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Opinion Research on Tiering, Looking Forward to XY
- Thread starter Chou Toshio
- Start date
MikeDawg
Banned deucer.
That's not what I'm arguing though. The issue doesn't lie in attempting to regulate Uber/OU based on what we perceive as being inherently fit for those tiers, as that really isn't the issue, especially with a council. The problem is that dropping Uber mons on a large scale is completely counterproductive to the tiering process.
For example, if you put terrakion into UU it would be overpowered, no? The same can be said for dragonite, keldeo, etc. But what if you put the entirety of OU into UU? Would anything really be overpowered? No, since it all balances out. The same applies with dropping reshiram or arceus into ou, as opposed to dropping the whole tier in. In the first case it is perfectly clear that they are overpowered, in the latter nothing seems awry.
This will cause an immediate almost whole tier shift (ou-uu, uu-ru, etc.) resulting in a ridiculously large NU (though this can be circumvented by adding a new tier).
But what are the positives of this situation? That we can now test "Ubers?" How much would this actually impact the Ubers (then ou) meta, though? There can't be more than a couple, at the most, mons that would be banned.
And so the real question, and what I am actually arguing, is this:
Is all of the work required to facilitate a proper tier shift (adding more tiers, etc.) worth it? I believe the answer is no, hence my judgement of the idea.
The current system where Ubers is a psuedo-tier simply does not seem broken (heck, I've seen multiple accounts of people believe that the "banlist tier" is more balanced than actual ou), so it seems like a complete waste of time (and has the possibility of negatively affecting diversity across the board)
On a lesser note, if we do make ubers a legitimate tier, then it could also inhibit current ou a bit. Lots of non-uber mons work very well in ubers (ferrothorn, for example). If ubers were a real, usage-based tier, then ferrothorn and co. would likely be ubers simply based off of usage, regardless of the fact that they would function fine in other tiers.
Of course, there are already similar instances of this happening. Gastrodon for example would be fine in lower tiers but is ou on virtue of usage, but it isn't as relevant since the last time gastrodon fell it went straight to nu as it doesn't have much use in other tiers.
In the uber situation, though, there is such a wide range of excellent (within their respective tiers) mons that would become "ou" simply out of usage while they would still be fine, and could even become an integral part to "uu" or lower.
Of course, this could be argued either way, but it is still something to consider.
P.S. I really like a lot of the things you've been posting lately, Chou.
tl;dr: Drop all Ubers=Not bad, just pointless
Christ that survey was long, did not expect that going in.
So here are some opinions I have here and may have looked odd in the survey. I think it may be worth testing everything in XY bar Arceus and Moody. Why? Throughout this generation Ubers has had a more consistent level of balance than OU, with the only thing complained about being Arceus earlier in the generation. Not only does the sheer versatility and power sound broken to me but with a smaller banlist you are probably going to have a quicker ban system and I believe that one ban may cause a chain reaction, which Arceus would easily cause. I would really like to try out this metagame and have Arceus just be the Uber; if the metagame reached a point of "agreed balance" we could even go on to test Arceus in the tier.
So here are some opinions I have here and may have looked odd in the survey. I think it may be worth testing everything in XY bar Arceus and Moody. Why? Throughout this generation Ubers has had a more consistent level of balance than OU, with the only thing complained about being Arceus earlier in the generation. Not only does the sheer versatility and power sound broken to me but with a smaller banlist you are probably going to have a quicker ban system and I believe that one ban may cause a chain reaction, which Arceus would easily cause. I would really like to try out this metagame and have Arceus just be the Uber; if the metagame reached a point of "agreed balance" we could even go on to test Arceus in the tier.
