Perhaps it is time you all got over your "counter" mentality.

If you really want to get rid of this counter 'mentality', you're going to have to remove the 'Counters' section present in every pokemon analysis. :\ Sure, one's utmost priority in a battle is to get their strategy front and center, but if the momentum is not in your favor, countering gets you back on track. I essentially think that's the gist of the counter concept.
 
The concept of counters is nice to have to avoid glaring weaknesses on your team, as a team should have a hard time functioning if it has little or no ways to get around something. It's just 100% counters for things aren't necessary as long as you have some way to deal with something and have an effective strategy of your own.

Btw don't turn this into another chomp debate, there's already been dumb things posted >_>
 

dekzeh

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Only problem I see with this thread is that you're assuming that everyone uses offensive teams and stall teams "won't" work since you "can't" counter everything.

Otherwise, like most of the good players have already said, this is old news.
 
Garchomp always being a one-for-one is what makes it unbalanced. How often is Garchomp not going to make its value (one Pokemon) back, in terms of damage output? Statistically almost never. Garchomp is going to take something out, almost every time. If this is not what you people consider bad balance, then I think you guys need to start admitting you have no idea what you're talking about.
Balanced when compared to what, I may ask?

When it comes to the optimal pokemon, I like to think that it should always be able to take one pokemon out. Therefore, when a team with six of these optimal pokemon fights another team of optimal pokemon, the only unbalancing factor that would determine the winner would be luck.

With this definition, an Uber (an excessively unbalanced pokemon) would be able to always take out more than one pokemon in the pool of allowed participants.

Now, if we could obtain statistics from the ladders that show how many kills per battle a type of pokemon nets...
 

jrrrrrrr

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Anyways, there are plenty of solid threats that can beat the shit outta Garchomp.
Yeah and everything you listed involves multiple pokemon, and losing at least one of those pokemon. Then there's 80% sand veil bla bla

I think the people who want Garchomp banned are just sour at their experiences. If you can't manage to get around Garchomp, you either have poor team building skills or you are just incompetent.
Please tell me that this is a joke.

Really? Wobbuffet was broken because of its ability to take the game back into the wobbuffet's user's control the second it came into play. Wobbuffet does not "react" to your opponent - the opponent has to "react" to Wobbuffet the second it comes into play - I'm pretty sure people have commented on this on the old wobbuffet thread. The point is wobbuffet creates free turns for any Pokemon in your party, not just the Pokemon currently in play, that was what was deemed "dangerous". If you think switching in Wobbuffet means "you are a step behind" then maybe you yourself are a little behind in terms of arguments
Wobbuffet's speed and movepool dictate that it must react to the opponent's attacks, regardless of what options your opponent has. Wobbuffet is doing all of the reacting so that your next pokemon can use that free turn to clean up. You are the one who said that reacting to your opponent gives them a step ahead, and since Wobbuffet is forced to react to the opponent I put two and two together based on your own implications here. I really don't need the personal attacks when you are the one who has it backwards in this instance.

Now, for your other "points". I would bother addressing them if you haven't already corrupted with your ideology about how every "theory" about the damn game must support the fact that Garchomp is uber - there really isn't a point in "debating" with you considering I have already pointed out to you many times that you lost objectivity, and thus, the "right" to be taken seriously in threads such as this. What you are doing right now is overcomplicating my points more than it needs to be.
I'm not debating Garchomp here, I'm just applying it here since it's the most obvious example of people using the "no counters" argument. I'm not overcomplicating your points, I'm pointing out that they simply don't apply to every situation and really can't be used as an end-all solution in team building or in analysing the game.

Nice attempt to turn this into a "Garchomp" debate, btw. Come back when you are ready to see the game seriously. I mean when you say shit like

"Fuck Yache Chomp has no fucking counters! Run for it!"

What you essentially just said is "Once Garchomp comes into play, it is gg". And I'm pretty damn sure this isn't true. And you act like you ALWAYS have to sacrifice two Pokemon for it - funny, I've taken Garchomp with only sacrificing one, or even less! - sacrificing Pokemon X so my other Pokemon can kill it! Sacrificing one of my Pokemon for one of theirs? If this is a bad trade, then why the hell would people go out of the way for suicide leads?
Oh give me a break. You are smart enough to realize that the most painfully obvious application of this thread is the Garchomp debate, although it also does apply to things like Aerodactyl in UU.

