Discussion Heavy-Duty Boots

[kumiko]

The OU Council sent out a survey on Monday to everyone on a WCoP roster that participated in Round 1 (of WCoP). This includes managers and those who did not play a game, but not people who did not qualify for round 1. This is not a conclusive survey, but it was the most readily available one with qualifications. We are still accepting responses, and I will be posting the numbers we receive on questions in the OU forum sometime over the weekend. However, it's clear from the responses we've received thus far that a discussion is necessary on the item Heavy-Duty Boots. So let's not waste time.

To preface this: as it stands, the OU Council does not want to ban Boots nor do we consider them to be banworthy. We're making this thread because it deserves discussion and we're more than welcome to hear arguments. This decision, should it gain traction, would impact more than just OU, but is also a significant thing in terms of policy. We've never banned a specific, non-limited item before. There's stuff like Soul Dew, but that only works on Latios/Latias; this is very different. There's going to need to be more reasoning than just "it makes Cinderace too good" or something of the sort. Again, we don't want to ban it right now, and I personally am very against it, but it's impossible to minimize its impact on the tier right now as it is outshining Leftovers in usage during this World Cup.



Leftovers has been the item for ages; ever since its introduction in GSC it has been by large the most frequently used item. There are items that are perfectly viable, of course, but nothing was ever quite like Leftovers. Until now. Boots are an incredible item that fits on an array of Pokemon fulfilling different niches; shielding Rock weak sweepers from SR damage, easing Flying-type Defoggers time removing hazards, fast offensive Pokemon with momentum grabbing moves, and bulky Pokemon with Regenerator. Boots fits on every style of Pokemon and team, and matches Leftovers in viability. If you never take hazard damage in the first place, what do you need to passively heal for? Boots truly offers a ton to so many different Pokemon, and I'm sure there are a ton of Pokemon I either forgot or will emerge as good than just the ones I laid out above.

One big factor for Boots emergency as potentially overpowered is when it is combined with fast, Volt Turn Pokemon. Things like Cinderace, Zeraora, Dragapult, Noivern, Scyther, Ninjask, etc. These Pokemon fire off virtually risk free moves; there's no downside to switching out, bar getting chipped by something like Rocky Helmet or a very niche secondary effect ability, such as Static. They chip the opposing Pokemon, switch out to the appropriate Pokemon, and continue this cycle with minimal risk. It's not like you can double switch on U-turn / Volt Switch; you take damage and they get to switch against what you brought in.

Another thing with Boots is it entirely removes the "risk" of running Pokemon weak to Rocks; Pokemon such as Volcarona, Salazzle, and Scyther were all great in previous generations, despite their weakness to Stealth Rock. Now the need to pack sufficient removal is virtually removed. You cannot gameplan to prevent Volcarona from sweeping because you kept Rocks up and it comes in at 50%; you can't force Scyther to Roost to heal up. These facets are removed. It can be argued if this is a bad thing in the first place, of course, but having to deal with a 100% Volcarona means you have to have a fully healthy counter ready to go.

Even with all of this, though, Boots are not perfect. Knock Off is abundant, virtually every team has at least one user. Clefable and Toxapex click Knock Off more often than they do their own STABs in half the games in World Cup. Many other Pokemon, such as Mandibuzz, Zeraora, and Rillaboom frequently find opportunities to Knock off a Pokemon's item.

Are Boots really the broken thing, and not the Pokemon, or even the move being abused? Items typically will only further a Pokemon's viability, especially an item that is available for every Pokemon to use in the same fashion. Are Boots really the broken aspect? It's very fair to argue that if it weren't for things like Cinderace, we really wouldn't be having this discussion right now, and Cinderace is one of the top dogs to get the ban hammer at the moment.

Lastly, running Boots means you'll be forgoing another valuable item. You will not be getting any kind of boost from Life Orb, Choice items, etc. You cannot cure status with Lum on things like Volcarona. If you get statused, it's even more notable if you have Boots over Leftovers. The list goes on. Boots may not always be the best item to pick, and when picking them, you lose out on another item that may be even more valuable in any given matchup.

Overall, I'd like to say a few things before wrapping up this post:

• I do not want to ban Boots. They're a cool new item with a ton of viability and utility, but, to me, in no way is it broken.
• We have absolutely zero intention of entertaining a "Boots Clause." It's been thrown out there to limit the amount of Pokemon that can run Boots on a single team to one. I'd much sooner look at adopting Item Clause before this. It is not going to happen anytime soon, please don't waste your time discussing it here.
• This decision impacts more than just OU. It is a site wide decision. Boots would be banned across all usage based tiers. I'd implore people to discuss regardless of if their OU knowledge is perfect or not, because this isn't simply just "are Boots too good in OU?" People are welcome to discuss how Boots impact their own tier.
• If Cinderace were to get banned before we do anything with Boots, yes, we will look into testing it back down.
• My opinion is not the be-all end-all. If there is a vast majority of people who want to ban Boots, then it is not off the table, regardless what I wish.

So yeah. Have at it.

 

[Rabia]

ban the fucking boots

I have been saying this since 2019; this item is fucking stupid and should go.

The main point of my argument I guess is that like Shadow Tag/Arena Trap they remove an integral part of the game: hazards damage. From GSC entry hazards have played an important role in accruing chip damage on otherwise extremely problematic foes. Boots just takes away this option for counterplay entirely, and much like the previously mentioned abilities, there's very little you can actually do to circumvent this.

