Tier Shift Metagame (THIS IS BW)

[Mr Omgness]

After reaching #1 on the ladder with a new (weatherless!) team I decided to make an RMT out of it. Be free to check it out and discuss: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/tier-shift-mow-you-down-ranked-1.3486616/#post-4780791

 

[Mylo Xyloto]

So I have been playing some Tier Shift, and I'm actually liking it a lot. I've been using a Hail team with Specs Glaceon and Scarf Rotom-F and its really fun. Glaceon hits extremely hard with its naturally high Special Attack the Specs and TS boost coupled with a perfect accuracy high BP attack. It easily KOs anything that doesnt resist Ice. Anyway, has anyone tried Hail or any other weather?

 

[Mr Omgness]

So I have been playing some Tier Shift, and I'm actually liking it a lot. I've been using a Hail team with Specs Glaceon and Scarf Rotom-F and its really fun. Glaceon hits extremely hard with its naturally high Special Attack the Specs and TS boost coupled with a perfect accuracy high BP attack. It easily KOs anything that doesnt resist Ice. Anyway, has anyone tried Hail or any other weather?

Lol.

Weather is very dominant in TS, you'll have a hard time finding a decent weatherless team.

Hail is cool but has a harder time in TS than it has in regular OU imo, especially since TS doesnt have as many dragons as OU has so Ice attacks are not as tempting to have anymore. And keeping up hail is a harder job in TS vs Rain, Sun and Sand teams.

 

[AWailOfATail]

All fear the new and improved Shuckle.

 

[Mr Omgness]

Shuckle is still the same (and thus nothing more than a NU mon), unless it gets a gargantuan boost into Attack/Special Attack or a move like Rapid Spin it won't change much.

 

[eriados]

I built a rain stall that manages to beat pretty much every common archetype in the metagame. I'd say the only thing it struggles against is rain offense, due to a general Swanna weakness, but there's not much I could do to fix that bar using Lanturn or something like that.

Hide

Politoed @ Leftovers
Trait: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Perish Song
- Protect
- Ice Beam

I don't run Toxic because it's redundant with Tentacruel for the most part. Perish Song is necessary for Duosion etc. Ice Beam is mostly a filler slot.

Tentacruel @ Black Sludge
Trait: Rain Dish
EVs: 252 HP / 144 Def / 96 SDef / 16 Spd
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Scald
- Rapid Spin
- Toxic

The best spinner in the metagame due to it's ability to beat every spinblocker. I run some extra SpDef investment because the attacks in TS are so much more powerful than standard OU.

Chansey (F) @ Eviolite
Trait: Natural Cure
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Seismic Toss
- Softboiled
- Heal Bell
- Toxic

Heal Bell was a necessity for me due to how vulnerable my team was to status, otherwise I'd feel comfortable running WishProtect.

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Def / 180 SDef
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Spikes
- Leech Seed
- Power Whip
- Gyro Ball

Sets up Spikes, beats Lati@s etc. I like having the comfort of both attacks rather than Protect.

Shelgon @ Eviolite
Trait: Rock Head
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Def / 76 SDef
Impish Nature
- Roar
- Dragon Claw
- Wish
- Protect

The catch-all physical check. It only takes about 40% from a Flight Gem Acrobatics from Archeops, which goes to show how bulky it is. Roar is good for phazing, which I otherwise lack on this team.

Golurk @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Fist
EVs: 252 HP / 140 Atk / 116 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Ice Punch
- ThunderPunch

A very bulky Stealth Rock setter and spinblocker. The attack EVs are to OHKO Sawsbuck after SR + Spikes + LO. TPunch is for catching Swanna on the switch.

Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated, because I feel like this team could be made better through some tweaking.

 

[youngjake93]

@skidilidy My suggestion would be to pull out a niche weapon to handle Swanna.
Replace Chansey with Blissey and Seismic Toss with Thunder. 75 sAtt is usable and Thunder will obliterate Swanna while you take nothing from it in return. Your full stall team doesn't really need the mixed bulk nature of Chansey since you have options to go to like Shelgon for physical attackers.

Other less niche options include, Thunder+Hurricane+Roost(too bad you can't have Heal Bell with Multiscale) Dragonite with bulk as a sDef wall since you have sponges for Ice and Dragon attack or CM Rain Rachi would be very nice for this team.

