Now batting in the World Series of Pokemon Suspects: Shaymin-S!

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You're completely missing the point, and going off on some 'Skymin is okay' tangent. I was discussing the unpredictability of Skymin's general use, and you chose to respond to that arguing that Togekiss and Jirachi add more randomness to the game than Skymin does. I noted that while they can run sets that are about as luck-based as Skymin, they simply don't have the power it carries as they literally have no conceivable chance of beating their 'counters'.

And neither does Skymin necessarily have the ability to get past it's "counters". It's just knowing what is safe to switch in. And as I said before, looking for clear counters these days is silly. Many times, they simply do not exist. I listed several things that can check Skymin. It takes a bit of adjustment, which is why people have so much trouble with it.

Basically, what I was trying to argue with the Jirachi/Togekiss rant was that the idea that Skymin abuses luck more than them is ludicrous. Yes, Skymin is quite dangerous in a fight. I've had my own troubles with them. However, the others abuse luck in just as significant, if not worse, ways. Yet they are not suspects (and nor should they be). Skymin's luck abuse is overhyped, and it is the reason many voted uber.
 
And neither does Skymin necessarily have the ability to get past it's "counters". It's just knowing what is safe to switch in. And as I said before, looking for clear counters these days is silly. Many times, they simply do not exist. I listed several things that can check Skymin. It takes a bit of adjustment, which is why people have so much trouble with it.

Basically, what I was trying to argue with the Jirachi/Togekiss rant was that the idea that Skymin abuses luck more than them is ludicrous. Yes, Skymin is quite dangerous in a fight. I've had my own troubles with them. However, the others abuse luck in just as significant, if not worse, ways. Yet they are not suspects (and nor should they be). Skymin's luck abuse is overhyped, and it is the reason many voted uber.

I guess I need to make it more clear then. By 'taking out it's counters' I mean that those pokemon in question can stop it unless one of many random events happen. I'm not actually worried about Skymin needing hard counters. I mean that when you predict and switch the right pokemon into a seed flare, it doesn't always mean you're going to be able to send Skymin packing. You can say it's risky for the Skymin user all you want, but there are many times when that issue of risk has immense payoff (in this case, a pokemon getting past one of the things on your team that usually stops it).

I think we're having a hang-up on the terminology here. I don't think that Skymin is as luck-based in it's effectiveness as those Jirachi and Togekiss sets. I do think that the implications of Skymin's luck antics are much more serious, though. This is what I mean when I talk about the fact that Togekiss and Jirachi will still fail to kill many, many things even with their higher chance of hax per turn.
 
Like post count and age matters

I know at least two 14 year olds that are more capable of making decisions for the community than 90% of the voters that voted

Those are exceptions. For the most part, younger members are the ones who voted it uber because "it haxed my CM jirachi" and whatnot. Younger kids generally don't take losing very well and I think losing to Skymin a couple of times seriously swayed the votes.

I dunno tangerine, there has to be some better way to weed out the crappy voters other than by skill, because obviously a lot of less than ideal voters leaked into this test.
 
I don't think that going by age is going to achieve anything. Ignoring the fact that anyone can simply lie about their age and no-one will ever know, plenty of younger members are much more intelligent and in a better position to vote than their older counterparts.
 
Chill chomp

Jesus said:
Chill. It's just a game, dude.
Ignoring my totally bs quote, listen to it. It's a good idea.

Noobs are a powerful force in the metagame, so relax.

Replace skymin with chomp and see how it sounds.
 
Wow, I'm really interested to see how this plays out. The magic number wasn't hit before the deadline.
wasn't the magic number 60?

pretty crazy that it was not only close in comparison to OU votes, but also close for the magic number.
 
