldn't be a need for another complex ban, but after talking with tennis and ren-chon (both are nu regulars), they said they still want combusken in the tier because its so fun to use it.. so well, whats the issue with complex banning in a lower tier such as nu? the nu community is much smaller when compared to the ou one (arent like only 30 nu regulars?), and i think most of the players there wouldn't find an issue with complex bans because they have a different mentality (ok im being subjective af here haha). anyway, not copying the ou bp clause would be a good first step in order to deal with the issue in nu IMO.

 

[doughboy]

Encouraging complex bans can easily open up a can of worms. What's stopping the list from extending to: Recover/Roostless Lugia, U-turnless Genesect, No Water Move Kyogre, Sacred Fire-less Ho-Oh (on the offtopic of 50% stuff...), Ice Beamless Kyurem-W, Psycho Boostless Deoxys-N, and so on? Where do we draw the line before we have a load of things added on to the ruleset to reduce the number of actually banned Pokemon in favor of nerfed ones? What justifies keeping, say, Speed Boost-less Blaziken over Recovery-less Lugia? What makes Blaziken oh so special?

This fallacious slippery slope (plz click) argument comes up every time someone brings up complex bans. You should be able to recognize that your extreme examples are different from mine because those pokemon have loads more pushing them over the edge than the nerfing aspect you provided: namely extremely high BST's / extreme stats (ex. kyogre) and vast movepools to pull off multiple good sets with different counters / impossible to counter (ex. genesect and deoxys).

Your examples and the Speed Boost Blaziken example (which I never argued for), are also different from my examples because
A. it isn't obvious how implementing those complex bans would result in a healthier metagame or
B. none of them would preserve the way other pokemon are played (à la the Baton Pass Celebi example if my previous post)

Is Ice Beamless Kyurem-W adding a unique role to the that is hard to replace that makes the metagame healthy? No, there are many wallbreakers in OU and Kyurem-W would actually supersede other wallbreakers with its base 170 SpA Dragon STAB. Is Sand Rushless Excadrill adding a unique role to the that is hard to replace that makes the BW OU metagame healthy? Yes, it provides a viable (but not broken / superseding) spinner to a metagame where Spikes+Magic Guard is 50% of all teams.

Your slippery slope where OU is filled with weird no-water-moves Kyogres will not happen (and it hasn't happened yet when we have been using complex bans since GSC!) because the playerbase / tiering councils have enough common sense to recognize the edge-case scenarios where complex bans can be used to create healthy metagames. And if it really became a problem, a protocol can be made that can make complex bans more consistent (ex. banning specific abilities on specific pokemon >>> banning specific moves on specific pokes).

 

[Jibaku]

Your examples and the Speed Boost Blaziken example (which I never argued for), are also different from my examples because
A. it isn't obvious how implementing those complex bans would result in a healthier metagame or

My bad, but it's not really any different than Sand Rush Excadrill provided in your example (I've edited my previous post), which as far as I'm concerned was banned due to excessive power and much less about unhealthy gameplay aspects (as opposed to Aegislash which was a combination of both). Quite frankly, Psycho-Boostless Deoxys-N and U-turn-less Genesect isn't any more ridiculous than Sand Rush-less Excadrill when it comes to "simple complex bans" or whatever you wish to call it. I mentioned No Water Move Kyogre and friends to show how absurd complex nerfing can possibly get, although I suppose the example may not have been appropriate. And no, this isn't obvious. I'm sure there are ways to complex nerf certain Ubers to help create a healthier OU (say, what if we banned Draco Meteor from Lati@s in DPP so they may be used in OU more for their defensive benefits that people enjoyed and less about their wallbreaking power?), in the same way that removing Sand Rush from Excadrill could help with Spinning without it being an overwhelming sweeper, but theorymonning specifics is pointless.

What I fear is that if we perform a simple complex ban, we could end up opening more complex bans that seem simple relative to the previous simpler complex ban (I'm sorry if this sounds like a mouthful, but I'm not sure how else to word it). While say, no water move Kyogre sounds ridiculous -now- (and probably will forever be, but I'm just trying to make a point about increasingly complex bans), when we don't have a lot of complex bans to act as a base, it could be seen as more reasonable when and if we do start piling one complex ban after another, each slowly becoming more intricate. At that point, the ruleset would be extremely cluttered.

 

[Aberforth]

isn't the current ou bp clause just fine? if bp becomes an issue again (it won't trust me), then we can try to figure something else out. it was also the first time i got involved into the bp discussions, and my proposed solution is pretty good imo (it's been a year since the bp clause got updated), so please stop talking about ou, let's deal with the issues in each tier separately

its fine after the fourth nerf to it, yes. For now. Although there are situations when it could become an issue in the future (Gen7 introducing a mon that is a perfect bp receiver (Fairy with magic bounce and great defensive stats with very reliable recovery) or just by a mechanic change effecting what BP passes (Trap-passing doesn't exist anymore, but that's a good example of something that would need to be dealt with if it was reintroduced)). But its more the fact that this has been nerfed so much so many times, when no other broken thing has been treated this way. I felt the same way in the last thread (that we should just ban BP in its entirety) along with players like McMeghan and AM but no because people really wanted Agilipass to remain around, despite being about as relevant as I am to the OU meta. Baton Pass as a whole should have just been banned, and now as a result it is being used to justify complex banning (see the Dynamic Punch thread) despite that really being something we dont want to do as a matter of policy.

