Separate Tiering of Mega Pokemon

[Sanger Zonvolt]

Well, obviously, I would disagree with this. I have yet to see a single post in this thread that actually gives a reason I find convincing why the current system does not cover both perfectly fine, much less provide a system that would cover both better. Whether they say it or not, most posts in favor of change, to me, at least, seem to be saying that something is wrong because it something just seems... off. Yeah, I admit it is a bit weird that Pinsir can be used in NU but mega Pinsir can only be used in OU. However, policy wise, it is perfectly consistent and makes sense. As others have said, we should never tier things based on where they "should" go, because there is no "should" when it comes to tiers. It may seem weird that Charizard is OU when Pinsir is not, but it objectively makes sense, and I believe that changing it would be just giving into a subjective sense of what feels right, which is never, ever a good thing to bring into this.

Edit: Also, for what its worth, I would argue that the system not being fine is not what this thread was about. The OP was clearly about just comparing the options, not necessarily saying what we are doing now is bad and something else is better.

As someone with similar concerns, I thought I'd chime in on this.

I'll preface this post with saying that from a philosophy standpoint, if we aren't going to view Megas as just a set the base forms can run, then we should be viewing them as the combination of the base forms and the items, not just as the Mega stones. The big issue with tiering Megas by tiering the stones only is that when Latiosite, Garchompite and other similar stones inevitable drop, we're not actually dropping Mega Latios and friends into UU. Sure, you can say "Oh we dropped Mega Latios into UU, we just didn't drop Latios into the tier", but if I can't actually use Mega Latios in UU, then I don't see how we can say that it's dropped to UU with a straight face. That's like telling users that they can use our car keys but they can't use our cars: both are meaningless without the other, thus users aren't going to buy that we're letting them drive those cars.

That being said, I agree with Zarel (I think he's the first one to point out the discrepancy) that under the original philosophy stated in XY (that Megas are just a set of the base form and not their own mons) it's rather odd from a philosophy standpoint that we're banning the items and not the mons. We didn't ban Speed Boost or Protean to keep Blaziken or Greninja, so it seems odd that we're banning the items and not the actual mons themselves. Naturally from a practical standpoint of diversifying tiers, it makes sense that we don't want to ban Lucario, Mawile, etc., but we should be aiming for a method that's consistent with a philosophy on how to view Megas and practical in terms of tier stability and not needlessly banning mons. Whether we define Megas as the stones, the base form, or the unique combination of base form + item, the tiering system should support the philosophy at all times, not just when it's convenient for us.

I've already stated my issue with defining Megas as being the stones, and under the philosophy that they are just sets of the base form, if we wanted to be 100% consistent we'd have to ban a lot of mons that are only broken with Mega stones. Thus, I propose the following train of thought:

1. We treat and tier Megas as the unique set of the base form + the correct stone. Even without taking the actual Mega Evolution into account, the holding of a correct Mega stone already defies certain mechanics followed by standard items (Stones can't be Knocked Off or give a boost to Knock Off, can't be stolen by Switcharoo, etc.) so it's not a stretch to define the combination of the base form + the correct stone as a different mon altogether much like the Arceus Forms.
2. We tier the combination of the base form + the correct stone, not just the stones itself. Yes, this means that Mega Garchomp in UU would constitute using Garchomp + Garchompite in the teambuilder and bringing Garchomp + Garchompite into UU. Now, for everyone complaining about "abusing the base form", what abuse are you talking about? You can't use Rocky Helm Chomp in UU. You can't use Scarf Chomp in UU or Life Orb Chomp in UU. If you see one in UU, you know immediately that it's a Mega Garchomp. If you're worried about abusing a change in stats, then let's not forget that Aegislash abused changing its base stats in-battle far more than anything Mega Garchomp could do. Rather than look at this as "Mega Garchomp abusing its base form" we should look at it and other Megas as "being able to abuse having a separate set of base stats" just like OU did with Aegislash.
3. If a Mega is considered broken in a tier, have the tier ban the the appropriate stone. If we've broken up the pairing of the base form and the stone, then the Mega itself has effectively been removed from the tier while still allowing the base forms to drop and maintaining the philosophy

I believe that this would be much more satisfactory in terms of having a tiering system for Megas that is consistent with a clear philosophy while letting mons like Charizard drop to lower tiers without the fear of a higher tier stealing the mons from lower tiers.