Some things get me when I look at this. People instantly think things can solve everything, or that's what it seems to me. I don't take the age thing personally, being eighteen(not that you will believe me :P). The post thing really gets me. (queue to look at my post count of two.) I don't post because I didn't know of the forums, until 2 weeks before the skymin vote, and I don't have the internet at home, or am familiar to the site. therefore, I simply watch for now to see who is who. I aready am getting a good glimpse too. The rating in shoddy? Better but flawed. I used to test all my new teams on the ladder, not caring wether my rating went down so much as my knowlege went up. So now I am working on the rating simply to get that squared off, although I keep finding people who end up giving me times like this;

he sent out a!
I sent out b!
he: hey i am new :D
I: ok. well maybe I can help.
he: OK!
(skip a few scenes)
he wins! (6-3)
I: O.O at least you can run the most common 6 sweepers =/ (heatran, electivire, and the like.)
he: hey your not bad!
I look at score, potential rating, feel bad from a nubble.

This is the problem in itself
People join, go to smogon, find the best sets, and use them. Granted it isn't a bad idea, but I get stuck at the "golden spot" (reffering to the fact that I get half newb almost uber teams) I tend to use more creative or unique sets(seeing as my starter is staying UU and staying in my team.) that are weak to certain things sometimes. Granted I can work around it, but it is almost like I DO have to put in the counters to certain pokemon until I am out of this spot! I really am in a bind. When it comes to these guys, I tend to know all I need. But when fighting...my skills aren't adequitly known.

As far as skymin goes? simple.

Skymin's damage ratio's tend to score what other then 2HKOs. Not good or bad. The fact it gets potentially OHKOed by ice shard? lol. You give flinch creds to something KOed by priority. Granted you can get the sub first, but expect it. Play to the sub, play to KO the sub, then it will be forced to attack, and risk damage anyway, or sub and lose HP. Life orb hurts and helps, as more damage is on both sides of the coin. If these meet? lolligags!

Say the sub is through. use some form of protection to figure out its intentions. If seed? Counteract with a powerful wall. If LO? Go with some disposable attacker, then follow with a pwerful attacker. Sounds easier then it has been for you? I apologize. It merely has been that easy for me, and I haven't even had luck when using him myself(not including one fight that I had recently, but I didn't know which team I was using. Still, he won.) The pokemon can be pushed away by any status effect, and can be blown away if you have a sturdy tank with roar/wind. It can be hurt more so by the abuse of SR. the pokemon is not resistant to bullet punch, or most other prioritys, and I even beat it with a linoone's extremespeed.

The pokemons stats are far from Uber. While the speed and SpA are great, that is all that is. If you go and look at the HP, this will accually work against subseeding. The HP needs to be max in oder for a sub to resist a seismic toss, but most blissey can use the ice beam that is the bane of Skymin. the defenses are not even note worthy because of the typing. There is nothing special about the attack, while iron head, zen headbutt, and othes are good, SpA runs the train, beating all of those move's usefulness.

Keep in mind I have every note of speed, power and flinchhax.
It is beaten by priority
It is walled by common pokemon.
It is not the best in the flinchhax, or even the subseed sets.
 
Why are people in PR thinking that the problem will be solved by having three checkpoints?

Why do people think that something that wins by one vote should be banned?

Why do people think that a 1655 rating requirement makes any sense? It obviously doesn't filter out any ridiculous, premiseless votes. We should stop beating around the bush and actually address the real problem: shitty votes.

I'm kind of appalled that no one in PR has even mentioned any fundamental change to the process. Why are we clinging to what we know is broken?

There should be two requirements to voting:
1. Battled. Doesn't matter if you did well, because if a suspect is truly domineering battles will come down to speed ties and otherwise be much harder to win.
2. Make sense. Your vote shouldn't be based on something on false premises, or against Smogon's philosophy or anything like that.



The three votes pushing Skymin over are FiveKRunner's fundamentally flawed vote, stone cold's bullshit Jirachi flinch hax fueled vote, and several other dumb votes like "no way to stop it". That's what the decision came down to. And you're okay with that?
 
Elitism, on Smogon?!?

