Gen 3 ADV NU Suspect Discussion

Django

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Except PO and UU stadium in fact fucked with the old tier themselves when they started playing it because it was barely played when Gen 3 was the actual generation of the time. Between UU Stadium, old Smogon, Project NU, and PO there has never been a consistent tier list for ADV NU.

I and others find the current state of NU to be far more enjoyable with NFEs and a majority of the mons I added than without, save for the couple currently causing concern (Huntail, which always existed in the tier, and Sableye, which is borderline but that I added).

Not to mention Project NU, which actually played the tier after UU stadium and prior to PO, used NFEs as well.
Sure there's never been a consistent list but I don't think that's justification for throwing out a tierlist which has already been tested and which people enjoyed (but wutevz the whole thing is subjective anyway - I prefer the UUStadium list without NFE's but I get the sense I'm in the minority here).

Anyway my main qualm with what's going on is that it's such a subjective process on a tier with incredibly limited activity which I don't feel is ever going to get fully explored with the current number of players. I think dropping Sableye was a mistake, not necessarily because its too strong for the tier, but because there are so few battles going on that I feel it's impossible to fully determine its effect on the metagame.

Not to mention that the original tierlist for NU was made without NFE's (as far as I'm aware? I wasn't around at the time but this is what I've gathered from older conversations: http://pokemon-online.eu/threads/nfe-ban-for-nu-2.7269/) so my question is where do we stop? Are we going to redo the entirity of NU / UU / BL or can we just leave the playable and enjoyable metagames as they are? :(

Back when there was an active ladder for this on PO, we did in fact ban Haunter, Pupitar, and Vigoroth. Bear in mind this tier had no Sableye and with Sab none of these are broken. But even so, I don't feel that tinkering with this tier in this manner is a wise move.
 

Oglemi

Borf
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Not to mention that the original tierlist for NU was made without NFE's (as far as I'm aware? I wasn't around at the time but this is what I've gathered from older conversations: http://pokemon-online.eu/threads/nfe-ban-for-nu-2.7269/) so my question is where do we stop? Are we going to redo the entirity of NU / UU / BL or can we just leave the playable and enjoyable metagames as they are? :(
That's a huge logic leap. NU was and is barely played and hasn't had a consistent tiering list which makes considering different rulesets viable to what people would like. UU and above have been set in stone and had a big playerbase since ADV was the main generation and won't be changing (apart from ENZ0's attempt to better make BL/OU more accurate to what is and isn't used a few years ago, but that doesn't affect OU at all, and BL is largely unplayed and only really used with the "use 1 BL mon on UU teams" style tourneys afaik).

Like I said, if NU had had a set in stone tier list, then I wouldn't have bothered to touch the ruleset, but it didn't and I disliked that Smogon's tier list wasn't even recognizable compared to the people that had recently attempted to play it (PO and Project NU). So I said fuck it and did my own thing, using what had been done before and dropping in a couple mons that I figured wouldn't have that large of an effect on the tier. I was right about 8 of the mons I did, Sableye ended up being more viable than anticipated but I don't think it's terrible.
 

Django

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Like I said, if NU had had a set in stone tier list, then I wouldn't have bothered to touch the ruleset, but it didn't and I disliked that Smogon's tier list wasn't even recognizable compared to the people that had recently attempted to play it (PO and Project NU). So I said fuck it and did my own thing, using what had been done before and dropping in a couple mons that I figured wouldn't have that large of an effect on the tier. I was right about 8 of the mons I did, Sableye ended up being more viable than anticipated but I don't think it's terrible.
Right fine, but I still think that there aren't enough people playing the tier to make informed decisions about tiering. I don't get how we can decide if anything is too stong for the tier when there just isn't a big enough sample of battles and a big enough group of people with different ideas for teams and styles to fully explore the whole tier. Hence why I feel we should simply be using a tierlist from a time when there WERE more people playing the tier. I don't really have anything more to add and if you disagree that's fine, I just don't feel doing things this way is going to get better results than what has been done before.
 
