Clear Skies Tier: Your impressions

[Pocket]

I bet that this tier would be a more stable metagame than BW OU, since it's not stretched thin by the variety of playstyles offered in BW OU. However, it will probably be no more balanced than BW OU; just more manageable.

In fact, I believe it would be more centralized around the top threats than BW OU. The top threats in BW OU are spread evenly around the top 10 (<20% usage). I believe that the top threats of Clear Skies would gain 30+ % usage. I also predict that the size of this tier would be even smaller than BW OU, revolving around thirty some mons that are exceptionally good in clear weather.

Anyone up on the (theoretical) bet?

 

[X5Dragon]

So this isn't about making a weatherless sky as much as creating an ideal OU metagame. Intresting, will in that case I'd like to toy with Garchomp again, it's been a long time since I've used him ^_^

Also I've updated the ban list according to the inputs being given here.

Edit: Jibaku or any other mod with insight, we need the following issues to be cleared:

1. Is this tier OU with the exceptions listed?

2. Can you use Sand Storm, Hail, Rain Dance and Sunny Day?

 

[Xephyr]

Well this is nice.

 

[Byrn Dragonstone]

So this isn't about making a weatherless sky as much as creating an ideal OU metagame. Intresting, will in that case I'd like to toy with Garchomp again, it's been a long time since I've used him ^_^

Ideal is an opinion, thus should have no impact on a competitive scene. My Ideal tier would be one without Politoed, yet that doesn't make it the best tier. So this tier is basically a Weatherless tier.

As such mons that were banned for weather abuse (Manaphy, and to a lesser extent Garchomp) are available, as without the weather they would be less "uber". I am still unsure as to whether that will stand for Garchomp or not.

 

[The Infamous BL]

Yeah I've played about 20ish matches on the tier. Matches are a pain to freakin find but they are way better and less monotonous. A bit more variety imo. Mananphy is around, I've seen like 3 or 4 and only one caused me any problems, but thats only due to Virizion being an excellent counter to it for me. Nothing else seems really OP chomp is easy to deal with as well as any other dragon. Havent seen any Lati@s yet though but really thats it. With how many people complain about weather you figure it'd be more populated though. :P O well I'm liking it overall really.

 

[WinstonShnozwick]

What is this? Not having to deal with the parts of BW OU that made it such a terrible metagame.. This looks amazing. I think I can play OU again, it's obvious that weather won't be banned, so looks like this is the new standard OU tier for me :D

although garchomp was an overpowered piece of shit without sand veil, damn him. but one pokemon compared to one centralizing team is a way better deal. I can imagine so many more things being viable here, now that weather doesnt have to be a thought in every damn team.

 

[Woodchuck]

Edit: Jibaku or any other mod with insight, we need the following issues to be cleared:

1. Is this tier OU with the exceptions listed?

2. Can you use Sand Storm, Hail, Rain Dance and Sunny Day?

not a mod but I have insight-

For #1, yeah it's OU but with weather banned and garchomp and manaphy unbanned

#2 Yes.

As for the metagame, I'm with Pocket on this one.

I'm not sure about Aldaron's logic behind Deoxys-S but I think it was because it was outsped by literally nothing and worked in every weather. It has an excellent movepool, usable attacking stats, and the obvious ridiculous speed.

 

[Aeromence]

Finally, Hyper Offence can dominate

 

[AfroThunderRule]

Just to let who ever is in charge of this

This tier allowed me to use Drought Vulpix, Hail Snover, Sand Stream Hippopotas

Might want to fix that.

 

[New World Order]

I bet that this tier would be a more stable metagame than BW OU, since it's not stretched thin by the variety of playstyles offered in BW OU. However, it will probably be no more balanced than BW OU; just more manageable.

In fact, I believe it would be more centralized around the top threats than BW OU. The top threats in BW OU are spread evenly around the top 10 (<20% usage). I believe that the top threats of Clear Skies would gain 30+ % usage. I also predict that the size of this tier would be even smaller than BW OU, revolving around thirty some mons that are exceptionally good in clear weather.

Anyone up on the (theoretical) bet?

