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np: RU Stage 1 - Welcome to the Jungle!
- Thread starter Nails
- Start date
- Status
It started at RU and its DW ability wasn't released in time for it to jump tiers. It will most likely go OU at the next shift.
EDIT Ninjask'd
EDIT Ninjask'd
Stratos
Banned deucer.
Swellow would be good, but due to the lack of good spinners in the tier, the fact that he needs Guts to do any damage, and the fact that Rock is the new Steel really prevent him from doing all that much in this tier. He's just too easily stalled.
Personally, I've found Steelix to be pretty great in this tier, as the only Pokemon other than Klingklang that hard stops Honchkrow no matter what. Speed schmeed, his physical bulk is still insane with no investment and he can set rocks, shuffle, and do fairly good damage. Also Mantine is the only Pokemon that even shows his face that resists both his STABs (although he isn't doing much to Tangrowth.)
Personally, I've found Steelix to be pretty great in this tier, as the only Pokemon other than Klingklang that hard stops Honchkrow no matter what. Speed schmeed, his physical bulk is still insane with no investment and he can set rocks, shuffle, and do fairly good damage. Also Mantine is the only Pokemon that even shows his face that resists both his STABs (although he isn't doing much to Tangrowth.)
Thats true, Swellow needs team support to function as i have seen, and there are plenty of good spinners, we have two of the hitmons, claydol, and sandslash. All four of which are decent in the tier. and all of which laugh in rocks and steels faces.
Something I'd like to remind you: Even if Alakazam is "predicted" to rise to OU (or at least UU) by the next tier update, you shouldn't ignore it when the time for "suspect discussion" comes: not only is there a slim chance it may not even leave RU, but you should ban what's broken, not let the tiering formulas do the hard work for you.
Specially because, if the community finds it to be broken in RU but doesn't vote on it because of the tier update, it may leave and then come back a few months from now. Yay?
Specially because, if the community finds it to be broken in RU but doesn't vote on it because of the tier update, it may leave and then come back a few months from now. Yay?
Mantyke? Just drafted up this set in teambuilder.
Mantyke (M) @ Eviolite Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SAtk
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Mirror Coat
- Scald
Impressive bulk at 293HP (odd for sr damage), 314Def, and 427SpDef (amazing in a specially oriented metagame). Resttalk for health and status recovery. Scald burns things, so you can stall them out physically, and Mirror Coat hits special attackers. It fits like a puzzle piece because the things that scald wont touch will usually be special attackers (immune to water) or fire types (weak to scald), and so you can handle a lot of things with it.
Mantyke (M) @ Eviolite Trait: Water Absorb
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SAtk
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Mirror Coat
- Scald
Impressive bulk at 293HP (odd for sr damage), 314Def, and 427SpDef (amazing in a specially oriented metagame). Resttalk for health and status recovery. Scald burns things, so you can stall them out physically, and Mirror Coat hits special attackers. It fits like a puzzle piece because the things that scald wont touch will usually be special attackers (immune to water) or fire types (weak to scald), and so you can handle a lot of things with it.
@ Mario With Lasers:
I thought that was how it always goes? They did the same when they all knew that Espeon's going to rise into solid OU after the Baton Pass + Magic Mirror legality issue was resolved. They still voted it on UU. Of course we'll ban vote if it's broken at this current state of the RU, but no need to rush things, preemptively banning things in fear of it being broken after all [insert first round bans used as checks] are gone. As of now, Alakazam is solidly checked by stuff like (mostly) Specially Defensive Sableye that dominate the ladder.
I thought that was how it always goes? They did the same when they all knew that Espeon's going to rise into solid OU after the Baton Pass + Magic Mirror legality issue was resolved. They still voted it on UU. Of course we'll ban vote if it's broken at this current state of the RU, but no need to rush things, preemptively banning things in fear of it being broken after all [insert first round bans used as checks] are gone. As of now, Alakazam is solidly checked by stuff like (mostly) Specially Defensive Sableye that dominate the ladder.