I am shocked and appalled. It's funny how even Pokemon gets so political. The numbers don't side with you, and since numbers don't lie and you can't attack them, you attack the people behind the numbers. Claiming the people behind the numbers you don't agree with are somehow invalid. It's funny, but not ha-ha funny.

The vote was pretty effing close, and 60 wasn't reached. So why are people attacking the uber voters? Because they don't agree with them, and elitism rears its ugly head.

There should be two requirements to voting:
1. Battled. Doesn't matter if you did well, because if a suspect is truly domineering battles will come down to speed ties and otherwise be much harder to win.
2. Make sense. Your vote shouldn't be based on something on false premises, or against Smogon's philosophy or anything like that.
I would have expected better from what I've read from you in the past. The first requirement you suggest is obviously met by the voting requirements already put forth, unless I'm misunderstanding you.

Your second suggested requirement is offensive. It's a value-laden term that is different for different people. What Americans think 'makes sense' in terms of freedom is completely different than what many folks in the Middle East think 'makes sense' in the term of freedom. So obviously, we would have to come up with a standard definition of 'Make sense' which means we'd have to impose a personal value system on voters which would negate the entire point of voting. (lol democracy)

If we define a personal value for all of Smogon, then there would be no need for a vote, because the definition would lead us to the solution.

I apologize for the freedom analogy, just got out of my finals and my mind is still there.
 
We're attacking the people who're voting Skymin uber for utterly shittastic reasons. No one's attacking ipl for voting Skymin uber because he brings more luck into the game or whatever, even though I completely disagree with that reasoning. We do attack idiots who vote Skymin solely because they got haxed, or because they went into this test deciding it was uber and that was it. I thought Skymin was a certain uber when I first heard about it, but after playing with and against it, I have found it completely underwhelming. Those things don't matter for those who think "I got haxed it's uber".

And the standards wouldn't have to be that high - just something better than "It flinchaxed my Jirachi to death" or "I believe that Smogon should prepare us for the official Nintendo tournament".
 
The current requirements require you to do well in the metagame, while I think that just playing it is okay if you have a good reason to vote.

The "makes sense" definition you seek we already have: Smogon's philosophy combined with eliminating arguments based on factually false statements (Shaymin-S can OHKO everything in the game) or antitier ideas (He's no good in Ubers so keep him in OU). Objectivity is tricky, but at least we could have a panel or something to cut down on personal bias.

I'm not even sure what people mean by elitism these days. We don't snub our noses at new players; we invite them in and help them play Pokemon with our articles and advice. Just because we have a low tolerance for bullshit doesn't mean we are elitist. The only thing that could be construed as elitism is us moderating people who don't really know what is going on but tend to think they are the shit and contradict us anyway. If you have a good argument, sure, whatever, but if you don't (and don't know if you do or not) we'd really rather you pipe down and lurk more before giving your 2c on everything.



It's not elitist to say a vote based on "I don't like it" shouldn't be allowed.
 
Your second suggested requirement is offensive. It's a value-laden term that is different for different people. What Americans think 'makes sense' in terms of freedom is completely different than what many folks in the Middle East think 'makes sense' in the term of freedom. So obviously, we would have to come up with a standard definition of 'Make sense' which means we'd have to impose a personal value system on voters which would negate the entire point of voting. (lol democracy)

That whole freedom thing is one hell of a strawman.

Regardless, this isn't a free democracy. This is an internet battling community, and the people in charge are attempting to make the best decisions regarding the metagame they can. It's not that public input isn't wanted. In fact, it's welcome. I'm sure they'd love to have a large voting pool. However, the problem is that many have no idea what they are talking about. They make votes that do not have any backing or sound reasoning. With Smogon having so much influence, the changes made to the metagame have to be sound and for the best of the competitive battling community at large.