...and actually I do think that suicide leads are retarded. At least you can't say I'm being inconsistent!! I really can't explain why people would make that bad of a trade so sorry small fruit but I can't answer your last question here :(

Now, I assumed that you would be rational and not claim that nothing can EVER switch into Garchomp so it can kill it the next turn - which is why I even assumed perfect counter - which WOULD be the rational argument. If a stupid berry is enough to throw you off your horses and make you start whining about how Pokemon X is broken then honestly I wonder how you obtained your reputation as such a good player.
Can you stop with the personal attacks plskthx? I'm not "whining" or being thrown off my horse by a berry. Obviously I've KOd countless Garchomp, its just unneccessarily boring to do so. Not only do I have to play the entire match waiting for it to come out, I also have to shift the entire focus of my team to being anti-Garchomp in the team builder. It just makes the game boring as fuck. You know what the arguments are...so why are you acting so childish about this?

The point is this - you make the best choices based on any situation. If this means feeding a Pokemon to Garchomp so your next Poke can nail it, so be it. If this means that setting up SR and sacrificing your lead is the best decision, then so be it. If this means exploding on Garchomp or any threat you can't deal with, so be it. Why do you assume that your Pokemon must SURVIVE (aka must be a 100% COUNTER) the encounter when you can use it to kill the other? The point of the game is to win, aka to checkmake, not to constantly put people in check over and over again.
Ok, and what if the best choice in any situation is lose a pokemon? No matter what you do, you lose. I don't want to play a game where the best option is to pick which part of my team is the most useless for it to be sacrificed, ESPECIALLY in a game like pokemon where there is so much hidden information. Nobody is assuming what you think they are.

Interesting implication there! Why bother bringing up that fact if it won't be an "argument" to your great cause of banning Garchomp?
It's just a neat little statistic. I don't know what you're getting at here but it sounds like you are just letting off steam and not really saying anything =\

And you still haven't given a valid reason about why "no counters" is irrelevant in discussing tier placement.

etc etc etc. Is everything about Garchomp to you? Then why haven't you found ways to work around the fact that Garchomp is there, instead of thinking of it like this God Piece that wrecks the entire game? What do you do when there is something so big that one Pokemon can't handle? That's right. You use two. Oh, and you want to know why it is balanced? Cause you can use one too.
I hope to God that this part of your post is a joke. "Garchomp is balanced because you can use one too!" Let's allow Kyogre in OU! It won't be a problem because EVERYONE can use it!!

And its not just me that thinks Garchomp is everything. Have you played OU...uh...ever? (rhetorical) The entire OU tier is about Garchomp.

So essentially, skiddle, jrrrrr, SubVersion, chrisisme, "thanks for missing the point and arguing about something arbitrary", something that stark users seem to do very very often! Perhaps all of you "claiming" that "everyone knows this" - that's nice, everyone knew this the second Surgo made his thread, but judging by all of the posts half of you churn out when discussing the metagame, you guys really don't "know" it. What good is knowledge you can't apply to your arguments? Nothing. Makes you wonder why I made my decision not to post here anymore huh? (aka you are free to respond, but don't expect a response back - I am done)
Go ahead and declare a personal victory even though you missed what I said. Dismissing my post as arbitrary while criticizing me for doing the same thing is laughable. Nothing I said was wrong.

You're just under the assumption that "having no counters" doesn't matter, without any actual reasoning behind it. I'm saying that does matter. Maybe you should read your own thread about how to argue :heart:

If you really want to get rid of this counter 'mentality', you're going to have to remove the 'Counters' section present in every pokemon analysis. :\ Sure, one's utmost priority in a battle is to get their strategy front and center, but if the momentum is not in your favor, countering gets you back on track. I essentially think that's the gist of the counter concept.
Thank god someone ACTUALLY gets it. Countering helps you make up ground on your opponent, not the other way around as the OP is claiming.
 
How can such a bold claim like "eliminate counters" be enacted when stall teams are still perfectly viable. Stall plays off of counters to give you the advantage to set up entry hazards and...stall the fuck out of your opponent. Maybe on purely offensive teams the concept of counters is not mentionable, but you're missing the entire point of counters. Someone said it gets momentum on your side, which allows YOU to dictate the pace of the game. You don't simply play counters to stop threat x from beating your team. Bringing in counter y at the appropriate times allows you to execute your strategy and ultimately puts you back in control of the game.
 
Nice effort

Although i'm afraid it won't help much, the counter mentality has been there for ages and one topic as smart as it might be won't change it

t's the same like making a topic about garchomp being not Uber, the smartest guy in this forum might make it with brilliant arguments, it still won't change many people opinion
 
Tangerine isn't saying that counters are obselete. He's saying that you don't necessarily need a counter to beat a Pokemon.