But now it's an issue in a lower tier again, and you cannot simply say that because it is a lower tier it doesn't count, this is a clause, it's meant to be applied across all metagames. The only singles metagames to not share OU's clauses are lc and ubers, where we allow BP and are trying to get rid of it, because the lower tiers have to adopt the site wide clauses implemented by OU. When it is broken in one meta despite the clause that we have, it kinda goes to show that the clause itself could use some improvement, and that it could end up being an issue in the future, which is just silly by now that we're going to go to such extreme lengths to keep a broken thing around.

 

[Adaam]

Posting for Threw who does not have PR access. Tagging Jibaku since it is a response to his posts:

Jibaku, your examples are even more absurd than you think they are. Trying to compare preserving a legitimately competitive move by complex banning the combination of it and certain outside elements to removing a move from a single Pokemon's movepool to "make it (the Pokemon) balanced" is just ridiculous. We have complex banned Baton Pass in combination with certain other elements because the mechanics of Baton Pass itself are not broken, and the collateral damage of completely removing it (depriving 88 Pokemon of a completely unique and, if I do say so myself, pretty cool move), makes it more than worth it to preserve it, while the idea you sarcastically pitched will never happen for reasons I shouldn't have to outline. The argument that we will eventually arrive at that point if we continue on this track simply holds no weight because complex bans on Baton Pass and the kinds of bans you mentioned are completely different in nature.

But its more the fact that this has been nerfed so much so many times, when no other broken thing has been treated this way.

The key difference between Baton Pass/Dynamic Punch and something like Scald (not saying I'm pro- or anti-ban on that, just using it as an example) that continues to be ignored despite it having been brought up countless times already is that Baton Pass and Dynamic Punch are only broken in conjunction with certain other elements (e.g., Quiver/Smash/whatever and Machoke's No Guard and bulk) and have perfectly legitimate and competitive use outside being used alongside such elements, whereas Scald (the argument goes), is broken because of its own mechanics, independent of what Pokemon is firing off the move or any other elements in play. Again, Baton Pass, just like Dynamic Punch, is not broken; don't paint it as such. Leppa Berry also falls into the Baton Pass and Dynamic Punch category because use of the item itself independent of very particular outside elements will not result in an endless battle. As something of an aside, to say that Leppa Berry isn't banned because Zarel likes it when people discover new ways to get around the Endless Battle Clause is as true as saying Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in one game because he ate his Wheaties that morning. The reason I just gave is the primary factor; that Zarel didn't mind continuing to pile on these bans was simply a neat plus. Please don't trivialize a consensus that was reached after dozens of posts of serious arguing between multiple parties.

now as a result it is being used to justify complex banning (see the Dynamic Punch thread)

What the PU council is trying to do by banning Dynamic Punch instead of just banning Machoke is trying to perform a complex ban to preserve a Pokemon; this has no precedent and is completely in opposition with policy standards. On the other hand, complex bans to preserve a move or item do have precedent, such as with Leppa Berry. The two are completely distinct.

Because the move itself is not broken or uncompetitive, it is our obligation to preserve Baton Pass for the many Pokemon that make competitive use of it. What do we really lose by continuing to do these specific complex bans anyway? So what if you are clairvoyant enough to discern that one day Baton Pass will somehow be broken in some form again? Are we wasting too much time making these PR threads for your liking? To make the jump from "some forms of Baton Pass are broken" to "too many forms of Baton Pass are broken, let's cut our losses and ban the move as a whole" is not only unreasonable but completely unnecessary. Also, it doesn't help that the only two examples you could think to produce along with Speed Boost pass, CelePass and Amnesia + Iron Defense Mew, are embarrassingly far from being broken. At its core, the move is not broken, so why not nerf it into infinity if we have to? Again, this consensus was already reached in the Leppa Berry thread; try actually reading that thread and the real reason why Leppa Berry isn't banned and I'm sure you'll understand why trying to ban Baton Pass is out of line with tiering policy (except that this is even worse because BP is much more relevant than Leppa Berry!).

In short, 1) the idea that Baton Pass is broken is flawed, because an element that is only broken when combined with other particular elements is not inherently broken and 2) there is simply no reason not to continue with these complex bans; you say that we should "be consistent and avoid complex bans as much as possible", but you have imagined any inconsistencies, because complex bans on moves/items and complex bans on Pokemon are to be and always have been treated completely differently.

 

[dEnIsSsS]

But now it's an issue in a lower tier again, and you cannot simply say that because it is a lower tier it doesn't count, this is a clause, it's meant to be applied across all metagames.

i thought transitivity is now broken? im pretty confused, can someone clarify this please?

and yes, outright banning bp obviously fixes the bp issue! i feel bad for not thinking about this before, but instead i wasted hours trying to come up with a creative solution, and another few hours discussing in pr threads and getting feedback from many users. how silly i was...

i dont mind if you guys ban the move as a whole (the current ou metagame has so few viable baton pass users anyway), but i feel this is unnecessary...