I'm about ready for Sableye to leave the tier, it's easy enough to play around and counter but it severely limits the way you can build a team. The only decent physical attacker that can be used consistently now is Entei.
Get rid of Baton Pass and Omastar then this tier will be in balance
I think I've posted this before in this topic, but I find both Rain and Sun
incredibly hard to deal with. I have yet to find a way to play around either
of them when I don't use weather myself, and even then, it's tough, and I
do not want such an otherwise balanced tier to be centralized around
weather.
There's multiple ways we can deal with this; these are only proposals!
1) Ban Damp Rock and Heat Rock.
This would be a pretty simple ban (remeber, this proposal is meant
for RU only!).
The obvious advantage would be that Rain and Sun no longer last for a
devastating 8 turns. However, seeing as how 8 turns are hardly ever
needed for a Swift Swim / Chlorophyll sweeper to wreck non-weather
teams, I personally do not think that this would be enough of a step
towards balancing Rain and Sun. I might be wrong on that since this is all
theorymon; feel free to express your thoughts about this.
2) Ban Rain Dance and Sunny Day altogether.
Yeah, this one is simple & harsh; however, seeing as how both are
incredibly easy to set up and are so powerful, this might actually be what
we end up having to do.
3) Complex Bans: Swift Swin + Rain Dance / Sunny Day + Chlorophyll.
I know I'm going to get jumped on for this, but in my opinion this is actually
a viable possibilty. It's very close to Aldarons Proposal which is used in OU
already.
I'd rather have Rain / Sun in the tier, both being playstyle options, but I
can't help but feel that there's a need to "ajust" both of them enough to
balance them out. If that means we have to ban them entirely, so be it; I'd
rather keep them just for the sake of RU's diversity, but as I see it know,
Rain and Sun teams completely roll over everything, prepared or unprepared.
incredibly hard to deal with. I have yet to find a way to play around either
of them when I don't use weather myself, and even then, it's tough, and I
do not want such an otherwise balanced tier to be centralized around
weather.
There's multiple ways we can deal with this; these are only proposals!
1) Ban Damp Rock and Heat Rock.
This would be a pretty simple ban (remeber, this proposal is meant
for RU only!).
The obvious advantage would be that Rain and Sun no longer last for a
devastating 8 turns. However, seeing as how 8 turns are hardly ever
needed for a Swift Swim / Chlorophyll sweeper to wreck non-weather
teams, I personally do not think that this would be enough of a step
towards balancing Rain and Sun. I might be wrong on that since this is all
theorymon; feel free to express your thoughts about this.
2) Ban Rain Dance and Sunny Day altogether.
Yeah, this one is simple & harsh; however, seeing as how both are
incredibly easy to set up and are so powerful, this might actually be what
we end up having to do.
3) Complex Bans: Swift Swin + Rain Dance / Sunny Day + Chlorophyll.
I know I'm going to get jumped on for this, but in my opinion this is actually
a viable possibilty. It's very close to Aldarons Proposal which is used in OU
already.
I'd rather have Rain / Sun in the tier, both being playstyle options, but I
can't help but feel that there's a need to "ajust" both of them enough to
balance them out. If that means we have to ban them entirely, so be it; I'd
rather keep them just for the sake of RU's diversity, but as I see it know,
Rain and Sun teams completely roll over everything, prepared or unprepared.
@RotatingAtom: or,
4) Ban the 'Broken' Rain Dance and Sunny Day Abusers only
Say, for example, Rain Dance teams are really broken--then are they broken without, say, Kabutops and Omastar? Would banning Ludicolo on top do the job? I realize that it's really hard to exactly measure what makes a Rain Dance team so hard to face because usually all of those go hand in hand on a same team. A lot of people psychologically is unable to tell the difference between two things when they always see them together. We see Kabu and Ludi on the same team all the time. Do we think that type of team is gay because of Kabutops, or Ludicolo, or both? Similar process could go for Sun Abusers. Is Sawsbuck too strong or is Charizard centralizing the game into Fire Blast spam and 4x fire resists? Then why not ban just the broken ones and leave the rest available for RU play?
