Blissey

[cantab]

Without Blissey, even a NU pokemon like Gorebyss would run rampant in the rain. Getting your team swept by Gorebyss sounds so delicious doesn't it?

Stopped dead by Abomasnow.

if the pokemon walls a significant portion of the metagame, at least 1/3, it is uber by this characteristic.

But what's "the metagame"? And what is walling? And does "pokemon" regard different Formes as the same or different Pokemon? (All these are rhetorical questions btw)
The point is that trying to define every little detail makes things arguably overcomplicated.

 

[kd24]

But what's "the metagame"? And what is walling? And does "pokemon" regard different Formes as the same or different Pokemon? (All these are rhetorical questions btw)
The point is that trying to define every little detail makes things arguably overcomplicated.

i don't want to define every little thing right now, just the characteristic itself. but how is defining everything bad? If anything it would make it all very clear and we wouldn't ever have these debates/problems, but thats a dream thats not likely.

And like I just said, I am not trying to define "a small portion". I want to give us a reference point. What is wrong with that? If we as a community decide that Blissey walls 1/3 of the metagame and isnt broken, then we can say that it should wall at least 1/3 if it falls under uber def characteristics.

another solution as a fun side project would be testing deoxys-d and force everyone to talk about how it fits the defensive characteristics. maybe it ends up walling 2/3 of the metagame, but it still isn't solely broken because of that.

All this testing will help us in the future for this kind of stuff.

 

[Alex_Dino]

The point is that trying to define every little detail makes things arguably overcomplicated.

So less work is fine, as long as you don't screw up the metagame. The problem is that it's getting to the point where we're questioning things that could possibly screw up the metagame.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't a "leave it as it is, you're going to screw it up" speech. This is a "We need to clarify things further before moving on" speech.

Let's take an example. Say you're using a CAD program. You're building the capsule that is being used at the National Ignition Facility in California to hold the fuel that could possibly ignite fusion within the next year. This capsule is only a couple millimeters big, and NIF manufacturing requirements are very strict. If the capsule is so much as a micrometer off, NIF will reject it and you will have to start from scratch.

Let's use another example. Say you're a computer programmer, hell, you're creating the 5th generation of Pokémon (controversies aside). You're writing the code in maybe C++, Java, C#, Ruby, or a different programming language. Even so, if you mistype or misspell anything, you're going to get a build error, and that's only half the process, you also have to check for infinite loops, execution errors, and logical errors that the computer won't find by itself.

Finally let's bring it all home. Say you're trying to breed a perfect 31/31/31/31/31/31 Adamant Chimchar for use in the VGC. You have no idea of how RNG manipulation works so you do it the old-fashioned way. This could take many weeks. Finally, you have your star Pokémon, but now you have to EV train it. You have to know how many EV's it currently has, and if you screw up, yeah, you can use EV-reducing berries, but it just means you gotta start all over again.


All three of these above examples take dedication, patience, and perseverance to do properly. Smogon is no different. In fact, the last example is what allows Smogon to be what it is. How long did it take to figure out the syntax for Effort Values? Individual Values? The Damage Formula? We didn't know that IV's even existed when R/B/Y came out. We had to find out on our own. And when R/S/E/Fr/Lg came out we had to figure out what EV's were, and what Natures did. Now in D/P/Pt/Hg/Ss we were able to find what the "characteristic" in every Pokémon's stat corresponded to, as well as the Damage Formula.

Smogon is a professional community, built by professional-thinking people. Being a part of Smogon is not like being a part of Serebii or Marriland. If we stop being professional about things now, everything that we've worked for will get ruined. Why stop doing the hardest things when this is what Smogon was built for in the first place?

 

[cantab]

It's not about making less or more work. It's about the fact that overcomplication could bring its own problems. What if we create some rigidly-defined Uber characteristic, then it's realised that something 'obviously' not Uber nonetheless meets it?
Besides that, the Uber characteristics probably always WILL be subjective to a degree also. That is why we have suspect testing and voting in the first place.

Basically, I think all the rules we make should be as simple as necessary, but no simpler. I'm not sure if it's necessary to complicate the uber characteristics. If the defensive characteristic is broken, maybe we could simply get rid of it? Are there any current Ubers that fall under it only?

