Cresselia Suspect Discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.

SilentVerse

Into the New World
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
What you're expected to do in this thread:

1. Post which sets you used in the round and what you found good about it, what beat it, etc.

2. Discuss Cresselia's place in the tier, has the metagame adapted properly to it? Does it break the metagame? What counters are there to Cresselia?

3. All Council members are expected to post their thoughts on, experiences using, and experiences against Cresselia in this thread.

4. The Council should also figure out a time when they can get on IRC to have a dedicated discussion on the suspects. When decided, this discussion time will be edited into this post, and all council members should do their damnedest to participate.

Remember, your posts in this thread will contribute to whether or not you get a seat on the rotating council, so get posting!
 

Pocket

be the upgraded version of me
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus

Cresselia @ Heat Rock
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 40 SpD / 216 Spe
Calm Nature
- Psychic
- Sunny Day
- Thunder Wave / Magic Coat
- Lunar Dance

Cresselia is a priceless member of Sun teams; it's pretty much a buffer and faster version of Mesprit. I could've went Timid & max Speed or go for more bulk instead, but for some reason I settled giving enough EVs to be faster than Adamant Kabutops. Cresselia's big niche comes in Lunar Dance, essentially giving one of my lethal Sun nukes another life to nuke some more, providing me to recycle my limited number of Sun weapons and play recklessly if necessary to foil anti-Sun measures.

However, Cresselia is not simply a Sun setter; it offers a valuable defensive backbone to this otherwise frail as fuck team. It prevents Hitmonlee from having its way with this team, and provides an emergency rescue plan when facing the likes of Acrobatics Sceptile, Shell Smash Omastar, etc with Thunder Wave. Magic Coat has occasionally come in handy, bouncing back Smeargle and Lilligant's Spore and Sleep Powder, respectively, as well as fast Taunts. However, Magic Coat without Taunt is not gonna prevent rocks from going up ;/

I appreciate Cresselia's presence, NOT because of its niche in my Sun team, but because it challenges Offensive teams to be smarter, not brainlessly packing 1 hazard setter + 5 random sweepers without a wallbreaker. My weather teams have struggled to beat down Cresselia, forcing me to lose Scarf on Charizard for Specs, for instance.

That said, Cresselia is not a big burden to cover in RU, there are plenty of viable Pokemon that can power its way through Cresselia, such as Escavalier, SD Gallade, HC Durant, CB Entei, status, etc. I for one, welcome Cresselia back to RU ;D
 

Molk

Godlike Usmash
is a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
Ever since we decided to drop Cresselia into the RU tier i knew she was going to end up as a metagame defining threat thanks to her awesome bulk+reliable recovery, good speed, huge support movepool, and ability to sweep late game, but i personally dont think shes overpowering atm. In fact, if you have seen me on irc, i personally think the addition of cresselia was healthy for the RU metagame. While Cresselia is really bulky, she isnt completely unbreakable, there are quite a few pokemon that can knock out cresselia with either a super effective move or just a really powerful STAB move. Examples include Escavalier, Durant, Drapion, Absol, Aggron, Entei, Druddigon, Crawdaunt, and Spiritomb. An unboosted Cresselia isnt exactly hard to switch into with that pathetic base 75 special attack, making it slightly easier to counter her. Meanwhile, Cresselia is still an excellent addition to stall and balanced teams everywhere with her monster bulk and ability to check a few pokemon that other mons struggle to (read: Nidoqueen!). As Pocket said before, teams without Cresselia are forced to think of ways to build a solid team that can play around her, and thats pretty good imo. It inspires creativity and makes it much harder for someone to just take a generic offensive team and win like every match without even trying. Aside from that, Cresselia is a good addition to offense too! Cresselia makes a great pivot for an offensive team, and can provide the team with weather support and/or screens, while still checking a few pokemon that would be troublesome to the average offensive team. I personally like cress quite a bit, and i dont think she should be banned atm

TL;DR Cress is awesome, and not broken imo, in fact, i feel she improves the metagame by making people think about their team choices more
 

SilentVerse

Into the New World
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
M'kay, so I've been thinking about which way I want to vote on Cresselia for a long time now, and after talking with various people about its status in the tier, I am actually leaning towards banning it at the moment. Having used various Cresselia sets throughout the round, I actually feel that the best set at the moment is the standard defensive set, but with Hidden Power Fire instead of Calm Mind. Hidden Power Fire lets Cresselia smash past most of its "counters", and makes it overall a very difficult Pokemon to beat. While Calm Mind + Thunder Wave is good, the fact that the metagame has prepared for only mono-attacking Cresselia is what has made Cresselia seem mediocre, when it is a far more lethal Pokemon. The fact of the matter is, with only a slight change in move choice, Cresselia is capable of completely destroying all of the Pokemon that are thought to be its counters and checks, which is why in my opinion, Cresselia needs to be banned.

