Glogs

Kanto: Pewter Elite 4 Kanto: Johto: 1st gym 2nd gym 3rd gym 4th gym 5th gym 6th gym 7th gym 8th gym Elite 4 Hoenn: 1st gym 2nd gym 3rd gym 4th gym 5th gym 6th gym 7th gym 8th gym Elite 4 ------------------------------------------------------- Thoughts: Note that I do have before/after of each e4 member in all regions, but I feel like I'm posting enough as is <.< I cannot save the formatting at this point, so I hope the spoilers continue to come out in a chronological order that is followable. Thoughts on EXP in general: Early and midgame exp is fine, but you fall considerably far behind somewhere around the 6th gym compared to the gym leaders. It's playable to a certain extent for players with reasonable knowledge who like the challenge, but should never be set as the bar for newer players, especially without better places to earn EXP (and exp at better rates). The level differences in Johto are especially egregious when comparing the trainer levels in the routes to the wild Pokémon. Hoenn was a rather miserable experience for me because I committed to more than one Pokémon at the beginning (don't do that). It took me a considerable amount of time to get back on even footing with someone who was doing basically the same things as me but funnelling one Pokémon instead. For all the struggles I had at 6th gym and Deoxys, completing 7th and 8th gym was hilariously easy the second I learned to count to 5. I'm pretty sure I spent more time preparing for Deoxys than I did doing the entire Elite 4 and I certainly spent more time levelling for the 6th gym than I did levelling in the entire playthrough combined... actually that was the singular time in the playthrough I resorted to wild battles for EXP (barring the start of Kanto). Hoenn certainly could use some rework love when it comes to the storyline, it is very insufferable in its current state (especially when you commit to Mt. Pyre trainers). You move between cities to do a minor thing way too frequently and the majority of it has no purpose other than being convenient for the storytelling. More available EXP for story has to be available somehow and curve better into the mid-game without feeling like a chore and grinding 2 hours to prepare for a gym.. and I don't even really know what I did wrong, at the end of the day, the only thing that changed the battle wasn't the level of any of my mons (unless you consider access to Baton pass part of that), it was the change in strategy (thanks to the levels). I don't think the majority of new players will look towards the best combinations of rat Pokémon at the start of every region, so unless they spend an inordinate amount of time grinding, the game in this version is too difficult. The mid-late game exp needs a significant readjustment. I don't care much for the exp mechanics of getting exp when catching a Pokémon, but it's a pretty nifty feature if nothing else. EXP share was nice to have, helped keep some minor mons in the team up to the level they needed to be at to still be useful. I imagine an implementation on live server(s) would solve a lot of minor annoyances one might have to go through to level a Pokémon at times.

Player name: Glogs Showdown name: Glogs Server: Silver Timezone: GMT+1 Rank on ladder: 13

@stavd I see you quoting the whole of his post, including the part where he "+1's" the original post. The reason this is relevant, is because if you had actually read the original post, you'd know that you're pouring your energy in the wrong direction. I direct you to point 13 of the original post. Last time I checked, Conkeldurr would've been more of a problem if it reached close to 400 speed. Let me remind you that the base stat of Ash-Greninjas spatk is higher than Conkeldurrs attack base stat. I understand that we're not disagreeing on whether it should be banned or not, but you thinking the relatively small community of PRO that do play stall are the ones most afraid of this and trying to cover it up behind some other things... When I thought about what I wanted to climb with (if at all with Ash-Greninja on the loose) this month, the only reasonable thing to move towards was stall. I'd be putting myself unnecessarily much at a disadvantage by choosing any other archetype. Why is it you think stall players are distorting reality? Hazard teams would've been a problem prior to this, if they were built poorly. The truth is, the perfect stall team doesn't exist, just like the perfect team doesn't exist. There'll always be a weakness that can be exploited, but I disagree heavily with agenda you're trying to push.