From an NU perspective: Scyther would not have been nearly as problematic as it was in the eyes of many had Boots not existed. One of the two main reasons people hated it was because you couldn't punish it for spamming U-turn with Stealth Rock damage because of Boots. It's also just significantly harder to actually force damage onto Pokemon like Rapidash, Alolan Persian, and Rotom-S because of Boots, and while none of these are anywhere near banworthy, they do show the impact of Boots on gameplay and the overall metagame. Rotom-S would legitimately be unviable without this item. Rapidash would be much worse without it. Alolan Persian... would probably be around the same. Even looking at other tiers though Boots have played a huge part into why Pokemon have been deemed broken, and sure you can just chalk this up as the game evolving, but I find that argument poor because then why ban Pokemon that became broken because of Pursuit's removal? The game's just evolving; adapt play.

I will admit that my primary argument is based on the assumption hazards damage is as integral to a Pokemon battle as switching, which is definitely not the case (literal mechanic that is never an optional part of the battle). But I think as generations have gone by we've seen that entry hazards damage is considered core and that entry hazards are an integral part of building.

 

[Finchinator]

Heavy Duty Boots are very good, but not broken in my eyes.

The item has quickly become one of the best in the game and for good reason: hazards have always been at the center of our metagames. I understand why it rising to popularity and negating the effect of a fundamental part of our game can be cause for concern, but for every single thing Heavy Duty Boots limits, it also helps open up something entirely new and healthy I feel. On top of this, running Heavy Duty Boots is not a foolproof response to hazards as hazard removal is virtually mandatory on most OU archetypes still and, as the OP mentions, Knock Off is as common as ever.

I understand a lot of people becoming concerned about Heavy Duty Boots ever since Pokemon like Libero Cinderace, which most people believe is broken, or Volcarona, a historically controversial Pokemon, have become prominent and almost always run Heavy Duty Boots. I would even go as far as saying that it is probably that Heavy Duty Boots broke Cinderace. This is a great point for those who believe the item removes a form of counterplay (hazard damage) that is fundamental to our play, but I also want people to consider the positives it brings and the consequences of removing the item universally instead of handling individual Pokemon that may be worthy of tiering attention.

A few examples of how Heavy Duty Boots open up teambuilding in OU are the following:

• Teams can run Heavy Duty Boots on their Slowbro, Dragapult, Zeraora, etc. if they lack a Poison type so they are less susceptible to Toxapex's Toxic Spikes. Toxapex is a great Pokemon right now and accounting for the status and item displacement impacts it has repeatedly with offensive teams is already challenging enough (to the point that we included it in the aforementioned survey), so not forcing teambuilding to be warped around it in yet another fashion is great and opens things up a bit.
• Heavy Duty Boots makes a lot of Pokemon that previously would never have touched OU viable, expanding the metagame and giving us more options both offensively and defensively. People have always complained about how stagnant and standardized OU is, so Pokemon like Rotom-Heat, Togekiss, Incineroar, Mantine, and Talonflame having viability should be welcomed with open arms.
• Heavy Duty Boots leads to a lot of offensive presences being accessible and gets in the way of one of stall's main ways of making progress, through forcing switches with hazards up. I personally do not subscribe a ton to this argument as it goes both ways and I also find stall to be pretty poor in this metagame due to the natural longevity of balance teams invalidating it (see: Magic Guard, Regenerator, etc.), but a lot of people have complained about this in recent generations, so at least there's less room for problems here.

I think that OU can use some work in terms of potential suspects or bans in the future and the council is actively discussing this. The survey we sent out was a great start and I am looking forward to our process continuing into the future; we have made great strides this generation towards being transparent and communicating with the public. A handful of people who responded indicated that they feel Heavy Duty Boots is problematic and I believe ignoring those voices is a poor choice, so this thread felt appropriate.

I hope that people share their opinions throughout this thread, but I do think that we need to consider the potential consequences of a ban of Heavy Duty Boots. It may preserve 1-2 Pokemon in OU (probably just Cinderace), but it will be a departure from our normal approach that requires extreme circumstances to justify and it will also shaft every single lower tier, who (as far as I know) have all not had issues with Heavy Duty Boots (you can argue individual cases like NU Scyther, but I think that a lone case is far from sufficient justification).

Generally, I prefer focusing on suspecting and banning individual Pokemon before focusing on banning non-Pokemon elements (i.e: moves, items, abilities, etc.) unless the element causes various things to be banworthy directly. It is a lot harder to analyze that with Heavy Duty Boots as while it may only bolster Cinderace to "broken status", it has a great impact on how the tier is played, how counterplay is approached in teambuilding, and how games transpire regardless of making individual Pokemon banworthy or not. I understand that because of this we have a very complicated discussion at hand.

The thing is that no matter how we look at this impact that it has, I, much like the OP, do not find it to be broken or uncompetitive. It is a departure from our status quo for sure, but that alone is not enough to raise our pitchforks and demand removal. Entry hazards remain a prominent part of gameplay despite this and their presence in games is nowhere near as fundamental or assumed as a basic mechanic such as switching, which I feel invalidates arguments made about the comparison to Arena Trap/Shadow Tag in the post above.

I think that we should monitor the impact Heavy Duty Boots has on our metagames and a thread like that is perfect for this. However, as it currently stands, a ban seems like a poor idea and we should focus on identifying problematic Pokemon -- be it Pokemon that use Heavy Duty Boots or not -- and working on handling them with our tiering process in the appropriate fashion.