I agree somewhat with this. The part I like is having a very minor ban list and having most pokemon, even cover legendaries, in the beginning of OU. However, I think it should be more than Arceus. Arceus, Mewtwo, Kyogre, Groudon, and the Deo formes should be insta-banned to Ubers. The Deo formes may be questionable, but everything else would just be time wasting. Arceus has already been explained previously by TheFourthChaser, while Kyogre and Groudon completely run the usage of Ubers more so than any mon in any tier has been able to do this generation. If you thought Drizzle and Drought were broken, imagine if pokemon that didn't actually suck and had a purpose also had these abilities. On the topic of Mewtwo, c'mon. It has ZERO counters in Ubers and, unlike Hydreigon, has the speed to not be revenge killed so easily. Psystrike nails the blobs, Aura Sphere and Shadow Ball give perfect coverage and any special attacker would kill for the former if they only had access to Focus Blast. Based on the movesets on this site, it does prefer to run Ice Beam or Fire Blast over Shadow Ball, but still maintains the title of having no counters. Dialga, Palkia, Ho-oh, etc. let them roam from in OU and see how it goes since OU could really use some defensive pivots to help stall out.
People complain enough about weather in ou, i have no idea how would palkia and ho-oh could even be close to healthy in the meta. If we are going to implement a small initial banlist for gen 6 ou we must be a lot more criterious. Im definitely on the fence regarding lugia and maybe giratina but other than that i dont see any of the others base 670+ being acceptable. Giratina-O would be an immortal mixed attacker, reshiram is volcarona on steroids, zekrom, is haxorus on steroids, kyurem-w is kyurem except it is impossible to switch into etc.
And Ho-oh is weak four times to SR (even though Regenerator helps with that some). Giratina-O is restricted to a hold item that only boosts its STAB's by 20%. Zekrom has the same physical move pool as Cube with an ability that does squat for it but minus the SR weakness. Rayquaza is slow and will get revenge killed easily and is SR weak. Reshiram is weak to all hazards and faces the same problems of being too slow thanks to its common base 90 speed. Lugia, Dialga, and Giratina are all defensive pokemon that would be acceptable to try out and might not seem over powered in OU. The only pokemon I am having second thoughts on are Kyu-W because of its perfect 2-move coverage and Palkia because he sits at the 100 base speed spot that is so important to be able to reach.
MikeDawg
Banned deucer.
Ho-oh has absurd bulk (and regenerator as you mentioned) and crazy power. Giratina-O gets a hold item that boosts its stabs by 20%. Zekrom gets stab bolt strike and outrage, while terravolt lets it ignore sturdies and the like. Rayquaza has 150 base offensive stats and has access to extremespeed and much higher attack than lucario, reshiram has unresisted stab coverage, if alone in ou, lugia would be an unstoppable calm mind sweeper, dialga has 150 spatt and great typing and a ridiculous movepool, giratina doesn't die.
Of course this is looking at these pokes in a vacuum. If the whole uber tier was dropped they would obviously balance each other out. But either way you are really understating these pokemon. It isn't as if in current ubers people just say "oh garchomp outspeeds everything i win." These "slow" pokes also have absurd bulk and power, and many have the means to boost their speed if one so desired.
This may be pushing the topic in an unwanted direction and if so, I apologize.
My only problem with such a list is time. If this metagame did not turn out to have some level of "agreed balance" we could have just wasted precious time testing things like Kyogre in OU. This is somewhat remedied by a quick banning system but I've mentioned my thoughts on that in my previous post. That said, I have some confidence in testing these mons and would like a banlist to look something like
Arceus
Deo-S(?)
Evasion Clause (mentioned because this no longer exists in current Ubers)
My idea behind that list is that the Ubers may balance each other out, which I don't believe happens with Arceus, while giving any player a huge amount of options. Sure you have Kyogre but you also have Groudon for weather, along with things that can handle it well like Palkia, Soul Dew Lati@s, Ferrothorn, and more. In my opinion, weather is far more powerful and game changing in BW OU than in BW Ubers because you have Pokemon so strong that they can overcome it. A weather nerf may not even be necessary, something like Kingdra wont carry the same weight. Mewtwo is very strong but you can definitely play around it, especially with a strong offense (Scarf and priority are big helps!). I actually did consider having Deo-S on my initial banlist since its hazard laying ability is still strong to the point of silliness but half of the Deos aren't even good in Ubers and I don't see the point in having Deo-N banned from the get go on a list like this. I agree with MikeDawg that looking at these mons in a vacuum is going to make them seem stronger than they may be so I'll try to avoid that myself.
