[OU Discussion] Snorlax [Test banned]

[Sashaolin]

6 hours ago, DoubleJ said:

@gbwead What does Body Slam exactly do that makes beating Snorlax impossible? Which Pokemon are crippled to the point of losing their ability of countering Lax by a simple paralysis?

 

5 hours ago, gbwead said:

That is the thing we don't really have counters to Snorlax, we have checks. If you want to deal offensively against Lax, sending Heracross, Blaziken, Medicham or other physical bulldozers should be an option. Right now, this option is highly unreliable because of the chances of paralysis of Body Slam. When we see Snorlax in OU, more often than not, the outcome of the duel is determined by that paralysis or that non-paralysis. Skills are not rewarded.

 

Ludicolo has the bulk to take Snorlax. Arcanine Charm can stop Curselax. Metagross Psych Up can stop Curselax. Rhydon can wallbreak Slowbro. Defensive Gyarados has the bulk to stop some Snorlax. Offensive Gyarados has the offense capacity to threathen Snorlax. Flygon can threathen Snorlax with Superpower. These pokemons lose to Snorlax if they switch in on a paralysis. The list goes on and on. 

2 hours ago, DoubleJ said:

tl;dr Complex banning Body Slam doesn't make a difference imo

LOL

[DoubleJ]

28 minutes ago, Sashaolin said:

 

LOL

Once again taking my words out of context. You wouldn't willingly swap a fighting type into Lax anyways for risk of being hit with a powerful STAB that will surely 2hko. Idk maybe you would risk your only answer to snorlax. 

 

CB DE one shots all of those highlighted and without reliable recovery (aside from recover medicham) you can only switch in one before you die to the next hit. 

 

Tl;dr don't be dumb

[DaftCoolio]

23 minutes ago, Sashaolin said:

 

LOL

 

You realize heracross medi flygon and blaziken are checks right? not counters which i believe JJ was asking about. If hera medi and blaziken are your snorlax counters body slam isnt the issue its your team building. 

 

[RysPicz]

Just now, DaftCoolio said:

not counters which i believe JJ was asking about.

You realise, Snorlax has no fucking counters?

[Laz]

test ban it, no fuck's given, juat don't complex ban body slam as we will want Some ubers back in the meta too

[SirDusty]

heres my professional advice from a person that has gave up on comp battling.

 

lets ditch this thread and make a thread asking for legendary Pokemon. If we got zapdos and suicune we can unban dugtrio, dragonite, t-tar and Salamence then.

 

lets just copy gen-3 showdown and call it good for now

 

as it stands it's a circle jerk and its not going to stop otherwise

 

in my crystal ball I can foresee another dugtrio thread and the same shit happening

 

anyways not my mess to clean up,  but if it were me that ran this game it would be cleaned up 3 years ago have fun friends.

[Viking]

or just lower the para hax rate from 30% tp 10% ?

[NikhilR]

2 hours ago, Viking said:

or just lower the para hax rate from 30% tp 10% ?

Not sure if sarcasm, but they're not going to change the game mechanics like that. Because then this starts a chain of how we can change the mechanics of almost everything like making will o wisp 100% accuracy, allowing wish to pass even if the user has died etc.

Edited August 18, 2016 by NikhilR

[Viking]

1 minute ago, NikhilR said:

Not sure if sarcasm, but they're not going to change the game mechanics like that. Because then this starts a chain of how we can change the mechanics of almost everything like making will o wisp 100% accuracy, allowing wish to pass even if the user has died etc.

so why these kids complain about para hax?

[NikhilR]

2 minutes ago, Viking said:

so why these kids complain about para hax?

It's mostly because we don't have enough pokemon that can safely come in on lax and scare it away or solve the parahax issue because of lack of a good cleric, 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2016 by NikhilR

[gbwead]

4 hours ago, DoubleJ said:

CB DE one shots all of those highlighted and without reliable recovery (aside from recover medicham) you can only switch in one before you die to the next hit. 

I feel you are missing my point about the uncompetitive aspect of Snorlax based on RNG. Snorlax doesn't have counters, we know that. Complex banning Body Slam will not change that, so claiming there is a set that can counter the highlighted pokemons is obvious.

 

However, Snorlax has checks, people can scout the moveset of Snorlax through the duel and sometimes these people also have skills! If someones realises the Snorlax against them is a wallbreaker Snorlax, that person could send Ludicolo to deal with that specific Snorlax. However, the fact that Body Slam has a relatively high chance to paralyse Ludicolo leaves everything to RNG. Skills are not rewarded since players don't have control over the outcome of the duel. RNG dictates what happen.