Cresselia is a definite power player in the tier, and while people have claimed that it is easy to check with Pokemon like Escavalier, Drapion, Absol, and Spiritomb, it's actually a very difficult Pokemon to actually remove consistently. For example, Choice Band Drapion's Crunch does 50 - 59.45%, which is not particularly threatening at all when you consider that Cresselia can easily shrug off most of that damage with Moonlight. In fact, if Cresselia has Hidden Power Fire, she can actually outstall Choice Band Drapion if it locks itself into Pursuit, and slowly KO it with Hidden Power Fire. Spiritomb is in a similar situation; if Cresselia has a coverage move or Toxic, the only way it will ever beat Cresselia is if it can land a Trick on her, as Pursuit / Shadow Sneak are both easily outstalled, especially if Cresselia uses Toxic. Though well-built offense can deal with Cresselia fairly effectively if they can keep momentum, Cresselia is still incredibly limiting to them, and unless you carry one of those incredibly shaky counters, Cresselia will be able to utterly wall your offensive team. Even if you use things such as Trick Medicham, you'll still ultimately need a Pokemon to KO Cresselia, as otherwise it is still perfectly capable of whittling down your team, even with a Choice item attached, due to its incredible bulk. Admittedly, I have enjoyed how balanced / semi-stall teams have become solid teamstyles again, unlike in the metagame with only Nidoqueen where offense was clearly dominant. In my opinion, in an RU with Nidoqueen present, having Cresselia in the tier is the best option to give more defensive playstyles a larger chance to thrive.

However, the thing about Cresselia is that it, like Nidoqueen, is an equally polarizing force in the metagame. While Cresselia is incredibly useful for defensive teams, offensive teams are forced to use a selection of niche counters to beat it. In a lot of ways, this is similar to why I dislike Nidoqueen; both Pokemon force certain teamstyles to use a specific Pokemon in order to make them a non-issue. Nidoqueen forces stall / semi-stall to use Pokemon such as Uxie, Gardevoir, Mesprit, or specially defensive Lunatone to stop her for example, from putting stall / semi stall at a huge disadvantage, while Cresselia forces offense to use Escavalier, Absol, Drapion, and Spiritomb so that they are not put at a disadvantage either (and these, as I said above, are very shaky checks, like how the majority of Nidoqueen's checks are shaky as well). While this isn't necessary a bad thing, I dislike this simply because both Pokemon significantly limit the diversity of the tier, as outside those Pokemon, it can be very, very difficult for offensive teams to break Cresselia. Yes, there have been a lot of Pokemon in other metagames that have required a specific set of Pokemon to beat them, but Cresselia and Nidoqueen, in my opinion, are just far too centralizing for RU, and we would achieve a significantly better and more diverse metagame if both of them were banned.

Basically, Cresselia is broken for the same reasons that I believe that Nidoqueen was broken last round, in that it forces the metagame to revolve around it to an unhealthy extent. While this metagame is certainly much better than the last one, I believe that the answer to stage 10 of RU's offensive nature is not to drop down an equally polarizing force and arguably broken Pokemon to counteract it in Cresselia; I believe that a better answer is to ban what is generally causing that offensive shift: Nidoqueen.
 
What I've noticed about Cresselia is that it almost forces people to switch to a different Pokemon if they don't have what SV calls a "niche counter". What I was thinking is instead of actually switching Pokemon around on a team, switching moves around, so there are some ways to counter the stat boosts. Without the stat boosts, Cresselia is basically useless and can fall prey to Megahorn or Bug Buzz.

The thing is, there are perfectly acceptable Haze users out there that aren't usually seen as Haze users, such as Omastar, and the more obvious ones, such as Cryogonal, especially the latter in fact. Cryogonal is almost a perfect Cresselia counter as it has huge Special Defence, Haze and Toxic. Add in Rapid Spin and Ice Beam and you have a viable set.