 

[EviGaro]

Speaking for RU first, will address some other tiers later:

It's extremely difficult to point to boots as anywhere near broken in the tier, and I can't really think of anything that was banned or that is worthy of a potential ban that was directly affected by boots. The closest example would be Centiskorch, who would never have been considered near broken if hazards where a thing that could hit it consistently. But even in our past reasoning and the rumblings about it since it was unbanned, the problematic element was always about its near perfect coverage paired with access to Knock Off, boots aren't exactly the central issue at hand there. The other mon that you could argue would be Salazzle, and I see it in the list of mons in the OP, but... that's another case that's easily explainable without boots being the major factor. Salazzle was already a strong mon in a much, much, much more powered up RU last generation, and it has much less to worry about even as power creep slowly comes back in the tier. However, you could also argue that it lost several things as well. without the z-nuke or hidden power Salazzle is much more reliant on slowly wearing down teams with Knock and Toxic, which is admittedly still effective. Still, those attributes have been much more concerning during gen 8 than boots: case in point, Charizard is an excellent pokemon in the tier, but doesn't strike as problematic to most of the playerbase, despite having roost / defog and a comparable offensive movepool. Salazzle's place in the metagame is largely dependent on Salazzle itself. However, other boots mons are just, fine, and it's very difficult to point them out as dragging down the tier because too many of the defensive mons love leftovers (Vaporeon) or Eviolite (Porygon2) too much to even consider boots. Some do, like Coalossal, but it really just make them viable otherwise they would be just awful. But Coalossal with boots is a pretty damn good check to Boots Frosmoth or Boots Ribombee, without them it would be really terrible at checking those and they in turn would lose a lot of viability. However, nothing about that interaction is unhealthy, having mons being able to perform roles without relying on rocks to do the heavy lifting for you is, in my opinion, an absolutely fantastic part of the RU tier this generation, and no matter how many complaints I have with the tier there's absolutely no way it would break on the list of my most pressing concerns.

From my experience in PU, it's a little similar although boots have taken a more important role in some of the stronger mons. Something like Ninjask is a concern, admittedly, though it's not unplayable imo in the current metagame. Mons like Butterfree, Noctowl, and Rotom-Frost were abused with boots, yes... but also all had amazing breaking potential regardless of you using boots. Mr Rime and Glaceon, two excellent boots users. don't have the game breaking potential of Rotom-Frost, and if they want to do some actual breaking are almost required to run a Choice Specs set, or a Scarf set to compensate for speed issues. So, boots help, obviously it's a fantastic item, but I don't think that even in a tier where multiple mons that were deemed broken prioritized running them they are the essential issue, they just make great mons better. In a way, this isn't too different from our approach to z-move, albeit unlike z-moves boots aren't a one time nuclear button that eliminate a potential counter; instead, they make it easier on specific mons to be around for a long time and avoid some of the issues with facing hazards. Which brings me to a small point about OU.

Seeing r1 of wcop, I was struck again about how difficult it is to make progress in a game. No matter how many broken offensive mons were dumped on the tier in one go, teams usually devolved into mass boots spamming, regen pivots, with one fast thing - usually with boots - to keep certain threats in check. However, to me the main culprit of this state isn't boots exactly, it's Toxapex. Toxapex is just massively dumb because it invalidates half the roster almost by itself, and requires you to have specific mons that can tank a burn and a poison - which ends up being like... three mons? - and thus you need to stack in the pivots because risking an offensive threat is extremely bad. But also, Pex can make the boots stacking be a burden too. I've seen a lot of Boots Zeraora in wcop, and I've seen a lot of them being completely unable to beat Toxapex. Since it can't come near an ohko, it gets poisoned, then the Pex user just goes into one of the other Pex pivots on their team cause funnily enough they mostly double as Zeraora counters, and then Zeraora has made zero progress except click Knock a few times. But at the same time... if your Zeraora isn't boots, then it comes in even less on Pex, because it takes 12 for sure and maybe 18 if the toxic play was made, instead of 0 to 6%. So you kinda have to play the Pex game when you put boots on, it's not really driving the metagame moreso than a symptom of something dragging down games hard and needing the players to react to it.

But, especially in OU, boots also exacerbate some issues that we knew were issues beforehand. Cinderace is ridiculous, yes, and boots are a part of it... But at the same time is it really the main factor? No one considered Cinderace broken before Libero, an ability we know from the past has dangerous unbalancing potential with how good Gren was in gen 6. They have some differences, but Cinderace shares almost all the problematic attributes: just enough coverage to nail everything in the tier, strong af moves, insane speed, and excellent pivoting potential. Every time I saw a Cinderace do work, boots weren't what concerned me the most, instead it's ok uh, is there a switchin for this move, or that move, or that move, and the answer often was yolo nope. On top of it, it can status the counters with two broken moves, has a potential priority that makes running status on Dragapult almost mandatory in itself, and even outdamages Slowbro's regenerator with Uturn, so in the long run this doesn't serve as a valid counter. It also makes boots on Slowbro essential, btw, because if you take rocks and spikes *and* a uturn that outdamages regen you're basically dead in two switchins. The other issue is Regenerator. Although it's probably essential in the current metagame - largely because of the existence of very stupid things like Pex, Cinderace, Urshifu and Magearna - boots only showcase a problem that some people were already worried about. I remember pif being insistent on the issues with Regen in gen 7 UU, I can't imagine that seeing it on Slowking with Boots is doing much to change his mind. Boots do make regen even better, and will make it even stupider when Tornadus is released, but is it really causing a new problem... or is it just the ability? Regen limits hazards, but also eradicates a lot of chip damage. If I hit a Zard in RU, both my opponent and I know in the game where this stands, what needs to be done on both sides because that damage is there and taken into account regardless of boots. Regenerator invalidates a lot of that interaction, which is still completely possible with boots. I think that part is a more interesting debate though, and while ability bans are also problematic, the interaction between regen and boots is both novel and old, and probably something to consider even more now that we are in a slower paced generation.

tl / dr: Boots are the single best item to be added to the game in generations, and does change a lot of what people took for granted. However, it doesn't really alternate the game the way Dynamax did, or even z-moves did. Ultimately, better mons will benefit from them more, but it also makes mons that were crippled by a single thing that everyone was pressed to put in every single team able to shine in ways that they haven't done in a long long time. Furthermore, I think that it's really difficult to point to boots as the main problem when the mons using them are vastly different, and most of the problematic ones have qualities that have historically been troublesome.