My only problem with such a list is time. If this metagame did not turn out to have some level of "agreed balance" we could have just wasted precious time testing things like Kyogre in OU. This is somewhat remedied by a quick banning system but I've mentioned my thoughts on that in my previous post. That said, I have some confidence in testing these mons and would like a banlist to look something like
Arceus
Deo-S(?)
Evasion Clause (mentioned because this no longer exists in current Ubers)
haunter
Banned deucer.
I think many of you just hit the nail on the head. While dropping a plethora of currently uber Pokemon might give us a balanced metagame (the Ubers meta is definitely a balanced one, bar Arceus) that metagame would end up being a mini-uber one. The Pokemon that would have, with an initial banlist, been OU would become UU etc. Basically we'd just make Ubers our premier metagame. That said I'm all in favor of starting with some currently Uber Pokemon (Manaphy, Shaymin-S for example) unbanned in OU.
I personally would like to keep 670+ Pokemon banned from the get-go. I don't want Ubers to be the new OU; I enjoy how the Ubers metagame has grown over the generations and develop into its own unique and distinguished tier - I don't want this tier to be reduced to OU with 1-5 ubers tacked on like back in RBY / GSC. I know this is just my personal bias, but it seems like a popular opinion anyway. I definitely liked how we started BW OU testing, with a minimal banlist of 670+ legends and everything else free to roam.
Drop an uber or two into OU once the meta stabilized and when we have good reasons to believe that the dropped uber wont destroy OU (see Kyurem-Black in BW2).
Drop an uber or two into OU once the meta stabilized and when we have good reasons to believe that the dropped uber wont destroy OU (see Kyurem-Black in BW2).
My thoughts exactly.
There is no need to bring the ubers down so they can 'balance' each other out, they are uber for a reason. OU is a metagame that's shifting around the 'normal' pokémon, not those that are so powerful that one will have to rely on other absurdly powerful pokémon to beat them. It'll become a vicious cycle that will be even worse than the start of BW OU. The fact that powerful pokémon and 'playing around' those powerful pokémon make sure that the powerful pokémon stay in check is not a healthy metagame, and in my opinion, should not be the premier metagame: OU.
I don't think it's 'balance" I think it could very well be actual balance, the Ubers meta being in a better condition imo than the OU meta is interesting and worth looking into (again imo). What is 'normal' Pokemon? Normal is nothing more than what you are used to. If we had always allowed things like Mewtwo your entire perception of normal would be different and to not be willing to try something because it isn't normal is silly to me. We create what normal is.
Sure they're powerful but this power allows us to overcome commonly complained about problems in Standard like U-Turn/Volt Switch, weather, lack of defensive options, and more. What you've summed up is that powerful pokemon are checking others and from what I've seen in BW Ubers I think it is fair to call this balance on a higher level. If there is any problem for a metagame with this idea I think it may become stagnant and see little change throughout a generation, which would be pretty lame.
lol dammit man
What could possibly be brought down that wouldn't be considered broken? Skymin? seriously? You have a truckload of people saying jirachi's paraflinch is broken and you want something even more powerful to be brought to ou? Mana is much bulkier in ou than it is in ubers and allow hydrarest be actually considered a threat since precious few things in ou can cleanly ohko it and absolutely nothing wants to switch in on a +3 mana and it has setup oppurtunities against the likes of -2 SpA dragons, jelli, etc. If you were going to list examples of ubers being brought down at down at least do something that's semi reasonable. I have no idea why ou is the most popular/favored tier though, anyone mind explaining this to me? :X
I'd like to see Deoxys-N for sure in OU in XY.
It's completely outclassed by every forme (Deoxys-A and Deoxys-S in particular) and as such should be tested in OU.