Right fine, but I still think that there aren't enough people playing the tier to make informed decisions about tiering. I don't get how we can decide if anything is too stong for the tier when there just isn't a big enough sample of battles and a big enough group of people with different ideas for teams and styles to fully explore the whole tier. Hence why I feel we should simply be using a tierlist from a time when there WERE more people playing the tier. I don't really have anything more to add and if you disagree that's fine, I just don't feel doing things this way is going to get better results than what has been done before.
This is why I think its premature to ban. We simply need more battles and more time before banning. Oglemi's new tier list is what had drawn me to adv nu in the first place, and has managed to keep me engaged in teambuilding. I dont even know how to build a team when i am not considering haunter, vigoroth, huntail, or sableye as threats. A meta without them, granted its the original adv nu meta, seems like an entirely separate tier. On almost every team I use one of the nfe's or hunt/sab and all my teams are geared for a meta with them. Being one of the many people to be recently drawn to adv nu, if I was apart of adv nu before the tier reshuffling I am not sure if I would support adding sab and nfe's (I probably wouldnt have) but they are here now and I need a good reason to support banning them.
 

Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
It's the exception to the rule. Why I have no clue
Seems that before, they only allowed 'unique' NFEs, although as we lataer see, david stone elaborates in this thread explaining how every NFE is in some way 'unique'and furthermore has some unique advantage compared to its counterparts, even if these advantages are (very) small.

This thread is very much worth a read to understand what was going on then, but anything precluding that I don't know where that information may be.
 

Cheryl.

Celesteela is Life
I don't play ADV NU that much, so I don't know what roles make Huntail and Sableye broken. I can see Huntail being very scary thanks to Swift Swim, but that's about it. Sableye has no weaknesses, but how is he over centralizing? Calm Mind?
 

Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
I don't play ADV NU that much, so I don't know what roles make Huntail and Sableye broken. I can see Huntail being very scary thanks to Swift Swim, but that's about it. Sableye has no weaknesses, but how is he over centralizing? Calm Mind?
It's bizarre that you say you play ADV NU at all and don't know how these work - watch some NUPL games maybe?

Huntail = bulky powerful and very difficult to check the rain dance set, + can run other sets in theory that stuffs a lot of its answers (kecleon, roselia, bell, lombre, probably not gong tho) although it rarely needs to.

Sab = spinblocker/chan check (needs lots of EVs and no spikes to 100% avoid 2HKO from CB EQ from chan tho)/haunter answer/chime answer/check to shit like vigoroth and raticate, depending upon set. CM set is effective too, often suprising more common ways to abuse its presence (e.g. spikers all hate fire punch and taunt, mawile too) and is harder to generally revenge kill.
 
Will Corsola Cup III have Huntail and Sableye allowed, or will it have them banned to see what the meta is like without them?
 
Okay, so Disaster Area kept on saying that Sableye stall isn't broken because you can just use Spikes + Toxic. So let me break down the problem behind that logic.

Spikes: Okay, Spikes. Problem is, Spikers suck. The only one I've really played with, Glalie, isn't really offensive enough outside of boom. And did I mention how everyone and their mom antileads Glalie, from shit like Magby and Ponyta to fucking Poliwhirl of all things? From what I've read of Cacturne, it isn't all that impressive, IIRC residing in like B rank or something, and even though it has Haunter-esque offenses, Haunter doesn't break stall either. Also spinner Chan completely and utterly decimates Spikers. Even Roselia and fucking Pineco of all things are decimated by the HP Flying Chan DA posted somewhere else. Did I mention that outside of Sableye, spinblockers suck? Haunter can't take an HP Ghost to save his life. So really, to make this work, you have to make the meta even MORE of a Sableye-fest.

Toxic: Making them die of Toxic. Okay. Problem is, Sableye stall has Toxic too. And they have bellers and recovery, so the advantage is still in their favor. This might be the part where Disaster Area suggests "OH just run bellers and recovery of your own". Okay. You've added Sableye and bellers and recovery. So now you're either a half-assed stall team or an out-and-out stall team. So now ADV NU is a stallfest. See the problem with this?

And I find it revealing that a while back, Disaster Area suggested bait-killing Flareon with CB Mawile, when in fact I'm talking about Sableye. Ok, Flareon isn't broken. I admit that you can get around it with shit like Diglett and can use any water or rock to force it ou. What are the options to even remotely consistently bait-kill Sableye that isn't ass?