It's also just significantly harder to actually force damage onto Pokemon like Rapidash, Alolan Persian, and Rotom-S because of Boots, and while none of these are anywhere near banworthy, they do show the impact of Boots on gameplay and the overall metagame. Rotom-S would legitimately be unviable without this item. Rapidash would be much worse without it. Alolan Persian... would probably be around the same. Even looking at other tiers though Boots have played a huge part into why Pokemon have been deemed broken, and sure you can just chalk this up as the game evolving, but I find that argument poor because then why ban Pokemon that became broken because of Pursuit's removal? The game's just evolving; adapt play.

See here I'm not sure I get the point really. Mons being good with a new item doesn't strike me as a problem. So what is Rotom-S is very viable after four gens of being a joke? Isn't that great? Rapidash got a buff, finally, and even then it's mostly only a good NU mon. I don't play a lot of NU compared to other tiers, but I share the point here that those mons are helped by boots but by no mean gamebreaking.

But I heavily disagree with the second part though. The lack of pursuit has changed things, sure, but none of the bans are necessarily for novel reasons. A mon being dumb because it has very little counterplay is dumb because it has very little counterplay, that's true in gen 1 and true in gen 8. It's one of the fundamentals of tiering. No Pursuit changed things in as much as what was broken became different typings for a part, but that was it. Boots... kinda the same thing, which was my argument above. Nothing is novel about a QD user escalading fast, or a NP mon with an absolute nuke and an ability to hit through its counters. Those elements generally make pokemons broken, always have, most likely always will. Boots have changed how the game is played, same as pursuit, but it hasn't changed anything about our tiering methodology, like Dynamax did.

 

[vivalospride]

Speaking primarily from the pov of someone who has mained UU throughout the gen, though I've dipped into other metas for slam/subforum pls/etc. After 7 generations of playing pokemon without boots, forcing effective hazard removal onto teams, and hazards in general being integral to a team's success or demise each game, I almost wanna hop on the fuck boots train just bc of how uncomfortable it is for such an item to be created that heavily contrasts with a lot of the fundamentals we've accumulated throughout our time playing mons.

Brushing any bias against boots to the side though, I've never truly felt the impact of boots in any negative manner while in the builder, if anything it was the opposite. Without boots the entire UU meta would have looked completely different all generation, especially considering the meta was ruled by Noivern and Incin for most of it, having boots as an option has taken a lot of the pressure of hamfisting a slot dedicated to removal and turned it into "If I have a reliable knock switch in it's fine" or "If I have a grounded poison it's fine", or whatever. This gen especially in UU we have had the displeasure of not having many reliable removal options at all, so honestly this was a huge deal and it made building much less depressing in terms of getting a satisfactory 6, at least from my experience. Of course now with DLC we've gotten some removal options like Starmie, Tentacruel, and a few others. But this only makes boots less "broken" if that's what we're trying to identify it as. Breakers like Kyurem and the recently banned Scolipede have to pick between taking rocks damage and damage output and have picked damage output (specs and life orb respectively) more often than not.

Yes boots greatly impacts a rocks weak mon's viability and I don't think this is a bad thing, being able to put a fire/ice/flying type in the builder and not be depressed about it is pretty cool and only gives you more options. I always disliked how big of an impact being rocks weak had on a mon's viability, being able to actually utilize Incin's unique typing as a pivot without feeling like I'm using 5 1/2 mons instead of 6 just bc rocks exist is pretty cool. Also, branching off of Rabia's post a bit where he mentions Scyther, Scyther is actually UU viable and honestly I don't think boots has a ton to do with it. I'd say it's mostly Technician Dual Wingbeat having incredibly solid damage output and I've even seen people like Amane Misa experiment with Eviolite Scyther in UU to success.

Boots as an item is obnoxious to a pretty dumb extent w/o question and I understand anyone's frustration with them bc of how long we've built off the fundamentals of hazard wars and accounting for hazards in different ways than boots in the builder. Although these fundamentals aren't gone, rocks are still necessary on every team (at least imo), winning the hazard war is still a big deal in plenty of mus, knock off is as rewarding of a move to click as ever with z moves not existing to act as a deterrent. Etc etc etc

Point is, I understand why this thread has been made bc I find boots to be obnoxious and maybe even offputting to some extent but broken or banworthy was never the word that came to mind.

 

[Gross Sweep]

I believe Heavy Duty Boots change the way the game is played, and the way progress is made. That said I think a ban would be the wrong decision. I'll be focusing on OU for this post as it's the tier I've played the most this Gen, and I feel it has a diverse enough group of Boots users to be my focus. There are 3 topics I'd like to discuss throughout this post: offensive vs defensive users, the idea of chip damage in SS OU, and Pokemon that would be bad without them. I'll try to keep this post as brief and to the point as possible, but I've been known to ramble.