In my opinion, the only mons that shouldn't be dropped in OU are Arceus, Kyogre(would break rain, Politoed is OK), Groudon(similar reasons to Kyogre), Mewtwo and all deo-formes except deoxys-n and MAYBE deoxys-d.
It's completely outclassed by every forme (Deoxys-A and Deoxys-S in particular) and as such should be tested in OU.
In my opinion, the only mons that shouldn't be dropped in OU are Arceus, Kyogre(would break rain, Politoed is OK), Groudon(similar reasons to Kyogre), Mewtwo and all deo-formes except deoxys-n and MAYBE deoxys-d.
Obviously things will change, new moves, abilities, etc.
Don't waste time with Shaymin-S, Darkrai, Deoxys-S and co. 660 BST legendaries have no business in OU. Whatever, you can say that is from a selfish perspective (and somewhat from a noob perspective). I don't know why anyone would want OU to be this way and have a very short amount of Ubers. I cant see this happening though, but I have no doubt it will be more enjoyable.
Also, would like to see Stealth Rocks and weather dealt with.
Don't waste time with Shaymin-S, Darkrai, Deoxys-S and co. 660 BST legendaries have no business in OU. Whatever, you can say that is from a selfish perspective (and somewhat from a noob perspective). I don't know why anyone would want OU to be this way and have a very short amount of Ubers. I cant see this happening though, but I have no doubt it will be more enjoyable.
Also, would like to see Stealth Rocks and weather dealt with.
I disagree with banning all 670+ BST Pokemon from the get go. After the Kyurem-B suspect test, there is clearly a chance that an Uber Pokemon with a BST over 670 could potentially work in OU. If the OU council wants to try out a couple of Uber Pokemon in OU next gen, then we need to come up with a more practical banlist then just banning all Pokemon with a high BST. For example, we might put Deo-S on the initial banlist because of how ridiculously easy it can get up hazards, Rayquaza because of its outrageously high attacking stats, and Mewtwo because of its incredible power, speed, and movepool. I don't think we should use the 670+ BST argument for banning certain Pokemon to Ubers. I think there needs to be an individual reasoning behind each ban. Who knows, GF might create a Pokemon with a 680 BST with so many crippling flaws that it would work fine in the OU metagame. It shouldn't be the BST that deems a Pokemon too broken for OU, it should be the Pokemon itself. It's obvious the Reshiram, Zekrom, Kyogre, Groudon, etc are all broken on their own, but there's always that possibility of another Kyurem-B being viable in OU.
Of course, it is very highly unlikely that another Kyurem-B will ever come around next gen, and unless the 6th gen OU metagame for some reason can better handle most of the very powerful 670+ BST Ubers, then most of them will probably be banned anyway.
Of course, it is very highly unlikely that another Kyurem-B will ever come around next gen, and unless the 6th gen OU metagame for some reason can better handle most of the very powerful 670+ BST Ubers, then most of them will probably be banned anyway.
Ok, then lets look at the individual pokemon:
Groudon and Kyogre: Setup the most powerful weathers in the game, 150 base offenses, ridiculous bulk, groudon is uncounterable, kyogre only fears gastrodon, will obviously overcentralize the meta (you can see that in the current and past uber).
Deoxys-A: Uncounterable, near uncheckable, can take advantage of switchs to setup hazards, NASTY PLOT.
Giratina-O: Ridiculous powerful mixed attacker and bulk spinblocker, excellent coverage, can phaze stuff with dragon tail while dealin high damage, the mere presence of this thing would ensure hazards would never be spun.
Ho-Oh: Base 130 offenses with two ridiculous powerful stab moves, 47% chance to burn with sacred fire (do you hate scald? Now wait to deal with this), REGENERATOR, ridiculous bulk, tailwind can overcome its speed issue, no safe switch-ins, sun boosted stab.
Reshiram: Sun boosted blue flare, tailwind overcome its speed issue, no safe switch ins, unresisted dual stab coverage.
Palkia: Abuses both rain and sun, no safe switchins, UNPREDICTABLE, perfect coverage, doesnt depend on choice items due to lustrous orb.
