About the Snow Cloak

[bingonb]

In a recent update, the ability of the snow cloak and sand veil is invalid in PVP to balance the strength of Garchomp. However, the strength of Garchomp has nothing to do with the ability of sand veil but the excellent species strength. And the invalidation of the snow cloak and sand veil makes Froslass more pitiful. What's more, the arrival of Abomasnow has given the sonw team some chance to exist in double. The invalidation of snow cloak means the farewell of the snow team, including Froslass, Abomasnow and so on. I think this is unfair. So I advise to resume the snow cloak in PVP because Froslass is innocent and she has suffered from more weakening than Garchomp. I beg your consideration. Thanks.

[Makarovs]

There is an evasion clause for a reason, abilities should not be an exception.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Makarovs
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[gbwead]

10 hours ago, bingonb said:

In a recent update, the ability of the snow cloak and sand veil is invalid in PVP to balance the strength of Garchomp. However, the strength of Garchomp has nothing to do with the ability of sand veil but the excellent species strength.

I couldn't agree more with the first part of your post.

[LifeStyleNORE]

11 hours ago, bingonb said:

However, the strength of Garchomp has nothing to do with the ability of sand veil but the excellent species strength.

Nobody ever argued that Garchomp was strong because of Sand Veil. Garchomp is strong AND it has Sand Veil, which adds a layer of uncompetitiveness to it. We do have an Evasion Clause for a reason. The difference between now and then, is that it can't dodge 100 accuracy moves anymore. Capisce?

11 hours ago, bingonb said:

And the invalidation of the snow cloak and sand veil makes Froslass more pitiful. What's more, the arrival of Abomasnow has given the sonw team some chance to exist in double. The invalidation of snow cloak means the farewell of the snow team, including Froslass, Abomasnow and so on. I think this is unfair.

Oh no! Banning Snow Cloak killed a strategy that revolves around dodging moves! The fact that you think that's unfair is just laughable.

 

I'm sure the Doubles metagame can survive the lack of Froslass from now on.

Edited April 2, 2020 by LifeStyleNORE

[gbwead]

16 minutes ago, LifeStyleNORE said:

Oh no! Banning Snow Cloak killed a strategy that revolves around dodging moves! The fact that you think that's unfair is just laughable.

That's the problem. Snow Cloak wasn't banned, just removed from the game and that sets an unfair precedent. Tiering wise this decision doesn't make much sense since bad mons should never get nerfed just to protect the strong mons. Development wise, I understand the compromise that was made, but there is still some unfairness that comes with this decision, so nothing laughable here really.

[LifeStyleNORE]

Just now, gbwead said:

That's the problem. Snow Cloak wasn't banned, just removed from the game and that sets an unfair precedent. Tiering wise this decision doesn't make much sense since bad mons should never get nerfed just to protect the strong mons. Development wise, I understand the compromise that was made, but there is still some unfairness that comes with this decision, so nothing laughable here really.

That precedent was already set when Draco Meteor was removed from Hydreigon, just gotta deal with it from now on.

Yeah Cacturne might go from maybe viable in Untiered to not viable at all yeah it's all over delete the game

[Gunthug]

55 minutes ago, gbwead said:

That's the problem. Snow Cloak wasn't banned, just removed from the game and that sets an unfair precedent. Tiering wise this decision doesn't make much sense since bad mons should never get nerfed just to protect the strong mons. Development wise, I understand the compromise that was made, but there is still some unfairness that comes with this decision, so nothing laughable here really.

The mere fact that a pokemon like cacturne, an objectively bad pokemon, has a non-negligible chance of sweeping in a higher tier based on sheer dumb luck means that the decision to completely eradicate weather-evasion abilities was actually a very good one (with precedent on places like smogon)

[gbwead]

11 minutes ago, Gunthug said:

The mere fact that a pokemon like cacturne, an objectively bad pokemon, has a non-negligible chance of sweeping in a higher tier based on sheer dumb luck means that the decision to completely eradicate weather-evasion abilities was actually a very good one (with precedent on places like smogon)

I seriously doubt Smogon ever considered taking any action against weather-evasion abilities in non pema weather metagames. And even if they ever considered such a thing, they were certainly talking about banning mons with those abilities and not removing the abilities entirely.

Edited April 2, 2020 by gbwead

[mxdzzz]

I think this is a healthy update, no longer to see "sand veil-substitute-leftover" garchomp in PVP. For those ppl just want to take win by luck, sorry about that. lol

 

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by mxdzzz

[bingonb]

If so, I advise ban night daze next time because it can also reduce the accuracy. lmao. Any ability has its own value to exist. I admit Smogon banned sand veil and snow cloak before but why don't you see the banning of sand rush at the same time? Luck is a part of strength, or else we can delete any set concerning luck. Uncertainty is the feature of  this game, so why not make full use of it? In the other hand, it is a bad precedent for low tier mons, as said by gbwead, and the Garchomp still has the chance to "subsititute-leftover" when meeting Rotom-wash because the hydro pump is not full accuracy. So I can't see any value of the invalidation of sand veil and snow cloak. I have no objection if want to weaken Garchomp, but please don't take this unrelated method.