You could argue that the fact that you get a power boost and then double up on the same wall is what makes them broken. Even then, you have to admit, if your options are limited to Floatzel, Luvdisc, etc. and leave only 2-3 good Swift Swimmers in Ludicolo and Gorebyss, then rain wouldn't be too broken anymore. Also, remember when Froslass + Moltres was tearing up DPP UU? They had to ban one of them and they decided that Froslass, the supporter, is what makes Moltres broken. Similarly, we could decide that one of the swift swimmers is the real suspect that allows the other, non-crucial swift swimmers just clean up after the broken one wrecks havoc.
On the topic of Moltres + Froslass, we also have the option of banning the 'broken' support mon. This leaves a very unlikely possibility--but we can't just overlook it and say 'well that's just stupid.' I'm not supporting the 5th one in any way--I'm just leaving this here as an option.
5) Ban the supporter that can set up the broken & guaranteed 8 turn rain.
edit: Yes, this means going after Uxie, and maybe the Priority 8-turn weathers from Murkrow and Sableye. Uxie can survive Super Effective STABs with enough health left and set up SR and weather. Sableye's going to be banned so w/e, and you have to realize that banning Uxie is going to his both Rain Dance & Sunny Day teams incredibly hard if both Cress + Uxie are gone.
I personally don't really like the third option. I know that Aldaron's proposal is there as a precedent, but I feel that I'm not alone in thinking that Aldaron's proposal was just a stopgap.
edit edit: Personally, I feel strongly for the fourth option because seriously, Weather isn't that dominating. It's a good playstyle. It's a really simple playstyle. It's hard to play against. But it's not a guaranteed loss if you have a prepared team and play smart. Being prepared here means having copious Water & Electric and Fire & Grass-type resists...all crucial resists anyways, so you might as well pick a sturdy one if you aren't playing hyper offense. Also, adding a generic counter in Ferroseed for rain & Altaria for sun is more than enough to shut them down without much thought. Against that type of mon, the weather team has to work incredibly hard to break though.
4) Ban the 'Broken' Rain Dance and Sunny Day Abusers only
Say, for example, Rain Dance teams are really broken--then are they broken without, say, Kabutops and Omastar? Would banning Ludicolo on top do the job? I realize that it's really hard to exactly measure what makes a Rain Dance team so hard to face because usually all of those go hand in hand on a same team. A lot of people psychologically is unable to tell the difference between two things when they always see them together. We see Kabu and Ludi on the same team all the time. Do we think that type of team is gay because of Kabutops, or Ludicolo, or both? Similar process could go for Sun Abusers. Is Sawsbuck too strong or is Charizard centralizing the game into Fire Blast spam and 4x fire resists? Then why not ban just the broken ones and leave the rest available for RU play?
You could argue that the fact that you get a power boost and then double up on the same wall is what makes them broken. Even then, you have to admit, if your options are limited to Floatzel, Luvdisc, etc. and leave only 2-3 good Swift Swimmers in Ludicolo and Gorebyss, then rain wouldn't be too broken anymore. Also, remember when Froslass + Moltres was tearing up DPP UU? They had to ban one of them and they decided that Froslass, the supporter, is what makes Moltres broken. Similarly, we could decide that one of the swift swimmers is the real suspect that allows the other, non-crucial swift swimmers just clean up after the broken one wrecks havoc.
On the topic of Moltres + Froslass, we also have the option of banning the 'broken' support mon. This leaves a very unlikely possibility--but we can't just overlook it and say 'well that's just stupid.' I'm not supporting the 5th one in any way--I'm just leaving this here as an option.