Phazing, too, can be an option. Take Roar, for example. Looking down the table of the Pokemon that can learn it, I see what is basically half the RU tier, from the often-debated fourth slot on Entei to the defensive might of Aggron and Steelix, and most of the other top threats there as well (Nidoqueen, Moltres, Sceptile... the list goes on). I admit that not all of them are viable with Roar, but it's a start.
 
Cresselia is a great addition to the RU Metagame. It before was a prominent member of RU when it was here many moons ago, for those that remember. Though a pokemon being prominent and successful shouldn't automatically deem it broken and banned. Cress has its place in RU, even if it slightly slows our fast paced, offensive metagame we love.

Cresselia has a wide range of moves, splendid stats, and the capacity to perform a couple of roles. Even with that don't imagine Cresselia as an iron curtain which can't be penetrated. With RU being an offensive metagame and Cresselia being a strong defesive pokemon this leads to interesting confrontations. Cresselia is able to check and wall a numerous amount of pokemon but at the same time many pokemon are checks to her. RU is occupied with various strong Dark, Bug, and strong offensive pokemon that can break through Cress. Common critics of the counters though are they are frail, but Cress itself is no power house. With only 75 Special Attack and it commonly only running Psychic and maybe a Hidden Power, Cresselia can be disposed of by several checks to it and walled by some.

Overall I think Cresselia is a nice drop for RU. Much criticism stems from that RU is to offensive. With Cresselia it balances that out a bit. It's starts to show a rise in defensive, and regretfully(lol) semi-stall in RU, and shows that these play style might be viable here. Going off of Pocket's post Cresselia is a godsend for weather team. RU has its faction of weather teams, but with Cresselia we will see more. This all going towards making a more perfect metagame with multiple viable plays styles.
 

Honko

he of many honks
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Programmer Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
I used the T-Wave + CM set most of the round, occasionally running Toxic over T-Wave depending on my team.

Cress is a really good addition to pretty much any team. It can wall a lot of Pokemon while spreading status and occasionally setting up and sweeping. It definitely has its share of checks and counters, and it has to choose between giving up Calm Mind and losing its already limited offensive presence, giving up a status move and losing a lot of defensive utility, or giving up a coverage move and becoming 100% walled by Dark- and Steel-types. But even still, it will be a major pain for probably around half of the tier's attackers.

Is it broken? Hard to say, but I'm leaning no. We have a lot of good Bug- and Dark-types that can still break through Cresselia pretty easily or wear it down with Pursuit to the point that it can't switch in on anything except Fighting-types easily anymore. If it lacks HP Fire, it's set-up bait for anything with Substitute that resists Psychic (Klinklang, for example). Some attackers whose standard sets are walled by Cress have ways to get around it while still being effective in general (SubSeed Sceptile, for example). Cress has a big impact on teambuilding, but I'm not convinced it's such a big impact that we can call it broken.

More important for me though is the positive impact Cress has had on the metagame. This meta is pretty balanced. All playstyles are viable, and teams don't all look the same, which is a big improvement over what we had before Cress dropped. I am very against banning Cress and returning to a meta that we pretty much all agree was worse. I know some people are saying that banning both Cresselia and Nidoqueen would give us a better meta. Maybe that's true. But we aren't testing Nidoqueen this round, we're just testing Cress, and Cress is definitely good for the meta we have right now. If we want to test Cress and Nidoqueen together, we should do that next round. But until then, banning Cress would only have a negative impact on the tier.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Cress descending down to the RU tier was a godsend to the tier. She alone increases the diversity of this metagame, reviving the playstyles of stall and manual sun.

Cresselia is a very reliable wall in this meta. I've run the T-Wave+CM set and it's quite effective. And powerful too. She is a great wall to say the very least, and her presence makes stall powerful. Is it broken as a wall? No, not at all. Both Escavalier and Absol make solid counters to the set, Esca smashes Cress with Megahorn, while Absol hits with an SD boosted Night Slash. Drapion is also decent thanks to SD and Taunt, but Drapion sucks anyways, so that's not a big deal. She makes the meta more diverse, rather than full offense, we can see the light of stall too.

