Liepard Suspect Discussion (Read post #202)

[Punchshroom]

The easiest way to deal with Assist Liepard is making sure your Stealth Rocker can KO itself, taking advantage of Ditto's poor base HP to ensure OHKOes. Offensive Grass Knot Seismitoad and Shadow Punch Golurk come to mind. If you want to keep your 'hard as shit to OHKO' Stealth Rocker like Golem or Piloswine, one can predict the switch and send in an anti-leader like Serperior, Samurott or Sawk and scare them out. Best case scenario: You wreck one of their core members. Worst case scenario: Liepard sets up a Nasty Plot on the switch and forces you back out, ready to nail your SR switch-in next time it gets phazed in. Or you could fight super annoying cat with super annoying cat, winning speed ties and crippling AssistPard with Swagger / Thunder Wave Liepard so that its harassing chances get reduced drastically. This strategy is not as impossible to counter as it would seem, but it is pretty apparent that it restricts teambuilding (use SRer that kills itself or pair with anti-leader than can outspeed the Scarfed SRer), which may be worthy for some sort of ban.

Banning Liepard isn't the optimal solution though, since SwagPard is shit easy to deal with (and ironically can go toe to toe with AssistPard), whereas PivotPard is a unique trapper.

 

[watashi]

Plus sure those pokemon are viable but it would be a shame to have to use them on every single team or risk losing to a liepard team. the list is pretty short which makes liepard limiting towards teambuilding. also on the subject of having a pokemon that can ohko your stealth rocker, it's fairly risky to switch out against liepard as you can potentially give it a free substitute and it will just proceed to shuffle you again, leaving you at a disadvantage while losing nothing.

Punchshroom it's a decent strategy but you risk your opponent switching into something else and letting it die, and switching in ditto after so i wouldn't call it the easiest way to deal with liepard

 

[atomicllamas]

I would like to point out that a good Stealth Rocker that can't really lose to Liepard teams is Probopass, which can volt switch on the switch in from ditto and allow you to send in something that can outspeed and OHKO your own rocker (with a scarf). Unfortunately it is pretty centralizing to have to use Probopass as the only other volt-turner in NU that has rocks is Monferno, who is not only a shitty mon, but fast enought that ditto ferno will have to be revenged by a scarfer of your own. I think that Swag Pard (and all other liepard) are probably fine in NU, as it isn't that hard to play around douche bag swag pard, but it can be very annoying (definitely not broken and also countered by probopass). SR + baton pass is also a possible strategy available to Mawile, Solrock, and Lunatone, but this could allow liepard to set up a sub and tear your team apart regardless.

TL;DR: Probopass is good, assist pard puts so many restrictions on team building.

Edit: also Probo can kill itself with earth power, lfgi

Edit 2: I wasted my 400th post on Liepard, trolling me even when I'm not playing mons, smh.

 

[Hot N Cold]

I support ban Assist + Prankster or just Liepard, at least a way to deal with Assist Liepard, honestly I dont found very good this strategy but just uncompetitive which relies totally on team matchup and very limited on teambuilding, cant beat some things like Cradily Suction Cups since the turn 1, which means that you should just forfeit or better expecting some flinch critics from Liepard to Cradily : )

Another momentun very annoying for which plays against Liepard is when their Stealth Rock / Spikes user back to the field because Assist, this means that you have to switch out your mon because the Liepard user can switch into Ditto and then get Stealth Rock or an layer of Spikes just to spam Assist to death, if your hazard user switch out, Liepard on this turn can get a free Sub - just a Nasty Plot - this 50/50 works against any hazard user that cant kill itself or that lacks to something like Roar, Encore or Taunt like Bastiodon or Probopass.

 

[Chieliee]

I'm just making a quick reply to plus since i'm on the phone atm:

Liepard just needs to use Assist 8 times to regain the 50% damage done by fake out. That's what Shuckleking means with leftovers damage


I'll give my opinion on the full subject later



now =later


I support banning Liepard+Assist. This strategy is pretty broken, as the list of counters for it is very small. Also, if you have, for example, support musharna, Liepard can just get a free sub, phaze until mushy is out again, then set up nasty plot, repeat and sweep. It's a 100% mindless strategy, and therefore i think it should be banned.

Why not ban Liepard overall? that way we also get rid of SwagPard!

Swagpard isn't broken at all. It can be effective if the opponent is lucky. but it can also die the first turn it comes in. Furthermore, it's counters are pretty common: Mandibuzz, Probopass, Bastiodon, etc.

Also, PivotPard is amazing, and, as Treecko mentioned, is beneficial for the metagame. Banning Liepard overall will take away not only broken/annoying sets, but also sets that are good for the metagame.