 

[Mr Omgness]

Toxicroak seems troublesome to your team as the only thing you can reliably do is phaze it out with Shelgon, who will take a chunk from +1 Ice Punch. Golurk can probably OHKO +1 Toxicroak with Earthquake but I think a +1 Ice Punch or SuckerPunch is risky to take, let alone a +2 from Swords Dance variants. Playing around Toxicroak is not really an option either with that Scald Immunity, Toxic Immunity, Dry Skin & Drain Punch.

Anything that carries Taunt is gonna mess up your day as well ofc, but that's the bane of most stall teams and the reason why I would always put 1 Scarfer on it (with Trick to cripple opposing stall teams). Anything that carries an Electric move would solve your problems with Swanna as well.

And saying a Tentacruel with Scald as it's only attacking move beats every spinblocker is a bold thing to say to Mr. Pringles.

 

[nimbosa]

i'm not sure what ranking is considered good in tier shift specifically, but i've gotten to 2k easy with this team and hardly ever lose a match. maybe i'm just lucky or something? anyways, the first thing i thought of when i was trying to think of tier shift teams was that almost every pokemon that makes a good sun sweeper is NU. most of the team here isn't meant to counter or even check things so much as revenge kill and exploit setup opportunities, and with 3 or 4 pokemon who can do that really well i find that kind of strategy is not only effective, but really fun. tell me what you think:

Hide

Ghost (Ninetales) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drought
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SDef / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Calm Nature
- Fire Blast
- Will-O-Wisp
- SolarBeam
- Sunny Day

nothing special. i heard about sunny day + solarbeam tales and i had never tried it before, so i thought i would here. i've caused a few politoeds some trouble with it but other than that it's kind of dead weight. moving on.

Spirit (Shiftry) @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Seed Bomb
- Sucker Punch
- Nature Power

pretty standard sun shiftry. i was going to try a mixed growth set, but i needed at least some of the pokemon on my team to not depend on sun that much. so in addition to swords dance, sucker punch is there for the times i don't have chlorophyll, and is good STAB in general. what a lot of people don't realize is that shiftry gets nature power, and also that nature power is basically earthquake. it's really useful for steels, by which i mean heatran.

Autumn (Sawsbuck) @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Return
- Nature Power
- Horn Leech
- Swords Dance

i use a sun team sometimes in regular OU, and there jump kick is mostly for tyranitar, but i haven't seen many of those in tier shift. nature power takes care of everything else jump kick does well enough, without the odd crash and recoil. so i thought i'd try a swords dance set for once. it works really well. again, nature power takes a lot of stuff by surprise. the value of horn leech's recovery shouldn't be underestimated either.

James (Victreebel) @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Modest Nature
- Growth
- Weather Ball
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- SolarBeam

i've had a lot of trouble juggling around victreebel's movepool. there just aren't enough slots to cover everything. since most of my team handles heatran well, i didn't think one pokemon being totally walled by it would be that much of a hassle. i find hidden power ice useful for dragons, since there isn't a single other ice attack on my team, and while they're not as prevalent in tier shift as in OU they do still show up. but mostly i find solarbeam and weather ball are enough. these along with growth make victreebel the most weather-dependent team member (although weather ball is sometimes of use against rain teams), but should the sun stay up it has enough power to tear through a team after one growth.

Something Dies (Charizard) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Solar Power
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 SAtk / 4 HP
Timid Nature
- Fire Blast
- Air Slash
- Hidden Power [Ground]
- SolarBeam

whenever i've used solar power charizard in the past, it's been as a scarfer. but with so many chlorophyll users on this team, i find i have the speed angle covered nicely. there's not a lot that can take STAB specs sun solar power fire blast off of 124 base attack. the other attacks are really filler. HP ground earned a permanent spot on pretty much all my charizard sets after one too many heatrans stopping it cold. solarbeam is mostly useless filler. i've been considering dragon pulse or flamethrower instead of it, but i'm not sure how useful those would be either. there's also the option of earthquake and a different hidden power.

Amber (Donphan) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Atk
Impish Nature
- Ice Shard
- Earthquake
- Rapid Spin
- Stealth Rock

not much to say here. i needed a spinner, donphan is a spinner, and stealth rock is always nice. i'm definitely open for suggestions here.

 

[FMD]

Why don't LC and NFE Pokemon get in on the fun?

