Resource ORAS OU Viability Ranking Thread V3 - Read Post 3451 Page 139

[SketchUp]

Yeah in all honesty I think Victini barely just made it to B+, let alone A- last slate with an argument of even dropping it down due to its rock and pursuit weaknesses. What pushed it to B+ in the first place was the band and mixed sets but A- is really just pushing it at this point and trying to force out these capabilities that is way easier said than done. Victini's ability to break all these archtypes necessitates that all the issues it has like SR and being Pursuit weak are removed out of the picture in order to function effectively. Then we get into the argument of "oh well hazard control is easy to come by". Like man, idk about you, but there isn't that many reliable hazard removers in the meta if we're just spit-balling a comparison in regards to the amount of hazard removers and what actually works with well with each other with regards to what appreciates this hazard control and is effective at the same time. Being one of the few good spinners in the tier is one of the traits that is being discussed for Starmie's placement in A+ because realistically you have that, Excadrill, and then a couple of lower ranked stuff to go off of with everything else being Defoggers that are mostly all prone to Defiant Thundurus and Bisharp.

That hazard removal that it needs is a pretty solid amount of support you're asking on for something that is being suggested for A-. Lati /Starmie + Victini adds on the pursuit weakness, Emp + Victini adds on Landorus weakness, Skarm + Victini adds on Keldeo weakness and these are just common occurrences or top tier aspects seen on like every team in some form or another. You could use the argument that Volcarona sort of adds on these same elements for a variety of these and needs the hazard removal even more making them equal but the difference that makes me feel like Volcarona is more viable is that its set up move is waaaay more easy to pull off and tears through way more meta-game trends in just one turn. A lot of Victini's success is, match up based is the word? Like it really doesn't just spam these moves as easily as people try to assume lol cause a lot of times it's popping off a V-Create making it easier to handle next turn due to speed drop (this kills a lot of momentum by the way, it's a double edged sword), trying to play around some prediction games on its choice sets which sort of kill the whole murdering all playstyles argument since it can't do so in one go like certain set up sweepers, and overall sort of has the issue with a lot of wall-breakers that they fall under this speed tier of being forced out by a bunch of dangerous stuff on offense and balance like Landorus and Keldeo.

Post is sort of all over the place but eh I think it's perfectly fine in B+ and A- is pushing it too far and has that case of hype that happens when a craze of something happens and people just assume it should go higher due to that craze, which Victini sort of has right now.

Quote by AM from a while ago.

 

[AM]

I just went ahead and deleted ben gay rank. Seems like not many people were fond of the idea anyways. Sorry ben gay

 

[GlassVeins]

Aww. kinda liked the idea, tbh. Why wouldn't people like it? its just a "hey, if you wanna mix it up a bit, here's some good mons to mix it up with" kinda deal. oh well.

 

[Mistress Remilia]

I just went ahead and deleted ben gay rank. Seems like not many people were fond of the idea anyways. Sorry ben gay

Eeeeeh, through some of these mons can potentially get D Rank, right?

 

[AM]

Eeeeeh, through some of these mons can potentially get D Rank, right?

More than likely no.

 

[GuatemalaPartiratuculo]

I think we don't need to thrash ben gays rank yet, why we don't just create an E-rank with this niche mons.

 

[AM]

I think we don't need to thrash ben gays rank yet, why we don't just create an E-rank with this niche mons.

Pretty sure people were pretty vocal that D was niche enough for their likings so just let people who want to use non ranked stuff use them.

 

[GuatemalaPartiratuculo]

Pretty sure people were pretty vocal that D was niche enough for their likings so just let people who want to use non ranked stuff use them.

yeah sure but those are the minority (but they are very vocal) who don't want e-rank, there is a lot of people who uses non ranking stuff with sucess like ben gay and i think they would like e-rank for this mons who are a little more than a gimmick.

 

[AM]

yeah sure but those are the minority (but they are very vocal) who don't want e-rank, there is a lot of people who uses non ranking stuff with sucess like ben gay and i think they would like e-rank for this mons who are a little more than a gimmick.