Banning Assist in general is also a possibility, since the only time it will really be used is with this cheap-ass strategy.

in my mind this post was a lot longer than it turned out to be :[

 

[termi]

I don't see the problem with banning Assist. AssistPard is the only broken set Liepard can run because Swagcat is quite managable (though still annoying as fuck, don't use it if you have any dignity) and Liepard's other sets (such as weather supporter and Purrsuit trapper) are actually really nice and completely competitive. Banning Liepard itself just isn't necessary, not only because most of its viable sets are completely managable, but because we're talking about Assist here. Let me ask you this: Have you ever, ever seen a Pokemon that's not Liepard (or Purrloin for that matter) use Assist successfully? Assist is either completely reliant on luck and awful or completely broken, meaning nobody will shed a tear if it's banned. The reason why Gligar got its ban in LC instead of Acrobatics is because that move actually finds use outside of Gligar. Assist is just not something you should be using in competitive play if you're a decent player, so I see no evil in banning it.

 

[Chieliee]

I'd like to contribute to the above statement by saying that by banning Assist, we will also prevent any runner-up strategies (purrloin, persian, etc) from emerging. We will once and for all get rid of assist spam

Nothing that uses Assist for any other reason is viable, so we will do the metagame no harm by banning Assist in general.

 

[Shuckleking87]

Yeah, but assist is such a crappy move outside of liepard, so there is no point banning the move because the move itself is not overpowered. Rather, it is the ability to use the attack to phase teams with priority.

Edit: Purrlion strategy would be very manageable, as it is weak, cannot really go 1 v1 against most nu pokes, and is slower and susceptible to priority (and faster prankster users). base 50 SpA ain't doin much

 

[CactusCacti]

Man that assist cat sure got popular huh

Regardless I'll drop my 2 cents on the matter:

Liepard itself does not feel broken with it's other sets but granted, when teamed with ditto + mimic user the super phazing terror is a sure fire nuinsance that pretty much has "you win" written all over it.
Because NU seems to lack the quick and powerful priority users (actually even with these, lierpard is hard to outspeed if it has speed investments, maybe espeed pikachu and fake out but haha yeah right), it is very hard to play around too.
Banning the whole cat though feels a bit overkill, and in RU enviroment it would most likely re emerge to rinse and repeat similiar shenigans as even there the outspeeding priority is scarce as these guys are mostly UU/OU, or fall completely into swagplay 24/7.
granted those are upper tier problems and this is NU but I still felt like that was something to take in into notice

But when you deal with the other sets, they are easily more manageable, and while as the swagplay is annoying, it's still isn't unbeatable, just a lot of luck play.
The cat itself has a lot of potential with its other sets and it would most likely drop all that behind if it was banned as a whole..

Thus I really kind of have to say I'd rather see prankster + assist ban than the cat as a whole.
nobody will miss assist in NU as it has no real other use than with the prankster.

 

[AlexArthur]

le
So I think the main questions are :

Is Assist Liepard broken , unfun to play against or otherwise bad for the metagame?
Are Liepard's other sets (Swagger in particular) equally or similarly broken ?
Can Assist see use outside of Prankster ?
Do we want a complex ban (Assist + Prankster) or a simple ban (Liepard or Assist) ?

Assist Liepard is very much unfun to play against in my opinion as it is very difficult to play around though not impossible to defeat through clever plays and the likes of Toxic Spikes it can limit your team options if you choose to prepare for it. You either forgo hazards completely, in which case you are at a severe disadvantage against traditional teams or you keep them out of the game leaving you playing 6-5 or using hazard setters that can KO themselves on the very obvious switch in.

Swagger and Other sets are not broken or nearly as unfun to play around as at least you have a chance to make a move in the 32 or so turn Liepard could be phazing you for. They are much more easily played around. The Swagger + Foul Play combo seems to have caused an increase in Foul Play on other Pokémon leaving many users to run 0 Atk IVS when possible to lower the damage which is the sort of thought I like to see in team-building, even if those 31 points don't add up to a huge amount of damage.

Assist can see use outside of Prankster , Persian for example could serve as a decent user in a clutch situation but outside of these Assist Spam teams Assist is very luck reliant and won't see any serious use.

I'm against complex bans in general, they are needless complex and often needed. I'd much rather either Liepard or Assist be banned but not the combination of Assist and Prankster or whatever proposed complex ban.

 

[termi]

Yeah, but assist is such a crappy move outside of liepard, so there is no point banning the move because the move itself is not overpowered. Rather, it is the ability to use the attack to phase teams with priority.

Edit: Purrlion strategy would be very manageable, as it is weak, cannot really go 1 v1 against most nu pokes, and is slower and susceptible to priority (and faster prankster users). base 50 SpA ain't doin much

Assist is really crappy on teams that aren't dedicated to Assist, but all this means is that nobody would care if it got banned. Like I said, it's either stupidly broken or so useless that it won't receive any serious usage. Banning the move Assist is, in my opinion, the only acceptable way of dealing with the situation, as I think that when we compare the amount of people who will miss Assist and the amount of people who willmiss Liepard, we can easily conclude that keeping Liepard and banning Assist will make many more people happy (I'm gonna go ahead and ignore everyone who wants pard banned because of Swagplay because most of us have agreed that that set simply ain't broken).