 

[Mulan15262]

Why don't LC and NFE Pokemon get in on the fun?

You can use them, and they get stat boosts based on which tier they are in (Chansey gets +5 in each stat because it is in BL, Riolu gets +15 in each stat because it is LC, Scyther gets +10 in each stat because it is in RU, etc.)

 

[FMD]

You can use them, and they get stat boosts based on which tier they are in (Chansey gets +5 in each stat because it is in BL, Riolu gets +15 in each stat because it is LC, Scyther gets +10 in each stat because it is in RU, etc.)

Those are BL and such.
NU gets +15, so why don't NFE get +20 and LC +25?

 

[PokemonMasterDebater]

Those are BL and such.
NU gets +15, so why don't NFE get +20 and LC +25?

I think it's because LC isn't affected by usage like the other tiers are, and NFE isn't a tier. Also, there are some 'mons that are in a standard tier and LC at the same time, like Snover was until just recently. All 'mons that are listed under LC or NFE will get the +15 boost from NU.

 

[FMD]

I think it's because LC isn't affected by usage like the other tiers are, and NFE isn't a tier. Also, there are some 'mons that are in a standard tier and LC at the same time, like Snover was until just recently. All 'mons that are listed under LC or NFE will get the +15 boost from NU.

So NFE and LC are really just sub tiers of NU?

 

[TUO]

not really, Ferroseed, Chansey and a couple of other NFEs are above those status, and LC doesnt really go along with the typical tiering system, so LC and NFE never really matter

 

[FMD]

I'd still really like to see some LCs get +20.
Also, neither Chansey nor Ferroseed are in the NFE category.

 

[canno]

Why don't LC and NFE Pokemon get in on the fun?

Because NFE isn't a tier, and LC isn't a tier based off usage, which causes complications. For example, Ferroseed is an RU pokemon and gets +10. However, it is also an LC pokemon, so it would receive (let's say) +30. Now obviously it's not getting +40, but which boost would apply? You could argue for both. Also, I don't see any benefit that giving LC +30 would bring to Tier Shift.

 

[HanakoToast]

Because NFE isn't a tier, and LC isn't a tier based off usage, which causes complications. For example, Ferroseed is an RU pokemon and gets +10. However, it is also an LC pokemon, so it would receive (let's say) +30. Now obviously it's not getting +40, but which boost would apply? You could argue for both. Also, I don't see any benefit that giving LC +30 would bring to Tier Shift.

Or you can just apply the 20+ bonus to NFE/LC like you do for NU. For pokes that are in the same boat as Ferroseed and Porygon2, you could just only apply the RU/UU/etc. bonus.

 

[Haaku.]

Has no one mentioned how OP leafeon is in this tier with clorophyll? IMO way better than Sawsbuck.

80/125/145/75/80/110

Gargantuan defense, allowing it to set up without any hesitation. Also, base 110 speed is enough to outspeed most scarf users in OU. 125 attack is also pretty massive. Although the movepool is really bad, it still gets a very nice 90 BP STAB move. When you're making a sun team, please consider this beast.

 

[Arcticblast]

The problem with Leafeon is that the extent of its physical movepool is Leaf Blade, Return, and X-Scissor (Bite, Dig, Aerial Ace and Rock Smash are... bad). A set similar to the set onsite with Sub / SD / Leaf Blade / Baton Pass might be pretty cool, but otherwise I'd rather use Sawsbuck or Victreebel, who have movepools that actually exist.

 

[anubite]

Hi, I've been playing around with tiershift a lot, experimenting with lots of NU pokemon. I like the spirit of it - or at least, my perception of its spirit - leveling the playing field and making all non-OU pokemon more worthy of being "OU". It's an attempt at leveling the playing field? To being more inclusive and offering more choice for team building.

The problem is that it doesn't really tackle the issues surrounding NU pokemon. It might, for RU and above, but at least as far as NU is concerned, giving Moltres +15 in all stats doesn't really make it a better pokemon. It does reward you for utilizing pokemon like Moltres ('legendaries' [I call anything with 600 BST a legendary] with terrible typing) effectively, but it doesn't really tackle some of the bigger issues - like, as an example, I'll name Beedrill. Beedrill as a pokemon - just plain sucks. Why is this? He doesn't have horrible typing like Moltres, he's at least got some interesting moves like Drillrun and Toxic Spikes - he could be really good, right? But he's not, simply because there are too many pokemon with higher base attack and speed - which are the only stats Beedrill excels at.

