Smashboards

Every post I've made has been against the notion of a ban. I do hate the character and my interest in smash 4 is draining because of her and Cloud, but that doesn't mean I want to see her banned.

Hating a character and realizing that she's a problem for game balance is different from wanting a character to be banned. For instance, Dabuz hates Cloud, but you would never see him advocate a ban. Neither character is good enough to warrant a ban.

The problem is that banning a character has severe repercussions on the community. That character's mains feel slighted, as well as people against a ban; this results in bitterness and vitriol on all sides, and everyone enjoys the game less. To ban a character basically divides the community into pieces.

Banning should be a last resort when a game is borderline unplayable with any other non-ban ruleset. No smash character will ever breach that threshold.

As far as Bayo is concerned, some players (like myself) will leave the game because of her, and that's fine. The community will hardly notice the absence of those players. They'll mostly be in the low and mid levels too, since top and high level players depend on this game in a fundamental way and can't leave that easily.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm not self-absorbed enough to think that my personal hatred of the character justifies a ban. It doesn't. She's the best by a fair margin and she's going to bolster some players' results and create lopsided matchups for the game, which are all negative things, but ultimately that's *not* enough to ban a character.

Finally, I actually play more Bayonetta than any other character when I play, because I tend to default to playing the strongest option when I can in a competitive setting. That's just because I like to feel like I'm not playing against the odds when I fight someone of even skill.

Thanks for the detailed response. I feel like the most troubling part of Bayonetta is that established players seem to flock to her en masse. Aba mains her now, Locus is using her as a secondary, ANTi's practicing her, and Ally and Larry have both said they would.