 

From our tiering etiquette:

Spoiler

 

Uncompetitive game aspects (or strategies) are those that take away autonomy (control of the game's events), take it out of the hand's of player's decisions-- and do so to a degree that can be considered uncompetitive.

 

This can be luck-based, but doesn't have to be (see: 4th gen Wobb, who was effective enough then to remove the ability to "do anything about it" largely from the enemy player, and was banned for uncompetitive-ness); but most uncompetitive strategies that are banned usually have a high appeal to luck.

While there is always luck involved in Pokemon, the problem is the degree to which control is taken away from the player. Removal of autonomy is the key to an uncompetitive tiering decision or clause.

Note: the word "degree" as there are many game aspects that remove autonomy, but the problem is degree of removal (Moody / Double Team remove more autonomy than Quick Claw or fast U-Turn/Volt Switch).

Whether the "degree" of autonomy removal is uncompetitive is debatable, and is subjective (based off of player experience).
 

Note: Individual Pokemon can be banned for a combination of "overpowered" and "uncompetitive" characteristics-- see 4th Gen Deoxys-S and 4th Gen Shaymin-S ban

 

In other words, something that takes away options from the player, creating a lack of options which are unfavorable for a competitive game. This could fall from anywhere from RNG based aspects to aspects which simply remove or invalidate certain key elements of gameplay. With that being said, not everything which is uncompetitive is banworthy. Ultimately, there are too many aspects which do, in some capacity, remove options from the player, and attempting to remove all of them would simply cause the game to cease being Pokemon, in addition to some aspects which simply cannot be controlled (Freeze).

 

Saying that complex banning Body Slam is stupid because Rhydon would still lose to EQ is quite irrelevant when talking about uncompetitiveness.

 

Rhydon is a decent Snorlax check, because Rhydon is a good counter to Curselax. Rhydon is also a formidable wallbreaker. However, if Rhydon gets paralysed by Body Slam, Rhydon is no longer a formidable wallbreaker. 

 

Flygon CB Superpower can switch once on non CB Snorlax.

252+ Atk Snorlax Double-Edge vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Flygon: 120-142 (77.4 - 91.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

However, Flygon loses when switching on a Body Slam paralysis, so RNG decided he could never actually switch.

 

What determines the outcome of these scenarios is not skills, but luck - and a high degree of luck might I add. A competitive game needs to reward the best players for being skillful and not reward the best players for being lucky.

 

 

 

 

[DaftCoolio]

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

 

  Hide contents

 

take it out of the hand's of player's decisions

 

 

the quotes a bit fucked idk how to work these forums still, im sorry

 

At no point does snorlax limit the decisions that your opponent can make. Wobbuffet, like in the example, is a pokemon that does this with shadow tag. It limits what you can do because you can't switch out and have to attack it. Trapping in general removes autonomy. Take blissey and dugtrio/trapinch for example. Arguably pursuit as well limits the options available to the player. But snorlax doesn't. You can switch, you can attack, you have full control over what you do as with any other pokemon. Snorlax isn't a "there is nothing you can do about it" pokemon. 

 

Even in that paragraph the last sentence or so sums it up. 

" Ultimately, there are too many aspects which do, in some capacity, remove options from the player, and attempting to remove all of them would simply cause the game to cease being Pokemon, in addition to some aspects which simply cannot be controlled (Freeze)."

[NikhilR]

1 hour ago, DaftCoolio said:

the quotes a bit fucked idk how to work these forums still, im sorry

 

At no point does snorlax limit the decisions that your opponent can make. Wobbuffet, like in the example, is a pokemon that does this with shadow tag. It limits what you can do because you can't switch out and have to attack it. Trapping in general removes autonomy. Take blissey and dugtrio/trapinch for example. Arguably pursuit as well limits the options available to the player. But snorlax doesn't. You can switch, you can attack, you have full control over what you do as with any other pokemon. Snorlax isn't a "there is nothing you can do about it" pokemon. 

That's the problem though with body slam para. If you switch, and then get para'd then you no longer can attack and then aren't in full control. Wallbreakers like Rhydon get para'd and then won't be able to break things like skarm / ludi effectively, which are snorlaxes' main switch ins. There's the other issue of how you don't know what set lax is. Basically it's the most powerful tank in the game because of how it takes special hits and hits back hard. 

