PVP Feedback - Baton Pass

[Mytruth]

Baton Pass is just not restricted to one player, it's for both players out there. So its fair to say both teams can use them in the way the want. If some uses boosted Togekiss then this that blah blah, the other guy can also do it, maybe even better it by boosting it on a different Pokemon or can come up with an epic counter, and that is what battle is all about. Besides baton pass is still used in OU battles in smogon, which basically means there ain't nothing "broke game" about it.

 

i thought baton pass was banned in OU

[Hotspaghetti]

1. Baton Pass is not over used.

 

2. Do the people who use baton pass always easily win every game ?? Obviously not !!!

 

3. It's a team strategy. Ban baton pass = reduce the variety of PVP.

[Belzebel]

Baton Pass isn't very common or used in PRO. However, it doesn't mean it doesn't deserve a ban. Statics in PRO are not certain. So using the "this is not over used or this is over used" as an argument is invalid in my opinion. Ferrothorn for example is not OP at all and its over used. Tyranitar is OP and it is not being used at a lot anymore.

 

I will list a few reasons why Baton pass should be banned.

 

1) Speed Boost is not coded properly. It is giving more speed than it should after volt-switch and u-turn. For that reason, a lot of people are abusing baton pass. The solution for this in specific would be banning Speed Boost until is coded properly.

 

2) Baton Pass is banned in OU. I know PRO and Showdown are very different. We can't even compare PRO with Gen 6, since there are no megas. I also know the MAIN reason why they decided to ban baton pass without even a test was Necrozma, Magearna and Manaphy. For some reason, Manaphy is not bannned in PRO and it is OP on its own. Baton Pass just boosts it even more.

 

3) Manaphy, Togekiss, Latias and wallbreakers can be really OP with Baton Pass. In my opinion, Baton Pass simply boosts whatever is already OP. It turns OU Pokemon to Uber. Why do you think Blaziken with Speed Boost was turned to Uber? Because having more speed than anything and the stats it naturally has is just Uber, and Baton Pass makes it possible for any other pokemon. As I said, Manaphy is broken on its own. But with speed increased it just has no counters. Togekiss with speed passed can be faster than anything and still Nasty Plot. I don't think Unaware Pokemon are proper counters because it can be flinched to death, specially if it is a Modest Togekiss. Not even weather pokemon will be faster than that. Specially with Speed Boost not coded properly. Latias with Stored Power, Speed Passed and Calm Mind.... do I need to say something? About the wallbreaker, well... they are bulky pokemon with a lot of damage, imagine if they had speed... well..

 

4) The only thing that can counter Baton Pass properly is Trick Room, which is bad against everything else in PRO. Some would say Scizor might be good against Baton Pass... well, Scizor is a free pass to Manaphy, I would say. I really don't know anything that can counter a fast Manaphy... Maybe Scarf Serperior? Well, with the Volt Switch/U-turn bug, it will be +2, so nevermind...

 

5) Why is Manaphy not banned? Manaphy was Uber until Megas were out on Showdown. We don't have megas in RRO yet. I'm pretty sure everyone knows the Manaphy win ratio is pretty high, specially if it is Rain Dance set. When I say "pretty high" I mean, too high... in a way you can just rely on its "OPness" to win, instead of actually making some effort, which is the purpose of a strategy game, in my opinion.

 

6) Here's the link for the Baton Pass ban discussion in Showdown. You can take your own conclusions.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/baton-pass-in-sm-ou.3604290/page-2#post-7370590

Please keep in mind Necrozma and Magearna are not the only OP things in Baton Pass. Don't just ignore everything I said about Manaphy, Togekiss, Latias and wallbreakers just because they haven't mentioned it in this post.

 

7) Before you say I am complaining about Baton Pass because it is good against sun. I really don't care about what counters sun or not. I was the one who reported the Burn Up bug. If I really cared about it, I would just keep abusing the bug and get easy wins like people are doing with Baton Pass, abusing speed boost bug and its natural OPness.

 

I apologise my english isn't good enough to express my thoughts properly, but I think these are good reasons to consider?... well, thanks for reading.

[Logan]

I want to clarify something. People talk about usage. If usage matters that much for people, then we should probably unban H.A Blaziken, Shadow Tag and Arena Trap. People can't see the forest for the trees. What about Speed and another Stat passing? Anyone thinks this was used a lot? We unfairly banned it then. I m very old in PRO Staff and the usage "argument"(I can't really count it as valid one) was always brought up by people who wanted something untouched.

 

Also it would be good if the discussion include the PvP Ladder tournament and the impact of Baton Pass there. Countering Baton Pass team means being weak to almost every other team. Won't make other points, my points are clear already, I don't want to exhaust you or myself.

[Finnderboss]

there are already so many restrictions with baton pass like passing speed alone or the thing with intimidate, defog etc.. idk why people still complain about it.

I'd love to face baton pass teams all day instead of the boring chansey clefable tankchomp stuff!