Cresselia is also a great summoner of weather, particularly sun. She is a very durable Pokemon that can also take advantage of sun with a boosted Moonlight, and thus can set up the sun many times. This really helps with Charizard, Lilligant, and Sawsbuck, and makes Sun teams all the more dangerous. Cryo can use SolarBeam, and also spin for the team. Plus, Lunar Dance is great for healing 'Zard when he's worn down. I think Cress can make Sun viable again (Though, only sun.)

Nonetheless, do I say Cress is broken? No, not at all. She is countered easily by threats such as Escavalier, Absol, and Crawdaunt. Does she have a negative impact on this meta? No, not really. She actually makes the metagame more diverse by changing it from sheer offensive to allowing viability of underrated playstyles such as Stall and Manual Sun. So in conclusion,

I, for one, say bring Cresselia back into RU.
 

Windsong

stumbling down elysian fields
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Literally the only reason why you're all saying that Cresselia was "a godsend for the tier" and that it helped "increase the diversity of the tier" and whatnot was because the metagame with uncounterable Nidoqueen was unbelievably stale, and significantly limiting towards the viable teams out there. Thus, we should not be looking at Cresselia's place in this metagame and whether or not it should remain here based on the previous metagame. It's undeniable that Cresselia fixed the staleness of that metagame, but we should be looking at it and deciding whether or not to ban it based on this metagame, not the theorymonned circumstances on what the next metagame will be like if Cresselia's banned.

Continuing, I would like to say that I think a lot of the Cresselia usage this suspect round was done by uninformed users who were simply bandwagoning the CM + TWave set, which really disappoints me - I think I saw perhaps one Cresselia using a different moveset, in all my time laddering. Looking at the RMT section right now is just more proof of his, as there are all of these really fast (or stallish) teams that literally do not even vaguely benefit from TWave Cressy, and thus allow it to be countered by mons such as Escavelier, Durant, Absol, and Crawdaunt. What people need to understand is that they have to be fitting their Cresselia set to their team. TWave Cressy belongs on Balanced Offense teams that can immediately make use of it with slow and bulky sweepers, or semistall that cleans up with a slower sweeper. Full stall is far better off taking advantage of CM + HP Fire/Fighting/Ground or Toxic Cresselia, which are capable of beating Escavelier and some Spiritomb, among other things. Given how many arguments in this thread are based on "oh, Escavelier / Absol easily counter it" and whatnot, what strikes me as significant here is not that Cresselia isn't broken, but that players were incapable of recognizing that there was more than one legitimately good set.

With all this said, I'd like to mention that Cresselia gave the metagame an immediate defensive skew, essentially a reverse of what Nidoqueen did for the metagame a few rounds ago (when it arguably should have been banned). We're essentially allowing one overpowered force back into the tier in an attempt to alleviate a second equally powerful threat. This is what we should absolutely not be doing, as that just opens the floodgates for a very unbalanced metagame in which unbalanced and overpowered things are only checked by equally unbalanced things. I'm not saying that it's ideal to go back to the stall metagame that we were at in the end of stage 5, but we need to handle the problems that have arisen in this metagame before we can worry about that.

Finally, it's worthwhile to mention that you're all completely underestimating Cresselia's ability to sit there and just sponge attacks like no tomorrow. It significantly hinders huge numbers of offensive mons (more than literally any other mon in the tier does) and makes sweeping with certain things dreadfully unfeasible. In addition, given time, this metagame will easily develop into a pure stall meta exactly the same as what we had at the end of round 5 - Cresselia's defensive skew to the tier is significantly greater than the offensive warp made by Nidoqueen, and it gives the tier a heavily defensive edge due to its ability to halt so many mons with zero fear. For these reasons, it's clearly a very unhealthy Pokemon to keep in the tier, and is easily outright broken in its own right, and absolutely needs to go.
 

Honko

he of many honks
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Programmer Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
Literally the only reason why you're all saying that Cresselia was "a godsend for the tier" and that it helped "increase the diversity of the tier" and whatnot was because the metagame with uncounterable Nidoqueen was unbelievably stale, and significantly limiting towards the viable teams out there. Thus, we should not be looking at Cresselia's place in this metagame and whether or not it should remain here due to the previous metagame. It's undeniable that Cresselia fixed the staleness of that metagame, but we should be looking at it and deciding whether or not to ban it based on this metagame, not the theorymonned circumstances on what the next metagame will be like if Cresselia's banned.
First, Nidoqueen is not "uncounterable". I know we're all big fans of hyperbole in suspect threads but come on, that's just a flat lie and it weakens everything else you say.