When talking about offensive abusers I think it's important to think about how they function with the aid of their teammates, instead of looking at how they do individually once they're already in the game. We all know the prime subject of this discussion in Cinderace can wreak havoc on the tier with its speed, power, and wide move pool boosted by Libero. However, I am more drawn to the fact the Cinderace user gets to decide if and when Cinderace will take chip in a much more controlled environment while actively using it to exert pressure on the opposing team. Thanks to Heavy Duty Boots and a surplus of Slow VoltTurners and Teleport mons in the metagame getting an offensive threat into the game for free has never been easier. In the past if someone wanted to use a Pokemon like Cinderace or Zeraora to apply pressure they would more than likely have to allow it to be chipped as it comes in periodically. Obviously in prior gens we still had tools like Rapid Spin and Defog, but anyone who has played gen 8 knows that the consistent effectiveness of Heavy Duty Boots is on a different level for its user. When it comes to differentiating between banning something like Cinderace versus HDB I think it's important to remember this team interaction on a universal level for all offensive Pokemon in a tier as opposed to something just clicking buttons and watching stuff die as a metric for if boots are broken or not. Whether or not someone thinks that team interaction is healthy is up to the individual, but I for one don't believe it to be so when busted mons aren't the ones taking advantage.

For the longest time defensive Pokemon primarily used Leftovers/Black Sludge. That's just the way it worked. The idea that you could get passive recovery every turn just for sitting there was to good to be true, and was the best option when it comes to longevity. However, the absolute effectiveness of Leftovers has come into question. On a Pokemon like Mandibuzz it takes staying in 4 turns to make up the damage with Leftovers you take entering the field from the omnipresent Stealth Rock. On paper this may not seem like a bad deal as Mandibuzz is a pretty fat Pokemon who can stay on the field just fine, but in practice this idea starts to unravel. Having something like Mandibuzz sit there for 4 turns often isn't ideal or even a possibility meaning Leftovers starts to lose favor versus HDB over the long haul. On top of that Pokemon like Mandibuzz no longer have to take into account Stealth rock when it comes to calculating what it can come in on and avoid a 2hko against. This is also not limited to Pokemon weak to Stealth Rock as Teleport mons like Slowbro who will often come into the game for a turn just to Teleport out into something else sees HDBs as an asset. Aside from taking less from Rocks, and by the same logic Spikes over the course of the game, HDBs also help with Tspikes. Tspikes are a nuisance as you only have to switch into them once for them to be annoying for the entirety of the game. Also when Tspikes go up they really dictate how the opposition plays in a way that nothing else in the game really does. Since people really don't want to switch their Slowbro into Tspikes, and will often force in their grounded poison/remover to get rid of them before considering to bring in Slowbro again. The ability to ignore this and just freely switch into Slowbro without worrying about dealing with the consistent Tspike damage really is nice. Now obviously this shift towards HDB being just as good if not better than leftovers on a lot of mons has been uncomforting for a lot of people, but I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing.

Building off the last paragraph I want to discuss a phrase that I've heard a lot this generation, which is that "chip doesn't exist". Between HDBs and WishPort Clefable the books on wearing down the opposing team have been rewritten. Before the DLC as long as you had a healthy Clefable nothing was ever stuck being low, and pivoting around didn't mean you were getting worn down by Stealth Rock anymore. It truly was a different way to play the game. Now since the DLC we have seen a drop in Wish Clef due to metagame trends. One of the primary ones being how Clefable handles Urshifu, and more often using Soft-boiled to consistently keep Clefable at a high HP in that match up. Now even before WishPort Clefable started to drop a bit (it's still very solid) chip was far from impossible, it was just harder to obtain. As it has been mentioned earlier Knock Off is/should be on every team, and most teams usually have more than one user. This essentially elongates the game, as Knock Off means you'll get your chip, you just have to be patient and take the time to get yourself in good position to remove HDBs from Pokemon like Mandibuzz or Blissey. It's not glamours, and it's not high paced, but it does have competitive merit. Now this type of metagame that really values patience and playing the long game planning out how you're going to Knock the Mandi and what not is one not loved by everyone, but I think you'd have a hard time calling it unhealthy. It's just different, especially when compared to the prior SM OU where Megas and Z moves really gave offense an edge when it came to immediate breaking power and steam roll potential with something like a Volcarona being able to Z-Psychic past some would be check to sweep. Opposed to coming in throughout the game thanks to HDB and slowly wearing down the opponent instead of just clicking QD as soon as it sees the field.

As an item HDBs are supposed to enhance a Pokemon. It is their job to make the Pokemon utilizing them better, so whether or not something goes from irrelevant to usable in a tier thanks to HDBs seems irrelevant to me. The same way Alolan-Marowak only sees usage in OU thanks to Thick Club, and would fall off dramatically without it. This discussion should gear more towards does HDB make something broken, and not whether it makes something viable. The fact something like Rapidash becomes a solid mon in NU because of HDB seems like more of a reason to keep boots, as it's no where near ban worthy as mentioned earlier - I just fail to see the issue. Throughout time there have been plenty of Pokemon that seem to be one step away from finding a viable role in some tier, and we should be happy that so many Pokemon were able to take that step thanks to HDBs this gen.

Overall I think Heavy Duty Boots are a change to the way we play Pokemon, but not a bad one. Now I wont lie that I selfishly wouldn't mind seeing Boots go as I prefer a more fast paced metagame, but I can't in good conscious speak against HDBs simply due to personal preference - which is something I think a lot of forget when it comes to tier policy. I agree with the OP that banning Heavy Duty Boots is not the best move forward. Instead we should move our focus towards broken abusers while embracing new additions to our respective metagame staples, like Rotom-H in OU, that are able to find traction thanks to Heavy Duty Boots.

 

[Bughouse]

Largely agree with EviGaro, Finch, and Gross Sweep.

For my own two cents:

As much as Boots is affecting all SS metas in a pretty big way, I don't think a wholesale ban on an item can be justified unless you can pretty safely assume that banning the item is necessary to avoid banning many individual Pokemon.
Just because the meta is different due to an item does not mean the item should be banned. It has to actually be demonstrably harming the meta.
Standards for non-Pokemon bans should be higher and avoided when possible.