 

[Lolk]

I think i am going to make a scarf persian assist team to see how effective assist is in general without cat.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

I've tried Scarf Persian, and it's nowhere near as effective. It's outsped by all priority, not just the small handful that beats Liepard, it runs Scarf and thus no Leftovers, and it's also trapped into only one move, so there's no setting up free Substitutes and Nasty Plots on mono-attack Musharna and such like Liepard can do. Liepard truly is the problem here.

 

[scorpdestroyer]

I fully agree with Treecko's post in the first page, that we should be banning Prankster + Assist together. Neither Prankster, Assist or Liepard is broken enough to warrant a ban, and in my opinion having a complex ban is much better than banning a move entirely just because it's broken on just one Pokemon. I think banning Assist just because of Liepard is rather silly because in reality the move sucks, and nothing can ever use it effectively at all. Purrloin isnt powerful enough to defeat last mons by itself and it can't outspeed as many priority users as Liepard can. This strategy isn't going to work on Persian either, since it can be stopped by priority and fast Pokemon and if you try to run scarf Persian, then you're going to flat out lose to the last pokemon of the opponent, nor can you beat things like Misdreavus w/o Foul Play or Magic Bouncers or Regen mons. So Assist definitely isn't broken on it's own, Liepard definitely isn't broken on it's own as posters before me have mentioned. It's only the combo of the two that is suspect worthy, so I don't see why we should try so hard to avoid complex bans when it's the better thing for us to do

For those saying that Assist Liepard isn't broken, I'll just say that you're going to have to play extremely carefully throughout the entire match if you haven't prepared for it (and it is very difficult to prepare for it). Sure, it is entirely possible to try and catch a Ditto switching into your Stealth Rock user, but what if that doesn't happen? What if the opponent instead sets up with Liepard as you switch, or Switcheroos a Flame Orb onto your Sawk? The worst part is that the opponent can constantly force such mindgames with you every time your stealth rock user is switched or shuffled in, so if you don't lose to hazards, you'll eventually lose to Dark Pulse. Wearing Liepard down isn't an option (apart from Toxic which is not easy to hit it with) because Leftovers and shuffling returns Liepard to full health easily.

Sure you can prepare for Liepard, but most of those can't be thrown onto any team at all, not to mention that Liepard can simply screw you if you can't get your Liepard counter in or of it gets Tricked. Cradily is a good counter, but a) it can't fit onto every team, b) it has to run suction cups over storm drain which really sucks, and c) FREE STEALTH ROCKS!!! Magic Bouncers or Regenerator mons don't work because of Nasty Plot and Dark Pulse. Offensive Stealth Rock users that can KO themselves (eg. Seismitoad) don't work because Ditto's scarf means you're not killing it before rocks go up, and if you try and hit it on the switch you risk getting owned hard if you predict wrong. Linoone can't fit on every team and can be burned, Kangaskhan can be burned and Fake Out is useless if Liepard has a sub. Bastiodon and Probopass are pretty good but if they get caught out by a stray Nature Power, they're doomed. Also, partnering them up with a Fighting type to get rid of rocks has the risk of giving Drifblim, another common Pokemon in these teams, a free switch in. So in reality, it is actually very difficult to stop this strategy at all.

 

[Grey Knight]

Pls don't ban liepard from NU , this will encourage its usage in the higher tiers, i don't know about you but every defeat to liepard, is an unforgettable traumatic experience filled with parahaxing or under hail copy cat-roaring, none deserves this, keep this hell cat down there for the greater good.
Thanks

 

[NeoMetalOverlord64]

The problem is not the Liepard, the problem is the swagger!

 

[scorpdestroyer]

The problem is not the swagger, the problem is the prankster assist!

 

[Antar]

For people advocating complex bans in this case instead of banning Liepard. I'd like to remind you all that our policy is that we ban a move, ability or combo only if it's broken on ALL users of that combo, but it is perfectly legitimate to ban a single Pokemon even if only one of its sets are "broken."

Case-in-point: Blaziken. Not at all broken without Speed Boost. Still Uber.

 

[soulgazer]

Pls don't ban liepard from NU , this will encourage its usage in the higher tiers, i don't know about you but every defeat to liepard, is an unforgettable traumatic experience filled with parahaxing or under hail copy cat-roaring, none deserves this, keep this hell cat down there for the greater good.
Thanks

Sorry but I really don't understand this post. You want us to keep a potentially broken Pokemon in the NU tier just because it gave you 'unforgettable traumatic experience' in upper tier? Every tier are independant when it comes to banning (see: Gothoritelle banned in UU, but deemed not broken in NU, Sand Veil & Snow Cloak ban in OU). So let me ask you a question (sorry if it sounds rude lol, I just don't get your point of view): Do you really want us to not ban Liepard just so you can enjoy the upper tier more?