 

[Freeroamer]

My personal preference would be banning mons rather than mega stones. I see Mega Evolutions as sets of given pokemon, the same way analyses do, and if a pokemon has a broken set then the Pokemon gets banned, not the element making the set broken. When Landorus-I got suspected, would we have considered banning Sheer Force or Earth Power on it? Of course not, it's unnecessary and complex tip toeing to nerf something just enough to remain in the tier.

While Mega Stones are somewhat simpler than that example, their banning opens the door for mons such as Pinsir and Gallade which would usually belong in lower tiers to fall through the system while some such as Manectric which are only viable in another forme are held to higher tiers. It also opens the door for other tiers decisions to have influence over lower tiers through their choices of bans. I don't find this consistent, which is what the aim should be for any tiering system, and only resorting to complex bans in situations such as Drizzle+Swift Swim where the standard tiering system fails. Banning mons rather than stones achieves this consistency, at the cost of a handful of Pokemon to lower tiers.

 

[Zarel]

Well, obviously, I would disagree with this. I have yet to see a single post in this thread that actually gives a reason I find convincing why the current system does not cover both perfectly fine, much less provide a system that would cover both better. Whether they say it or not, most posts in favor of change, to me, at least, seem to be saying that something is wrong because it something just seems... off. Yeah, I admit it is a bit weird that Pinsir can be used in NU but mega Pinsir can only be used in OU. However, policy wise, it is perfectly consistent and makes sense. As others have said, we should never tier things based on where they "should" go, because there is no "should" when it comes to tiers. It may seem weird that Charizard is OU when Pinsir is not, but it objectively makes sense, and I believe that changing it would be just giving into a subjective sense of what feels right, which is never, ever a good thing to bring into this.

"Bit weird"? Pinsir's best OU set is banned in UU. The Pinsir in OU is completely different from the Pinsir in UU; why is it considered the same pokemon?

And that's not the only issue. You ignore the other issue – see Rowan's post:

The way we have it now, if OU suddenly decides that kanghaskan, or mawile deserve a retest, it unsettles the lower tier for no reason. If UU ever decides mega pidgeot/gallage/medicham or whatever is fine again, then RU/NU get unsettled a lot. Or even if any of the BL megas move to OU, all the lower tiers get fucked up. Medicham could move to OU if it got an extra 0.5% usage, which would affect RU for no reason.​

If a Pinsir set rises from BL to OU, suddenly a completely different Pinsir is gone from NU. The entire tiering philosophy rests on the assumption that Pinsir in NU is the same pokemon as Pinsir in OU, but it's not. And since it's not, the entire tiering system is a farce, since you can't assign a pokemon a tier if it's not one pokemon.

Every single problem we talk about comes from the fact that we're completely butchering our own tiering system. Tiering mega stones separately would solve this problem. Banning pokemon instead of their mega stones would solve this problem.

Edit: Also, for what its worth, I would argue that the system not being fine is not what this thread was about. The OP was clearly about just comparing the options, not necessarily saying what we are doing now is bad and something else is better.

Yes, the OP/thread is about whether or not the system is fine. That's what I meant. Plenty of the posts in this thread are on the "not fine" side, so saying "it's totally fine" without responding to any of the earlier posts about why it's not fine is poor forum behavior.

 

[atomicllamas]

My personal preference would be banning mons rather than mega stones. I see Mega Evolutions as sets of given pokemon, the same way analyses do, and if a pokemon has a broken set then the Pokemon gets banned, not the element making the set broken. When Landorus-I got suspected, would we have considered banning Sheer Force or Earth Power on it? Of course not, it's unnecessary and complex tip toeing to nerf something just enough to remain in the tier.

While Mega Stones are somewhat simpler than that example, their banning opens the door for mons such as Pinsir and Gallade which would usually belong in lower tiers to fall through the system while some such as Manectric which are only viable in another forme are held to higher tiers. It also opens the door for other tiers decisions to have influence over lower tiers through their choices of bans. I don't find this consistent, which is what the aim should be for any tiering system, and only resorting to complex bans in situations such as Drizzle+Swift Swim where the standard tiering system fails. Banning mons rather than stones achieves this consistency, at the cost of a handful of Pokemon to lower tiers.

This is more akin to tiering landorus-t differently than Lando-I, as the argument is bst change + ability change is a different form. This isn't complex at a all, mega Manectric is OU, Manectric is NU, different formes, different tiers.

