X items are commonly used in speedruns, but not in this particular one. Off the top of my head, I believe there are only one or two instances where a single X-Attack is used in the run I linked.
As mentioned earlier, an X-Attack is used only once or twice in the run.
I'm sorry but I assume you didn't watch the entirety of the run in question. Nor did I watch the whole 4-hour long thing of course, but I found all the places I found important to investigate.
Times when the player uses X-Attack (just one, but Swellow has no natural means of boosting attack outside of Guts otherwise):
Flannery - X attack to KO Torkoal
Norman - X attack to KO Slakings
Winona - X attack to KO Altaria, Pelipper, and hit Skarmory harder
Wallace - X attack to KO Milotic, Whiscash, possibly more
X Attack on Swellow is not used against Roxanne (player uses Mudkip), Brawley (level advantage + SE STAB Wing Attack), Wattson (player uses Marshtomp) and Tate & Liza (player uses Latias with multiple X Special bots).
In other words, Swellow is used only in 5 gym battles out of 8, out of which it's overlevelled for one gym and an X Attack is required for the other four. And then Swellow is dropped for Kyogre.
Facade+Guts is powerful, no doubt about it. But there is simply no way this performance will be replicated in an efficiency run the kind of which we are discussing in the present thread.
I also wasn't aware that this was ever a rule, and strongly disagree that it should be one. X-items still have an opportunity cost of taking up a turn and some Pokemon make better use of them than others (for example, a Pokemon with Swords Dance receives little utility from an X-Attack). I don't think they homogenize Pokemon in this game any more than a held item would.
and
Are X-Items allowed? (I strongly believe they should be)
Ever since we started the in-game tiering process as a serious community effort under Mekkah's supervision with RBY X items have not been taken into account, and the reasons weren't questioned much until the speedrunning duo - you and Colonel M I mean - intruded with an alternative vision of why certain Pokemon should be tiered differently.
Held items don't homogenise Pokemon at all considering they differ greatly in availability (you often get Miracle Seed before all others, some are never easily available in some of the games) and actual application. X items achieve just that, though we can still agree that Swampert and Luvdisc require a considerably different number of said items to ensure a sweep. However, for efficiency purposes, not every battle is preferred to be a sweep; far from it.
A poisoned Swellow is under virtually no risk for the Flannery, Norman, Winona and Wallace, while being a great option against Brawly. Very few Pokemon (if any?) are fantastic options against five of the eight gyms.
It is at no risk because you're using an X Attack item to ensure a sweep with a 140 BP STAB move with additional 50% attack from Guts; otherwise, it does not last. And it is no longer such a great option against Brawley if it's not soloing the game after being caught at a whopping level of 18, because the neutral attacks it's taking in return are very difficult to survive. Zubat is a better option for Brawley because of its resistances, but most players will probably use their second tier starter or a well-trained Ralts/Marill.
Swellow does not perform very well against the Elite 4, but is an elite option against normal trainers, Team Magma/Aqua and the majority of gym leaders. The Latis are poor options against the Elite 4 but are widely considered two of the best Pokemon in the game and currently reside in S tier.
You have to really build your entire playstyle around keeping Swellow poisoned, which is the sole reason why it's doing so well against generic mooks (the other being its high speed, a pro we should by no means ignore since we're likely going to measure Taillow outside of its speedrun prominence sometime later on).
Grimers and Muks are common amongst Team Magma/Alpha grunts, and I believe there are only two instances in the game where Swellow needs to be "re-poisoned". Ethers, Berries and Potions effectively take the place of Pokemon Centres, and save time to boot.
They are only common against Team
Aqua grunts, because the Magma ones (including Maxie himself) use Koffing / Weezing instead.
There are probably a lot more than two instances where Swellow needs to get poison back (I can't afford to watch the whole video) considering you constantly recover your health and status as you follow the storyline. Since you missed the sheer reliance on X items to perform well in most (all but one) of the gyms where Swellow is used in the speedrun, it's not impossible that you didn't look at these bits as well, but there seems a lot of these during a run; I'll try to pay attention to this next time I do a playthrough (in which I'll test Swellow under normal efficiency settings).
I think it's unfair to sandbag Swellow for the sole reason of restricting ourselves to a slower, less efficient playstyle. However, if the creator of the tier list is adamant in setting a restriction that the "tier player" must use a 3-4 Pokemon party (and that they all must be involved in battles regularly), I think we're at an impasse.
I think you are being manipulative and provocative with that wording - "slower, less efficient playstyle" is exactly what we understand by efficiency here, as opposed to speedrunning which you (and Colonel M to a certain extent, but he's arguing that Golem should be in the second tier so I doubt he'll go with you until the very end logically) propose as the new basis for efficiency instead of what we have been comfortably been doing here all the time for what seems like many years now.
I'll address the last comment in a moment.