I'm interested to know which of Jorogumos points made you come to this conclusion. My bet is none of them, cause I doubt you've even read it at all. Do feel free to take the wheel and explain how the players of the archetype that is damaged the least are the ones promoting this the most, though. I'm very interested in the line of thought, but I haven't been able to figure out where it originated. From where I stand, the fact that HO relies on momentum colliding with the fact that Ash-Gren exudes a ridiculous amount of it is a little odd, to put it mildly. I don't know how you play the game, but I'll go out on a limb and say stall players are less likely to have to sacrifice a Pokémon to Ash-Gren than any other playstyle.

Player name: Glogs Showdown Name: Glogs Server: Silver Timezone: GMT+2 Rank on ladder: 4

It seems to be a fairly commong misconception that this damages the guild rating, when it, in all scenarios I can find, doesn't. Sure, it can harm the individual players rating, but that's another topic. Your rating is 400, and your opponent rating is 400. If you Win, your rating will be 416, and your opponent rating will be 384. Please see if you can find any two ratings (one for you and one for you opponent) where the guild loses points instead of the two most plausible scenarios where the guild rating isn't effected at all, and the other where the guild gains a few points from the battle. We have the ability to not ready up against opponents and cancel the match, which seems like a more wholesome solution than what is suggested. I don't think forcing guilds into a way of playing PvP is the way to go. Currently we have the option to handle it internally, and I'd much rather it stay that way.

-1 Darkrais bulk, speed tier, spatk stat and movepool makes it a menace to the metagame. With megas around, it still has a stupidly good speed tier to go along with potential Dark Void or Hypnosis sets (or perhaps just straight up Nasty Plot). Weavile, who has the same speed tier, has 65/85/70 defensive base stats (BST). That servers are a reference to Darkrais 90/90/70 defensive BST. I think the movepool in combination with its base stats, it's ability and some sets being heavily reliant on RNG (looking at you Dark Void/Hypnosis) makes for an inherently uncompetitive Pokémon. It's essentially a Gengar on steroids, as it's better in EVERY stat, has a much more oppressive ability (in spite of being able to argue that Cursed Body is fairly uncompetitive, especially given how it works in PRO) and top notch move-pool to go along with it. Gengar is already one of the most used mons in the game, and even if Darkrai has a worse typing and slightly less spamable STAB move(s), it would not benefit the metagame to see it unbanned. Do note that Pursuit trapping Darkrai is not an efficient way of getting rid of it (like it would be Gengar).

Username: GlogS Server: Silver Country/Timezone: Denmark/GMT+2

Player name: Glogs Showdown name: Glogs Server: Silver Timezone: GMT +2 Rank on ladder: 1