 

[Antar]

I'm really frustrated that at this point the majority of the arguing in this thread has been about "consistency," which I really feel is the absolute weakest reason to do (or not do) something. There was no Mega Evolution before Gen VI. It's a completely different mechanic. Literally no decision we can make is "consistent" or "inconsistent."

I feel we've mostly settled the question of "how" we should do this: we either

1. do nothing
2. stop banning Mega stones (thus removing Pinsir from NU)
3. Poke + mega stone = mega poke and don't let a base be higher than its mega.

That leaves the question of whether we should, but again, arguments of consistency are moronic.

Either:

1. We think everything is fine as it is and don't want to rock the boat
2. We want our tier lists to be the absolute simplest they could possibly be
3. We want more Pokemon in lower tiers

Let me know if I missed anything, but seriously, it's time to stop comparing this to Soul Dew or permanent formes or Meloetta or anything else we've done. Mega Evolution is something completely new and different, and if it weren't we wouldn't have three pages of arguing back and forth about what we should do that's "consistent" with previous decisions.

 

[Punchshroom]

Yes technically anyone could hold it without any effect, but it is not the only useless item such Pokemon could hold, and as such, banning it got rid of the broken element in the metagame without any collateral damage.

On another note, this is also how I felt the bans have always worked. We got rid of the broken element without completely erasing the whole package: banning Blaziken and Greninja instead of their respective abilities, Aldaron's DrizzleSwim proposal, and the numerous ways we've nerfed Baton Pass.

The issue of the current system, being that decisions from the upper tiers affect the lower tiers, isn't as huge of a "problem" as you make it out to be, if it even gets unsettled at all; heck, some desire to see how the lower tiers get shaked up, as while a stable meta is nice to play in, the lack of change can get to people.

The big problem I have with the current system is that if OU decides to use a Mega in OU and decides to neglect it, the Pokemon would have to drop slowly, tier by tier, before it goes back where it belongs, while the proposed system solves that issue by separating them. With that said, the likes of Gothitelle already face this sort of issue (especially if OU decides to steal it back on a whim after it finally drops to PU), so I've kind of already accepted this issue and feel that the Mega Pokemon don't particularly deserve this special treatment (if they do it's most likely because there are so many of them).

One more thing: if the new system is put into place, and Mega Pokemon being separated from the base form so that the base form can be banned, what happens to the Ubers Mega Pokemon, such as Lucario, Kangaskhan, Gengar, and Mawile? If the whole point of the system is to not ban the Mega Stone but the Pokemon itself, wouldn't the base forms of these broken Mega be locked away as well? This is exactly the kind of loophole I'm dreading from this new system.

 

[Antar]

One more thing: if the new system is put into place, and Mega Pokemon being separated from the base form so that the base form can be banned, what happens to the Ubers Mega Pokemon, such as Lucario, Kangaskhan, Gengar, and Mawile? If the whole point of the system is to not ban the Mega Stone but the Pokemon itself, wouldn't the base forms of these broken Mega be locked away as well? This is exactly the kind of loophole I'm dreading from this new system.

I think you meant "together" and not separately, because otherwise this makes no sense.

But yes. Under the scenario where banning of stones is not allowed, Kang, Mawile, Luc and Gengar all become Uber and are banned from OU.

 

[Bughouse]

The fact that this bans Gengar from OU should make it clear as day how much of a solution looking for a problem this is

 

[Antar]

The fact that this bans Gengar from OU should make it clear as day how much of a solution looking for a problem this is

Oblig. "But that's like how Charizard is banned from NU" reply. Can we please stop retreading the same ground over and over and over again? Otherwise this discussion simply needs to end.

 

[tennisace]

It looks like we mostly came to an agreement? The Immortal or I will probably implement this (tiering megas separately, megas can't fall below tier of base form) in PS soon unless someone vetoes or I'm missing some sort of policy.

What ever happened to decisions being up to the tier leaders?

Also in your original thread, you advocated putting Drought Ninetales in BL, instead of just Drought, which would allow Ninetales to be NU (located here towards the bottom). How exactly is this different than having, say, Mega Ampharos be UU but Ampharos in NU? In both cases, you're splitting off what you consider a set of the Pokemon into different tiers, yet one is ok and one isn't.

I completely agree with the people in this thread who have called it a solution in search of a problem. There is no evidence that our current tiering system is harmful to lower tiers in any way, shape, or form. There is no evidence that our current tiering system "fucks up tiering". What WILL fuck up our tiering is changing our entire tiering philosophy concerning a subject we've already made a (non-binding) decision on in the middle of a generation.

