I just want to point out that I can honestly see Ubers working with OHKO clause allowed. I can't imagine many people that would use it, and the most I can see would be Smeargle with Spore + Sheer Cold + Lock On. This would only be troublesome for stall, but pretty much everything else in the metagame outspeeds it, so it shouldn't be a problem.
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np: Intro to Ubers Testing: It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
- Thread starter bojangles
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This makes me want to play more ubers! It's my favorite meta, and defiantly requires the most skill. I will stay up to date on this and actually play lol.
As syrim said, Darkrai being around with no sleep clause around will undoubtedly call for a metagame shift. Choice Scarf users face heavy prediction, Scarf Darkrai will be an excellent anti-lead, etc.
Another problem is that traditional anti-Darkrai leads like Lum Tyranitar can in fact be worked around with LO Darkrai, which OHKOes with Focus Blast. Highly specialized leads such as Chesto Berry Thunder Wave Kyogre and Groudon may return, and while such specialized shifts might be undesirable, the main question is their uncompetitiveness. As it stands I can see Darkrai being extremely annoying and having the potential to rip apart unprepared teams, but the same can be said of Kyogre and Extreme Killer Arceus; it's just something one should prepare for.
Your dismissal of OHKO clause isn't really on the money at all. My post here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4399942&postcount=2 goes into some depth about the viability of OHKO moves in practice. Dugtrio may gain a niche at taking out support Pokemon it previously could not, such as Chansey and Blissey (51% to KO for two tries). Lapras is extremely bulky and has Water Absorb. I could go on, but there are definite niches to the usage of the move, the main being dominating slower defensive teams which rely mainly on residual damage and phazing to win. Defensive approaches to dealing with Pokemon having one of these moves in their arsenal, such as using Toxic or chipping away at a Pokemon's HP give a large window of opportunity to land an OHKO move, and the chance is actually in favour of the OHKO user.
Jibaku's post explains some of the foreseeable problems with using evasion boosting moves. The most important thing to take away from it is opportunity cost and movepool limitation. Dedicating one slot to a situational move (and arguably much more situational than an OHKO move), in addition to using turns where one could do things with much larger utility, such as setting up Stealth Rock or a Dragon Dance, would often prove to be the wiser move. I will not deny outright that there are possibilities to the usefulness of this move, as you said, perhaps with Baton Pass the opportunities to abuse evasion may prove to be troublesome. However, I doubt they would be gamebreaking, as specialization can and will occur to handle it if it becomes out of hand. Again, as Jibaku rightly said, Perish Song is a hard stop to this strategy, and there will be a few turns where one has to rely on luck not to get phazed out or KOed.
As I explained in my previous post sleep abuse would be annoying, but is far from completely unmanageable, a team of 6 Darkrai's (should Sleep Clause be removed) could easily be swept by Stealth Rock + Lum Berry Extreme Killer, just to give an example. One forgets that distribution of sleep is limited to basically just Darkrai, a frail, not overly powerful threat (80 BP STAB move) that has several established strong checks, Manaphy, RestTalk Kyogre (RestTalk Ho-Oh? Could be a thing). I believe the tier has the suitable tools to adapt to the removal of sleep clause, as annoying as it might seem at first.
No, Ubers is a tier. We treat it like a tier.
OHKO moves are certainly not meant to be used with Lock On or Mind Reader, as it is nullified by switching out. Of course, in theory this could be decent for shuffling the opponents team, but then why not use Roar? There is no need for a fast Taunt to shut down Mind Reader or Lock On at all.
It goes against the philosophy of Ubers to ban a Pokemon, or even a combination (such as Sand Veil + Garchomp). I doubt Moody would be allowed, but if it were to be it'd most likely be allowed in its entirety; if it is proven to be a competitive addition to the tier then it should be considered as a whole, including all of its (ab)users.
The most notable thing about species clause is the potential to bring 6 Arceus formes. No other Pokemon can compare in versatility, strength, and utility. Any team of any other 6 Pokemon can be obliterated by any competent Ubers team simply by the virtue of no one Pokemon except for Arceus being able to check the biggest threats in the Ubers tier, i.e. all other Pokemon apart from Arceus have exploitable weaknesses. It will, however, be interesting to see pure double up strategies, such as double Extreme Killer or DD Rayquaza, perhaps with minor changes in their moveset to deal with variance in the opponents' lineup.