I agree with everything that has been said in this thread. I mean sure, I don't have a Pokemon that can always switch into a 100% +2 Garchomp and kill Garchomp before Garchomp kills it, but I don't need to. Looking at my recent team, Scizor can Quick Attack it, Honchkrow can Sucker Punch it, Lucario can Vacuum Wave it, Vaporeon can Ice Beam it, ScarfTran outruns it and hits it with HP Ice, and my own Garchomp can win the speed tie if I'm desperate. I don't have a counter, but I'm not Garchomp weak in the literal sense of the word.

If "has no counters" is a legitimate argument to ban a Pokemon, Lucario also must go. Why? It's not just that it has many movesets with vastly different counters. Lucario does have a set that is completely uncounterable. Close Combat/Crunch/Iron Tail/Stone Edge @ Choice Band has no counters at all outside Lugia and Giratina.
 

Syberia

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Choice sets have all sorts of counters because they're always locked into one move at a time. And before anyone says "prediction," it works both ways, and both players can do it.
 
The argument that 'Garchomp is balanced because you can use one too' is horrible. You can use that to place any Pokemon in any tier.

On the issue of defensive Pokemon, don't underestimate their usefulness. The thing is, most defensive Pokemon have status or support moves that help the team and make switches difficult. Skarm has SR/Spikes, Blissey has TWave/SR/toxic, Cress can also Twave or Toxic etc. It's hard to switch your sweeper in when they might be paraluzed on the switch.


If that was at me, I was being sarcastic..
 
I've been saying this for a very long time, and it's pretty much correct. It was true as early as RBY Tauros (I wasn't actually around the community when RBY was the game, but I've played it since), it was true again with Tyraniboah in RSE, and it's still true in DP. It's not that having one Pokemon counter another one's most common set or sets isn't useful, and it's not that you don't use that in battle. However, it's simply not necessary, and there are a wide variety of other factors you need to be focusing on to win.

I like how Wobbuffet and Garchomp have been brought up in this thread; they really are perfect examples. They are Pokemon that an objective analysis of the game would conclude are fair (that means statistics which are extremely unambiguous about both) but who violate the counter-centric philosophy.

Those who still like counters as everything need to consider that both Smeargle and Trapinch, by a formal definition, have no counters!
 
Very well put Tangerine. This has really been my way of thinking since this entire suspect testing began. Despite what others say about this needing to be a metagame that minimizes the luck factor but in instating these bans and restrictions, we move away from what the game actually is.

In Pokemon, and the offensive D/P metagame especially, you're not going to be able to counter everything. As you put it, pick your strategy and execute it, there's no use in playing one step behind your opponent.
 
I've noticed with my "creative teams", the ones where I get to top 30 or so seem to start loosing to a single pokemon, when I change for a "counter" my loose win ratio goes more more losses than it did before I added the "counter". Teams can't kill everything, but they should have at least a sacrificial way to deal with it.
 
The Counter section can still provide proxy information. Gliscor's listing as a Heracross counter isn't an instruction to put it on your team as the Heracross-antidote, it gives context to the whole situation around it; what type combination / stat distribution is effective against this pokemon and others with similar function, the mindset of the Heracross user when seeing such a pokemon, etc.

I can't see the basis for a counter being "designed" as an absolute grid in party forming. It seems like it was meant to be a secondary utility that was noted for its usefulness (A Gliscor in a Baton Pass themed party may be designed to pass stats, but that does not mean it is incapable of being a counter) that was misinterpreted by some and became the basis of a good team. It's easy to just look up a bunch of threats, scroll down, and arrange a set of counters into a party rather than conceive a team with a plan and direction. If listed counters were meant to be just THE pokemon to use, we might as well have THE only EV spreads that can be used, THE only movesets, and eventually, a single web page that read "Please use the following team:"
 
though the notion of counters can be overblown, so can this direction. unless you have an insanely offensive team, you can't revenge kill everything, nor should you, as that requires a kill. i severely doubt that any of you guys would build a team without thinking of ways to counter tyranitar, garchomp, gyarados etc. like it or not, you'll still be very much relying on counters.
 

cim

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Only problem I see with this thread is that you're assuming that everyone uses offensive teams and stall teams "won't" work since you "can't" counter everything.
If you've played with a stall team before, you'll know that against a competent opponent, having 6 counters doesn't work in itself. You STILL need to execute a strategy, even if it's just "get spikes and sr out and wear down the teams through switching and stuff".