 

[kd24]

It's not about making less or more work. It's about the fact that overcomplication could bring its own problems. What if we create some rigidly-defined Uber characteristic, then it's realised that something 'obviously' not Uber nonetheless meets it?
Besides that, the Uber characteristics probably always WILL be subjective to a degree also. That is why we have suspect testing and voting in the first place.

what? the current problem is that others and i feel that blissey who is "obviously" not uber, fits the loose characteristic. by tightening it up, we can exclude her and make it much simpler for people who nominate under the defensive characteristic.

 

[Mister Anbu]

I think that criteria such as "enjoyable" should be omitted when discussing something like this. It's a relative term. A stall player would look at Blissey and say they love it in the metagame and its removal would make it entirely less fun. The same vice versa, a hyper-offense team would love Blissey's removal.

Right now, I don't believe Blissey needs much reconsidering. Its job is easily defined and it serves a very important purpose. Hyper-offense special teams would rip through the metagame without Blissey around, or Chansey would just become that much more prevalent.

I think the metagame revolves around offensive threats far more than it does defensive threats, thus a pokemon classified as defensively uber wouldn't carry the same weight as say, an offensively OU pokemon.

Blissey is a necessary balance, and finds itself used far less than other pokemon and for good reason.

 

[Kachalski]

Blissey is a tough one to call broken simply because of the enormous amounts of physical attackers in the metagame. Lucario, Tyranitar, Salamence, Gyarados, Machamp, Infernape, Heracross, Metagross, Kingdra, and Scizor are some of the most common pokemon you will see, and all of their standard sets are physical attacking or mixed attacking. Almost every team has at least one of these, meaning almost every team has at least one counter to a Blissey in most cases. (And if your team doesn't have one of those, it's probably not very good)

But the purpose of this thread is to say "Is it broken that 1 Poemon makes the metagame more Phsyical than Special".

Personally, I feel that Blissey should see some sort of testing, but I'm fairly bias, as with 67% of other Noobs, I can't stand Blissey.

Also, I bolded the Pokemon that can KO of the bat with common moves, without killing themsleves.

 

[cantab]

what? the current problem is that others and i feel that blissey who is "obviously" not uber, fits the loose characteristic. by tightening it up, we can exclude her and make it much simpler for people who nominate under the defensive characteristic.

Gah, maybe I shouldn't have said 'obviously'. Because in Blissey's case, while the 'obvious' answer is she's not Uber, I'm not so sure. As I mentioned before, she performs well in Ubers.

I wonder if the best resolution is to better define what we mean by 'the metagame'. For example, are we on about common sets, or possible sets. Are we on about part of OU, or all of OU, or more? Do we weight by what's commonly used - should sweeping the top third be considered different to sweeping the bottom third?

Also, should 'the metagame' include the suspect itself?! I think currently it does, but since the suspect will influence the metagame to be better able to deal with it, maybe it shouldn't. (Of course it's rather hard to test a suspect in a metagame it's not in, though it might be possible by using previous teams.) Drop Rayquaza into OU and people probably would find ways to deal with it (Explosion springs to mind, as does Hidden Power Ice on everything), potentially shifting to a metagame in which it meets the Uber characteristics less blatantly. Similarly, for Blissey's case, judged against a Blissey-less metagame she probably WOULD be Uber.

 

[Alex_Dino]

It's not about making less or more work. It's about the fact that overcomplication could bring its own problems. What if we create some rigidly-defined Uber characteristic, then it's realised that something 'obviously' not Uber nonetheless meets it?
Besides that, the Uber characteristics probably always WILL be subjective to a degree also. That is why we have suspect testing and voting in the first place.

Basically, I think all the rules we make should be as simple as necessary, but no simpler. I'm not sure if it's necessary to complicate the uber characteristics. If the defensive characteristic is broken, maybe we could simply get rid of it? Are there any current Ubers that fall under it only?

You aren't looking in the correct context. To some, Smogon is already overcomplicated. And to the other 90% of Pokémon battlers, some don't even know what's super-effective against Ground.

And sure, let's get rid of the Defensive Characteristic, then we can bring back Wob and Lugia. How's that for a metagame?

It's not just the Defensive Characteristic that's broken, it's all of the Characteristics. And they aren't broken, what they need is clarification.

Consider.

Offensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.

Ambiguous words in Offensive Characteristic:
"common"
"significant portion"
"little effort"

Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.

Ambiguous words in Defensive Characteristic:
"common"
"significant portion"

Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep.

Ambiguous words in Support Characteristic:
"common"
"substantially easier"

They all have ambiguous wording in them. If this was code, it would fail at the build proccess, because computer languages are specific and unambiguous for a reason; they define all of the rules, syntax, and semantics.