[DaftCoolio]

1 minute ago, NikhilR said:

That's the problem though with body slam para. If you switch, and then get para'd then you no longer can attack and then aren't in full control. Wallbreakers like Rhydon get para'd and then won't be able to break things like skarm / ludi effectively, which are snorlaxes' main switch ins. There's the other issue of how you don't know what set lax is. Basically it's the most powerful tank in the game because of how it takes special hits and hits back hard. 

 

But paralysis doesn't suddenly turn a snorlax counter into not a snorlax counter, which I think is what JJ was refering to earlier when he said "Which Pokemon are crippled to the point of losing their ability of countering Lax by a simple paralysis". While I accept no player is ever truly in 'full control' but that is pokemon. RNG is a part of the game. 

 

Not knowing its set doesn't make it uncompetitve. Blaziken/Nidoking are pokemon which can run a variety of sets but that doesn't mean that they are ban worthy. 

[gbwead]

Just now, DaftCoolio said:

the quotes a bit fucked idk how to work these forums still, im sorry

 

At no point does snorlax limit the decisions that your opponent can make. Wobbuffet, like in the example, is a pokemon that does this with shadow tag. It limits what you can do because you can't switch out and have to attack it. Trapping in general removes autonomy. Take blissey and dugtrio/trapinch for example. Arguably pursuit as well limits the options available to the player. But snorlax doesn't. You can switch, you can attack, you have full control over what you do as with any other pokemon. Snorlax isn't a "there is nothing you can do about it" pokemon. 

 

Even in that paragraph the last sentence or so sums it up. 

" Ultimately, there are too many aspects which do, in some capacity, remove options from the player, and attempting to remove all of them would simply cause the game to cease being Pokemon, in addition to some aspects which simply cannot be controlled (Freeze)."

Well there is 2 types of uncompetitive aspects: RNG based aspects and aspects that invalidates certain elements of play. Trapping falls

in the second category. Swagplay, Double Team and arguably Body Slam on Snorlax specifically in our OU meta are uncompetitive based on RNG aspects.

 

I am not saying we should ban Fire Punch on Snorlax because it can burn pokemons like Rhydon. Obviously, a lot of moves in pokemon have secondary effect that proc based on RNG. Body Slam is one of those moves, but the degree of RNG of that move, as well as the impact that RNG has on the OU metagame, is immense.

[NikhilR]

5 minutes ago, DaftCoolio said:

 

 

5 minutes ago, DaftCoolio said:

But paralysis doesn't suddenly turn a snorlax counter into not a snorlax counter, which I think is what JJ was refering to earlier when he said "Which Pokemon are crippled to the point of losing their ability of countering Lax by a simple paralysis". While I accept no player is ever truly in 'full control' but that is pokemon. RNG is a part of the game. 

 

Not knowing its set doesn't make it uncompetitve. Blaziken/Nidoking are pokemon which can run a variety of sets but that doesn't mean that they are ban worthy. 

Sorry for quoting you twice, hate the forums :P

 

Hmm, there is another problem that there's no Snorlax counter actually. There could be counters to Snorlax depending on its set, but there's no one straight up counter. Rhydon once it is paralyzed, may continue to take hits from lax, but it won't exactly be able to touch it and continuously come in. Everyone's favourite answer to Snorlax is currently Rhydon, which is why its usage is rising a lot. When everyone is building a team, they ALWAYS try to run something for Snorlax. Metagross is another pokemon that isn't a reliable switch in because of once it gets parahaxed and then takes a fire punch. RNG definitely is part of the game, but allowing a 30% chance of something happening and not doing anything about it would be wrong.

 

The difference between Blaziken / Nidoking is that they have sometimes standard counters / checks that aren't massively crippled. Arcanine / Vaporeon / Slowbro / Gyarados / Starmie are some of the pokemon that can switch into Blaziken's standard attacks, Gyara / Flygon / Aero (somewhat non existent) / bulky venusaur / Weezing also can switch into Nidoking. Whereas Lax's checks like Heracross / Rhydon / Flygon become useless to the point where they can't dent the opponent due to the paralysis. 

 

A pokemon becomes too good to not use when its presence can't be abused or isn't a liability which is exactly the situation with Lax, All those who aren't in favour of banning Lax can help out in mentioning what they'd use to deal with opposing Lax. 

[Spaintakula]

If you people complex ban bslam I'm gonna revolt and ask for a twave + cray ban

[XPLOZ]

I agree a bit with DoubleJ when he says stuff like Fighting Pokemons, Flygon... aren't real arguments to prove that Lax's paralysis is OP. Indeed, this is minor ; bringing a Fighting type on Lax (which isn't sleeping ofc) should be an option of last resort. The damage of Return will still be savage and the Lax user can just switch out to sponge the incoming offensive attack. 