I've addressed sleep clause, but basically one shouldn't be too quick to jump onto the 'completely broken' train. Consider that having to pack specific Pokemon to deal with a single threat is no foreign behaviour to us, and in fact is common practice.
The entire point of bans is to remove what makes the game uncompetitive. NOT what makes it 'healthy', whatever your definition of that may be. If you haven't noticed the Ubers metagame is in fact heavily centralized around a few dominant Pokemon / playstyles, releasing sleep into it may shift it, but is no cause to decry it as ban-worthy (as I have previously explained).
I actually feel that evasion's statistics are its lesser focus, the greater concern is opportunity cost in lost turns and moveset sacrifices.
What is a +6 evasion Blissey going to do? It's just going to be PP stalled, even if it has Calm Mind it can only afford to run mono-coverage if it wants a Softboiled.
Yeah Lock On ain't no thang.
I, for one, hope that people will approach these clauses with an open mind, and believe in the potential of the metagame to adapt to these changes.
I think evasion is the best example of this. People think "oh, they could use Double Team and then I might miss every move ever; we have to ban it!" But evasion is just a strategy, and it's one that comes with a big cost in the Uber tier. Having the moveslots to handle opposing threats is crucial, or your team's going to get steamrolled by the Manaphy (or whatever) that just set up in your face. Blissey's a perfect example; sure, it can boost itself up to +6 evasion, but what else is it going to do? A single Toxic hit will ensure its death, unless you run a status-healing move (Aromatherapy or Rest). That leaves two moveslots, but even if it had more, it just doesn't have the power to be that threatening. Seismic Toss + Toxic? Any Pokemon with ResTalk or a bulky Steel-type with a recovery move (hello Arceus) just laugh in your face. If you're using Calm Mind + Minimize Blissey...well; I applaud your bravery, because you'll need a LOT of boosts to do serious damage in Ubers, especially with only two move coverage. Oh yeah, and if you get hit with Toxic, you die.
This may seem really specific to Blissey, but I think it applies more broadly than you'd expect. If you use an evasion move with another setup move, you're left with two moves for coverage and/or recovery, not to mention you give your opponent two turns to do pretty much whatever they want while setting up. And, unlike OU, perfect accuracy moves are very common in Ubers. I'd be opposed to allowing something in OU because something that happened in rain countered it, but this is Ubers. It's Kyogre's house. You've got perfect accuracy Thunders flying around all over the place, and even a Tornadus Hurricane can hurt. Plus Aura Sphere has much better distribution in Ubers. So by taking a turn to get an evasion boost, you give the opponent a chance to not only set up offensive boosts and KO you by getting decent luck; you're also giving the opponent a chance to set up a Pokemon with a perfect accuracy move and just ignore your evasion boosts entirely. On top of that, you're hurting your own coverage, and since you can't run a Choice item, you hurt your power too (Life Orb is usable, but it's hard to justify losing that kind of health when you're giving your opponent free turns to do damage to you).
That's not to say evasion can't be good or even broken in Ubers. I just think it's worth testing thoroughly. If you're going to throw it out just because it's uncompetitive, there's no reason to test it in the first place. And I think, in a tier where every turn is so crucial because of the huge power the Pokemon possess, and where perfect accuracy moves run rampant, there's no reason to assume evasion would be that detrimental a priori. Try to find ways to use the cost of evasion (the moveslot and the turn) against them. It's not like Sand Veil Garchomp, where the opponent can make you miss, set up your face, and sweep your team without doing anything. Evasion in Ubers (barring Moody) is an active strategy with a real cost, and I think people can learn to use that cost against it if they take the time to really test it out rather than banning it as soon as it gets annoying.
EDIT: Partially ninja'd, but I do want to point out that OHKO move + Lock-On could have a niche. The advantage it has over standard phazing is that, assuming you Lock-On on turn 1 and Sheer Cold on turn 2, the switch-in has a 30% chance of fainting (assuming it doesn't have Sturdy). The obvious downside is that you use up that turn to Lock-On, and unless your Pokemon is viable in Ubers for some other reason (e.g. Smeargle, not Articuno or Lapras), it's really easily telegraphed. I'd be interested to see how the OHKO clause plays out, actually.