I completely agree. With BW OU, the weather teams basically kept each other in check. With weather gone, the likes of Volcorona and Dragonite are basically given free reign to do whatever they want.

 

[SethKips]

I can play 5th gen without wanting to quit every other match now?

Sounds good to me.

 

[skitz0phrenic]

I'm completely fine with the "OU Usage" amount of Pokemon being smaller than BW OU. It's the fact that things outside of that percentage will be incredibly more viable because you only have to address a single threat as opposed to an entire weather and the family of Pokemon it's grouped with.

While building a team you can consider things like, Volcarona is a threat, and I can cover that weaknesses by so and so.

Where as with weather, you have to look at each Pokemon on your team and make sure all 6 of them can function under the three major weathers, or at the very least two of them if you want to succeed.

Building against individual threats offers miles more creativity and viability as opposed to the limitations brought on by needing to build against the 3 dominant weathers, and the lack of creativity and viability in BW OU is what has turned sooooo many people against the OU tier in general.

 

[Aeromence]

can't wait to see what the new 'standard' team is. I hope it gets more popular, cos I just made a team that hasn't lost yet. I've lost no battles because I can't find any1 that actually wants to play. At least ATM I can say my team is undefeated :b

EDIT: Just got beaten :(

 

[Spenstar]

Sounds pretty cool, but why are Politoed and Ninetails banned? If there was ever a moment where a complex ban would be justified, this would be it. Flash Fire Ninetails, Water Absorb Politoed, Tension Tar, and Soundproof Abomasnow anybody?

 

[AfroThunderRule]

All they need to do is ban the abilities, not the Pokemon. ;/

Otherwise there's still permanent weather in Vulpix, Hippopotas, Snover.

 

[Thorhammer]

This tier would be an interesting experiment if it was simply BW OU without weather and the assumed results of that. If the tier really bans Deoxys-S, however, it has overstepped those bounds and lost that purpose.

 

[??????]

I'd have to agree with Thorhammer. Don't ban anything not banned in real OU or any valid comparisons will be rendered useless.

And really weather isn't broken, only Dory is...but I'll try this out. Get rid of Hail on my Tentacruel, big woop-de-do.

 

[Aldaron]

The reason politoed and ninetales are banned instead of just the abilities is because there is a complication in the coding when banning only abilities.

As such, we just thought it easier to ban toed / ninetales since they're pretty irrelevant in OU without their weather inducing abilities.

EDIT:

Just to clarify, it seems like we forgot to ban the pre-evos, so if you see anyone on this ladder using the pre-evo pokemon with the weather inducing abilities, please contact a mod and get the abuser banned.

Also, Garchomp / Manaphy / Excadrill / Thundurus are all unbanned and allowed in this tier, and Deoxys-S is banned. Blaziken remains banned. My administrative decision on this stands as such: Garchomp / Manaphy / Excadrill / Thundurus "power levels" were influenced in some significant way by weather, and therefore should be tried out in a no weather metagame. Deoxys-S will be even more effective than in Gen 4 as being any of a dual hazards lead / dual screener / lo sweeper and therefore should be banned, and Blaziken was broken regardless of sun. You can argue the strength of these points if you want, but note this ladder only exists due to my arbitrary whim and I'll be making decisions based on my own administrative discretion.

You can take the existence of this tier like this: I arbitrarily decided to put this ladder on the server of my own accord, and will not even consider anything like suspect tests or anything regarding this. I will keep up with this thread and the opinions in #dreamworld and make moves accordingly, so keep me updated (definitely drop by #dreamworld and talk about it).

Using the moves Rain Dance / Sandstorm / Hail / Sunny Day is allowed.

 

[Thorhammer]

All in favor of a Clear Skies tier that actually has something decently resembling suspect testing rather than authoritarian declarations?

 

[tehy]

Why is deoxys-s banned? Honestly, it's not all that good. The lo cleaner is dangerous, but dualscreens is MEH. Stall beats it pretty easily.

Also, is hippowdon allowed? He still pwns pretty hard.

 

[Thorhammer]

I'm all in favor for you making actual constructive posts, before you get infracted both for trolling and attempting to incite the staff.