I mean it's clearly evident that people didn't want that and it's obviously going to be more of a hassle than helpful since the majority won't be able to differentiate something that can be useful and will more than likely bitch or justify about somethings placement as if they don't already do that enough with the majority of low rank stuff people like to speak on but guarantee haven't used in any sort of effective manner. We thought it would be a good idea but just by reading through the negative comments I could already tell it was going to be a nightmare trying to justify points that in the end I think would be futile. So yeah I decided to just remove it and we'll just go off of what's on the rankings alone as the only usable stuff in the tier since that's what people would like to stay accustomed to.

 

[doughboy]

RIP ben gay rank

Anyway nominating Heliolisk for D rank

Heliolisk was used way back in early XY be a nice pivot switch off Aegislash (switch into Shadow Ball ---> Volt Switch). After PokeBank finally got setup however, Heliolisk was blacklisted from being talked about again because it didn't offer anything extraordinary over Thundurus-I.

Now that we have tutor moves have come out, I think its time to put Heliolisk back onto the viability ranking. Does it have a lot of competition for an offensive electric? Yes, but that is why it is in D rank lol. Heliolisk's niche is an offensive Electric on weather teams.

Heliolisk gets a lot of hate for being "slow" but it his base 109 speed. Its a shame that its slower than base 110, but it still outspeeds plenty. While Heliolisk's special attack stat isn't as good as most Electric-types, he makes up for it with better coverage and a usable secondary STAB. ORAS gave us a Hyper Voice tutor, which means Heliolisk now has another base 90 STAB move to use against most conventional Electric resists. In addition, he has Surf Take a look at some of these calcs:

heliolisk calcs

252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 112 SpD Hippowdon: 192-227 (45.7 - 54%) -- 48.4% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Surf vs. 252 HP / 112 SpD Hippowdon: 257-304 (61.1 - 72.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Surf vs. 252 HP / 8 SpD Landorus-T: 270-320 (70.6 - 83.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Hyper Voice vs. 104 HP / 0 SpD Mega Charizard X: 195-230 (60.3 - 71.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Hyper Voice vs. 232 HP / 4 SpD Mega Venusaur: 144-172 (40.1 - 47.9%) -- 50.4% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 120 SpD Amoonguss: 177-211 (40.9 - 48.8%) -- 10.9% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Black Sludge recovery

but with some weather support...

Sun
252 SpA Life Orb Solar Power Heliolisk Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 120 SpD Amoonguss in Sun: 265-312 (61.3 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Solar Power Heliolisk Hyper Voice vs. 248 HP / 148 SpD Mega Venusaur in Sun: 191-226 (52.6 - 62.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Sand (cuts off synthesis recovery)
252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Hyper Voice vs. 232 HP / 4 SpD Venusaur: 169-200 (47 - 55.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage
252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 120 SpD Amoonguss: 177-211 (40.9 - 48.8%) -- 73.4% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock, sandstorm damage, and Black Sludge recovery

Rain (cuts off synthesis recovery)
252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Surf vs. 108 HP / 0 SpD Mega Charizard X in Rain: 195-230 (60.1 - 70.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Now I know some of you might not found that stuff that impressive, particularly the 2HKO chance against the bulkier Grass-types. But consider that Heliolisk is going to have weather support, and each of the weather all do different things. When paired with Charizard Y Heliolisk can get a nice special attack boost. On Rain teams it has a free Life Orb / better longevity than most electrics and it can dissuade opponents from using your Rain against you like making a Choiced Keldeo's Hydro Pump risky to use (Heliolisk switchin with Dry Skin). In sandstorm, it can be annoying as hell with high base 109 speed + Sand Veil + Substitute. You could even drop Sub just to use an all-out-attacking set. Unlike every other Electric (besides Magnezone) it is immune to Sandstorm, so it lives longer than most Electrics in Sand. Really Heliolisk's extra Normal-STAB + Surf + shenanigans in weather make it deserving to at least ranked in D rank.

Finally if you want to be real:
252 SpA Life Orb Solar Power Heliolisk Hyper Beam vs. 248 HP / 148 SpD Mega Venusaur in Sun: 320-376 (88.1 - 103.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

 

[GuatemalaPartiratuculo]

I mean it's clearly evident that people didn't want that and it's obviously going to be more of a hassle than helpful since the majority won't be able to differentiate something that can be useful and will more than likely bitch or justify about somethings placement as if they don't already do that enough with the majority of low rank stuff people like to speak on but guarantee haven't used in any sort of effective manner. We thought it would be a good idea but just by reading through the negative comments I could already tell it was going to be a nightmare trying to justify points that in the end I think would be futile. So yeah I decided to just remove it and we'll just go off of what's on the rankings alone as the only usable stuff in the tier since that's what people would like to stay accustomed to.