I think evasion is the best example of this. People think "oh, they could use Double Team and then I might miss every move ever; we have to ban it!" But evasion is just a strategy, and it's one that comes with a big cost in the Uber tier. Having the moveslots to handle opposing threats is crucial, or your team's going to get steamrolled by the Manaphy (or whatever) that just set up in your face. Blissey's a perfect example; sure, it can boost itself up to +6 evasion, but what else is it going to do? A single Toxic hit will ensure its death, unless you run a status-healing move (Aromatherapy or Rest). That leaves two moveslots, but even if it had more, it just doesn't have the power to be that threatening. Seismic Toss + Toxic? Any Pokemon with ResTalk or a bulky Steel-type with a recovery move (hello Arceus) just laugh in your face. If you're using Calm Mind + Minimize Blissey...well; I applaud your bravery, because you'll need a LOT of boosts to do serious damage in Ubers, especially with only two move coverage. Oh yeah, and if you get hit with Toxic, you die.
This may seem really specific to Blissey, but I think it applies more broadly than you'd expect. If you use an evasion move with another setup move, you're left with two moves for coverage and/or recovery, not to mention you give your opponent two turns to do pretty much whatever they want while setting up. And, unlike OU, perfect accuracy moves are very common in Ubers. I'd be opposed to allowing something in OU because something that happened in rain countered it, but this is Ubers. It's Kyogre's house. You've got perfect accuracy Thunders flying around all over the place, and even a Tornadus Hurricane can hurt. Plus Aura Sphere has much better distribution in Ubers. So by taking a turn to get an evasion boost, you give the opponent a chance to not only set up offensive boosts and KO you by getting decent luck; you're also giving the opponent a chance to set up a Pokemon with a perfect accuracy move and just ignore your evasion boosts entirely. On top of that, you're hurting your own coverage, and since you can't run a Choice item, you hurt your power too (Life Orb is usable, but it's hard to justify losing that kind of health when you're giving your opponent free turns to do damage to you).
That's not to say evasion can't be good or even broken in Ubers. I just think it's worth testing thoroughly. If you're going to throw it out just because it's uncompetitive, there's no reason to test it in the first place. And I think, in a tier where every turn is so crucial because of the huge power the Pokemon possess, and where perfect accuracy moves run rampant, there's no reason to assume evasion would be that detrimental a priori. Try to find ways to use the cost of evasion (the moveslot and the turn) against them. It's not like Sand Veil Garchomp, where the opponent can make you miss, set up your face, and sweep your team without doing anything. Evasion in Ubers (barring Moody) is an active strategy with a real cost, and I think people can learn to use that cost against it if they take the time to really test it out rather than banning it as soon as it gets annoying.
EDIT: Partially ninja'd, but I do want to point out that OHKO move + Lock-On could have a niche. The advantage it has over standard phazing is that, assuming you Lock-On on turn 1 and Sheer Cold on turn 2, the switch-in has a 30% chance of fainting (assuming it doesn't have Sturdy). The obvious downside is that you use up that turn to Lock-On, and unless your Pokemon is viable in Ubers for some other reason (e.g. Smeargle, not Articuno or Lapras), it's really easily telegraphed. I'd be interested to see how the OHKO clause plays out, actually.
I just noticed the part saying "We would like if you used an alt". I already have a pretty high ranking as SevilitheArcanine; should I start over as an alt or just keep going?
I think the OP says that rankings will be cleared before the suspect test so yeah... I don't think it really matters. Of course I could be wrong, if I am someone disprove me!_!
Unless Toxic Spikes are at its side! I think poison-types may go up in usage just because these scary spikes gain a LOT more potential with Double Team. You put your opponent on a time limit with Toxic Spikes, then Substitute and spam Protect, except well now you actually HAVE guranteed evasion boosts. Anyone that recognizes this knows what a certain SOMEONE was doing when Moody mons were allowed. Magic Bounce may also go up just because of how more unreliable spinning is becoming too.