I'll try to go over a few misconceptions I've seen in this thread and try to give my take on them. I also feel like this is the place to share my disappointment with how the ban was handled. First of all, we can agree that the Speed Boost bug empowers Baton Pass. However, wanting Baton Pass banned because of a bugged ability seems like the wrong way to go about it. I would elaborate more here, but I'd essentially end up repeating myself, so I'll save it for the conclusion instead. There's a lot of "Showdown this" and "Showdown that" which, given the circumstances, isn't completely unreasonable. I see people mentioning the thread that got Baton Pass banned in Gen 7 OU and when reading it, I wonder if they did. I wonder if they watched the replays linked. If you did, I assume you would've noticed a few common factors, namely Dugtrio with Arena Trap and Scolipede having access to Substitute + a properly working Baton Pass. All that just means, that we're comparing a "complete" metagame with that of PRO's. We're comparing working mechanics to those of PRO. We're comparing Pokémon like Necrozma and Magearna with the likes of Togekiss and Manaphy. We're not accurately taking into consideration the lack of Substitute and the presence of Arena Trap Dugtrio. Maybe this is a good time to mention that the Dugtrio run on those teams was run with Memento in order to cripple the opponent and give Scolipede a more or less free Substitute. Adding a little onto the previous paragraph, I feel it's important to stress that PRO should not strive to become the Smogon/Showdown metagame. If that's the direction we're heading in, there's no reason to not just play on Showdown to begin with. Shoutout to Qeight for mentioning that and finally adding some stats to the discussion, but more about that later. As a final note to that, the quote beneath hits right in the feels. Yes, Manaphy is a controversial Pokémon and so is Togekiss (with scarf too). It removes a lot of skill expression when you're continously flinched down without being able to do much. Togekiss is inherently uncompetitive, I think we can all agree. Is it so different from other sweepers though? Bisharp restricts teambuilding as well. Lucario too? Volcarona? You need answers for a lot of different setup Pokémon in order not to lose in Team Preview. When I'm teambuilding, I'm much more scared of getting swept by Bisharp and Lucario than I am scared of Manaphy. Regardless of my own preference, you need checks or counters for certain offensive mons. If you don't have a counter or hard check for these threats, you must be able to generate enough offensive pressure to prevent them from setting up in the first place, regardless of Baton Pass. I actually quite like that one of my questions was used for the post. Shoutout to the guy who passed it on, you know who you are. For those unfamiliar with it, here we are: "What does the opponent do while Scolipede passes Speed?". I think it's a great question, cause the same can be asked about a bunch of different set up mons. Bisharp SD? Lucario SD? Volcarona QD? Togekiss NP? Manaphy TG? The argument: "Just press protect and get 1 free turn on something Scolipede is good into" (as I'm reading it) really doesn't make sense. Protect is not coded correctly, so while we're on a thread of a bugged move, it may interest you to know that the move Protect is a lot stronger on Showdown than it is on PRO. If you Protect and the opponent switches out, it fails every time (I've never seen it work anyways, and I've played a lot of stall in my time on PRO). This bug inherently makes it a lot weaker to press Protect on the initial turn you come in, as Protect does not limit the switches the opponent can make in any way shape or form, which means it should never be "free". To clarify how it's different than it is on Showdown: On Showdown Protect works 100% of the time the second time it is used if the opponent switched out on the initial turn. Yes, there's several "abusers" that can receive speed boosts and do well with them. Is that so different from how hyper-offensive teams have more than one threat? In the end, both are about momentum. If you lose momentum with either, you're likely out of the game unless your opponent just wants you to win. The most commonly used Baton Pass team could in many ways be interpreted as another variation of the hyper-offense archetype. Baton Pass aims to capitalize on the opponents mistakes and will do so aggresively (if played correctly). For the sake of the post, I'll say that players of equal skill will not make mistakes for the Baton Pass player to capitalize on, which is where the teams are much weaker and unable to do much on their own initiative. The only reason Baton Pass has seen any form of success on the ranked ladder thus far, seems to have been because the team was built to not require speed boosts to function in the first place. Anything I've seen apart from that have been "meme-ish" teams in the ladder tournament that the opponents were just ill-prepared for. While there's a point in saying: "the real problem with this move is that it opens to tens or even hundreds of different vulnerabilities.", it sort of seems beside the main point. You don't quick ban something that has already been explored in the meta-game because of its potential. There's a few things that got banned because of their potentials, namely legends such as Shaymin-Sky and Darkrai. Baton Pass is not in a similar situation, it has already been in the meta for a year and we've seen the meta adapt accordingly. We're seeing more priority moves and better answers to the common Baton Pass threats. We're seeing players being able to play against it better, now that they understand how the teams go about punishing mistakes. If it isn't apparent as of yet, I don't believe Baton Pass should be banned. If the comparison is made with the Smogon metagame, the move is just so much weaker than it is on Showdown. There's no Substitute, Protect doesn't work correctly and there's a lack of stronger abusers. If we had data from last year around this time, I'm sure we'd see a quite significant change in some of the most used Pokémon, without having seen many new Pokémon being added to the game and ending up there (bar alolan-muk?). Point is, the meta shifts and players adapt to new threats accordingly. I don't think there has been a game-breaking Baton Pass team yet. The closest we've come is probably a player reaching rank 1 with it on Silver in 2019 (which would be me). Having to revisit this topic in a few months if a player builds something that is gamebreaking is not a bad thing and it is definitely not a reason to ban it now. There's no doubt in my mind that this move should be banned later, but I'll refer to the "it is definitely not a reason to ban it now". That's about it for my thoughts on Baton Pass, so if that's all you were here for, feel free not to read any further. I'd like to focus on the "how the ban was handled part" for the next segment. ------------------------------------ As Qeight already pointed out, the decision was made within the staff "PvP council". Logan said he'd take all responsibility for the ban, so I assume it's not toxic to mention him directly. I feel as if the decision was heavily influenced by one group of players and not so much by players who takes an opposite stand to it. I had the pleasure of being consulted the day after the ban took place, which ended up meaning nothing for the outcome of this initially. The way this temporary rule change was made is not a sustainable way of conducting rule changes and it has to change going forward. While conferring with Logan the day after the ban, it was made clear that there was no protocol to be followed (which I was aware of, given the circumstances). For me, it just begs the question: "Why not make a protocol first?". Baton Pass has been around for a long time now and it doesn't seem like an issue that can't be dealt with more appropriately than this. Even if Baton Pass is deemed to be ban-worthy at this given time, I think the least we could do is create a proper protocol and run it through it before any final decision is made. About a year ago, a few players and myself made a draft of how a PvP council could function. View that here. It also answers a few common questions for those who are unfamiliar with how things are usually banned on Smogon. Obviously, we don't have to follow their procedures, just as we don't have to follow their metagame. We never ended up pushing the idea out there and I doubt many staff members ended up seeing the post, as it was also around this time Qeight announced the official post with questions. I never got around to posting on that one, I don't think. TLDR of this section; If we have at least a modicum of respect for protocol and the playerbase as a whole, I think we enforce a do-over to avoid what I would call bad decisions becoming bad habits. Best of regards,