These Characteristics are essentially our 'code' for building the standard metagame. If they are ambiguous, then they will fail at the build process. Which, btw, we are still in the process of doing.

 

[cantab]

And sure, let's get rid of the Defensive Characteristic, then we can bring back Wob and Lugia. How's that for a metagame?

Wobb's Uber under support. Lugia and Giratina I wonder if they'd also fall under support.

If this was code, it would fail at the build proccess, because computer languages are specific and unambiguous for a reason; they define all of the rules, syntax, and semantics.

These Characteristics are essentially our 'code' for building the standard metagame. If they are ambiguous, then they will fail at the build process. Which, btw, we are still in the process of doing.

Code is the wrong analogy I feel. Law would be a better analogy. And while laws aim to minimise ambiguity, they nonetheless leave a lot of things up to the judges and juries. Things like the use of 'reasonable force' in self-defense.
For us, the suspect testers are the juries. If we make the characteristics like code, there's no role for human consideration in their execution.

EDIT: Again considering the law analogy, what 'common battle conditions' and so on mean could either be decided by the suspect testers, or treated like case law - once one test decides that X percent is a significant portion for the defensive characteristic, later tests can simply follow the precedent.

 

[LoveDensity]

I thought I had tried to make it clear that I do not want to show that Blissey should be removed for a better metagame. I want to show that despite the metagame being better, removing Blissey would be the wrong choice. In UU, we may come to a point where a Pokemon is nominated under the defensive characteristic. By performing this short test in OU, we can try and clear up what exactly fits that characteristic, especially if everyone likes to use the characteristics as an end all to every question.
It is not a question of "being broken/annoying", it is a question of "is removing a Pokemon that would make the metagame more diverse and fun a bad desicion?". In my personal opinion, identifying the answer to this question is very important.

This Blissey discussion has been generating different ideas than what you are trying to achieve and perphas that is confusing me. But I do still propose against a Blissey test.

Ok obviously defensive characteristics is the hardest to identify out of the three characteristics. Although I do not necessarily like the Uber characteristics, I believe that it is a good beginning step to achieve a "better" metagame. I knew where you were coming with your statements in that you want to identify the defensive characteristic better. But I do not think that is what Smogon is currently wanting to achieve by removing Blissey. We need to take baby steps first to find things that are easier to identify as potentially broken that fits those current characteristics which affects the metagame. After that maybe people can consider Blissey as a suspect to test the defensive characteristics.

 

[Ninjadead]

I don't have to write a half page essay to tell you guys that Blissey has enough counters in OU. There is no need to make her Uber, it would just make some people's team building easier because they don't have to include a counter but at the same time give them a less effective Special Wall.

I don't care how much Defence and HP you put into Blissey, most if not all STAB Fighting attacks will defeat her, with Blissey not being able to do much in return. People really need to stop whinging and complaing about Pokemon they have a hard time of defeating.

 

[noob3]

please also ban swampert and skarmorys! my physical sweepers just cant get past them! and also rotom is over centralizing the metagame! i have to run seed bomb on my cacturne or i just cant beat it! it takes all of my sucker punch pp spamming will o wisp! its SO cheap! u ever wonder why cacturne is NU?? how much more enjoyable would the metagame be without these DESTRUCTIVE walls?

:rollseyes:

 

[cim]

I personally think the Defensive Criterion for Uber should not exist. A Pokemon that simply takes hits and does nothing else is useless. That's one of the reasons Cresselia is so bad, all it can do is take hits.

Defense can augment the Support characteristic by making it trivial and easy to give support to a team, but no Pokemon that meets the Defensive Characteristic and no other characteristic will do anything to break the game.

Regardless, "the majority of the metagame" is more than half. Pokemon having to change their moveset (i.e. add a good physical move) in order to beat a Pokemon isn't bad, it's normal.

That being said, I definitely don't think your proposal makes an ounce of sense. I honestly don't think Blissey does that much to limit diversity as you so put it.

 

[Raikaria]

Without Blissey, even a NU pokemon like Gorebyss would run rampant in the rain. Getting your team swept by Gorebyss sounds so delicious doesn't it?

Vaporeon, Water Absorb, Ice Resist, Base 130 HP and Base 95 Sp.Def?

Ludicolo? X4 Water Resist, Grass Type moves, Swift Swim to beat in terms of speed in the Rain?

Kingdra? Outspeeds, X4 Water resist, and OHKO's with a Dragon Attack.

Celebi? Base 100 Hp + Sp.Defence?