If right now the list of Pokemon in OU that would likely need to be banned if Boots is not banned is just Cinderace, and there are no other reasonably pressing issues that could be tackled first, then I don't think booting Boots would be the right path forward.
It doesn't sound like the ban wishlist related to Boots in other tiers is much longer than 1-2 mons either.

Getting into a bit more detail, the mere fact that Boots has been a big shake up to the hazards meta is not enough to justify a ban. It's not as though the hazards meta hasn't substantially changed in almost EVERY generation before. And we've almost never banned any of the new additions:
Gen 1: None
Gen 2: Spikes and Rapid Spin introduced simultaneously. Multiple users are top 10 mons, indicating how important even a single layer of Spikes is and always has been.
Gen 3: Stackable spikes, as well as a few new viable users of Spikes and Spin
Gen 4: Stealth Rock and Toxic Spikes, splashable ghost type to block spin in Rotom. Magic Guard Clefable that is immune to all hazards.
Gen 5: No changes to hazards themselves, but gained Ferrothorn, Lando-T, etc. as a setter. Spinners significantly changed in viability due to Excadrill and also Tentacruel's increased viability in rain. Also gained Jellicent as a spinblocker and Magic Bounce as an ability, as well as Volcarona as the "ultimate" hazard weak mon that was still worth it in OU. Also new additions of Magic Guard on Zam and Reun. All in all, super different hazard meta from DPP, despite no actual changes to the available hazards or removal options themselves, nor how they work.
Gen 6: Sticky Web, Defog. New Magic Bounce users in the form of some Megas, one of which we had to ban(!). Along with workable Defog, we start seeing more pokemon in the vein of Volcarona be OU viable despite their Rocks weakness - most notably Talonflame and Mega Zard Y.
Gen 7: Probably the only time we haven't had a particularly large change to the hazards meta.
Gen 8: BOOOOOOTS

Stealth Rock has been deemed the most important move of the game ever since DPP all the way through SM. That's been 4 generations of dominance, even through major changes like the addition of Defog. If now the most important move is closer to a tie between Rocks and Knock Off, since you need Knock Off to make Stealth Rock effective, due to Boots, then so be it, imo.

 

[Jaajgko]

Instead of dynamaxing, I think this generation's main gimmick has become the boots. The hazards that you had until now to fight against either by using removers or by pressuring setters with trappers or specific team structures. Now, we have an additional countermesure to them, which is think is very beneficial. We've seen a couple generations where the hazards are just really hard to prevent and you always see one or two layers on the field when there's a Skarm/Ferro in the team preview. It could've been the case this generation if not for the boots. With the presence of the two kings of Spikes in the post-dlc metagame, which are not able to come in on many mons to set their hazards up, but also to pressure defoggers a lot, with Taunt in Skarm's case and Knock + Leech in Ferro's case. Heavy Duty boots allow us to not rely too heavily on Defoggers, which are very limited in this metagame, and avoids spikes being overcentralising. That creates new types of match-ups where using hazard spam in itself doesn't suffice anymore, you have to take boots spam teams into account, which I think is good because those teams (hazard spam) are kinda dumb. For example Empo's team with Ferro Hippo Pex that was very weak against certain common threats in the meta, but that still won many times in tournaments because of the amount of pressure the hazards put the opponents under (the boots obv existed at that time but we're as much spammed as now, and you could even see mons with 2x weakness to rocks not running boots). Regarding Volcarona, Cinderace and Scyther, I think that banning boots because of them is a terrible idea. Those types of pokemon not being pressured by hazards has become the new standard and we should adapt to it, instead of thinking that if they have been pressured by rocks for 4 generations they must keep doing so. If they end up being too strong in their respective tiers, we can ban them. But removing an important feature of the generation, just so that the metagame can adapt to them is ridiculous. If boots start restricting teambuilding, we can talk about a potential ban, but rn it isn't the case.

 

[Eternal Spirit]

Smogon players in adv: fuck spikes thats broken. Lets play SPL FINALS WITHOUT SPIKES PLEASE IVE NEVER ASKED ANYTHING.

Smogon players from dpp onwards: Stealth Rock is ridiculous dude, the game is getting worse day after day Jesus. It is so huge, we should discuss banning it.

ALSO SMOGON PLAYERS in SS: Ok, we got an item that prevents hazards after so many years, and wonder? its WITHOUT A DOUBT CANCER AS HELL LOOOOOOOL. It makes the gen a shit castle, volcarona is unbeatable and i cant make slowbro get SR damage anymore. Definitely it IS banworthy lmao get out there with your fucking boots you clown.

 

[Moutemoute]

spoiler

my reflection is based solely on UU metagame..

Like other players highlighted it I definitively think that Heavy-Duty Boot is a turnaround for the Pokemon strategy. I'm playing since ORAS to Pokemon in a competitive way and never before I would have played a non-HO team without Entry Hazards control but now with HDB it's not as an issue than before. I understand that some players are disliking the sheer force of this item (which is in my opinion as good as Leftovers if not better) but I trully think it's not ban-worthy at all and we should adapt to this new mechanic. I also would like to highlight the fact that Knock Off has never been so free to spam since almost what ? 6 or 7 years ? and the fact that we don't have anymore Z-Crystals or Mega Stones mean that it's easier to get of an item / multiple items on an opponent team. I'm really enjoying HDB especially in a metagame where we don't have as much Rapid Spin/Defog users than in SM/USUM and where it's actually hard to have teams which are able to handle the metagame while still providing good utility. All in all, I really hope there will be no action taken against Heavy-Duty Boots and as a council member, I will oppose strongly as a suspect/ban of this item in Underused.