Player name. Glogs Showdown name: Glogs Server: Silver Timezone: GMT+2 Rank on ladder: 2

Player name: Glogs Showdown name: Glogs Server: Silver rank on ladder: 1

Player name: Glogs Showdown name: Glogs Server: Silver Rank on Ladder: 11

Player name: Glogs Showdown Name: Glogs Server: Silver Rank on ladder: 9

Player name: Glogs Showdown name: Glogs Server: Silver Rank on ladder: 3

Username: Glogs Server: Silver Seasonyou were top 25: All 3 of the mentioned seasons and the current one too. Your voting: Allow it Reason: There's no discussion to be had toward the power of the gems, cause in that regard they're mostly useless and although you could argue Hawlucha is strong, there's simply so many things in this meta it doesn't appreciate with the current sets available. With that in mind the only other thing that could potentially vote in favor of a ban is the consistency of following a gen 7 style of gameplay, although there's so many things missing. Gems aren't available in gen 7, so it would create an inconsistency by allowing the gems to be used. The question for me sort of becomes if the gems are game changing enough to say: "Well, this topic actually matters".. And I don't think it matters. If anything, I should be over the moon that Unburden was finally fixed (considering I was sitting with the best one in the game for nearly a year even though it was banned while the tournament was still running). Getting a bit of track, but if we ban gems because they're not available in gen 7, I want to see a ban on every inconsistency and why don't we start with the event moves on the Johto trio of legendaries. I think it's fine for PRO to follow it's own path. It's not like the story is exactly the same as the original games. There are tweaks and twist here and there, usually for the better. Don't see why we can't have those in PvP too

Tutor Heaven does indeed work now, much appreciated. Thread can be locked

@Shinohara Not sure if you're fixing it individually, but if it was supposed to be fixed for everyone, I still can't access it. (Neither can Smooge)