If the votes provided for Skymin being Uber were sound, we would have been fine. Heck, if they hadn't given any reasoning we wouldn't be in this mess. However, with the vote being so close, everything is going to be scrutinized, and some of the votes are simply sub-par. They used horrible reasoning and clearly have no idea what they are talking about. If they make horrible reasoning, or show they did not care to even fairly judge it, why should their vote count? Why the should the whole competitve community pay have to be at the whims of uninformed voters?
 
The current requirements require you to do well in the metagame, while I think that just playing it is okay if you have a good reason to vote.

The "makes sense" definition you seek we already have: Smogon's philosophy combined with eliminating arguments based on factually false statements (Shaymin-S can OHKO everything in the game) or antitier ideas (He's no good in Ubers so keep him in OU). Objectivity is tricky, but at least we could have a panel or something to cut down on personal bias.
I've suggested users agreeing to a contract that owuld allow us to throw out any vote that does not have any sort of logical biasis behind it, but I'm not too sure what the others think.

I'd really like to see a vote where it requires users to state the reasons why they voted the way they did. In addition to striking out nonsensical votes I think this would encourage people to think logically before they vote and make this process move along much smoother.

I personally would rather have 21 voters with well-thought out and descriptive reasons why they voted the way they did than 119 voters who are not required to do anything.

This is Smogon and its respected as the greatest competitive pokémon community there is and well I do think we need to make our processes more sophisticated, but remember...

All in all this is very new and it seems to be falling under heavy criticism, I would encourage users to be more encouraging to evolve this system and not expect perfection in everything from the get-go. Without proper encouragement, what incentive would there be for people to refine this system?
 
I honestly think that there should be one main clause on the voting:

Suspect Test Staff has the right to strike any vote whose logic is not based on an actual effect on the competitive metagame.

This would mean a number of things. Votes such as "I don't like it" or "I want to vote the opposite of TAY" or "We should ban all legendaries because that's what Nintendo does in official tournaments" would be struck automatically. Votes that are given without a reason are struck automatically. Votes based on "I got unlucky once wah" are struck automatically. I honestly don't care if someone thinks that Skymin increases luck and reduces skill - anything that relies that much on luck automatically does that. The real question is whether or not the person thinks that it has a negative impact on the metagame. There's a difference between competitive opinion and irrelevant opinion, and the latter has no business in a voting process like this one.
 
I honestly think that there should be one main clause on the voting:

Suspect Test Staff has the right to strike any vote whose logic is not based on an actual effect on the competitive metagame.

This would mean a number of things. Votes such as "I don't like it" or "I want to vote the opposite of TAY" or "We should ban all legendaries because that's what Nintendo does in official tournaments" would be struck automatically. Votes that are given without a reason are struck automatically. Votes based on "I got unlucky once wah" are struck automatically. I honestly don't care if someone thinks that Skymin increases luck and reduces skill - anything that relies that much on luck automatically does that. The real question is whether or not the person thinks that it has a negative impact on the metagame. There's a difference between competitive opinion and irrelevant opinion, and the latter has no business in a voting process like this one.

I'd like to add to this.

-There are those who would argue that deciding what constitutes a "competent" vote is entirely subjective to the person deciding that. I think that to get around this, at least 2 staff members should review the opinion following the vote. If both agree that the opinion displays a lack of competency, then it should be thrown out. If there is no concensus, then a 3rd staff member can break the tie. So basically:

-Make rating requirements as we have been doing.
-Allow those who meet the requirements to vote, but force them to give an explanation.
-Have 2 staff members review the votes, and allow a 3rd member to serve as a tiebreaker between the two members if they disagree.
 
I don't care about the competency of the vote. If the vote is based on a person's competitive opinion of the metagame, I'll honor their vote. Non-competitive votes are the ones that get thrown out. I also agree that incompetent votes should be thrown out, but that's not the big problem here. Your idea does work. If two out of three staff members think a vote should be thrown out, it works a lot better than "single decisive vote-counter".
 