5) Ban the supporter that can set up the broken & guaranteed 8 turn rain.
edit: Yes, this means going after Uxie, and maybe the Priority 8-turn weathers from Murkrow and Sableye. Uxie can survive Super Effective STABs with enough health left and set up SR and weather. Sableye's going to be banned so w/e, and you have to realize that banning Uxie is going to his both Rain Dance & Sunny Day teams incredibly hard if both Cress + Uxie are gone.
I personally don't really like the third option. I know that Aldaron's proposal is there as a precedent, but I feel that I'm not alone in thinking that Aldaron's proposal was just a stopgap.
edit edit: Personally, I feel strongly for the fourth option because seriously, Weather isn't that dominating. It's a good playstyle. It's a really simple playstyle. It's hard to play against. But it's not a guaranteed loss if you have a prepared team and play smart. Being prepared here means having copious Water & Electric and Fire & Grass-type resists...all crucial resists anyways, so you might as well pick a sturdy one if you aren't playing hyper offense. Also, adding a generic counter in Ferroseed for rain & Altaria for sun is more than enough to shut them down without much thought. Against that type of mon, the weather team has to work incredibly hard to break though.
I still wouldn't use Mirror Coat. I see what your going for. But Taunt would destroy this thing(I know Mirror Coat goes though Taunt) It would get Toxic'd and Taunted to the ground.
This
I have always been of the opinion that weather is part of the metagame, and if a Pokemon is broken because of the weather of the metagame, then that Pokemon is just broken in the metagame. If the top few swift swimmers are broken, ban them. If Charizard or Sawsbuck is broken, ban them. But we should never ever cripple the majority of users because of the power of the few best abusers.
I can't believe I didn't think about this. :(
Banning individual Pokémon might be the way to go on this subject, and it's easier than any form of complex ban and probably better than banning items and moves.
The question is, which of the Pokémon that abuse Rain and Sun are broken, and which are not. That's probably difficult to decide.
I actually think Uxie and Mesprit are the main problems, not the abusers themselves. Those two have the bulk to take almost anything so they can guarantee a successful setup outside of Taunt. U-turn helps a lot too of course.
If they didn't exist in RU, teams would have to fit Rain Dance and Sunny Day in other ways such as Electrode, who can be put under pressure by scarfers, or the priority users. Sableye hopefully will be going, while Murkrow and Cottonee both have their problems. It would introduce slightly more strategy for both players since the weather user can't just bring Uxie in on anything without Taunt and guarantee setup (+ U-turn) and it gives the non-weather user more ways to predict and affect momentum knowing that whatever is setting up the weather (Exeggutor, Entei, Ludicolo etc etc) can all be exploited in some way.
Just thinking about it some more, I reckon it's actually Uxie and Mesprit's access to U-turn that is the biggest culprit - it's letting the weather sweepers come in without having to face any kind of threat. Just imagine a scenario where the weather inducers didn't use U-turn and had to switch: it would need far more perfect conditions, involve prediction and it would be a different ballgame altogether. Plus U-turn allows them to escape Taunt with (relatively easy) prediction and just makes Uxie and Mesprit that much harder to pin down.
Personally I agree that weather is overpowered at this point in time, but I don't feel that any abusers deserve to be banned yet. It's only a problem when the weather team can guarantee 8 turns of weather no matter what you do which Uxie and Mesprit guarantees along with their versatility in support. If a weather team had to work hard through team synergy and good technique to set up weather then I'm happy to let them have their reward.
If they didn't exist in RU, teams would have to fit Rain Dance and Sunny Day in other ways such as Electrode, who can be put under pressure by scarfers, or the priority users. Sableye hopefully will be going, while Murkrow and Cottonee both have their problems. It would introduce slightly more strategy for both players since the weather user can't just bring Uxie in on anything without Taunt and guarantee setup (+ U-turn) and it gives the non-weather user more ways to predict and affect momentum knowing that whatever is setting up the weather (Exeggutor, Entei, Ludicolo etc etc) can all be exploited in some way.