Player name: Glogs Showdown name: Glogs Server: Silver Rank on ladder: 2

Project description Teerav, idkup, and I (Glogs) recently set up a new project to collect usage data from PRO ladder (on both servers). The ultimate goal is to create standardized tiers, much like Smogon’s, for tournaments on PRO, and allow for a more diverse competitive environment. We decided that the best way to do this would be to collect usage data, as it is the only objective and non-arbitrary measurement of a Pokemon’s position in the metagame. We aim to use these tiers to host tournaments for both Silver and Gold server with unique, yet standard, rules to allow for a different environment than the standard ranked ladder. Each tier will be managed by a council, which will have the ability to ban problematic Pokemon in order to maintain balance. Council members will be selected from dedicated members of the community who show passion for and consistently play a tier. Description of each tier The OU tier typically consists of the Pokémon that have the highest chance of granting you a win whilst playing competitively. Pokémon in this tier have strong combinations of abilities, base stats, typing(s) and movepools. This tiers metagame will be comprised of the most powerful Pokémon, although all Pokémon that are not banned in the ranked PvP rules of PRO are allowed. Pokémon with a usage of more than 3,41% in this tier are considered OU. As the name suggests, this tier is for Pokémon that don’t belong in the OU tier, as they are too weak or have a worse combination of stats/typings/abilities. We have chosen to follow Smogon and their threshold of 3,41% usage in OU. If a Pokémon is used in less than 3,41% of teams in the OU tier, it is allowed in UU (unless the council has banned it for a multitude of other reasons). A Pokémon is considered UU when it is used more than 3,41% of teams in this tier. Similarly to how UU is determined by the OU tier, the RU tier is determined by the usage stats in UU. The threshold is the same (being 3,41%). All Pokémon that are not OU, UU or banned by PRO rules (or the RU council when that’s established) will be allowed in this tier. A Pokémon can be considered RU when it’s usage in this tier is higher than the threshold of 3,41%. Little Cup is a battle of unevolved Pokémon, and Pokémon with no evolutions are banned. Due to how PRO works, we have yet to make a complete ruleset that makes it possible for all available Pokémon to be played. Thus, the rest of this description is TBD. Tournaments We plan on hosting tournaments for all tiers, eventually. For now, our focus will be on UU. Join our Discord for more regular updates: link. Do note that we plan on letting others host tournaments through our Discord in the future, so if that's of any interest to you, feel free to contact us. Councils TBD idkup - Gold server Aggravatings - Gold server Benikisaki - Silver server Crystal_Hunter - Gold server TBD TBD How you can contribute Please join our Discord server in order to contribute. There will be a bot message upon joining leading you toward the essential parts of the Discord at the given time. Primarily, we want people to help us track their opponents teams in ranked PvP. The more data we receive, the more accurate our numbers will be. For any questions, feel free to contact us on Discord! Link is here, again: http://discord.gg/Z5U4pdc

Player name: Glogs Showdown: Glogs Place on ladder: 10th Server: Silver

Proud member of the guild. Very recommendable

Player name: Glogs Showdown Name: Glogs Server: Silver Rank on Ladder: 3

Hey there. While I am not a staff member, I shall try to explain it to the best of my ability. First of all, the ID doesn't show up when a Pokémon is linked in an in-game chat. If you show a screenshot of it on the forum or elsewhere, you have nothing to be worried about either. You can't just get a Pokémon moved to your account by having the ID and claiming it's yours. There are trade logs, they will be able to track down if you've had the Pokémon before, I believe. This does of course raise another important question: "Can I scam another player out of a Pokémon if I had it previously, then?" To which the answer also is no. For a Trade Moderator to even consider moving the Pokémon, there needs to be evidence of the conversation taking place before the trade. If both parties agreed upon the fact that the Pokémon should be returned to the "Original Trainer" at a given point in time, then something could probably be done. However, we're long outside the ways of "scamming" like this, as we have lending trades for this exact purpose. Either way, you can't claim a Pokémon by knowing it's ID, there has to be evidence, which is why both parties are encouraged to take screenshots of the trades they have + the conversation. Do keep in mind that falsely accusing someone and trying to cheat both the staff members and another in-game player is not tolerated and will be punished accordingly. I hope this helps clear things up. If you have any further questions or any questions to my message, do feel free to ask.

This has however been fixed now, has it not? I did mention this was a problem I had as well. No longer seems to occur for me.