Second, your thinking is completely backwards. We absolutely should be evaluating Cresselia's place in this metagame. That's what a suspect test is. Is Cresselia broken in this metagame? Is this metagame better with Cresselia in it than without it? Those are the questions this suspect test is about. You seem to think we're testing Nidoqueen as well, but we aren't. I'm all for having that test again next round, but for now, you need to assume that Nidoqueen is RU. The council voted it RU. Like it or not, until further notice, it's RU. This idea that we should ban Cresselia now, not because you think it will improve the tier that we have, but because you think it will make the tier better if we also ban Nidoqueen which isn't even a suspect right now, is stupid and dangerous. It undermines the suspect process and assumes everything will go your way. What if it doesn't? What if next time we test Nidoqueen we find enough reasons that the council decides not to ban it again? Then you made your vote this round based on a metagame that will never exist. If anyone is making up theorymonned circumstances to base their vote on, it's you. Vote on the meta we have right now, and wait until we're actually testing Nidoqueen before you start trying to exclude it from the meta in your reasoning.

And knock off the condescending bs please. You can talk about Cress's other sets without acting like you're the only person in the world who knows how to build a team.
 

Windsong

stumbling down elysian fields
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
First, Nidoqueen is not "uncounterable". I know we're all big fans of hyperbole in suspect threads but come on, that's just a flat lie and it weakens everything else you say.

Second, your thinking is completely backwards. We absolutely should be evaluating Cresselia's place in this metagame. That's what a suspect test is. Is Cresselia broken in this metagame? Is this metagame better with Cresselia in it than without it? Those are the questions this suspect test is about. You seem to think we're testing Nidoqueen as well, but we aren't. I'm all for having that test again next round, but for now, you need to assume that Nidoqueen is RU. The council voted it RU. Like it or not, until further notice, it's RU. This idea that we should ban Cresselia now, not because you think it will improve the tier that we have, but because you think it will make the tier better if we also ban Nidoqueen which isn't even a suspect right now, is stupid and dangerous. It undermines the suspect process and assumes everything will go your way. What if it doesn't? What if next time we test Nidoqueen we find enough reasons that the council decides not to ban it again? Then you made your vote this round based on a metagame that will never exist. If anyone is making up theorymonned circumstances to base their vote on, it's you. Vote on the meta we have right now, and wait until we're actually testing Nidoqueen before you start trying to exclude it from the meta in your reasoning.

And knock off the condescending bs please. You can talk about Cress's other sets without acting like you're the only person in the world who knows how to build a team.
Read the damn sentence honko. I said that we shouldn't be basing our decision on banning Cresselia on what the past metagame was like, but rather what this one was like. Your entire post here is made off a point that I never made, or that you thoroughly misinterpreted...
 

Pocket

be the upgraded version of me
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
windsong said:
we should not be looking at Cresselia's place in this metagame
Erm what metagame are you referring to then? Nidoqueen meta IS the current RU meta. We have dropped Durant & Cresselia down, but it's essentially the same metagame. And no, Honko perfectly understands what you're stating (or implying).

I agree with Honko - the council has voted RU for Nidoqueen last round, so it's part of RU now. We can suspect test Nidoqueen later if there's enough demand, but we're currently testing Cresselia and Durant. So please use the "Nidoqueen metagame" as your reference. Has Cresselia and Durant increased or reduced diversity to this metagame? Has it put a major stranglehold to teambuilding? Are they broken in this metagame? As most of us has realized, Cresselia has brought back some further balance to the metagame, and RU is perfectly equipped for dealing with Cresselia now. Maybe the T-Wave + CM trend would end and a more broken set would emerge - we would then re-visit Cresselia then, but for the time being let's not theorymon about its potential adverse effects. I personally haven't felt this drastic 180 degree turn towards defense - the same old offensive teams are prevalent with maybe increased usage of Escavlier, Scolipede, Drapion, etc.
 

Windsong

stumbling down elysian fields
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
goddammit people, read the whole line.

we should not be looking at Cresselia's place in this metagame and whether or not it should remain here based on the previous metagame

I'm explicitly stating that we SHOULD be looking at Cresselia based on how it works in this meta and not comparing this metagame to the the last meta. I'm saying that we need to evaluate Cresselia based on nothing more than its performance in this metagame and not decide to keep it or ban it based on whether the past metagame was better or worse.