This is going to be great! Although I haven't played ubers since 09' this is going to be really fun. I'm not looking for a spot on the council, but a 4th vote if going to get me TC, so I am up for this no doubt. To be honest, I want all these clauses to stay in place to give ubers the maximum competitive factor, but hell, this would be pretty cool.
Species clause would make things interesting if changed; I don't know that I would want to deal with 6 arceus, but the ability to use 2 types at once or use gira-a and gira-o/deo-a and deo-s at once would be a cool shift.
Moody and evasion clause will likely stay once everyone remembers how aggravating pure luck can be; and in my opinion, anything that detracts from the amount of skill necessary to win should be looked down upon. After something with a boatload of evasion is sitting behind a sub, all you can really do is talk shit, spam perish song, and hope.
Sleep clause kind of follows a similar trend, but at least you can try some sleep talk or lum berry nonsense to try and get around it. I would expect spore smergle, breloom, and darkrai to all make common appearances. Prankster thundrus with sub and twave would be a fairly effective check to that kind of BS. Especially scarf darkrai because of priority sub/taunt to bypass dark void or twave to cripple it should it attack.
I don't see ohko clause making too many waves with all the moves having the same chance to hit that focus blast has to miss, and in all honesty, specs ogre pretty much has a 100% accurate ohko move, anyway. The only overwhelming combo I would see with this is evasion articuno with sub, sheer cold, and lock on. Depends on if those clauses are undone in tandem, which I am not sure is on the table.
Moody and evasion clause will likely stay once everyone remembers how aggravating pure luck can be; and in my opinion, anything that detracts from the amount of skill necessary to win should be looked down upon. After something with a boatload of evasion is sitting behind a sub, all you can really do is talk shit, spam perish song, and hope.
Sleep clause kind of follows a similar trend, but at least you can try some sleep talk or lum berry nonsense to try and get around it. I would expect spore smergle, breloom, and darkrai to all make common appearances. Prankster thundrus with sub and twave would be a fairly effective check to that kind of BS. Especially scarf darkrai because of priority sub/taunt to bypass dark void or twave to cripple it should it attack.
I don't see ohko clause making too many waves with all the moves having the same chance to hit that focus blast has to miss, and in all honesty, specs ogre pretty much has a 100% accurate ohko move, anyway. The only overwhelming combo I would see with this is evasion articuno with sub, sheer cold, and lock on. Depends on if those clauses are undone in tandem, which I am not sure is on the table.
I thought the suspect testing had already started so I was laddering like crazy yesterday :p
On an unrelated note, how do you register a password for an alt on PS? I got the option to register a password for SevilitheArcanine when I first joined PS, but I have no idea how I would add a password for my alts.
I don't have time for a long post, but I just want to clarify what I am personally looking for in a Council member.
The two most important things are a in-depth knowledge of the Ubers metagame and open-mindedness to the tests.
The baseline we're working from is most definitely competitive. The current Ubers metagame is what we will be using as our "competitive standard" of sorts, and while we will not necessarily refer back to it at every moment, it is a good way to qualify a competitive metagame if all else fails. Furthermore, somebody who understands the metagame on a greater level is more likely to understand any shifts to its level of competitiveness.
Laddering is not the only way to prove your knowledge of Ubers. When we open council applications, I will check out the ladder rank of whatever accounts you give as evidence. However, we all know that doing well on the ladder does not always equate to having superior knowledge of the metagame. Therefore I cannot stress this enough: the best way for you to demonstrate your knowledge of Ubers is to make high-quality posts in this forum and to talk Ubers in #pokemon on SynIRC. If you do this, you will have a much higher chance of being selected than somebody who just ladders. You can ladder without perfect knowledge, but you can't having perfect knowledge without playing.
Insofar as open-mindedness goes, I don't want to give an answer that warps peoples' true ideas into some prototype of what I'm looking for for the sole purpose of getting on the council. I'll say that you don't need to post things like "I bet OHKO clause will be overturned," but I'll probably hesitate to pick people who say stuff like "all of these will be OP." You're obviously entitled to your opinion, but it needs to be informed. I find it hard to believe that you can have an informed opinion at this stage since we haven't done testing. Saying stuff like that at this stage of the game makes you come across as close-minded.