[Qeight]

or the thing with intimidate

This is a bug and will be fixed, it was a flaw when explaining how BP clause works.

[Keabu]

We should differentiate the use of baton pass in the ladder / ladder tournament.

The main problem there is that baton pass is broken if coded properly. Playing BP in Pro isn't broken atm BUT it is 100% broken when used in the ladder tourn.

(many reasons like having to anticipate the potential switch of your opponent before using BP makes it harder to use and maybe that's why it is not played much)

 

It feels just like U-Turn / Volt-Switch = Essential moves which are not used much because they're not coded properly.

The only difference with the moves I mentioned above is that BP is not legit at all IF well coded.

So imo BP will def. be banned later on (I cannot see how can it even remain legit after the PvP rework tbh)

BUT it's not broken at this point in the game.

 

I propose to ban baton pass in the ladder tournament ONLY and to keep it in unbanned in the game. (It should be 100% banned when coded properly tho)

[Sixpacks]

So, usually a Scoli bpass team has 2-3 slow wallbreakers to abuse speedboost and no team can wall all 3 of them. The ideal abuser being mana/toge/luca which are insanely strong in this meta, it just becomes impossible to stop them after the speed pass. Talking about counters, I don't think anyone will bring a skarm/mandi/hippo in this meta full of tomwash. The ideal whirlwind users. The only mon which can handle them to an extent is unaware clef which ofc gets obliterated by luca/scoli itself or the flinch lord toge. Kudos to some players for the well made bpass team which is absolutely broken in ladder tours with a high win rate.

 

One more thing which I'd like to mention is Espeon. This shit is no joke actually. With a meta full of conkeldurr, the useage of bisharp has dropped hard and its the only mon which can ohko an espeon after the boost. Espeon beats the phazers with its abi and what not with the addition of stored power it destroys everything after a boost with its incredible coverage for dark types. To sum up, I'm ok with drypass but totally against wetpass teams. They are just too strong to abuse imo. I'd like a flat ban on wetpass. Cheers!

[Fairview]

What about baton pass lapras. I saw buddy win like 3 games with it and lost to a ladder pvper.

 

I say keep it unbanned and just get good at pvp.

[Nakofum]

Hi everyone,

 

I almost played every possible playstyles available on PRO (except maybe sand). And I came to a conclusion that matchup mostly decide the issue of the game.

Whatever the playstyle you're using you have good/bad matchups which you can +/- be handled, but at this point, I assume baton-pass as the ability to handle a lot of matchups even some bad one with outplays, but i can certify that stall handles even more (not to complain for ban stall, just a fact).

 

Taking in consideration things on Pro are not coded well, there is some +/- for baton pass, but I'm assuming there is more cons :

 

Cons:

Protect, Baton Pass (anticipation each time you wanna use), Intimidate (yes, you can't use it if someone intimidates you before you pass)

 

Advantages:

Speed Boost (possibly goes +1 when another mon faints, but it doesn't work everytime)

 

I heard a lot of things these past days about baton pass. Some are saying that an average player with an average team will mostly loose to a new player playing BP, this is FALSE, refering to Prehax informations and the skillcap needed by bp on Pro.

 

I've also heard that to beat BP, you need specifical counters, which EXIST, by "specifical counters" it was mean some things that aren't even usually played.

THIS IS FALSE, and i'm gonna prove you it now.

 

 

Here, is a link of one of the games from the final of ladder tournament, assuming those 2 people know how to play.

One player is playing baton pass (will be named player 1), the other (player 2) is playing pretty classic team with 5 mons in top 25 Usage + Tangrowth which I also consider in top 25, refering to 4 last month.

 

I'll let you some seconds/minutes, to look at the game, try to understand what plays have been made, what matchup is favorite etc...

First view, the player 2 doesn't bring what we can call "specifical counters" of baton pass, he just brought some most used mons.

 

The player 1 won. How he won the game ? because baton pass is op ? because baton pass destroys every non-prepared matchup ? No.

if this game was played on PRO or baton pass is not to his advantage, I assure you that player 1 would have lost.

 

There is another thing we can see, the player 1 doesn't play togekiss with BP, but togekiss is op with BP ? No, togekiss suffers from a lack of consistency, he may excel in some battles where he will flinch, but if he doesn't flinch and miss, the game will be over.

When you play pvp, you can't rely on the success of a probability too much to do and that doesn't depend on you, it's the same as being against the competition itself. Togekiss is very strong when he flinches, but he's also mediocre when he misses and doesn't flinch, that's why relying on him as a pass stick is abusive, lacks consistency and knowledge.

 

So, what conclusion should we take about this ?

Specifical counters exist, and work against BP for sure ! But you don't absolutely need them to beat BP.

BP will destroy its opponent if it had favorable matchup, like EVERY other playstyle.

 

+1 for most of the things that Prehax said.

 

I might comment again if some others things that hasn't be said come to my mind.

 

Fum.