You can give Beedrill +15 to all stats, but who cares?
65 hp, 80 atk, 40 def, 45 spa, 80 spd, 75 spe

Become

80 hp, 95 atk, 55 def, 60 spa, 95 spd, 90 spe

He has terrible defenses, below average base hp, a usable attack stat, and that's really it. He has no useful ability and doesn't get any notable moves above 100 base power. His two stab attacks have a maximum base power of 80 and due to his inability to wall, he can't really support much. At best, he's a scarfer with u-turn, but this really limits his second good trait: the variety of moves he can use at once. Compare him to a common threat like Jirachi or Victini? Nevermind any of the bulky Dragons, who could wall any of his attacks with ease. Beedrill would need +50 to all stats to be made useful, let's be honest - and that's a rather clumsy way to "fix" pokemon, to give select NU pokemon huge boosts in stats. For instance, Flareon's problems aren't stats, just his abysmal movepool. Moltres sort of has a similar problem.

In order to balance many NU pokemon, we would need tailor-made solutions for each. A single move or ability here or there could propel a pokemon to UU. What if Beedrill got Megahorn? Would be useful then? What if he got speed boost? But we can't have a tier that applies such specific changes to pokemon, because we need to be reasonable here - we can't expect players of any tier to pick up a patch note list every time they enter a battle. If we arbitrarily gave Beedrill +30 base speed, how would anyone know this ahead of time? Part of pokemon is a game of prediction, you need to be able to predict if your Beedrill can outspeed that Flareon or not. We need a uniform rule set that players can easily apply, yet one which is also flexible.

I don't think making +15 become +20 is a good idea. As it already is, I'm finding Vigoroth with Eviolite or Throh with leftovers (and mold breaker) to be incredibly cheesy walls that rival Skarmory and Blissey in terms of "holy fuck how did he just tank that", the problem with +15 to all stats is we're making NU pokemon significantly more bulky (since +15 to all 3 defensive stats is making them much more well-rounded) instead of significantly more useful. Is the solution to making NU work to diminish the sweeping power of a choice-banded V-Create or a Gengar shadow ball against these pokemon? It just seems like a ham-fisted solution to a difficult problem.

Maybe this is the wrong place to post this, but I really think a more radical idea should be proposed for tier shift. An entire re-design? I mean, is +5 to all base stats really making a difference in the UU vs OU matchup? Certainly, certain pokemon could use stat boosts to be made viable, but I think move/ability issues are what're really holding everything back. There aren't enough checks against weather or hazards like stealth rocks for NU pokemon to ever become viable, unless we pump up their stats so high that we basically force all players to follow the current metagame, instead of trying to find ways to break through it and innovate.

What I want to suggest here, is that Tier Shift's rules change. Drop all the stat boosts and substitute these base stat increases with "extra EVs". If you're using a NU pokemon, you get X bonus EVs to spend beyond the normal 512. The effect here is that instead of trying to make NU pokemon more jack-of-all-trades-y we're trying to make them more specialized. Maybe I can put 300 EV in Beedril's speed stat? Maybe with a Jolly nature he can outspeed certain threats and... um, do something before he gets one shot? Okay, maybe Beedrill will never compete with OU pokemon at this point, but short of this idea - the only thing I can comprehend is letting NU pokemon have all non-unique moves available to their base type. That is to say, if you're Beedrill (bug/poison), you now have access to all Bug and Poison moves, even if you didn't previously. If you're Flareon, you now have access to Flamethrower or Flare Blitz - perhaps this happens in addition to getting +15 to all base stats, but this would only be in effect for NU pokemon. The only other solution I've thought about is letting tier shift pokemon "buy abilities" with their EVs or base stats... though that sounds horribly convoluted. And certain pokemon like Slaking would need to be excluded.

One other idea is that NU pokemon can have two simultaneous abilities active at once, if they have more than one. Beedrill would have Swarm and Sniper active at once. Pokemon with only one ability (or an unreleased DW ability) would be left out of this idea.