The two most important things are a in-depth knowledge of the Ubers metagame and open-mindedness to the tests.
The baseline we're working from is most definitely competitive. The current Ubers metagame is what we will be using as our "competitive standard" of sorts, and while we will not necessarily refer back to it at every moment, it is a good way to qualify a competitive metagame if all else fails. Furthermore, somebody who understands the metagame on a greater level is more likely to understand any shifts to its level of competitiveness.
Laddering is not the only way to prove your knowledge of Ubers. When we open council applications, I will check out the ladder rank of whatever accounts you give as evidence. However, we all know that doing well on the ladder does not always equate to having superior knowledge of the metagame. Therefore I cannot stress this enough: the best way for you to demonstrate your knowledge of Ubers is to make high-quality posts in this forum and to talk Ubers in #pokemon on SynIRC. If you do this, you will have a much higher chance of being selected than somebody who just ladders. You can ladder without perfect knowledge, but you can't having perfect knowledge without playing.
Insofar as open-mindedness goes, I don't want to give an answer that warps peoples' true ideas into some prototype of what I'm looking for for the sole purpose of getting on the council. I'll say that you don't need to post things like "I bet OHKO clause will be overturned," but I'll probably hesitate to pick people who say stuff like "all of these will be OP." You're obviously entitled to your opinion, but it needs to be informed. I find it hard to believe that you can have an informed opinion at this stage since we haven't done testing. Saying stuff like that at this stage of the game makes you come across as close-minded.
Thanks ssbbm. Yeah read it twice missed both times @@
Yes! I like this alot. Ubers is my favorite tier and anything new and different should be fun. I never experienced moody before, so that should be interesting or awful based on what I've heard. I don't know how the OHKO will turn out. I feel like that could be incredibly broken. I hate the gen 5 sleep mechanics so I can't imagine removing the sleep clause would be a good idea. Evasion makes the game less competitive, and boring. Though I'm most interested in the species clause. I feel like that could be modified to allow two of the same species and not be awful. However allowing all arceus teams sounds bad/annoying.
Out of all the clauses i think removing sleep clause would be the worse thing to do with gen 5 sleep being so powerful the 3 turn max duration isn't even really a nerf when you have to stay in to wake up or be forced to sleep forever meaning if you can't stay in your effectively dead.
Which would make sleep move users like darkrai and smeargle and breloom really good since the only mons with sleep immunity are not even OU and none of them can withstand uber grade firepower and sleep talk is extremely unreliable and can't even really be considered a option since it takes away a moveslot for coverage and/or boosting most of the time.
Any team tailored to handle a sleep clause-less meta will more than likely get iced by a standard uber team. the meta will pretty much be reduced to those who run darkrai and other sleep users and those who try to counter it which would be pretty ugly.
Which would make sleep move users like darkrai and smeargle and breloom really good since the only mons with sleep immunity are not even OU and none of them can withstand uber grade firepower and sleep talk is extremely unreliable and can't even really be considered a option since it takes away a moveslot for coverage and/or boosting most of the time.
Any team tailored to handle a sleep clause-less meta will more than likely get iced by a standard uber team. the meta will pretty much be reduced to those who run darkrai and other sleep users and those who try to counter it which would be pretty ugly.
xenu
Banned deucer.
what most people don't realize is that by lifting these clauses you're not adding more diversity to the metagame, you're detracting from it. lack of sleep clause would make sleeptalkers and/or lum berry holders almost mandatory on most teams, just as lifting the OHKO clause would make Sturdy pokemon (like skarm and forry) almost as ubiquitous as stealth rock. you're already pretty much forced to pack a kyogre and an ekiller check on every team; creating more mandatory additions to teams would leave very little room for creativity, something which is paramount in a tier with very few options to choose from already.
syrim
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I would like to highlight this point, as it and points made in my earlier posts help outline the difference between what will create an enjoyable metagame, and what is simply deemed to be not broken, a definition of purpose for us as a tier that I do not believe can be made without testing.