I do however want to see these rules clearly outlined, and agreed upon by the majority of participators in this topic. In particular:
- Are X-Items allowed? (I strongly believe they should be)
- What is the min/max team allowable team size? (I would like a minimum size of 1 to be set to avoid sandbagging Pokemon like Swellow, who are more efficient by themselves than any 3-4 Pokemon team)
- Are we limiting battles to exclusively wild Pokemon fights where a team member is caught, and mandatory trainer fights? (This I also feel very strongly about. This would cut down the subjectivity of the rankings immensely)
I'm not Celever running the topic, or IAR/Colonel M/DHR who appear to be authoritative figures when decisions are to be made, but it seems these arguments have been generally met with reluctance so I'll go over these myself.
1) X-items have not been allowed, which has mostly been an unstated rule all agreed upon (most users debating have been aware of their existence and application, no doubt). Their usage can be compared to temporary Exp Share in erasing the peculiarities of the Pokemon used.
2) By "efficient", you mean "used to achieve the highest score in a speedrun". We are not discussing speedrunning however, even if specific aspects of speedrunning can be applicable to efficiency tiering, but many are not.
When Mekkah and atsync were running the RBY tier lists, testing was done with a team of six Pokemon. While this makes the difficulty of otherwise laughably easy games quite real, Pokemon like Farfetch'd still found themselves high up on the list because the requirements to be a good Pokemon were low enough in those games.
However, games differ when it comes to the role played by the HM slaving. If you have to put moves like Waterfall and Whirlpool on one mon he won't be much of a combatant so a party of 4-5 (leaning towards 5) Pokemon is logical. Since we are not speedrunning, we can afford to have just HM slave in OR/AS (Zigzagoon followed by Latios has done the job on my two runs so far, but I'm sure other options can be found, say, using Tropius or another water-type if Lati@s is in play). In X/Y, when I did my latest testing, all six Pokemon were in active use at once, and the game got quite hard as a result (just one of the many factors affecting the level difference between you and the opposition).
Anyway, speedrunning marginalises the qualities of Pokemon in a way that would be unwelcome in this tier list. Namely, if a Pokemon is expected to do all the fighting on his own rather than act as part of a diverse team, some appealing Pokemon will drop really hard on the list. This includes almost all grass and poison types known to us, for example. Venusaur in RBY is a pretty good Pokemon, but if we assume it has to fight all the Haunters and Gengars in the game then things are quite bad for him, and it becomes much worse if we forbid him to take the Body Slam TM. Of course, there are Pokemon who actually are good at fighting nearly everything, such as Feraligatr in GSC or Mega Luke in XY, and it is still considered a big advantage. It doesn't seem like Swellow is anywhere close to being such a Pokemon though, as even the Steel Wing TM doesn't give it adequate coverage to function well in an efficiency run.
3) Limiting this would only be applicable to soloing found in speedruns, because a full team really needs the experience. Of course, now experience can be racked up by the means of switching, which is not exactly an efficient practice in itself, but allows a weaker team to get slightly stronger since the split EXP from switching is no longer divided since XY.
I find it interesting that you said the following about your relentless stance on the issue:
(This I also feel very strongly about. This would cut down the subjectivity of the rankings immensely)
"Subjectivity" in this case would imply "flexibility" in your jargon, as we are not pressed to conserve as many frames as possible, which is a regular practice for a speedrun. For example, the runner in the video uses X items on Kyogre because he never had the time to open the TM menu and teach it Calm Mind, which we wouldn't hesitate to do. The player also uses Surf on Walrein during the E4 sequence, which nobody in this topic would have a second thought about going to Lilycove Department Store to buy the Thunder TM in advance so that Kyogre can use it with perfect accuracy later on.
Indeed, this opens huge space for discussions and playing and thinking and whatnot. There are different degrees of opportunity cost, and different degrees of performance, and we all play the games and argue about it - I think it's a whole lot more interesting than tiering according to potential to solo/speedrun the game or a single section of it, which is very restraining.
I'm not trying to marginalise you with your enthusiasm for speedrunning (though you haven't shared any of your individual experiences with it, which is a pity), and I'm sure I'd look at a tier list for speedrunning with interest should you make one such list, but it doesn't seem like you'd find a particularly large crowd to adequately discuss and improve upon such a list. One would need people with the right qualifications and experience, I should think.
There is absolutely no reason why X Items should be barred in tier list placing. There are legitimate strategies that I can create with them that improve efficiency.
Let me take a second and replace "X Items" with "Exp Share" in that statement.
There is absolutely no reason why Exp Share should be barred in tier list placing. There are legitimate strategies that I can create with it that improve efficiency.
Exp Share and X Items are remarkably similar in that both can be used to turn a Pokemon with a detrimental typing, weak stats and poor movesets into an unkillable OHKO machine. "Neutral coverage" becomes the keyword to decide a Pokemon's worth instead of multiple other factors, and this way Wigglytuff becomes better than Venusaur, Furfrou becomes better Roserade, and Stoutland is suddenly better than Magnezone.