One last idea I had was to allow NU pokemon to have access to any of the three following abilities in addition of their normal ones: Cloud Nine, Sturdy, Tinted Lens. Maybe this isn't the greatest idea, but wouldn't you be more tempted to use NU pokemon if they could perform better against weather teams? If they could be guaranteed to survive at least one hit without using up an item slot? Tinted Lens would let many pokemon with horrible movepools at least hit better with not very effective types.

Are my thoughts welcome here? Or am I just annoying for suggesting such sweeping review?

 

[kitty mulcher]

Hi, I've been playing around with tiershift a lot, experimenting with lots of NU pokemon. I like the spirit of it - or at least, my perception of its spirit - leveling the playing field and making all non-OU pokemon more worthy of being "OU". It's an attempt at leveling the playing field? To being more inclusive and offering more choice for team building.

The problem is that it doesn't really tackle the issues surrounding NU pokemon. It might, for RU and above, but at least as far as NU is concerned, giving Moltres +15 in all stats doesn't really make it a better pokemon. It does reward you for utilizing pokemon like Moltres ('legendaries' [I call anything with 600 BST a legendary] with terrible typing) effectively, but it doesn't really tackle some of the bigger issues - like, as an example, I'll name Beedrill. Beedrill as a pokemon - just plain sucks. Why is this? He doesn't have horrible typing like Moltres, he's at least got some interesting moves like Drillrun and Toxic Spikes - he could be really good, right? But he's not, simply because there are too many pokemon with higher base attack and speed - which are the only stats Beedrill excels at.

You can give Beedrill +15 to all stats, but who cares?
65 hp, 80 atk, 40 def, 45 spa, 80 spd, 75 spe

Become

80 hp, 95 atk, 55 def, 60 spa, 95 spd, 90 spe

He has terrible defenses, below average base hp, a usable attack stat, and that's really it. He has no useful ability and doesn't get any notable moves above 100 base power. His two stab attacks have a maximum base power of 80 and due to his inability to wall, he can't really support much. At best, he's a scarfer with u-turn, but this really limits his second good trait: the variety of moves he can use at once. Compare him to a common threat like Jirachi or Victini? Nevermind any of the bulky Dragons, who could wall any of his attacks with ease. Beedrill would need +50 to all stats to be made useful, let's be honest - and that's a rather clumsy way to "fix" pokemon, to give select NU pokemon huge boosts in stats. For instance, Flareon's problems aren't stats, just his abysmal movepool. Moltres sort of has a similar problem.

In order to balance many NU pokemon, we would need tailor-made solutions for each. A single move or ability here or there could propel a pokemon to UU. What if Beedrill got Megahorn? Would be useful then? What if he got speed boost? But we can't have a tier that applies such specific changes to pokemon, because we need to be reasonable here - we can't expect players of any tier to pick up a patch note list every time they enter a battle. If we arbitrarily gave Beedrill +30 base speed, how would anyone know this ahead of time? Part of pokemon is a game of prediction, you need to be able to predict if your Beedrill can outspeed that Flareon or not. We need a uniform rule set that players can easily apply, yet one which is also flexible.

I don't think making +15 become +20 is a good idea. As it already is, I'm finding Vigoroth with Eviolite or Throh with leftovers (and mold breaker) to be incredibly cheesy walls that rival Skarmory and Blissey in terms of "holy fuck how did he just tank that", the problem with +15 to all stats is we're making NU pokemon significantly more bulky (since +15 to all 3 defensive stats is making them much more well-rounded) instead of significantly more useful. Is the solution to making NU work to diminish the sweeping power of a choice-banded V-Create or a Gengar shadow ball against these pokemon? It just seems like a ham-fisted solution to a difficult problem.

Maybe this is the wrong place to post this, but I really think a more radical idea should be proposed for tier shift. An entire re-design? I mean, is +5 to all base stats really making a difference in the UU vs OU matchup? Certainly, certain pokemon could use stat boosts to be made viable, but I think move/ability issues are what're really holding everything back. There aren't enough checks against weather or hazards like stealth rocks for NU pokemon to ever become viable, unless we pump up their stats so high that we basically force all players to follow the current metagame, instead of trying to find ways to break through it and innovate.