I could go on but the fact is these mons all have ridiculous traits that makes any though of dropping them to a lower tier simply absurd. I must say that i do agree that we could test SOME of them but ONLY after we have got to the point of stability in gen 6 ou. Thats why the kyurem-b suspect didnt made any sense because gen 5 ou has never reached this point. In case gen 6 ou turns out to be as much unbalanced as this one then i dont really see how dropping something from uber is going to do anything more than harm.
Groudon and Kyogre: Setup the most powerful weathers in the game, 150 base offenses, ridiculous bulk, groudon is uncounterable, kyogre only fears gastrodon, will obviously overcentralize the meta (you can see that in the current and past uber).
Deoxys-A: Uncounterable, near uncheckable, can take advantage of switchs to setup hazards, NASTY PLOT.
Giratina-O: Ridiculous powerful mixed attacker and bulk spinblocker, excellent coverage, can phaze stuff with dragon tail while dealin high damage, the mere presence of this thing would ensure hazards would never be spun.
Ho-Oh: Base 130 offenses with two ridiculous powerful stab moves, 47% chance to burn with sacred fire (do you hate scald? Now wait to deal with this), REGENERATOR, ridiculous bulk, tailwind can overcome its speed issue, no safe switch-ins, sun boosted stab.
Reshiram: Sun boosted blue flare, tailwind overcome its speed issue, no safe switch ins, unresisted dual stab coverage.
Palkia: Abuses both rain and sun, no safe switchins, UNPREDICTABLE, perfect coverage, doesnt depend on choice items due to lustrous orb.
I could go on but the fact is these mons all have ridiculous traits that makes any though of dropping them to a lower tier simply absurd. I must say that i do agree that we could test SOME of them but ONLY after we have got to the point of stability in gen 6 ou. Thats why the kyurem-b suspect didnt made any sense because gen 5 ou has never reached this point. In case gen 6 ou turns out to be as much unbalanced as this one then i dont really see how dropping something from uber is going to do anything more than harm.
Just saying, if you ban Arceus in current BW2 Ubers you get a metagame very similar to BW2 OU. One of the major reasons why Stall is so flexible in Ubers (something I'm really coming to appreciate after learning lower tiers for GSlam) and even why it can continue to survive is because you have an excellent wall who's typing can be shifted to glue together a defensive team. (as well as wall very unique groups of threats) On the other hand, Arceus is one of Stall's least worries as it is by no means exceptionally strong and often times you cover a vast majority of the formes with a single wall, like SpDef Ogre. (who is used for much more than just Arceus) There's going to be some exceptions, like Steelceus, who are designed to fair well against Stall but they are mostly afterthoughts and very easy to adjust for. (Gliscor is a bigger pain for Stall) Offense only uses Arceus in the case where they need a specific type to switch into specific threats (much like Stall) and to help their match-up against other offense. (since it's not so easy for Offense to brute force their way around an Arceus, much like how Stall can't simply stall out a Gliscor.)
It's just a personal pet peeve of mine when people target Arceus (which is already 17 distinct formes that you can only use one of on a team) as something that hurts Ubers when it does the exact opposite. (Unless your ideal metagame is an offensively dominated one in which case BW2 OU should fit your tastes) It's not even making Stall overly powerful in Ubers, Offense gained the edge in BW2 with stuff like Ho-Oh and Latios.
(Also, if you make Ubers the standard metagame the lower metagames would change as well. A lot of non-Ubers are used to great success in Ubers so their high usage would prevent them from dropping and would thus change the metagames that they were in previously.)
I'll try to stop before this spins away too far from the actual topic. In the end, I'll always have Ubers no matter what OU does so no complaints from me. (although we could use some of the attention OU gets, our playerbase is quite small)
haunter
Banned deucer.