Just thinking about it some more, I reckon it's actually Uxie and Mesprit's access to U-turn that is the biggest culprit - it's letting the weather sweepers come in without having to face any kind of threat. Just imagine a scenario where the weather inducers didn't use U-turn and had to switch: it would need far more perfect conditions, involve prediction and it would be a different ballgame altogether. Plus U-turn allows them to escape Taunt with (relatively easy) prediction and just makes Uxie and Mesprit that much harder to pin down.
Personally I agree that weather is overpowered at this point in time, but I don't feel that any abusers deserve to be banned yet. It's only a problem when the weather team can guarantee 8 turns of weather no matter what you do which Uxie and Mesprit guarantees along with their versatility in support. If a weather team had to work hard through team synergy and good technique to set up weather then I'm happy to let them have their reward.
Or maybe we could just limit the amount of weather. I know this sounds silly but let's ban the Weather stones that extend weather. Have weather being decreased by 3 turns will balance stuff out. Pokemon like sawbuck and charizard are still useful somewhat with out weather.
But yeah banning weather altogether is good to.
But yeah banning weather altogether is good to.
I think banning pokemon which can abuse weather is just dumb, because when you ban pokemon which are good under weather, you basicly "ban" weather by making it useless.
Rather ban weather effects all togheter or nerf the rocks, both sounds good
Rather ban weather effects all togheter or nerf the rocks, both sounds good
Not to mention tiering updates don't happen very often (and the last one was very recent) so regardless of what happens then we're stuck with it for quite a while. The same is true in regards to sableye
Stratos
Banned deucer.
Ninjask isn't that bad; the lack of taunt and MB espeon means even if he gets in for free he's easy to force out. Plus, his extreme frailty means all priority hard rapes him, and 4x weak to stealth rock means he can't mess up much.
There hasn't been much I've found broken in RU save the obvious suspects: Sableye and Heat/Damp Rock, so I don't have too much to contribute at this time but I will throw out a fun set:
THE SCARFKROW INQUISITION! (Nobody expects it!)
Honchkrow @ Choice Scarf
Jolly
Insomnia
252 Atk/252 Spe/4 HP
-Brave Bird
-Pursuit
-Sucker Punch/Night Slash
-Superpower
This set is fairly straightforward: It outspeeds a lot of threats (Most notably, Alakazam) that it is not expected to and they die. Brave Bird is gonna be the attack you're using the most for killing things such as NP Porygon-Z, Sawsbuck outside sun, etc. The best part is when they switch out expecting a Sucker Punch and you kill the switchin with BB. Pursuit puts Alakazam in a lose-lose situation because it kills full HP more than 50% of the time it stays in. Sucker Punch is for the rare Pokemon that outspeeds it, although you can go with Night Slash for reliability as well as staying power. Superpower is for predicted Rock/Steel switchins such as Omastar, who you 2HKO factoring in the drop.
The best virtue of the set is surprise value, although it can easily still net KOs after it's been revealed. Always remember: NOBODY EXPECTS THE SCARFKROW INQUISITION!
Thundurus is gone, and Rain got more common. While it is a different tier, the point still stands that banning Kabu/Ludi/Star/Charizard/whatever won't make it completely useless (Floatzel tiem!)
Good sir, I saw the Spanish Inquisition coming. I expected this from the beginning of RU (not kidding, I was actually waiting for people to realize that Scarf BB and super-fast priority that will outspeed all other priority users bar Entei is awesome).
It's almost to the point where Scarfcrow and Entei are the only capable physical sweepers left in the tier :(
Archeops, Aggron, Bouffalant, Crawdaunt, Crustle, Durant, Feraligatr,
Gallade, the Hitmons, Kabutops, Krookodile, Medicham, Poliwrath, Primeape, Sawsbuck, Sceptile, Scyther, Sharpedo. They would like to have a word with you.
Also, Nails, I you're probably watching this thread like a hawk, so... am I allowed to make a seperate thread on weather discussion in general? Or is that too much?
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