Well i disagree with the comunnity thrashing in using this lower tier mons just because u have generic mons like landorus T who are so easy to splash in a team that there is no reason to use other "outclassed" pokemon in a similar role in ur team; but the true is that gamefreak gave the majority of pokemon some niches over others and when people can't see this niches they thrash u with something like 'u dumby moron don't use arcanine its outclasses by Entei' and people stop using this mons and join to the masses who say "u suck because u use gimmicks", its better to keep talking in pm because i don't want to get out of the subject

 

[Assaltwaffle]

I feel like a fair number of us are open to the introduction of a new tier for the even more niche Pokemon out there. However, very few were OK with the execution of this idea. ben gay rank seemed like a joke, and on a viability thread that is meant to be a legitimate resource to the community it was out of place. If an E rank was introduced with nothing in it and the users of this forum built it from the ground up it would have been better accepted than what ben gay rank was. It was basically "one of the ranking team members says these mons aren't total garbage so we made a rank for it and gave it his name". Instead of "we will be introducing a new rank of E to house the various extremely niche mons that may still have a small place on some teams, feel free to make nominations to this new rank".

That is just my feeling on this whole ordeal. I personally am not opposed to a new rank coming in, but the execution of "gen gay rank" was poor in my eyes. No offense to AM or ben gay or any of the ranking team, this was just very sudden and seemed forced.

 

[AM]

I feel like a fair number of us are open to the introduction of a new tier for the even more niche Pokemon out there. However, very few were OK with the execution of this idea. ben gay rank seemed like a joke, and on a viability thread that is meant to be a legitimate resource to the community it was out of place. If an E rank was introduced with nothing in it and the users of this forum built it from the ground up it would have been better accepted than what ben gay rank was. It was basically "one of the ranking team members says these mons aren't total garbage so we made a rank for it and gave it his name". Instead of "we will be introducing a new rank of E to house the various extremely niche mons that may still have a small place on some teams, feel free to make nominations to this new rank".

That is just my feeling on this whole ordeal. I personally am not opposed to a new rank coming in, but the execution of "gen gay rank" was poor in my eyes. No offense to AM or ben gay or any of the ranking team, this was just very sudden and seemed forced.

This will be the last time I comment on this but I think the whole legitimate resource thing is fine and fair until you get people establishing their own ignorance when it comes to a lot of the lower ranked stuff and commenting on stuff they shouldn't be commenting on. Yes I mean this 100% whole heartedly when I say that so if you're salty about that comment then so be it. Lots of the justification people use on lower rank stuff when advocating a drop in most cases is saying "why would I use this" or "it's shit" so I apologize if I didn't think establishing an E rank and saying we're gonna be doing that was the right course of action when I felt it was better to start it up behind closed doors and then people felt free to comment on it, which they did with a lot of disapproval. I don't think the name would've mattered and at this point I'm fine with just people nomming stuff to D. Also it wasn't one member it was at least half of them that helped with this but I'm just gonna put the nail on the coffin with that one seeing as how the vocal minority found it such a travesty to begin with and finds it necessary to stay vocal about these things till the very end so just gonna drop the subject and move on from this. Thanks for understanding.

 

[craing ;_;]

i'm fine with not incorporating this if that's what the people want, but i'd like to get to know their reasoning on why not ?_? afaik it was just am that said that ppl didn't want this to happen but i'd rather get to know the actual people who were against this and their reasoning. i thought due to the recent inactivity in this forum as well as looking at the rankings in general, it appeared to be particularly balanced for once so i thought incorporating a new rank seemed appropriate. apologies if this was quite abrupt to your normal posting activities, but i thought mixing it up would be nice for a change :s. also it was am's idea to name it ben gay rank not me, don't shoot me D:

 

[thesecondbest]

Noms of my own:
Smeargle for C
Yes I know, Shuckle is in C because it can sticky web multiple times, but whenever I use a webs team, I just find myself using smeargle. Access to spore, king/spike shield, parting shot, nuzzle etc just makes it so much nicer. Sure shuckle gets encore but then they just switch out, smeargle actually can threaten teams with the ability to baton pass. I dont really care if this moves up or Shuckle goes down, but smeargle is at least as good

