Friday, July 24, 2015

Good Smog, bad Smog

For the last two weeks or so, trying to circumvent Endless Battle Clause through various means has been all the rage. This led to a Heal Pulse ban for singles, but players quickly found other ways to making a battle last forever without it anyway. So instead of having a lengthy list of bans for the sole purpose of preventing endless battles, the creator of Pokémon Showdown has been attempting a far more unusual, surgical approach, one that would make Endless Battle Clause impossible to kick in unless you're specifically trying to make an endless battle happen. You can read about all the details here (make sure to read all of the thread, because things ended up evolving very rapidly). Quite frankly, I'm trying to understand what the most recent iteration entails, but it just makes my brain BSOD. But it's an approach I can get behind. And yes, I realize I made a huge complaint about needlessly complicated combo bans earlier this month, but the key word here is "needlessly". With all the ways people are finding out to make battles either last forever or 1000+ turns (making even gen 2 look like a cutthroat offensive metagame in comparison), I think it's important to not gimp individual components of these strategies that are harmless on their own, and the sheer amount of such components brings the need to do things this way.

But then movie 18 comes out, and Hoopa is finally released. As you may remember, ORAS introduced the Unbound form, which gives Hoopa a type change and increased stats, mostly to physical attack, but also slight boosts to special attack and speed. The end result is the best stallbreaker in the world, period. Most stallbreakers can meet their match, even on stall teams. Not Hoopa-U. Its stat spread and typing leave it in a situation where it can shred balance teams and do even worse things to pure stall, but offensive teams have little trouble getting past it with its bad physical bulk (which gets even worse after Hyperspace Fury) and lack of any resistance beyond the Psychic immunity. It makes balance and stall absolutely unviable, and as per Smogon's policy this should be enough for a quickban. But nope, we're not getting that. No quickban, and no agreement on whether it should be banned first THEN tested, or tested before it gets banned. So it might take a while for this plague to be overcome. The main problem Kyurem has is a terrible movepool (to such an extent most Kyurem-Bs in OU max out special attack on what should ideally be a pure physical attacker). Hoopa doesn't have this issue, it has move for days. Wanna use Trick? Trick Room? Nasty Plot? All kinds of attacking moves? It's all there. Heck, it has deceptively strong special bulk, being capable of taking a +3 Scald from Manaphy or a Draco Meteor from Latios and living... AFTER Stealth Rock damage! I suppose that on the wings of Mega Metagross' continued stay in OU, this removes any kind of point those who complain Smogon is trigger-happy might've had, but there are times when you just need to pull the trigger anyway. And clearly this is one such time.

While we're on the subject of Hoopa, does anyone know how its signature moves work when it changes form? For example, if it transforms into the Unbound form, does Hyperspace Hole automatically become Hyperspace Fury? We already know Hoopa-C (or anything else that isn't Hoopa-U for that matter) can't use Hyperspace Fury anyway even if it knows it, but that might have been figured out with hacking.

9 comments:

  1. They banned Mega Pidgeot from Underused too but I suppose that this is the more pressing matter maybe I'll hide underground in RU or maybe seek higher ground in Ubers until this is over although with the latter I'll still have to deal with Hoopa.

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    1. At least ubers have the tools to deal with Hoopa-U.

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  2. From what I can tell, if Hoopa hits level 85 while it's Unbound, it can learn Hyperspace Fury. If it hits 85 in Confined form, it learns Hyperspace Hole instead. I guess you can use the move relearner on Hoopa-U to get HF later. I don't think the move changes when it switches forms, and you can't switch in-battle. HF just becomes a useless move when it's Hoopa-C. Hoopa-U can use HH just fine, right (not that it would want to)?

    None of this is from experience, just what I gleaned from poking around Bulbapedia.

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    1. Basically, it seems like they're entirely separate moves that can coexist on the same Hoopa. HF is just useless when it's Confined.

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    2. Okay, so it's nothing like Rotom's signature moves, or Kyurem's Glaciate/Scary Face. Thanks!

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  3. Yeah, teams less focused on offense better hope they do have a physical attacker or U-Turn...

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    1. Yeah, the new standard for people still brave enough to run stall is to bring a Landorus-T just for Hoopa-U. Because, you know, what this metagame really needed was MORE LANDORUS-T.

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  4. Also, yeah, humans getting around a restriction. Go figure. I'd prefer a swift victory to making the other guy rage quit after a battle that, as you said, makes Gen 2 look like Chansey, Snorlax, and Skarmory weren't omnipresent. If AG says Endless Battles are bad, then that should be a clue. Then again, a lot of these people are either trying to find new ways FOR Smogon to ban or hate Smogon and want to troll whoever plays by the rules...

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    1. Nah, I think many of those loophole hunters are well-intentioned people who want to find those exploits out before actual jerks get to them, because they care about the game. Otherwise they wouldn't immediately go to Smogon and share their findings.

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