Suicune? Need I mention the CroCune Set?

I rest my case.

As for whoever said stall would be less fun, it wouldn't be less fun. Stall's not really fun anyway, in my opinion, but when Blissey is gone, it'll open up the group that can do the special walling more. Vaporeon? Celebi? Suicune? The list goes on.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Well, you talk about a more enjoyable metagame. The definintion of an uber is not if the removal of this Pokemon will make it more fun, but if it's broken.

Also, I agree Blissey does wall a large portion of the metagame, but do you know how much is really needed? It doesn't wall a majority, due to a larger physical-based metagame. If we need a majority, then Blissey doesn't deserve to be tested. That's just my opinion on things. Until someone defines a % or something along those lines, I don't think we should actually do anything, so I agree we could redefine the characteristics to make it more specific.

If the game is more fun without a certain pokemon, people will make reasons to ban it. That is what is at the heart of all of this-- making a better game. :/


That said, I'm an offensive player but I still don't really think a game without Blissey would be more fun . . .

 

[Olliert]

I actually agree with KD here in as much that it's not what Blissey can do in this but more what the metagame would be like if Blissey weren't here. I think there is a definite flaw in the definition of a 'defensive' characteristic of an uber because if a pokemon walls the majority of a 'metagame' with ease then it's pretty obvious that the metagameis going to change because of this pokemon.

Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.

This is the official definition of a defensive characteristic which makes a pokemon uber. However, as I have already mentioned, the metagame would not be such that a pokemon could 'wall and stall out' a significant portion of it because that portion would most likely become unviable. It is therefore almost impossible to make a pokemon uber under these characteristics. Take, for example, Lugia, who in most peoples opinion, is obviously uber. If this pokemon were to be brought down to OU then yes, for a while it will be able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the current metagame. However, if everybody started using Lugia, much, may I add, like Blissey in d/p, wouldn't the pokemon walled by Lugia become unviable in that metagame? There are still some OU pokemon that can take on Lugia and so wouldn't they rise to the top of the metagame. And if, therefore, the pokemon that could take on Lugia were getting used more and more wouldn't Lugia's usage consequently drop? And with that it's ability to 'wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame'? Here, as you can see, it can be very hard to classify a pokemon UBER based on these characteristics.

Therefore, I, like kd24, do not think that Blissey should be banned because it is 'broken' but I feel that the concept of Blissey, and indeed the defensive characteristic that makes a pokemon UBER should be looked over and revised.

 

[Kachalski]

I'm looking at half the posts here, and I'm thinking some of you are missing the point. Your arguement "There are enough counters for Blissey" is flawed, because the point of this topic is to ask "Has the metagame changed because of Blissey", so that we have to mould the metagame to make sure we don't fall to Blissey.

 

[Objection]

I would have thought that, Blissey or no Blissey, both physical and special attacks would be a requirement on any kind of offensive team anyway, simply because there are pokemon that are generally hit harder by physical attacks (such as Latias, Tentacruel and Tyranitar) and there are pokemon that are generally hit harder by special attacks (such as Skarmory, Forretress and Hippowdon). Blissey is nothing more than an extreme of the former - takes special attacks like a champ, doesn't take physical hits very well. Therefore, I put it to you that removing Blissey will have a negligible effect on offensive teams.

 

[EvilMario]

I'm looking at half the posts here, and I'm thinking some of you are missing the point. Your arguement "There are enough counters for Blissey" is flawed, because the point of this topic is to ask "Has the metagame changed because of Blissey", so that we have to mould the metagame to make sure we don't fall to Blissey.

Yes, the metagame has changed because of Blissey. It can easily be seen by how physically based setup moves are so much more common. It's so much easier to break through any of the physical walls with power neutral STAB attacks than it is to break Blissey with anything in the special realm.

Nasty Plot 1.58%
Calm Mind 3.85%
Swords Dance 6.76%
Dragon Dance 7.28%

It's tough to say that Blissey should be tested because it changes the metagame. I would argue Tyranitar changes the metagame even more, as Sandstream plays a huge role, his role as the best Pursuiter, and his increases Special Walling capabilities this generation. I don't think anyone would argue that he should be tested for his 'impact on the metagame'. It is accepted that he is a powerful Pokemon, but not broken.

If Blissey was tested and removed, the metagame would change drastically. Stall would probably decline to novelty levels, the need for Toxic Spikes would drop, and it would require the retesting of any number of Pokemon. This generation's game can keep changing, over and over, endlessly.. because everyone has a different view on what makes 'the best metagame'. Right now, I'm fairly happy with it, because there are many forms of gameplay that can thrive.