Mew for A
Honestly, this thing is way too versatile (pun intended if you play TCG). The spdef set is a counter to lando, knock off cripples teams, it can break through stall with taunt, willo cripples offense.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-231735884 That replay shows me fucking around with sheddy the brokeness of stallbreaker mew. It beats his lando and clef sure, but it even takes on the scizor, and this is after being knocked off. Mew is really amazing in this role.
And that's just the stallbreaker set.
It can run nasty, sd, bulk up, calm mind, even barrier or amnesia if you're passing (like i said bp is broken). You can run all out attacking sets. Watching aim's latest video made me realize just how good this mon is. Sure the typing is bad but it is definitely better than celebi which is in A-, and has the same sort of splashability as rotom-w, which is in A, as opposed to stuff like volc sitting in A-. It also has tailwind boom, uturn, volt switch, trick, stealth rocks, defog. It just performs so many roles and certainly belongs higher than where it is

 

[Martin]

There was some stuff in the ben gay rank that IMO should be in D, but I'm only going to nominate one of them

Jellicent: Unranked-->D
Jellicent has certainly fallen from grace since gen 5. However, it does still have a niche - however small - that justifies use on select teams. Firsty, it counters many aspects of rain with its typing, bulk and ability. It fits onto a select number of stall and defensive teams as a result. In addition, Water Absorb+Will-O-Wisp allows it to set itself apart from a lot of the bulky Water-types that are in the tier, and it also has reliable recovery in, well, Recover. The main (and only) set it should ever run is SpD, as otherwise you might as well just use Seismitoad. However, its small niche comes from it a: countering aspects of rain, b: having access to Will-O-Wisp and c: having reliable recovery over other Water Absorb users. It is small, but I feel that it warrants D at the moment. The biggest problem is definitely the Knock Off (although it can play around Bisharp to an extent with Will-O-Wisp), but it can still function effectively with the correct team support (namely Knock Off absorbers - it pairs v. well with Gliscor).

i'm fine with not incorporating this if that's what the people want, but i'd like to get to know their reasoning on why not ?_? afaik it was just am that said that ppl didn't want this to happen but i'd rather get to know the actual people who were against this and their reasoning. i thought due to the recent inactivity in this forum as well as looking at the rankings in general, it appeared to be particularly balanced for once so i thought incorporating a new rank seemed appropriate. apologies if this was quite abrupt to your normal posting activities, but i thought mixing it up would be nice for a change :s. also it was am's idea to name it ben gay rank not me, don't shoot me D:

TBH, I agree with ben gay on this one. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having an extra rank, and if there were a time for it to be implemented now is it tbh. Whether it is 'E rank' or 'ben gay rank', it is actually a great way of adding a sort of segregation for the really really niche stuff such as Heliolisk and Flygon, and tbh anything to encourage this threads activity and discussion levels is good.

The stigma that these rankings are law is completely ridiculous and is at a completely unjustified level, and hopefully implementing a rank below D would get people to realise that the only way the metagame can evolve is if people try new things. I mean, look at Reuniclus: a pokemon which, in XY, was unranked. However, now you have Reuniclus in B. If people hadn't have tried it, the meta wouldn't have evolved. However, they did, and now it is ranked in a position that you would have never thought it would reach in XY. I feel like it would encourage more people to experiment with new 'mons and, ultimately, lead to a greater level of metagame evolution.

 

[Sanger Zonvolt]

i'm fine with not incorporating this if that's what the people want, but i'd like to get to know their reasoning on why not ?_? afaik it was just am that said that ppl didn't want this to happen but i'd rather get to know the actual people who were against this and their reasoning. i thought due to the recent inactivity in this forum as well as looking at the rankings in general, it appeared to be particularly balanced for once so i thought incorporating a new rank seemed appropriate. apologies if this was quite abrupt to your normal posting activities, but i thought mixing it up would be nice for a change :s. also it was am's idea to name it ben gay rank not me, don't shoot me D:

I didn't get a chance to say much, but what bugged me the most was that some of the explanations were pretty vague. Skuntank's explanation was that it "beats steels and fairies with a particular moveset". Machamp's explanation was "it's the champ" with 0 metagame input. If any of us made a nomination like that it likely would have been deleted. If I recall, the last time Arcanine was ranked there was a 3 paragraph essay and replays that accompanied the nomination. I know that the members of the viability council are all very good players, but I still think some thorough explanation and a demonstration of them doing their described role isn't asking too much.