The only difference is that X items have to be used in battles, whereas Exp Share only needs to be turned off when you're soloing the game in your speedrun anyway - no logical reason to do it because it is, as you say, "contributing to efficiency" in a very crucial way. But since the tier list is made with, as one rude, snarky poster put, 'arbitrary restrictions', both X Items and Exp Share are things that make discussion pointless and uninteresting. I mean, banning Kangaskhan and 6 or so others in competitive is also an 'arbitrary decision' but done quite deliberately to preserve the fun in a certain activity; here it's the fun in playing the game with "Pokemon as they are" (naturally).
Since our other friend listed something with Mightyena and Golbat I will use his example. Remember the quote with Archie and Maxie where the strawman of confusion came up? Well that actually leads to a strategy I used on Azumarill that takes little setup and should bring Maxie / Archie to his knees 62% of the time (since we hate 90% accuracy so much too).
Lead Azumarill and give it a Persim Berry. On turn 1 use X Speed. In most cases this should result to the Mightyena using Swagger and, voila, +2 Attack for practically free.
Azumarill is another Pokemon unto whom different unpleasant things can be done because it's a slowmon (albeit a fabulous one). It should do just fine against said enemy even without X item use (poison-type attacks are quite bad though), but I wouldn't count that Swagger is always used on you whenever you want and prepare a Persim Berry just in case (you could use one from your bag next turn and leave your attack-boosting item on instead since that one is active during all relevant turns).
90% accuracy becomes a big problem when you attempt to set up with Rollout (one of the multitude of gimmicks you've been advertising because one really has to transcend logic to place Golem in the second tier); it's not so bad per se because the attack missing can be worked around, and is just one of the many things that can go wrong in-game without a fatal consequence to the player (i.e. you losing to another player in a competitive match). Powerful moves are often inaccurate; their power still makes them worth using if it's not something like Focus Blast.
Anyway, back to the grind. Winona will love losing 25% health in the gym when she comes in.
And indeed, please do test your Golem properly if you're too lazy to theorycraft to see why this thing is as mediocre as it is (and has been since about the dawn of the series; in-game wise that is). I don't know how you can seriously argue it's a good switch-in against anything during the champion battle unless, as I previously suspected, you noticed me reacting negatively to Golem's placement so high up and are just making fun of me with this discussion.
Finally as a closing note - X-Items under no circumstance should be banned from use . This leads to a much worse slippery slope and X-Items are still being used sparingly and can still be inferior to other tactics (Dragon Dance, Swords Dance).
And they are also superior to most other tactics, like using Growth, Power-up Punch, many others, and not taking up a moveslot when there are quite a few moves most decent mons would enjoy running (I estimate 6-8 moves on a set would be just enough for most). They are a setup option for any mon lacking a setup option, too, such as the Swellow recently brought up and many others (Swampert to an extent, though he does have PuP and Rain Dance).
And that scary ultimatum in bold should probably be developed into a full-fledged idea to convince the participants of this enterprise that we should do a 180 and start tiering according to speedrunning criteria and not the efficiency criteria we have grown so accustomed to and which have proved to be so fruitful for all the 12+ games we've ranked so far. I haven't seen around in most discussions, but if you're one of the authoritative persons to decide what should happen on the tier list, I think it couldn't hurt if you were a little more respectful of the traditions of tiering that we have agreed on and stuck to for all this time and that, should you find them unsatisfactory, you convince people you're right instead of saying 'well, I want things my way'.
I'm quite serious by the way; the proposed change in tiering criteria and the kind of playstyle that it demands is nothing but drastic. It undermines the way we have previously tested, played the games and tiered everything, and it requires a sharp re-direction from where we are looking right now.
Funny story - one reason why I wanted Glalie C because Mega Glalie with X-Speed shuts down Drake with Secret Power / Freeze-Dry / Ice Beam without breaking a sweat. To 5-0 in 6 turns at the cost of 1 item and a turn. If that is not allowed we arent even arguing efficiency anymore.
Ignoring the categorical statement at the end, the Mega Glalie in question should still do a very respectable job against Drake due to high offensive stats (speed also) and a type advantage against everyone, Kingdra included, and yes, this is definitely something that can be discussed in an efficiency setting.
Now, there is the other 10%, which happen to be the very fights you mentioned. It is not used against the Elite 4, Wattson or the twins. However, Pokemon like the Latis also are completely ineffective against the Elite 4. Mudkip is flat out dropped in speedruns because of its poor midgame performance (Norman, Winona, Team Aqua, etc). These Pokemon I just mentioned also need to setup to sweep for most battles. Swellow does not, and therein lies its substantial advantage against the rest of the cast.
I feel you are twisting the way things are yet again. The performance of Lati@s in the E4 is highly solid, from penetrating targets with diverse coverage moves off absurd base special attack in Mega form, to employing hit-and-run strats against some of the toughest opponents around with Draco Meteor. There is never a time when Mega Lati@s is not used to great effect in the Elite Four. The surface knowledge that it's weak to dark, ghost, ice and dragon (coincidentally, all types of the E4 members) doesn't change the fact that it still performs very well in all these fights.