This is a statement that lies on good principle, but in essence ubers players have many, many mandatory pokemon that they must at least have a plan for, many of which have no actual counter. Even users of full stall must predict to an extent in this metagame, and users of offense often need some kind of defensive core, because of the overpowering nature of the pokemon in this tier, but diversity still exists. The removal of these clauses is certain to have an impact on the metagame we play, but without testing it is impossible to know how diversity will be affected. For instance, Specially defensive Kyogre or Specially defensive Manaphy, both of which are relatively low in usage, especially the latter, could receive massive upsurges in usage because of Darkrai's prominence. Lapras could become a top tier pokemon because of its incredible stall breaking abilities while rain is falling and retaining the ability to be a shaky check to sleep abusers , through hydration, though it obviously fears LO focus blast from darkrai.
I think that testing will show the heavily polarized views of the metagame without these clauses to be slightly dramatic. For instance, poppy and myself found through some testing of the OHKO clause, that building a team chock full of abusers was a poor route to take, and in my opinon as the suspect ladder develops and threats and checks become apparent, the types of teams you describe will be viewed as a sub-par team as well. There will be many contending playstyles, especially in the Sleep clause-less meta, as offense will be less likely to suffer from being put to sleep, but balance and stall will be better able to support the pokemon best able to handle it individually, so it is extremely unlikely that the metagame stagnates into darkrai offense versus sleep talk stall, as this discounts the differing nature of sleep's checks.
With the already limited amount of pokemon that can switch into darkrai, and the even more exclusive number of those who can revenge it twice, it is very difficult to say that one will have to run an entire team dedicated to the defeat of darkrai and to a much lesser extent smeargle/breloom, as we haven't seen darkrai place any kind of dominance on today's metagame, though it is certainly an accounted for threat. Offense still has many options to outspeed and revenge, and stall and rain balance have nearly perfect answers. Like I've mentioned in previous posts, it is very likely that the old gen 4 lum berry versus life orb shenanigans will return as offense tries to minimize their vulnerability even further, and many 50/50s, such as predicting whether the opponent will sleep again as you switch to a revenge killer(we've all wanted to switch that mewtwo in), or nasty plot will exist, though in all honesty darkrai creates these situations today by putting out heavy damage on all revenge killers, or by simply nasty plotting on an obvious switch to a revenge killer. In essence it will simply receive a much more powerful tool to cause many of the predictions, granted with a much higher emphasis on reward than risk, that it is causing and will always cause, and without testing making blanket claims that diversity will plummet doesn't take into account the number of underutilized checks and counters, from all playstyles, and the somewhat similar effects on the metagame to what you are envisioning that darkrai already has.
Honestly the clause I believe demands the most discussion would be the Sleep clause -well, aside from the elephant in the room, Species Clause-. At the end of the day, Sleep is an extremely powerful status. So powerful, in fact, it has been likened to being equivilent to a KO. With a plethora of fast, easy sleep abusers (darkrai especially comes to mind), I'm not entirely sure that it would be a valid option to remove the clause, as what pokemon who can abuse sleep abuse it hard (Breloom, anyone?).
As for the other clauses, save species? I don't think we'll be keeping them, simply because it is A. hard to get resistances against these tacitcs without taking on a very specific, very narrow niche of pokemon, and B. they turn the entire game into a dice toss, even moreso then our usual RNG such as Scald Burns, Thunder Paralyze, etc. Being able to flat out dodge moves or get kills you otherwise couldn't is a huge, huge reward. To play with OHKO and evasion comes at a heavy cost, but do we really want to play in a game where, theoretically, someone could bullshit victory with six choice scarfed OHKO move pokemons with you being able to do jack shit about it?
As for the other clauses, save species? I don't think we'll be keeping them, simply because it is A. hard to get resistances against these tacitcs without taking on a very specific, very narrow niche of pokemon, and B. they turn the entire game into a dice toss, even moreso then our usual RNG such as Scald Burns, Thunder Paralyze, etc. Being able to flat out dodge moves or get kills you otherwise couldn't is a huge, huge reward. To play with OHKO and evasion comes at a heavy cost, but do we really want to play in a game where, theoretically, someone could bullshit victory with six choice scarfed OHKO move pokemons with you being able to do jack shit about it?
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