...

You can't boom it, can't Focus Punch it, it literally has no weaknesses so you can exploit (so you can't HP Grass it like you can something like Relicanth or Whiscash). I guess the best option is to attack it and then sac something while it's in Diglett's damage range, and have Diglett do the rest? Though somehow I have my doubts about the consistency of that method.

...


Please ban Sableye.
 

Bughouse

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Although I came into this thread thinking Sableye was more of a problem than Huntail I actually think the reverse now. I've found bog standard Sableye stall to be quite breakable if you build and play smart. There are a good handful of set up sweepers that can greatly damage stall. And so can some Band Pokemon. And so can some boomers like Wailord. Don't get me wrong - stall is still really good. But I don't think it's as amazing as it originally was in NUPL. Huntail on the other hand is just as absurd as always.
 

Bughouse

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Band Piloswine does a metric assload to most common stall mons (sadly not Chimecho or Togetic) with just straight up EQ spam.

SubSD Focus Punch HP (Flying imo) Cacturne can put in a lot of work.

Toxic Hitmonchan puts a ton of pressure on Stall teams that often have just Sableye as a guaranteed switch-in.
 
First off Thrice Elite:
"Spikes: Okay, Spikes. Problem is, Spikers suck. The only one I've really played with, Glalie, isn't really offensive enough outside of boom."
Okay well, there are 3 other spikers, I advise trying them first, my favorite one for offense is Cacturne. Many of the spikers are very versatile besides, perhaps Glalie.

"And did I mention how everyone and their mom antileads Glalie, from shit like Magby and Ponyta to fucking Poliwhirl of all things?"
You dont have to lead with your spiker. Sidenote: Poliwhirl is a legitimate threat that can set up on and ohko Sable

"From what I've read of Cacturne, it isn't all that impressive, IIRC"
Its great. It can break many of its counters pretty easily (especially Chan), really, you should try it. I run hp ghost/focus punch/spikes/toxic on most of em.

"Also spinner Chan completely and utterly decimates Spikers."
This is true. Chan is the top ranked mon in the meta and it is really dangerous and no one mon can counter every set. In fact i think its more dominant than Sableye, and is an important reason to keep Sableye.

"Toxic: Making them die of Toxic. Okay. Problem is, Sableye stall has Toxic too. And they have bellers and recovery, so the advantage is still in their favor. This might be the part where Disaster Area suggests "OH just run bellers and recovery of your own". Okay. You've added Sableye and bellers and recovery. So now you're either a half-assed stall team or an out-and-out stall team. So now ADV NU is a stallfest. See the problem with this?"
Yes I see a problem with a meta where the only way to be competitive is to stall, a meta where creativity is restricted. Sable is not that, not yet. Out-stalling Sable is not your only option in dealing with it. Its slow, weak, and frail on the special side, Sable doesnt handle any cb'r well, or any sp attacker. There are offensive answers, try a stalking wailord (90 sp attack hiding on that fucker), swords dance mawile, or try strategies like knock off and diglett for 2hko, or throw trick on your team. With knock off its a lot easier to get that coveted 2hko. Seadra 2hkos it, trapinch 2hko's and traps ir. Its called innovation, its called creativity, and thats what makes team building so much fun. There are million more ways to counter Sable but those are the ways we are bitching about, right?

"And I find it revealing that a while back, Disaster Area suggested bait-killing Flareon with CB Mawile, when in fact I'm talking about Sableye. Ok, Flareon isn't broken. I admit that you can get around it with shit like Diglett and can use any water or rock to force it ou. What are the options to even remotely consistently bait-kill Sableye that isn't ass?"
Just to be argumentative, you can totally bait kill Sable. With dbond Haunter. Or Trapinch.

I think your opening argument "spikes: spikers suck but i have only tried glalie" says it all. You havent tried much! Or nearly enough to say all options are exhausted, and when you ban something just because its difficult to deal with its like giving trophies just for participating, it dumbs the (meta) game down.

Thrice Elite, you are a very good player and I mean no offense.
 
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