I'll post my thoughts on the suspect later~

 

[noobcubed]

For people advocating complex bans in this case instead of banning Liepard. I'd like to remind you all that our policy is that we ban a move, ability or combo only if it's broken on ALL users of that combo, but it is perfectly legitimate to ban a single Pokemon even if only one of its sets are "broken."

Case-in-point: Blaziken. Not at all broken without Speed Boost. Still Uber.

There have been plenty of cases where bans have been made on abilities etc where they are NOT broken on every Pokemon, for simplicity of ruleset. Are you telling me that Swift Swim Luvdisc is broken in OU with Drizzle support? Or even (stretching the point) that Soul Dew is broken when held by Pokemon not named Latias or Latios?

So yes, banning Assist is fine even if Liepard is the only broken user. It's not like anything else can make use of Assist anyway.

Alternatively, if you don't like that, banning Prankster + Assist is fine since Liepard IS the only Pokemon with this combination available.

 

[Django]

mad at cats

 

[fleurdyleurse]

Yeah, the real problem is Prankster Assist. Foul Play Swagger also is quite dangerous tho.

 

[Antar]

There have been plenty of cases where bans have been made on abilities etc where they are NOT broken on every Pokemon, for simplicity of ruleset. Are you telling me that Swift Swim Luvdisc is broken in OU with Drizzle support?

My mistake for using absolutes. Obviously SV Sandshrew isn't broken in OU either. I should have said "every halfway decent" Pokemon. For example, IIRC it was decided with SandSLASH was broken with Sand Veil along with OU threats.

Or that Soul Dew is broken when held by Pokemon not named Latias or Latios?

This is a bad example, since Soul Dew is designed SPECIFICALLY for Lati@s.

So yes, banning Assist is fine even if Liepard is the only broken user. It's not like anything else can make use of Assist anyway.

That's not my understanding. I'm the impression that there are other non-Prankster Assisters who use may still try to use Assist with, say, Scarf, and who are not broken.

 

[noobcubed]

For people advocating complex bans in this case instead of banning Liepard. I'd like to remind you all that our policy is that we ban a move, ability or combo only if it's broken on ALL users of that combo, but it is perfectly legitimate to ban a single Pokemon even if only one of its sets are "broken."

Case-in-point: Blaziken. Not at all broken without Speed Boost. Still Uber.

What I'm saying is, if you have a complex ban and a simple ban that will have pretty much the same effect, you go with the simple ban. That's why OU banned Blaziken rather than Speed Boost + Blaziken - with either ban, Blaziken would have seen no usage in OU so the simpler ban was picked. The same with my Soul Dew example (I know it's a little obtuse, but there's a reason the ban is on Soul Dew and not Soul Dew + Lati@s - the result is the same).

So, the effect on he NU metagame would be the same whether we banned Liepard + Assist, Prankster + Assist, or just plain old Assist (unless people think Assist Choice Scarf Persian is broken too). So we should follow simplicty of ruleset, and ban Assist.

Incidentally, Assist could also be banned on grounds of being uncompetitive (rather than broken) when used outside of FLCL's team and its derivatives, as the move selected will be entirely down to luck.

 

[atomicllamas]

Sorry but I really don't understand this post. You want us to keep a potentially broken Pokemon in the NU tier just because it gave you 'unforgettable traumatic experience' in upper tier? Every tier are independant when it comes to banning (see: Gothoritelle banned in UU, but deemed not broken in NU, Sand Veil & Snow Cloak ban in OU). So let me ask you a question (sorry if it sounds rude lol, I just don't get your point of view): Do you really want us to not ban Liepard just so you can enjoy the upper tier more?

I'll post my thoughts on the suspect later~

Unfortunately Soulgazer, this is a pretty common thought process, not only by those who primarily play higher tiers, but also by those in the NU community. When Liepard was brought up last time we had a suspect discussion, it was pretty much dismissed by some people (who play this tier) because we would just be encouraging Liepard's use in higher tiers (among better more legit reasons).

That's not my understanding. I'm the impression that there are other non-Prankster Assisters who use may still try to use Assist with, say, Scarf, and who are not broken.

Not only are these other users not only not broken, they aren't really even viable, as they get destroyed by common priority, can't switch moves, and are able to be outsped themselves. Banning assist would have essentially no effect on the tier other than returning it to the way it was pre-Liepard assist spam, so why not do that?

Noobcubed sorta just ninja'd me in a way that makes more sense, so yeah, ^that.