It's a bit early to say how many set up opportunities Manaphy will have in Gen VI, considering that we know almost nothing about it. As far as we know, Tail Glow's mechanic might be changed again, so yeah don't make silly assumptions please. Also don't assume that it will be able to abuse hydro-rest since we don't even know if Drizzle Toed will still be available in X\Y. I think it's perfectly reasonable to start with controversial currently Uber Pokemon unbanned (probably Skymin would still be too powerful but I would not say the same for stuff like Thundurus).
Just out of curiosity, without saying that I'd condone it, but why isn't ubers actually our standard meta? Perhaps my 2-3 years of competitive pokemon aren't enough to know this but I just never understood why exactly all the powerful mons are instabanned. Is it to create more diversity or sth.? After all, the ubers meta of today is as much of a challenge and competitive as OU. At least in my opinion.
Whilst I personally don't play Ubers (I should give it a shot though), it is indeed interesting that Ubers: first and formost a banlist, managed to achieve a good level of balance. I agree on your statement of the term normal, and I probably should not have used that to get my point across, but what I'm trying to say is whether we honestly want the 'premier' tier of comp. pokémon be resolved around even more of the legendaries, than it already is? I honestly find it a little sad that there is even a notion of dropping down anything down from Ubers, other than the odd ones out: like blaziken, or pokémon that have an actual chance of working in a lower tier without seeming broken: like Kyurem(-B, though I'm still not completely out on KyuB). I personally believe we should at least attempt to upkeep some form of OU that does not completely depend or bases itself around the far more powerful legendaries.
More power means that it'll allow us to overcome commonly complained problems, but also creates new ones. The powercreep is honestly already bad enough, and if we're lucky and said powercreep won't get worse (fat chance), then why would we increase it even further? As much as I wish I didn't had too, I have to say that the current (OU) metagame favors diversity to an extend, but if ex-ubers will start roaming the fields of OU, then what would happen to the day-workers that are known as lower-tiers pokémon? They'll get pushed away except for the odd specific competent one, that can take care of one or two of the ubers that will be roaming about.
BW Ubers may be balanced, but what will happen they all come down to OU? They'll push the OU pokémon down, who will push the UU pokémon down, etc. etc.: a vicious cycle. I agree that we should test some of the ubers with the advent of XY, but I'm not sure whether we should do so at the exact beginning of XY, or play safe and instead rely on a combination of theorymon and expectations whilst the OU metgame has 'slowed down' in terms of changes: i.e. when OU has reached a certain point of stability. But what I do believe is that we should at least use some theorymon, general metagame knowledge and expectations to see what can obviously break the metagame and what is more ambigious: we can save some valuable time if we 'play it safe' rather than just drop down everything and greet them with bottles of champagne and cute little snacks.
Also with the advent of XY, seeing as there will obviously be another lower-end tier (PU or something), I don't see why we can't add something like 'Uber Balance (UB)' or 'God Tier (GT)' to keep the balance of ubers that so many people say exists.
Because a metagame should rely on usage and a tieringsystem to function, allowing changes, adaptability, etc. to florious. Ubers instead is a banlist first, tier second. I honestly believe it's just either coincidence or the lack of stability in the OU tier that has made ubers into such a stable tier as is claimed.
Not to mention it would be impossible to achieve tiers based on usage, because it wouldn't be called 'ubers' anymore. Also OU is called Over Used for a reason: it's the standard tier because it was intended and created to be the standard tier, unlike ubers.
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Mechanics changing? Very possible and I can concede that argument but being unable to transfer your mons from BW/2 or d/p/pt/Hg/ss over to x and y is a terrible assumption, and will not happen guaranteed.
Uhhh you realize that ou was only intended to be standard for the first two gens right? Since the uber choices were virtually nonexistent or whatnot and they were for Pokemon deemed too powerful for normal play but after r/s/e übers became more than a ban list and didn't have less members than party slots. Then in d/p/pt it really expanded with the introduction of stealth rock, the creation trio, etc. However Ou was the most popular then (post chomp ban) since you were allowed to run pretty much any strategy and be successful. This gen is where Ou became absolutely mindless and it still bewilders me how people can consider it as a balanced tier under the pretense of banning broken stuff that checks other broken stuff.
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