But seriously don't cherrypick a line in order to have a possible counterargument to set up, especially because if you actually bothered to read my whole post it would be painfully obvious that I wholeheartedly agree with both of you in everything except for whether or not Cressy's broken. Don't treat my points like they're invalid because you only read the line you wanted to read, thanks.
 

Honko

he of many honks
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Programmer Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
K so Dongdong and I talked this out and figured out where we disagree:

- I think Cresselia made the playstyles relatively balanced. He thinks Cresselia made defense too powerful.
- I think the positive shift from last meta to this one should be considered in this vote. He thinks we should only consider whether Cresselia is broken in this meta, and not compare it to previous metas.

Those are both subjective things so we can agree to disagree on that. What are other people's thoughts?
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

On to new Horizons!
is a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
K so Dongdong and I talked this out and figured out where we disagree:

- I think Cresselia made the playstyles relatively balanced. He thinks Cresselia made defense too powerful.
- I think the positive shift from last meta to this one should be considered in this vote. He thinks we should only consider whether Cresselia is broken in this meta, and not compare it to previous metas.

Those are both subjective things so we can agree to disagree on that. What are other people's thoughts?
Cress does not make defense too powerful by any means. She makes defense playstyle stronger, yes, but offensive teams are still taking over the tier, with maybe Absol/Crawdaunt/Esca placed on it.

As for second bullet, Agreeing with Honko.
 
What we're trying to achieve each round is a balanced metagame. As we've seen from last round, though, balanced doesn't necessarily mean fun. There is no doubt that Cresselia brought a ton of diversity into the tier, because it could, by itself, handle a huge number of threats in the metagame including some of the most used Pokemon in RU. If we keep Cresselia in BL2, the metagame will shift back to the stale metagame that most of us got bored of. However, the question is if this metagame with Cresselia is balanced or not. In my opinion, ignoring the fact that RU is really fun right now, the metagame is somewhat balanced, but leaning towards becoming too defensive. With a strong core including Cresselia, you can cover nearly every prominent threat. Only a few Pokemon can weaken Cresselia without being crippled in the process, including Escavalier, Taunt Drapion, and Crawdaunt. However, these Pokemon are all easily dealt with which is why defensive teams with Cresselia are a bit overpowered. Once people catch on to this strategy, RU is possibly going to become unbalanced again by games turning into massive stall wars. I say possibly because it's only been a month with Cresselia in the tier, and I've only seen a few matches where stall wars have occurred. This is one reason why I think Cresselia should stay for at least another round.

The other reason is that of what I briefly mentioned before: if we remove Cresselia, RU is going to become the offensive nonsense that got incredibly stale. In order to achieve a balanced and fun metagame, we need to address multiple issues besides Cresselia. Like windsong mentioned, the main issue might be Nidoqueen. Since we can't test the tier right now without both threats, I think that Cresselia should stay until we experience a metagame without it and Nidoqueen.
 
Time for me to be a huge fish. Glub, glub.

While Cresselia is really bulky, she isnt completely unbreakable, there are quite a few pokemon that can knock out cresselia with either a super effective move or just a really powerful STAB move. Examples include Escavalier, Durant, Drapion, Absol, Aggron, Entei, Druddigon, Crawdaunt, and Spiritomb.
252+ Atk Choice Band Entei Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 187-222 (42.11 - 50%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Entei Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 176+ Def Cresselia: 198-234 (44.59 - 52.7%) -- 22.66% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Entei Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Cresselia: 252-297 (56.75 - 66.89%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


252+ Atk Choice Band Aggron Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Cresselia: 306-360 (68.91 - 81.08%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Aggron Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 228-268 (51.35 - 60.36%) -- 89.84% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Aggron Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 176+ Def Cresselia: 240-283 (54.05 - 63.73%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

This is, of course, not factoring in them misses which tend to happen with Head Smash


A lot of those other "counters" have a few problems in either being frail or hilariously weak to other Pokemon who Cresselia partners with (such as Poliwrath/Qwilfish, among others). In fact, most of those "counters" you mention are also apt partners for Cresselia (or so I witnessed on the Ladder). Your argument would have been better citing something like Scolipede as a counter, since it is:

a) faster than Cress naturally (most of those other guys are tonnes slower than her)
b) doesn't get castrated by a Hidden Power (and is only 2HKO'd by Cress' STAB)
c) Quick Feet says "lol Paralysis" to an extent; while not overly terrific, there's that
d) after +2 Swords Dance, Cress is OHKO'd; prior to that, though, it's a 2HKO all across the board - being faster makes the 2HKO reliable, though, compared to other 2HKO-ers

But then it's just as much of a partner for Cress as the other guys, and is even more beneficial to Stall thanks to the Hazard setter set.