Even on a stall team, you don't necessarily need a perfect counter to everything, partially because so few exist for so many Pokémon (not just Garchomp, j7r) and partially because playing the "counter everything" game keeps you a step behind.

Oh, and AA is always right.
 
Oh no, the 4x Weak must mean you MUST use an ice attack to take down Garchomp. Shit, two hits to kill a Pokemon? THIS IS GAMEBREAKING STRATEGY, RIGHT HERE.
And in between those two hits it has killed something of yours. You're missing the point.

"Theorymon says this is bad advice"
Is this a joke? How is your "I'll let Garchomp kill something and then bring in Agiligross!" not theorymon? How am I supposed to show how stupid a theorymon argument is without using theorymon myself?

The general point I was making - which you conveniently missed in favor of your "fuck you guys!" attitude - is that even if you make use of that one free turn, the chances of you actually getting an advantage from it are pretty slim. How effective do you expect a +2 Metagross to be mid-match? He's certainly not assured a kill for his efforts. And if your opponent has anything that can stand up to your stat-upper (and most well-built teams will), you've lost a Pokemon for nothing.

Honestly, this rebuttal was retarded. If you don't like Theorymon vs Theorymon, then don't use theorymon in the first place.


Now, for your other "points". I would bother addressing them if you haven't already corrupted with your ideology about how every "theory" about the damn game must support the fact that Garchomp is uber - there really isn't a point in "debating" with you considering I have already pointed out to you many times that you lost objectivity, and thus, the "right" to be taken seriously in threads such as this.
"I would take you seriously if you didn't have such a strong opinion"

lol

So essentially, skiddle, jrrrrr, SubVersion, chrisisme, "thanks for missing the point and arguing about something arbitrary"
why are you being such a condescending dick when we're simply applying your theory to in-game situations

That post was a big middle finger in disguise, basically. I don't know why you'd even bother posting if your only response to criticism is to start being a douchebag.
 
Metagross has several 100% counters. Especially agiligross. Bronzong, anyone? Yeah... just because not everything has counters doesn't mean that counters are obselete. Bronzong is relatively easy to shoehorn in to any team, considering it has one weakness... and the Heatran I know you all have patches that up nicely.

Yeah, that and the "well, I'll just send in my agiligross" argument is getting lamer every time I look at it. Not only is your Metagross eating 46.31-54.57% from Jolly SD Outrage, but Garchomp killed something already, and severely dented another pokemon. And what do you get out of it? You get a half health Metagross with 404 speed. Big deal.

Suppose Garchomp got a kill with *gasp* Earthquake? Then it can come back later with it's 333 speed and probably kill or dent something else. You can't rely on it to use Outrage all the time, unless you've got a lot of flying pokemon on your team like Zapdos or Gliscor. Seriously Tangerine, this whole "Garchomp is easy to deal with, just let it kill something" argument doesn't really work.
 

Chou Toshio

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Putting aside the argument of whether the concept of "countering" itself is obsolete or not, isn't the point of this thread this:

We should not use the existance/non-existance of a "perfect counter" in a metagame as an argument for/against keeping a pokemon in a certain tier.

? After all, the tier discussions (sad but true imo) are the main discussions of stark, and the ones to which we are applying these ideas.

. . . wow, is it just me or is it rather pathetic that we spend all our time bickering over what goes where?
 

cim

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Uh, no, I'm pretty sure this thread isn't addressing the tiers specifically, but rather the idea that a counter means anything in general.

But apparently I got it wrong according to Tangerine so yeah.
 
We should not use the existance/non-existance of a "perfect counter" in a metagame as an argument for/against keeping a pokemon in a certain tier.
That's part of it, and I do believe jrrr addressed this point himself: The argument never has been that Garchomp has no counters per say, but that a well-played (which isn't hard) Garchomp cannot be stopped until it is allowed to kill something first. Really, the fact he has "no counters" falls into that, but isn't the main point. Looking at it now, this whole thread is really just attacking a straw man argument.

I'd also like to ask anyone who believe's Tangerine's point (the way ChouToshio summarized it, at least) is that if not being stoppable through reasonable means (I'm intentionally stopping short of saying "no counters", here) isn't a valid point for uber-ness, then what makes the "obviously uber" Pokemon uber?