The Pokemons that should be mentionned aren't those Pokemons, but Pokemons like Steel types + Rhydons (who come to sponge the normal stab but directly lose momentum from a paralysis), Pokemons like Weezing, Arcanine charm, Bulky Gyara, Slowbro, Ludicolo leechseed... who can all scout Lax's moveset but who suffer from a bodyslam paralysis, because they become less effective walls when they will have to come back again on the field to sponge other offensive assaults. They will be para'd sooner or later during an assault and won't be able to do their recovery move. This is the first point.

 

The second point you need to understand is that we aren't talking about a classic RNG aspect of the game, a simple 30% of paralysis from a move. If we were, we would complain on Body slam itself, and on any other move that involves RNG. But you can see that it isn't the case. We're complaining about a RNG that can be abused, at a point it becomes uncompetitive. I'm not gonna repeat how Lax can abuse body slam, it has already been mentionned many times.

 

Last point, you need to understand that Curse isn't as problematic as it was before. The reason is simple, Special attackers are more powerful, thanks to the new items. Thereby, they put a lot more pressure on Lax, while before he could start to set-up Curse incredibly easily. I can assure you that a Psychic Choice Spec from Kazam, a Surf CS from Starmie or a Tbolt CS from Jolt will make Lax think twice about doing Curse like an idiot. Moreover, a Trick can make it TOTALLY useless. That's why we see a good amount of other sets.

 

 

 

Btw, if I was a player who rely on Swagger (which is banned from gen6 for being a dumb uncompetitive move) to win games, I wouldn't allow myself to criticize the playstyle of any player ; just sayin'

 

bang bang

 

 

Edited August 18, 2016 by XPLOZ

[Spaintakula]

Thing is, all those special attackers you mentioned get fucked bad if pursuit while they fail to get a 2ko on snorlax

Also, if we ever get iron head, are we gonna ban that too?

[XPLOZ]

1 minute ago, Spaintakula said:

Thing is, all those special attackers you mentioned get fucked bad if pursuit while they fail to get a 2ko on snorlax

Also, if we ever get iron head, are we gonna ban that too?

Thing is, if Lax blocks himself on Pursuit while the Special attackers continue to hit, he loses. Better than before when Lax was automatically winning.

[Spaintakula]

19 minutes ago, XPLOZ said:

Thing is, if Lax blocks himself on Pursuit while the Special attackers continue to hit, he loses. Better than before when Lax was automatically winning.

Not sure what you mean by block? And why would you sit around and get 3-4ko'd by a mon that's complete pursuit bait? Even if they stay in, any normal stab 2ko's both of them

[LifeStyle]

22 minutes ago, Spaintakula said:

Not sure what you mean by block? And why would you sit around and get 3-4ko'd by a mon that's complete pursuit bait? Even if they stay in, any normal stab 2ko's both of them

Pretty sure he was talking about CB Lax since it's probably the only set that runs Pursuit

For example if you have Starmie and you hit a Snorlax who switches in and see no recovery, then it's CB and if it's CB then it's probably gonna Pursuit, and so you might as well just keep hitting it

[Spaintakula]

4 minutes ago, LifeStyle said:

Pretty sure he was talking about CB Lax since it's probably the only set that runs Pursuit

For example if you have Starmie and you hit a Snorlax who switches in and see no recovery, then it's CB and if it's CB then it's probably gonna Pursuit, and so you might as well just keep hitting it

Even without lefties, it still tanks 3 hits, while pursuit 2ko's. Unless you run hydro and get 3 hits in a row on high rolls, but you ain't hoping on that.

[LifeStyle]

Just now, Spaintakula said:

Even without lefties, it still tanks 3 hits, while pursuit 2ko's. Unless you run hydro and get 3 hits in a row on high rolls, but you ain't hoping on that.

Except specs Psychic 3kos if you get sp def drop on 1st (Lax switching in) or 2nd hit, if you don't then Lax wins

 

[NikhilR]

Specs starmie isn't really THAT realistic imo because it functions much better as a spinner, always has. Specs jolt, zam and mag are something that would definitely pressurize Lax and force ppl to resort to running an spdef core but I doubt anyone runs them. It's true that we have the tools to use them and make Lax a bit wary of special attackers, but does that make them actually viable in our meta is another thing to consider.