PS : I'm glad that we can get feedback from different tiers.

 

[Malekith]

Sorry if anyone already suggested this, but you guys make so freaking long posts and I can't read them right not and I want to say this before I forget it.

I think it's time to test Item Clause, we have a lot of items nowadays, I know we all are used to just spam leftovers ( now boots ) but the game each generation is introducing new items so we can use them. I know we are not and we don't even pretend to be something similar to a nintendo/gamefreak official metagame, but in all of them they have the Item Clause, so I don't find crazy to suspect test it.

 

[Delta 2777]

A complex ban of Boots + Flip Turn/U-Turn/Volt Switch/Teleport/Parting Shot might also be worth considering if Boots are deemed too problematic.

Edit: damn I really got clowned hard for this

 

[Finchinator]

A complex ban of Boots + Flip Turn/U-Turn/Volt Switch/Teleport/Parting Shot might also be worth considering if Boots are deemed too problematic.

Resorting to a complex ban for the sake of item preservation seems backwards. Opening up this line of action as an acceptable one will lead to lots of potential slippery slopes. Other combinations will arise and people will try to default to them instead of outright Pokemon bans and our entire tiering process will be compromised. This is not me trying to say our process now is perfect, as it is not, but rather the lack of complexity In our bans that has been established ever since we tried to distance ourselves from Aldaron’s Proposal (BW Drizzle + Swift Swim ban) is intentional and for the best right now.

 

[Heroic Troller]

Get better and sweep your opponent instead of relying on Sticky Webs/500 hazard stacks doing your job. God bless Boots, the item that gave the game back to the players. You got so reliant on hazards over this years that you all forgot how to play or win without them, ridicolous

 

[Style_Dota]

Get better and sweep your opponent instead of relying on Sticky Webs/500 hazard stacks doing your job. God bless Boots, the item that gave the game back to the players. You got so reliant on hazards over this years that you all forgot how to play or win without them, ridicolous

This. The game has been so dominant based on hazards that this item had to be invented to counteract how broken moves like Stealth Rock were.

 

[lighthouses]

Sorry if this has already been said, reading all of this thread through is akin to reading a novel right now. But one thing i feel is worth mentioning at least for the context of lower tiers is that lack of good removal options has always been a huge issue for anything lower than uu pretty much since forever, i think the addition of boots has done a lot to alleviate those issues in lower tiers and we should think real carefully before doing anything rash.

 

[latinoheat]

In this specific case surely it should be pivot moves that should be tested or atleast limited.

I know this discussion has been had for years and even tested etc, but isn't this a case of broken countering more broken i.e a problem with Stealth Rock, Pivot moves and even early gen Spikes.

Pokemon that have sat near the top of viability or have overwhelming usage and also killed team diversity every gen in part by the fact that they learn U-Turn,Volt Switch and now Teleport.

Seriously it's insane how powerful SR are and how it just become accepted. Many Pokemon give up their item slot, primarily to counter the effects of ONE MOVE, and we're seriously having a discussion about the ITEM being the overpowered part of that interaction.

Suicide leads in past gens basically being a metagame unto their own based purely on which leads could put down entry hazards the best. Even pokemon forgoing their item slot to run focus sash, again on the basis of ONE MOVE.

Entry hazards have been discussed as overcentralsing since the day they were released and I feel at times we have basically been stockholmed syndromed in to believing entire types should be invalidated before considering that stealth rock might have been too restrictive in builder. Because they have been around so long, people take their overpowered strength now as "part of the meta" etc.

Sure I believe some pokemon may be too much without hazards, but how many more pokemon have been completly negated by entry hazards over each gen. Maybe if hazards or the low risk strategy of pivots didn't exist, more counterplay would be available from the dozens of pokemon that have been rendered completly unusable every gen.

HDB is not broken, its a make shift solution to overcentralising problems that have existed for way over a decade at this point.

Ban or Limit Entry Hazards and Pivot moves before HDB.

 

[njnp]

Heavy Duty Boots has arguably become the best item of this current generation in OU. I'm glad there's a discussion being had on boots.
They've certainly centralized the metagame with most of the threatening pokemon (

) in the metagame carrying them potentially as an item. We've seen utility mons like Slowbro and Blissey also take advantage of Heavy Duty Boots. With Heavy Boots you're able to save in a long drawn out battle a lot of hp from avoiding hazards such as Stealth Rocks, Spikes, Toxic Spikes. This is very helpful for popular volt turn cores to have little drawback to their pivot moves. Boots has allowed fire types, in particular, to flourish (

). These fire types have been applying immense pressure on the metagame with Cinderace and Volcarona single handily winning games in a large part to boots, while Rotom-H is able to provide offensive pressure or be a great defensive utility whatever its team requires it to be. The way boots have set things up it has led to most viable teams using 3/4 boots users. Leading us to use Sand, Rocky Helmet, or moves like Toxic to wear down a boots user. You may go, "Well, what about knock off?" That is a common theme I disagree with on this thread "We have an abundance of knock off users" "Just knock off the boots"

Here are most of the viable knock off users:

Clefable, Mandibuzz, Toxapex, and Ferrothorn are generally not able to pressure the best "knock off absorbers" in the tier. Such as Clefable, Toxapex, Corviknight, and in some cases Amoongus. So, it can have the move knock off all it wants in its list of options but it generally is not knocking off the heavy boots user as its hard for most of the popular knock offers to apply immediate offensive pressure that the absorbers should be wary of. Even when it comes to Zeraora and Rillaboom you have to position and play these mons well for you to actually force your opponent to allow its heavy boots user to lose its valuable item.