It isn't "obviously uber" stats, because a BST 5000 Pokemon with only Splash would be NU. It isn't "obviously uber" movepools, because stuff like Tyranitar and Salamence have crazy good movepools. It isn't - strictly - a combination of both, since there are lots of Pokemon with brilliant stats in all the right places and the perfect movepool to abuse them, that aren't being considered for uber. Since none of these things alone justify banning a Pokemon to ubers, what is it that makes it acceptable for Mewtwo, Kyogre, Giratina etc to be banned from standard play? I'd wager a guess and say it is because they are uncounterable - through reasonable means - by anything in OU. That's the thing that separates ubers and "really good" Pokemon: Ubers have the good stats and movepools to such an extent that they cannot be reasonably stopped, "really good" Pokemon do not.

Tangerine's attempt to say "just play around it" is so vague it really is hard to take it seriously. Any Uber Pokemon can be "played around" in the OU environment. Sure, it may take two or three Pokemon before you take it down, but they all can be played around. The problem with trying to do it this way is that we're then left with the issue of defining just how much "playing around" is too much. Is having to sacrifice one Pokemon "too much" playing around? Two Pokemon? Three Pokemon? Five? Any line you draw is going to be totally arbitrary and easily disputed. Saying it simply "can't be countered" is much more easily definable and, put simply, is far more effective.

So yeah, while Tangerine's point that it really is more effective to play around your opponent than it is to expend all your efforts simply countering him (and the fact you can't ever counter everything means you'll have to do a lot of "playing around" anyway) is basically true, his attempts to then say that having "no counters" is irrelevant and that simply being able to "play around" certain threats means not being able to stop them without making sacrifices is perfectly acceptable, is rather stupid. For all his self-righteous, condescending shit-flinging, I really think his theory is more or less correct but his application is way off the mark.
 

Chou Toshio

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But see, the issue I have about these "Statement" arguments regarding chomp is that if you really buy them, you have to:

1st) Say that there really are no other OU pokemon it doesn't apply to (difficult)

2nd) Believe that the inverse statement wouldn't not be true for Ubers

Can you really tell me that the statements you are making about Garchomp truly applies to the likes of Manaphy and Lati@s in OU? They certainly have viable counters in OU, maybe even more viable than Garchomp's. Heck, Giratina probably has viable OU counters (and thus, you don't have to sacrifice a pokemon to stop Giratina).

How about this as a "reason" to ban garchomp: It kicks too much ass?

We can argue back and forth all day about what garchomp can or cannot do, but you will never find any statement about garchomp that can/can't be said about this or that other OU or Uber pokemon. You can't argue garchomp into ubers with statements.

So you'll ask me then-- well jeez then Chou, how do we figure out what's in any tier? And I'll answer that to me, the question of tiering is subjective anyway. I see nothing wrong with it coming down to voting and the general opinion of the forumers just like it did (sort of) in regards to Wob and Deoxys.

[rant]
Frankly, I don't even see why it should come down to "solid intelligible arguement," or why the decisions have to be made by those who just happen to have the verbal/intellectual skills to put together a cohesive argument.

I mean, if Tangerine is right, that people are idiots, then said group of intellectuals is just the tiniest fraction of people who actually play this game. What, just because a person has crappy verbal skills his opinion should not count?

In my opinion, "gut feeling" and "because I think so" of the general community is as good as any "logical" reason (pfffft) people are trying to apply.

edit: On that note, "general opinion" is basically how we are working with UU right now, and I think that's perfectly fine. Also why I believe the way we're doing things now is no different from Obi's proposal by the way.[/rant]

Either way, I don't think ANY "logical statement" arguments are what should determine (by itself) whether a pokemon is in a certain tier. That includes logical statement arguments about counters.
 
We're testing Manaphy and the Lati twins, aren't we? I don't see how my inability to say "Manaphy/Lati@s has no OU counters" works against me when right now even the top players aren't sure they're Uber-worthy anyway...

And I definitely think logical statements have a place in debates such as this, especially above where I attempted to illustrate why being "unreasonable to stop" is a big part of what makes any uber Pokemon uber by stringing together logical arguments. Really, your "Garchomp kicks too much ass" isn't all that much different from my "Garchomp is unreasonable to stop", so I suppose in this instance your gut feeling and my logical reduction ended up in the same place anyway. Not saying that either of us is undeniably right that Garchomp is broken, of course.
 

X-Act

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Any Pokemon is uber or not depending on 4 things: its base stats, movepool, typing and abilities. Nothing else.

Tiering is always subjective unless an objective way is defined. That means that people will always bitch about the tiers unless an objective way is defined.

The solution is easy: don't tier anything and use whatever is available. But nobody wants to do that for some reason!

When I used to play the TCG, we had no bans except those of the old sets. Guess what... people used about the same 7 or 8 decks. Did we complain about that? No.
 

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