[LifeStyleNORE]

4 hours ago, bingonb said:

If so, I advise ban night daze next time because it can also reduce the accuracy. lmao.

You're mixing up Evasion and Accuracy here. Evasion affects your own Pokemon and is uncompetitive because the opponent has no control over what happens, they are left to do nothing besides hoping that the luck goes in their favor. This is something that significantly lowers the option of skillful play, given that there are little to no viable methods of playing around it. Accuracy on the other hand, works differently. It affects your opponent's Pokemon, so if their accuracy is lowered, they can simply switch out to remove that effect, giving them a viable way of playing around it. This is why you see moves like Double Team or Minimize (Evasion boosting) banned and not ones such as Sand-Attack, Muddy Water, or Night Daze (Accuracy lowering).

4 hours ago, bingonb said:

Any ability has its own value to exist.

Ever heard of Moody?

4 hours ago, bingonb said:

I admit Smogon banned sand veil and snow cloak before but why don't you see the banning of sand rush at the same time?

Because luckily Skarmory/Bronzong/Rotom-Wash/Rain/Mach Punch/Aqua Jet/anything above 88 base Speed/etc are enough to deal with Excadrill. Regardless, Sand Veil and Snow Cloak fall under Uncompetitive and Sand Rush can only fall under OP/Broken/Unhealthy. If you think Sand Rush should be banned then make a request for it and post your reasoning, though I very much doubt it will be taken seriously.

4 hours ago, bingonb said:

Luck is a part of strength, or else we can delete any set concerning luck. Uncertainty is the feature of  this game, so why not make full use of it?

The purpose of tiering is to remove elements which make the game less competitive. That goes from either characteristics of an Uber, to uncompetitive Pokemon, Moves, Abilities, etc. to downright unhealthy aspects of gameplay. Banning Evasion boosting abilities/moves does not mean we have to get rid of crits, scald burns, ice beam freezes, body slam paralyzes, etc., because those still qualify for a competitive Pokemon environment. And no, luck is for noobs.

4 hours ago, bingonb said:

it is a bad precedent for low tier mons, as said by gbwead.

It doesn't matter what happens to lower tiers. OU is the highest form of competitive play and whatever decision is made on it, is never going to take into account about what happens to poor little Sandslash, that sits in Untiered.

4 hours ago, bingonb said:

and the Garchomp still has the chance to "subsititute-leftover" when meeting Rotom-wash because the hydro pump is not full accuracy.

Well yeah I think it's fairly obvious that Hydro Pump Rotom has a decent chance of losing to Sub Garchomp, regardless of Sand Veil or not. Try HP Ice.

Edited April 3, 2020 by LifeStyleNORE

[Raichuforyou]

9 hours ago, bingonb said:

If so, I advise ban night daze next time because it can also reduce the accuracy. lmao.

I just want to add (speaking on my own personal opinion, not one of the dev team) that there's a very big difference between raising your own evasion and lowering your opponent's accuracy. You have to put in a hell of a lot more effort to counter-play evasion increases than accuracy decreases, and the solutions usually put you (the one trying to counterplay evasion increased abilities) at a disadvantage. The reasoning why Sand Veil can be problematic usually fall under the arguments against if everyone  was hypothetically  permitted to set up just a single Double Team.

 

For evasion increases, you could try and chip away with never missing movies which are frankly very bad to be using on Garchomp, try to get something set up with Hone Claws or Coil (which is problematic if the Garchomp is already on the field in a sandstorm and has a sub), run Machamp with No Guard (who frankly gets countered by plenty of other common OU mon's, probably Garchomp himself too), or you could just pray that your ice beam is going to actually hit and that you're not going to lose this battle for missing on a very battle defining turn.

For accuracy decreases, the counterplay is that you switch out and then it's done and over with. That's it. I'll say that Night Daze is maybe a little problematic (but nowhere near ban-worthy) since it is the strongest damaging move that can cause accuracy loss, but the move itself has a 5% chance of missing, and the accuracy loss isn't even guaranteed.

[bingonb]

So my advice is to just make Garchomp's sand veil invalid instead of all pokemons that have sand veil or snow cloak. I think that's more reasonable.

[Ray110]

A question if they were banned from the abilities that happen with those pokemon that happen if they only have that ability, will they add another one or make them worse without their advantage and ability?

Edited July 17, 2020 by Ray110