I don't care about the competency of the vote. If the vote is based on a person's competitive opinion of the metagame, I'll honor their vote. Non-competitive votes are the ones that get thrown out. I also agree that incompetent votes should be thrown out, but that's not the big problem here. Your idea does work. If two out of three staff members think a vote should be thrown out, it works a lot better than "single decisive vote-counter".

Yeah, competetive and competent are interchangeable here. And while I realize that having 2 people count votes may take longer, but its better than having to redo the entire process all over again instead.
 
Yeah, competetive and competent are interchangeable here. And while I realize that having 2 people count votes may take longer, but its better than having to redo the entire process all over again instead.

Perhaps they go over them separately and give their totals. Unless there is a huge discrepency in the vote numbers, it could be done quicker and more efficiently. If the numbers aren't conclusive, then they can discuss it. However, I think it will usually be clear what is a good vote and what isn't.
 
Perhaps they go over them separately and give their totals. Unless there is a huge discrepency in the vote numbers, it could be done quicker and more efficiently. If the numbers aren't conclusive, then they can discuss it. However, I think it will usually be clear what is a good vote and what isn't.

Either way, the process could take a while. And I assume that there would be at least some votes that could go either way.
 
The problem with forcing an explanation is that there's no guarantee that people are going to be honest. If they see that their reasoning isn't going to fit into the framework of the vote, what is stopping them from just repeating any old argument that people are using to vote whichever way they want to vote? The system right now assumes people will vote in good faith, and while that may be a mistake in a lot of cases, requiring an explanation only further promotes dishonesty.

It just seems like people are getting all up in arms over those two votes, while neglecting that there was nothing stopping people from using reasoning like that to vote in the first place. Sure, it's not the smartest thing in the world for them to actually come out and say that's precisely why they're voting, but do you really believe every other vote was cast 'correctly'? I'm sure there were people who voted strictly based on wanting to use Skymin, or not wanting to have to face it (albeit that one can be further expanded upon). Hell, it's possible there were even some people who felt it was Uber material but wanted it in OU anyway.


In any case, the real problem with the vote on this one is that it's too close, not that people were voting for the wrong reasons.
 
With the November usage stats now in, I'm even more convinced that Skymin shouldn't be Uber. It's usage continued to fall, going from the 10th most used Pokemon in OU in October with 53,661 uses, to the 17th in Novermber with 39,934; a 25% decrease in usage. And this was at the time it was being tested, when if anything it's usage should have been higher due to the test, or at least remained fairly steady.

The only thing I can make of this is that it just doesn't actually get those Sp. Def drops and flinches as much as it needs to, so it isn't really reliable (which in effect means it doesn't really break the metagame, since it getting those hax are what would do it), so people stop using it as much.

However, the test and voting period is over, so I suppose we can only go with what the decision will be on where it will fall for now.
 
It just seems like people are getting all up in arms over those two votes, while neglecting that there was nothing stopping people from using reasoning like that to vote in the first place. Sure, it's not the smartest thing in the world for them to actually come out and say that's precisely why they're voting, but do you really believe every other vote was cast 'correctly'? I'm sure there were people who voted strictly based on wanting to use Skymin, or not wanting to have to face it (albeit that one can be further expanded upon). Hell, it's possible there were even some people who felt it was Uber material but wanted it in OU anyway.

Assuming the staff is at all competent (which I seem to think so), if Skymin were too strong for OU and was allowed into OU anyway, Skymin would be promptly retested and banned once things got out of hand (case in point: Deoxys-S). Which would allow those selfish users to use Skymin to their delight for maybe a month or two at the most. While I can't say that such shortsighted people don't exist, I'd like to think that such people are few and far in between.

Since nobody was required to explain their reasoning behind their vote, both sides can claim each side had its fair share of biased and uninformed opinions all they want. Fact of the matter is, there were some uber votes attached to some rather shady reasoning. For whatever reason, we didn't see the same kind of thing with the OU voters.
 
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