 

[craing ;_;]

I didn't get a chance to say much, but what bugged me the most was that some of the explanations were pretty vague. Skuntank's explanation was that it "beats steels and fairies with a particular moveset". Machamp's explanation was "it's the champ" with 0 metagame input. If any of us made a nomination like that it likely would have been deleted. If I recall, the last time Arcanine was ranked there was a 3 paragraph essay and replays that accompanied the nomination. I know that the members of the viability council are all very good players, but I still think some thorough explanation and a demonstration of them doing their described role isn't asking too much.

yeah, sorry if that was confusing but i think e rank is a rank where replays and a lot of justification isn't all that necessary as opposed to d rank. in recent events, the council has raised the standard of d rank by cutting out and incorporating mons that actually deserve it in comparison to mons in the nearest rank above which is C-. e rank is a rank which i believe any mon can be a part of as long as it has a niche that can work in a very specified, closed environment. you wouldn't need any sort of concrete justification for a nom(albeit nice) but solid theorymon would be enough. its purpose was to show mons that CAN work and promote others to try them out and innovate and see what they discover out of it. that's what gamer boy explained in his post and i 100% agree with that. there is no detriment to incorporating this rank, i think.

 

[craing ;_;]

of course, this is to say that not all mons are qualified to e rank. take av pachirisu for example. it was quite a controversial nom in the past that garnered a lot of support. but that is hopelessly outclassed by something like raikou, manectric, rotom, etc. hope this makes any sort of sense, but this is just something im kind of passionate about. and sorry for double posting :p

 

[Baharoth]

This will be the last time I comment on this but I think the whole legitimate resource thing is fine and fair until you get people establishing their own ignorance when it comes to a lot of the lower ranked stuff and commenting on stuff they shouldn't be commenting on. Yes I mean this 100% whole heartedly when I say that so if you're salty about that comment then so be it. Lots of the justification people use on lower rank stuff when advocating a drop in most cases is saying "why would I use this" or "it's shit" so I apologize if I didn't think establishing an E rank and saying we're gonna be doing that was the right course of action when I felt it was better to start it up behind closed doors and then people felt free to comment on it, which they did with a lot of disapproval. I don't think the name would've mattered and at this point I'm fine with just people nomming stuff to D. Also it wasn't one member it was at least half of them that helped with this but I'm just gonna put the nail on the coffin with that one seeing as how the vocal minority found it such a travesty to begin with and finds it necessary to stay vocal about these things till the very end so just gonna drop the subject and move on from this. Thanks for understanding.

I cant talk for the other people who were against this but at least for me what Assaltwaffle said is true. I am not opposed to making a sub rank for extremely niche mons, that would be fine. The way it was done was the problem. I am following this topic for more than a year now and i cant count how many times things like Arcanine and Heliolisk were nominated for D rank mostly with long and detailed reasonings and there were just as many suggestions to make an E rank for mons like that. The result was always the same. The ideas were brushed aside by the moderation with statements like "This stuff has no place in OU and shouldnt be ranked". And if the discussion continued they were added to the blacklist and that was the end of the story.

And after all this you just go and make a rank for these mons, call it Ben Gay rank and use some quotes from a PM conversation between the two of you as a "reasoning".
Just ask yourself what kind of impression that leaves on people who dont know what happens "behind the scenes".

 

[AM]

I'm putting E rank later. There you go.

 

[craing ;_;]

I cant talk for the other people who were against this but at least for me what Assaltwaffle said is true. I am not opposed to making a sub rank for extremely niche mons, that would be fine. The way it was done was the problem. I am following this topic for more than a year now and i cant count how many times things like Arcanine and Heliolisk were nominated for D rank mostly with long and detailed reasonings and there were just as many suggestions to make an E rank for mons like that. The result was always the same. The ideas were brushed aside by the moderation with statements like "This stuff has no place in OU and shouldnt be ranked". And if the discussion continued they were added to the blacklist and that was the end of the story.