 

[Fly-gon]

Blissey is a defensive pokemon, she's never trying to sweep since that's not her job, so the idea of a "counter" to blissey doesn't have sense. She just switches in almost any special attacker, uses some support move like SR, Wish, Aromatherapy or status the next switch in with Toxic/Thunder Wave and happily switches out as the "counter" comes in.

Also, Blissey is not comparable to any other defensive pokemon as there isn't any other pokemon that can take (special and even some weak physical) hits like her. Is for this reason that I think we have this physical metagame, as many people don't want to use some special attackers simply because of Blissey. Obviously, the large majority of the metagame can't be walled by Blissey beacuse those pokemon that are walled by her are not going to be used and therefore aren't part of the metagame.

I think the idea of testing a metagame without her is pretty interesting. Maybe Gengar becomes more problematic now that he's free to run hp fire instead of explosion and can easily defeat scizor. The same could happen with Latias that chooses to use hp fire or dragon pulse instead of trick. Also Starmie with its awesome coverage and speed could become too much to handle. Heatran now uses hp grass and dragon pulse, hitting every of its counters, and the list goes on. That would also lead to new special walls: vaporeon, the forgotten milotic and snorlax.

Who knows, maybe Blissey prevents the metagame to become a total chaos and brings ceratin balance, because pokemon that become specially defensive instead of physical to replace Blissey can't wall certain treats anymore, some offensive pokes that were mainly physical can now run special sets, and the metagame becomes so unpredictable that is impossible to wall anything.

I know this sounds crazy, but perhaps a physical metagame is more balanced that a mixed one. I think the metagame is pretty balanced as it is. Sorry if I made some grammar mistakes, but English is not my first language.

 

[sunkirby]

Without Blissey, the metagame wouldn't EVEN be more fun. It is so much fun to use things that are great at destroying BLISSEY. Such as: Infernape. Its so satisfying when you nail Blissey with a Close Combat.

Not to mention the fact that the metagame is quite balanced imo. and that getting rid of blissey would destroy that. what's great about blissey, is the utitlity it has to balance unbalance teams. Oh noez! i have a special weakness! Wait a second, throw in a bliss. And the only thing that really stops it is you have you were to have a fighting weakness.

so. no. Keep blissey.

 

[Calm Pokemaster]

Blissey maintains the balance between physical and special sweepers.She is also the reason for many specially-based Pokemon carrying explosion and investing some attack EV's(Heatran,Gengar).Removing her from the standard metagame would really imbalance the battling scenario.

 

[cantab]

You think Blissey actually BALANCES the metagame?

The previously mentioned disparity between Swords Dance and Nasty Plot would seem to contradict that. If it's not down to Blissey, can it be explained in terms of the general quality of the moves' users?
Special attacking Pokemon are forced to carry some physical attacks and EVs because of Blissey. There's nothing really the other way around. I guess Skarmory causes some trouble, but boosted physical hits can take it down. Skarm's walling comes as much from resistances as from raw stats, meaning physical Fire or Electric can take it out. (Admittedly, they are rare). Blissey shrugs off even boosted special fighting.

 

[supermarth64]

You think Blissey actually BALANCES the metagame?

The previously mentioned disparity between Swords Dance and Nasty Plot would seem to contradict that. If it's not down to Blissey, can it be explained in terms of the general quality of the moves' users?
Special attacking Pokemon are forced to carry some physical attacks and EVs because of Blissey. There's nothing really the other way around. I guess Skarmory causes some trouble, but boosted physical hits can take it down. Skarm's walling comes as much from resistances as from raw stats, meaning physical Fire or Electric can take it out. (Admittedly, they are rare). Blissey shrugs off even boosted special fighting.

There's more than one reason why Nasty Plot is used so much less than Swords Dance.

1) 5 Pokemon in OU get Nasty Plot, while 13 Pokemon in OU get Swords Dance.
2) If we actually look at the Pokemon that use Nasty Plot:
Infernape: Actually beats Blissey, but gets countered by Latias.
Togekiss: Generally too slow to sweep, while it's most annoying and effective set is probably one that includes Air Slash and Thunder Wave. Togekiss can beat Blissey with a set of Air Slash / Heal Bell / Nasty Plot / Roost.
Azelf: Scizor handles it with Bullet Punch.
Weavile: lol
Porygon-z: Scizor still handles it.