This change comes down to preference. There is no right or wrong answer, there is only the agreed upon policy we have followed from the start of this generation. That, in my opinion, is a stronger precedent than talking about non-mega forme changes and items.

 

[Antar]

What ever happened to decisions being up to the tier leaders?

It was pretty clear from his post that Zarel thought we had reached consensus.

 

[Antar]

And, if we're going by what tier leaders have to say, well, this is what we have so far:

atomicllamas (RU): tier separately
Aldaron (OU): tier separately

[Edit: updating as votes come in]

Sam (UU): do nothing
Raseri (NU): do nothing tier separately
Arcticblast (DOU): do nothing
hollywood (NU): tier separately
Sweep (Ubers): tier separately
AM (OU): tier separately
galbia (PU): tier separately
M Dragon (OU): tier together
Molk (RU): do nothing
Magnemite (PU): tier separately
Mizuhime (DOU): do nothing
Fireburn (Ubers): abstain

Granted, not much of a response. Pinging: Sam, Hikari, Molk, hollywood, Raseri. Just looking for a simple up- or down-vote: are you for or against allowing base forms of mega Pokemon to drop separately from their mega? If not, do you think megas and base forms should be tiered together to the extend that Pinsir should be BL and Gengar should be Uber? The easiest way to catalog responses would be if you could cite one of these three options:

1. do nothing
2. stop banning Mega stones (thus removing Pinsir from NU)
3. Poke + mega stone = mega poke and don't let a base be higher than its mega.

 

[Sam]

1. do nothing

 

[Raseri]

1. do nothing

I would like to see it relooked at in gen 7, but I don't think we should change the way we are doing things now

 

[Arcticblast]

Pinging: Sam, Hikari, Molk, hollywood, Raseri.

:(

I would prefer option 1: do nothing; while I do think this would be a nice thing to do, I don't feel that the reasons to do it really warrant making the policy change. I think the way it is now is the best we're going to get (although being Doubles leader may be warping my opinion a bit).

 

[ryan]

I'm mostly neutral on this issue, which is why I've offered minimal response up to this point, but I'm more in favor of Option 3 than the others. What harm comes from this? Something broken might drop a tier, in which case, we suspect it like we would any other broken Pokemon dropping. The power differences between Mega and base form Pokemon often varies so drastically that they effectively are different Pokemon, and in some cases, we see roles of Pokemon change completely from base to Mega form, a parallel which I believe was noted by atomicllamas earlier in the thread to Landorus-I and Landorus-T, which are also tiered separately despite sharing a dex number. If there's an easy way to tier Mega Evolutions separately from their base forms, which sounds to be the case, I see no harm in doing it. We do the same thing on the reverse side when we ban Mega Stones.

If the only downside to this change is that we'd be reforming policy, there's no actual reason not to do it, and if it's a flaw in our system, which at least some people see to be the case, then it should be fixed now and not later.

edit: If we were to do this, I would prefer that we waited until after Grand Slam. It would throw stable tiers into a disarray, which is fine when we have time to visit any potentially broken Pokemon but not cool when it fucks up a trophy tournament and we can afford to wait.

 

[Zarel]

What ever happened to decisions being up to the tier leaders?

I leave most decisions up to the tier leaders. Such as whether or not megas should be tiered separately.

Tiering megas separately when they're Uber/BL/BL2/BL3 and together when they're OU/UU/RU/NU, on the other hand, is such an untenable situation that unless tier leaders stop me, I'm going to try to push it through as much as I can.

Also in your original thread, you advocated putting Drought Ninetales in BL, instead of just Drought, which would allow Ninetales to be NU (located here towards the bottom). How exactly is this different than having, say, Mega Ampharos be UU but Ampharos in NU? In both cases, you're splitting off what you consider a set of the Pokemon into different tiers, yet one is ok and one isn't.

If that's how you feel, just tier them together. Like I've said many times, I'm fine with that, too.

But even if you tier them separately, the difference is that you're drawing a clear line in the sand about what gets tiered separately. Ampharos and Mega Ampharos are in different tiers, regardless of whether Mega Ampharos is UU or BL or OU. It's not like Drought Ninetales and Flash Fire Ninetales, which are only in different tiers because Drought Ninetales is BL.