And after all this you just go and make a rank for these mons, call it Ben Gay rank and use some quotes from a PM conversation between the two of you as a "reasoning".
Just ask yourself what kind of impression that leaves on people who dont know what happens "behind the scenes".

i can't comment on being a part of this council for a year+, but that was the responsibility of the previous people who ran this thread. me and am are fairly new when we are monitoring this forum in an oras meta, not xy. im sorry if you felt your nom's weren't taken seriously back then but incorporating this now would make up for that i hope? we're pretty laid back and have been open to a lot of the noms and ideas here so i don't think this is unreasonable to of us to ask. also sometimes long and detailed nom's pale in comparison to short and to the point, just wanted to get that straight. and if you are really going to call shots on us, then we can do just the same for a lot of individuals in this thread who sort of shitted it up with their biased and fallacious remarks which the council has so kindly put up to this day. though, i would really not get into this discussion and all i can leave you guys is post intelligibly and we guuci :^D

 

[bludz]

I am not against adding an E rank but I think if it is decided upon there are some issues that need to be sorted out.

There is a lot of talk about having a "niche" in the OU metagame. However this is not clearly defined and you could make a case and say that Vaporeon has a "niche" as a Water Absorb + Wish Passer + Heal Bell user. Other pokemon that compete for this role are Alomomola which does not have Water Absorb or Heal Bell, and Sylveon which has a different typing, less physical bulk and doesn't have Water Absorb. The problem then becomes is this enough to qualify as a niche? It certainly does have unique qualities over some competitors for a similar role, but are these qualities enough to make it actually viable in the OU tier?

I think that adding an E rank begs the question of what constitutes a "niche" and to some degree requires us to more clearly define what is "viable."

Some of the main purposes of this thread are to help players understand the metagame better & discuss trends. If there are pokemon that are viable in OU and are not listed I am all for listing them - regardless of whether they are placed in D rank or we create an E rank. I just think that the ambiguity regarding viability becomes a little more problematic. I think it would be very helpful if anyone from the ranking team could shed a little bit of light on this matter upon the creation E rank just so that we aren't flooded with a ton of E rank nominations to the point where a ton of things get blacklisted.

To add to this, I have a suggestion. I know that a few members of the ranking team were asking for replays upon nominations of things to move up or down in ranks. I personally think that nominations of unranked -> ranked should require quality replays so that we aren't just theorizing about a pokemon's role in the OU metagame. I'm not saying replays should not also be provided for other nominations, but for example we already know that Manaphy is a great pokemon in the metagame and we don't need replays to show that (although they may help determine its ranking). But I feel in the case of nominating unranked pokemon it is very important that it is clear what they do, how well they do it and if this is good enough to be ranked. Thus I think it's a little more important to provide replays for such nominations.

 

[NinetyNineNo]

I don't mean to speak of things I don't know of, but personally, I think the problem was in the execution rather than the concept. I mean, the mons in the ben gay rank included a lot that fairly regularly got shot down for noms. And then the ranking team comes and makes an entire rank, seemingly based on one guy's opinion alone (not saying that is the case, it just came across as), filled with such mons but having little justification beyond what seemed idle conversation between mods. And without any input or discussion from the community. That didn't look good.

I'm not opposed to an E rank, and I don't mean to step on any toes. It's just my opinion that the way it was implemented (completely unilaterally and even named after one of the mods) looked to be a bit elitist. It's cleared up now, but I see why people would have been bothered originally.

 

[Celticpride]

And after all this you just go and make a rank for these mons, call it Ben Gay rank and use some quotes from a PM conversation between the two of you as a "reasoning".
Just ask yourself what kind of impression that leaves on people who dont know what happens "behind the scenes".

I wouldn't worry about things going on "behind the scenes" as you call it. Pretty much any change that happens in here has some kind or reasoning and while it may not be discussed extensively in the thread it's easy enough to find out if you follow the forum in general or just ask someone. AM is very open to any question of placement and why something did or didn't move, you never get a "just because" answer to my knowledge. Mega Zam is an example in that there wasn't much discussion on it in this specific thread iirc but the other OU threads at the time showed a lot of the newfound effectiveness of it and it rose to A as a result. Ofc some of the discussion happens in PMs or on IRC but that's also true for a lot of Smogon at large for better or worse and I can't really see that changing anytime soon.

To sum it up I wouldn't worry about transparency in this thread as there's more than enough.