What I want to suggest here, is that Tier Shift's rules change. Drop all the stat boosts and substitute these base stat increases with "extra EVs". If you're using a NU pokemon, you get X bonus EVs to spend beyond the normal 512. The effect here is that instead of trying to make NU pokemon more jack-of-all-trades-y we're trying to make them more specialized. Maybe I can put 300 EV in Beedril's speed stat? Maybe with a Jolly nature he can outspeed certain threats and... um, do something before he gets one shot? Okay, maybe Beedrill will never compete with OU pokemon at this point, but short of this idea - the only thing I can comprehend is letting NU pokemon have all non-unique moves available to their base type. That is to say, if you're Beedrill (bug/poison), you now have access to all Bug and Poison moves, even if you didn't previously. If you're Flareon, you now have access to Flamethrower or Flare Blitz - perhaps this happens in addition to getting +15 to all base stats, but this would only be in effect for NU pokemon. The only other solution I've thought about is letting tier shift pokemon "buy abilities" with their EVs or base stats... though that sounds horribly convoluted. And certain pokemon like Slaking would need to be excluded.

One other idea is that NU pokemon can have two simultaneous abilities active at once, if they have more than one. Beedrill would have Swarm and Sniper active at once. Pokemon with only one ability (or an unreleased DW ability) would be left out of this idea.

One last idea I had was to allow NU pokemon to have access to any of the three following abilities in addition of their normal ones: Cloud Nine, Sturdy, Tinted Lens. Maybe this isn't the greatest idea, but wouldn't you be more tempted to use NU pokemon if they could perform better against weather teams? If they could be guaranteed to survive at least one hit without using up an item slot? Tinted Lens would let many pokemon with horrible movepools at least hit better with not very effective types.

Are my thoughts welcome here? Or am I just annoying for suggesting such sweeping review?

Repeat after me: poorly used tier is your friend. All the pokemon thant don't get used in Nu are now staple pokemon in Pu.

It's not meant to be balanced, just arbritarily uplift pokemon to the OU tier. If you could find a way for caterpie to be balanced fine make your own meta, but imo tweaking certain mons is a fool's task becauseyou could spend months and still not come up with a fun meta. Ok I lied it would be awesome to have everything on a more or less equal footing, but it'd require a lot of input to do so, and you'd have to put in as much effort as the game devs to do so.

 

[anubite]

I think that attitude is way too defeatist, 'don't do it because it can't be done' is not a good enough reason, especially when I'm a little confused what this 'metagame' is supposed to be about. If it's only about uplifting certain random NU to usable territory, okay, but that doesn't seem to be the intended goal? I know how to 'use' this tier, I'm just saying that this tier is only going to be good at adding more obnoxious walls (like Vigoroth) to the list of already annoying walls (like Chansey).

I think I outlined the challenges in what you're suggesting - creating a tier where most pokemon operate on the same playing field is a difficult task because it needs to be transparent (and there's no way it could be, you'd need an entire wiki devoted to all the changes to NU pokemon to fix them up).

What I guess I'm trying to say is - basically - what NU pokemon need +20 to all stats and how would it make them in any way different from their current +15? Is it that Moltres needs to outspeed threat X to be viable? Otherwise, without concrete justifications like that, a +20 to all stats is just going to slow down this metagame, by making everything NU that much tankier, but likely not that much more useful. Beedrill will always have issues because of his moves and abilities, what NU pokemon is this metagame targeting if not all of them, and what can be done to make them viable?

Also, I wasn't considering NFE to be encapsulated by this tier. Eviolite sort of makes NFE potentially viable, especially since +15 to all base stats becomes +22.5 to SpD and Def, but NFE like Caterpie shouldn't be compared to fully evolved pokemon? That's what LC is for, though I guess it would be interesting if EVERY pokemon in the game were on the same tier in terms of potential use/power - I could see Caterpie being decent if he had Arena Trap and a stab move - arena trap into string shot spam :p

 

[Knight of Cydonia]

If you read the op anubite this metagame is not about balancing all pokemon / making as many pokemon as possible viable. This metagames attractions are its very simple ruleset and the larger variety of threats and playstyles compared to OU. More rules would only detract from its appeal.

 

[Mr Omgness]

Making all 649 pokémon (or only the fully-evolved ones for that matter) perfectly and equally viable is a (nearly) impossible thing to do and not the idea of Tier Shift. I know a lot of people wish for a metagame where all pokémon are perfectly viable but it's not going to happen, deal with it.

Tier Shift is a great metagame the way it is and I've had it with all these people wanting to change it so they can play with their little critters amongst the big boys.