Seriously, you can argue that Ampharos and Mega Ampharos are different pokemon. Are you seriously trying to argue that Drought Ninetales and Flash Fire Ninetales are different pokemon?

(Incidentally, tiering by ability is a pretty good idea... New OM idea: Hackmons UU...)

I completely agree with the people in this thread who have called it a solution in search of a problem. There is no evidence that our current tiering system is harmful to lower tiers in any way, shape, or form.

Being willfully blind to evidence is not the same as there being no evidence.

You have at least half the people in this thread with a problem with the current system, and your response is to stick your fingers in your ears and say "LA LA LA LA WHAT PROBLEM?"

Even if you ignore the damage to lower tiers, your current tiering system is harmful to itself, as I pointed out in multiple posts in this thread. I see no reason to respect your tiering system if you don't respect it yourselves.

There is no evidence that our current tiering system "fucks up tiering". What WILL fuck up our tiering is changing our entire tiering philosophy concerning a subject we've already made a (non-binding) decision on in the middle of a generation.

This change comes down to preference. There is no right or wrong answer, there is only the agreed upon policy we have followed from the start of this generation. That, in my opinion, is a stronger precedent than talking about non-mega forme changes and items.

Whether or not to always tier megas separately, or always tier them together, comes down to preference.

Tiering megas separately some of the time and together some of the time is something I might've begrudgingly accepted if I was the only one who hated it, but if we're split down the middle, I might as well push through something that doesn't massively suck in my opinion.

 

[Zarel]

Really, your arguments look like this:

2. Tier megas together
Reason: Simplicity. Pinsir and Mega Pinsir start as the same pokemon. Treating them as the same pokemon leaves no edge cases to account for.

3. Tier megas separately
Reason: Variety. Tiering Altaria and Mega Altaria separately gives lower tiers more pokemon to play with.

1. Tier megas separately if they're Uber/BL/BL2/BL3, and together if they're OU/UU/RU/NU
Reason: Um... variety? But if you wanted access to more base forms of megas, why not tier OU megas separately, too?
Reason: Um... conservation? But banning a mega stone makes its base form drop into lower tiers, which you're already willing to do. That's literally all tiering megas separately does, too: make base forms drop into lower tiers. If you're not willing to change the status quo, you shouldn't be willing to ban mega stones in the first place.

Really, the way I see it, you have zero reasons to keep the status quo.

 

[Antar]

Really, the way I see it, you have zero reasons to keep the status quo.

Well, except for the fact that it's, you know, the status quo, and no one seemed to feel strongly that anything needed to be done about this until this thread started...

 

[Sweep]

Voting for option 3.

I admit I have concerns about the "don't let a base be higher than its mega" addendum. Although there are currently no megas that would be balanced in the tier below their base form, that doesn't mean the changes Gen 7 and beyond will bring will keep that status quo. However, both options 1 and 3 have their pros and cons, and option 3's pros definitely outweigh its cons. The enticing list of Pokemon that would drop atomicllamas made on page 1 of this thread would diversify those metagames IMO -- I have always wanted to use Aerodactyl in ORAS RU -- and the positive PR Smogon would receive for freeing so many Pokemon should not be overlooked. I'm willing to live with the above addendum if it means increasing the number of Pokemon you can use in lower tiers.

Edit: Also, I agree with hollywood that any potential changes (if there are any) should come after Grand Slam.

 

[Antar]

Sweep, sorry to exclude you from the mass-ping: I forgot that Ubers has considered banning Gengarite and Red Orb (Groudon and PGroudon should be tiered separately regardless of the outcome of this thread, since Primal Evolution is automatic).

 

[Oglemi]

Sweep, sorry to exclude you from the mass-ping: I forgot that Ubers has considered banning Gengarite and Red Orb (Groudon and PGroudon should be tiered separately regardless of the outcome of this thread, since Primal Evolution is automatic).

You excluded 8 tier leaders hun lol (10 including LC but mega evolutions does not affect them).

AM, McMeghan ben gay M Dragon Fireburn Mizuhime

 

[AM]

Option 3 but agreeing with Hollywood to wait until after Grand Slam.

 

[g]

PU TLs don't rlly matter at the moment but we agreed option 3 considering how clearly different of a role compared to megas stuff had down there to the point that we consider them completely different mons and that the current system is pretty weird right now as highlighted by zarel in his post

 

[Mizuhime]

Abstain, my vote doesn't matter to singles tiering

this changes nothing for doubles no matter what happens.