I personally felt before this thread boots deserved serious consideration to be suspected or a less likely scenario of a boots less ou ladder similar to scald less ladder to see how the metagame would be without the item. After seeing different opinions mostly non-ou related, I'd rather not see a rash move be made that affects lower tiers. At the same time, I do think once potentially pokemon like Zapdos, Tornadous-T, Heatran, and who knows what else that can take advantage of boots in the tier make their arrival to the tier we may need to take another look.

Thank You For Your Time

 

[Myzozoa]

The argument that it enables volt turn contradicts, afaik, the latest wisdom of the OU council. In the last OU tiering policy thread finch replied to my suggestion that Teleport Wish Clefable was suspect by pointing out that forcing your opponent to waste PP is making progress. Although that was a whole metagame ago, the same reasoning seems to apply to the cases of volt turn strategies: if a player can switch between regenerator mon/rocky helmet mon/ground type/letting sandstorm or rocky helmet chip the boots mons, then these arguments about enabling volt turn have less force and contradict the council's recent articulations of theory about what making progress consists in.

My question is, do we really believe the line that HDB helps volt turn? This strategy seems to benefit greatly from the opponent's switch-in taking hazard damage after all, especially since fat regenerator mons are so prevalent.

 

[cityscapes]

personal feelings on boots (not the main part of my post) (unhinged rant edition)

warning: Subjective & Hard To Explain Things Ahead....You Have Been Warned!

anyway, i personally have felt that boots have made this game relatively dry, less deep, and overly simplistic. the reason for this isn't that hazards are bad now--they're still honestly very good--rather that they no longer behave as a universal force that can predictably chip down mons.

hazards working all the time (except on mg and bounce, which are very limited) adds depth to the game by well executing the concept of favorable and unfavorable terrain, secondary things that one can go for instead of the straightforward option of inflicting damage. in fighting games, you can back your opponent into a corner; in chess you can push pawns to certain squares or even sacrifice material to cut down on your opponent's mobility. this isn't to say that this concept is absent outside of hazards. some examples are:

• status/knock/trick
• field effects (tr, weather/terrain, screens)
• forcing things to rest (more prominent in earlier gens)
• getting key opposing mons low, forcing the opp to send in a bad mon, getting in your good mon (these typically quickly convert to damage/kills, though)

what sets hazards apart from these are how they can work universally. strategies built around exploiting a specific mon can very easily fail against both teams without the mon and teams with a secondary absorber. field effects only work for very limited team structures. also you can get crit through screens lol.

so how are universal hazards good for the game? hazards having a good and predictable effect when used allows teams to really commit to them. this can result in awesome, unbalanced positions.

a good example of this is hyper offense sacrificing an entire mon to make sure torn-t comes in at 75, pex at 62.5, or zera at -1 speed.

some of the most fun and creativity i've experienced in pokemon has been in playing against hazard stack offense. in the midst of getting suffocated by hazards and brutal offensive pokemon, you need to create an opening in order to consolidate or even form a counter-initiative. more often than not you need to create your own counterplay to get out of this bind rather than following your team's set gameplan or passively walling out the opponent, which leads to not only good playing but also good building anticipating these situations.

also worth noting are my beloved bulky offense structures, which are less hell-bent on spamming every hazard, but can use them to punish passive play and allow for the bulky mons on the team to serve as dangerous wallbreakers where ordinarily they would be easy to wall out.

the point is, none of these strategies can really work when any mon can arbitrarily run boots to screw you over, and it's not like the opponent will chivalrously sit there and let you knock them off ('alas! i have been outplayed! you may have my boots'). games just feel rigid now as a result, every game it feels like i'm playing either a mirror match or against an objectively unsound strategy. you just get the hazards up, and when you see the boots pivot you shrug and counter it with your boots wall.

overall it feels like we have the game, pokemon, and the element, universal hazards, and i absolutely love the game with the element. without the element i don't like the highly symmetrical "mons need to get everything done on their own" play.

1 more thing, has anyone noticed it feels really annoying to get into new metagames now?

like before, hazards made things feel accessible because you could work on simply getting them up and exploiting the several hazard removers in the meta, which is something anyone can do. will good players eviscerate you and your pitiful strategy? yes. but the point is that hazards are something with a high skill ceiling.

now in boots meta, any meta you play will have Stupid Rock Weak Mon #2053 which nearly always runs boots. you cannot limit this mon with rocks. so the best way to play against it is to play against the whole team structure, which is explained nowhere on the site outside of a precognizant 2014 article in the smog. this is a high skill floor.

anyway im getting pretty far off track so i'll stop here

so the main point i want to make here is that we should focus more on how the game is played with boots vs without boots. i think trying to quantify boots being "broken" is the wrong way of looking at things considering they're a fundamentally reactive element rather than something that 6-0s teams. saying stuff like "YESSS ROCK WEAK MONS ARE GOOD SO POKEMON IS A SKILLFUL GAME" or "i hate voltturn! which option makes voltturn worse?" is also not really helpful to the case at hand. we have 2 different versions of competitive pokemon, neither of which are inherently unbalanced, and we have to take a careful look at both.

how is the game played with boots? which skills are rewarded other than 'sweeping your opponent'?

i don't really want a suspect right now, but i do think it'd be extremely helpful to have a gen 8 without boots ladder, or even gen 7 with boots, so we could understand this stuff better.

i don't expect much to happen here due to how complex this topic is (i barely scratched the surface), and of course each metagame has its own set of intricacies; hell, some might even be near-objectively better with boots. i just tried to separate my thoughts from my meta so i didn't rant for 3 paragraphs about how stupid boots zama-c is to a horrified audience. hopefully it makes more sense to everyone this way & opens up further discourse cause this is a fun topic to talk about.