Basically, Cresselia is broken for the same reasons that I believe that Nidoqueen was broken last round, in that it forces the metagame to revolve around it to an unhealthy extent. While this metagame is certainly much better than the last one, I believe that the answer to stage 10 of RU's offensive nature is not to drop down an equally polarizing force and arguably broken Pokemon to counteract it in Cresselia; I believe that a better answer is to ban what is generally causing that offensive shift: Nidoqueen.
Hrm, I'm in agreeance with SilentVerse.

"I can't wait to be a useless piece of shit all day and play all this RU Ladder." - literally something I said to myself about a month ago

Oh, wait. RU's already discomforting (read: NOT BALANCED AT ALL) enough with Nidoqueen running rampant and causing teams to be more offensive (which is the only acceptable reason for dropping Cresselia from BL2, and also an incredibly, no offense, retarded reason when there are plenty of other Psychics who try to be as bulky, like Musharna, who will just continue to be ignored like usual while Nidoqueen continues to make a mess of the tier anyway). Now I'm obligated by unwritten law to have an Escavalier on my team at all times or I lose to Cress as well. And while Escavalier is a powerful force in RU that shouldn't be underestimated, forcing every team to have it is just plain... illogical? I'm at a loss for the right vernacular.

Oh well. If the RU Council wants me to throw Escavalier/Scolipede and Musharna on my teams to get at Cresselia and Nidoqueen, respectively, then it is my obligation to provide the appropriate reactions to each. Doesn't matter that something faster, like Moltres or Entei, will still dunk me to oblivion.

Literally the only reason why you're all saying that Cresselia was "a godsend for the tier" and that it helped "increase the diversity of the tier" and whatnot was because the metagame with uncounterable Nidoqueen was unbelievably stale, and significantly limiting towards the viable teams out there. Thus, we should not be looking at Cresselia's place in this metagame and whether or not it should remain here based on the previous metagame. It's undeniable that Cresselia fixed the staleness of that metagame, but we should be looking at it and deciding whether or not to ban it based on this metagame, not the theorymonned circumstances on what the next metagame will be like if Cresselia's banned
If I haven't made myself apparent in this regard, I'm entirely on windsong's side. Cresselia's just flipped the RU tier from one playstyle extreme to another, and that alone should be consideration for keeping her in BL2.

Continuing, I would like to say that I think a lot of the Cresselia usage this suspect round was done by uninformed users who were simply bandwagoning the CM + TWave set, which really disappoints me
I tried SubCM; not sure why the CM + TWave set was popular when it was status-prone anyway. For what it's worth, I found Full Stall Cress (Psychic + HP Coverage-of-choice + Toxic + Walking-on-the-Moon) to be much more productive with my time in using her in RU upon trying it.

We're essentially allowing one overpowered force back into the tier in an attempt to alleviate a second equally powerful threat. This is what we should absolutely not be doing, as that just opens the floodgates for a very unbalanced metagame in which unbalanced and overpowered things are only checked by equally unbalanced things.
My main problem with this prepubescent "FREE EVERYTHING FROM BL2" phase (yes, it's a phase and hopefully it ends asap) is that the people advocating it either don't realize that making a tier more broken with the BL2 mons is completely reckless or don't care at how counterproductive the motivation makes the phase sound (I laugh at anybody who says that current RU is balanced, anybody; I've almost had a heart attack from my laughter before, a couple of rounds ago). Sometime in the past few days I actually took a break because RU was genuinely that exhausting a metagame to play in.

We need to handle the problems that have arisen in this metagame before we can worry about that.
At any rate, I could go on in my agreeance with everything windsong already said (as well as SilentVerse), but I will just say Ban Cresselia, be on my merry way, and see if I can muster the energy to try again in order to adequately test Durant's might in RU.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top