Note, there will be no more suspect tests, ever. If you don't like that, you're welcome to go somewhere else.

Attempting to incite you? I believe you misunderstand; there's no trolling involved here, and this is certainly not addressed at you. I'm proposing precisely what you're suggesting: going somewhere else to another, separate Clear Skies tier set up so that it can actually benefit Smogon as a whole. It's your choice to squander your idea for god knows why, but that doesn't mean I can't work on having it be put to use separately by people with Smogon's best interests at heart, which is certainly constructive.

Now, if you'd simply prefer that I discuss the matter elsewhere, I'm willing to make this my last post about it in this thread, and make a new one for my proposal. Are we all happy now?

 

[Aldaron]

If you want to make a separate server for "your" version of clear skies, go ahead, but I won't allow a thread on Smogon that promotes going to another server when we have our own ladder set up on our server.

If you are proposing we put another tier on the server, good luck getting that tier...since I run the server.

Btw is there a reason in your posts you ONLY mention the banning of Deoxys-S, and NOT the unbanning of Excadrill / Thundurus / Garchomp / Manaphy?

I know what crowd you're a part of on smogon, and I know very well that your whole crowd sticks adamantly and boneheadedly stubbornly to the "ban less" philosophy, and the fact that you mention only my ban and not my unbans makes me really curious as to your real intentions. Are you more interested in giving smogon a balanced clear skies tier or just pushing your "less bans" propaganda?

EDIT:

Btw, I don't want to make it sound like thorhammer is making me look...I'm not going to be some tyrant here. I just gave my justification for my bans and unbans; if you don't like it, convince me otherwise. I can be convinced to unban Deoxys-S / Blaziken, and I can be convinced to ban Exca / chomp / manaphy / thund, but I need solid reasoning and evidence of actual playing.

My only point is there won't be any suspect tests for OU, let alone side tiers like this, so in the end I'll be the one making the decisions. It's on you to convince me to make a move. Most people who frequent #dreamworld will attest that I am fair and neutral in making decisions.

 

[skitz0phrenic]

Btw, I don't want to make it sound like thorhammer is making me look...I'm not going to be some tyrant here. I just gave my justification for my bans and unbans; if you don't like it, convince me otherwise. I can be convinced to unban Deoxys-S / Blaziken, and I can be convinced to ban Exca / chomp / manaphy / thund, but I need solid reasoning and evidence of actual playing.

How about just not initially banning Deoxys-S without solid reasoning and evidence of actual playing?

The reasoning you gave is that you banned him with personal bias. You gave no objective reasoning behind banning him. If you personally think he fills too many roles efficiently then that is on you. You don't speak for everybody. Blaziken is objectively banned outside or inside of weather. Keeping his ban makes sense. Banning Deoxys-S without any play time or feedback when he isn't even banned in standard BW OU is completely irrational.

Follow your own advice and let solid reasoning and evidence of playing actually exist before jumping to conclusions on a ban. When multiple people are giving reasoning that Deoxys-S should be banned then that's when you should intervene...not initially on just your word.

 

[Aldaron]

Again, why are you guys speaking about only a ban and not the 4 unbans?

I'm seriously laughing at how you're all simply pushing a ban less propaganda and less interested in actually having a good metagame set up.

Btw, multiple people DID tell me to ban it in in #dreamworld, which is why I did. There reasoning, that it would be more effective in clear skies at doing what it did in gen 4 ou was more relevant to me than simply keeping it for the sake of keeping it.

 

[Thorhammer]

Aldaron, I'm in favor of examining possibilities. It's easier to do that starting with less bans than more. As skitz noted, if people try using Deoxys-S in Clear Skies and find him to be broken, that's a different matter; I wouldn't object to him being banned then. I realize that I'm not anywhere near familiar enough with this metagame to say what is or isn't broken in it. However, that goes for everyone, including you. It goes for everyone until we at least try things a bit to find out for sure, even if it isn't anything like a full suspect test.

The reason we're not speaking out against the two unbans is because you were right to make them, at least temporarily, because they allow more possibilities to be examined. If you feel that you had a good reason to make the two unbans, why do you not only expect, but demand people object to them?