Applying the characteristics of an Uber to LC

[eric the espeon]

This thread will serve as a discussion of how to define what we should define as "Uber" in the Little Cup metagame. We may choose to directly use the definition arrived at in the Portrait of an Uber thread (makes for good background reading), but it would still be good to consider how they apply to the hyper offensive and revenge killing centric metagame of Little Cup.


Offensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.

Two potential difficulties with this, first very few Pokemon can get anything like a true sweep going in Little Cup because so much effort is put into being able to revenge kill threats. Second if you allow things like cleaning up 2-3 Pokemon at the end of a game to count as a sweep.. a large portion, probably a majority, of the LC OU Pokemon are capable of this reasonably consistently.

Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.

The only Pokemon I have seen that actually attempts to "Stall Out" foes (with some success) in Little Cup is Stockpile Lileep, all other LC "Walls" act by switching into a move that is only a 3-4 KO and either hitting back hard (Munchlax, Gligar, Slowpoke) or setting something up that makes up for the damage you are taking (Bronzor, bulky SR users). In Little Cup walls are all but non-existent, maybe this simply means that the defensive characteristic will never be used as an argument here, or maybe we can interpret it in a way so it is useful.

Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep.

While this applies reasonably well to Little Cup, but when using it we have to take note of the massively increased general power of Rain, Sun and Trick Room teams. Any Pokemon capable of setting those effects up can make it "substantially easier" for other Pokemon to sweep (fell like facing Kabuto under the rain, Bellsprout under the sun or Cubone/Cranidos under Trick Room?). The consistently part is also not hard to achieve. Basically, unless we want to ban most Pokemon who learn Rain Dance or Trick Room we need to be careful when applying this characteristic.

I remember an old thread in the staff forum of LCF in which I proposed the following:

In LC I do not think there is a real defensive characteristic for Uberness, more a general one which can be classified as:
A Pokemon is Uber if it is unreasonably hard to counter or revenge kill with other common Pokemon under common battle conditions, or can revenge kill or counter an unreasonable number of common threats.

This leaves it open for interpretation, much like the Smogon characteristics.

And a support section:
A Pokemon is Uber if it can consistently provide support which allows other Pokemon to reach the other characteristic.

But we should bear in mind if it's a suicide rain lead or the like that the "reasonable" power of the supported Pokemon is significantly higher, as it must make up for the loss of another as well as its own place on the team.

But now I think it is probably better to interpret the existing and very good Smogon definition of an Uber in a way that suits Little Cup.

[Black Buddha]

Well, the support arguement for weather effects isnt that solid. Many pokemon can reliably set up the weather of their choice: Stunky, Koffing, Bronzor, and especially voltorb.

Offensive characteristic can only really apply to sweepers that shine once a specific pokemon is out of the picture: for example: using Stunky to get rid of Misdreavus, allowing Mankey/Machop to sweep, or using Wynaut to get rid of opposing scarfers, allowing Elekid to sweep etc

[Heysup]

Many people believe that these don't apply to LC, but in all honesty, they are just easier to fill in LC.

However, the defensive characteristic is an exception to this, no Pokemon can stall out any other competent player/Pokemon in common battle conditions....

That's really all I have to say for now, I think we just need to slightly modify the definitions.

[franky]

I agree with Heysup, the defensive criteria would't mesh in the LC tier. It should only be offensive imo, since this tier is rather fast paced.

Offensive Characteristic

I think this should need to more elaborated. A "significant portion" isnt enough in LC because many Pokemon can do this. Something along the lines of a major portion (1-2 counters tops) should suffice. That's my two cents.

[Elevator Music]

Support characteristic still applies as well....

I think pokemon like Stunky and Wynaut would be great examples of support characteristic if they were actually broken (as well as Baton Pass Gligar). Offensive support is still a form of support.

EDIT- Also obviously for offensive characteristic, the two important things for a sweeper are that they can (1) kill a lot of pokemon rather easily and (2) are not easily revenge killed.

A lot of pokemon can do #1 very easily in LC, but #2 is a bit harder because of the prevalence of things like Sucker Punch and other priority, as well as a lot of Scarfers. But, if you notice, most of the current LC Ubers we have are ridiculously hard to revenge kill (think Tangela, Scyther, etc). I definitely think that those two factors are what makes the offensive characteristic in LC, though they should probably be put more eloquently.

[little gk]

I agree with EM completely with the offensive charictaristic. So many things can effectively sweep, but can be revenged just as easiley making them easy to manage. With bulk though, a pokemon becomes extrmely difficult to deal with and becomes broken

[Jumpman16**]

Unless there is an overwhelming reason to do so I strongly suggest leaving the terminology of the original Characteristics intact so they can be interpreted the same way they have been for OU and UU.

Originally Posted by Fat eric the espeon

Offensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.

Two potential difficulties with this, first very few Pokemon can get anything like a true sweep going in Little Cup because so much effort is put into being able to revenge kill threats. Second if you allow things like cleaning up 2-3 Pokemon at the end of a game to count as a sweep.. a large portion, probably a majority, of the LC OU Pokemon are capable of this reasonably consistently.

The same is true of OU, when you think about it. Only about 15 of the 23 ubers are uber under the OC, out of 493 (505) pokemon. You can bet that Salamence would be considered more uber if it resisted any of the popular priority moves, and the same is true of Latios even in spite of it being sent back to Ubers. Lucario and Scizor are all the more effective because it resists BP, ES and IS, where something like Breloom (going with SD + STAB priority) is not nearly as effective because not only does it not resist any of those three, it is weak to IS. Choice Scarf revengers apply equally to both metagames as well. You're right to realize that "cleaning up 2-3 Pokemon" is vague...which is why it was left out of the original definition.

Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.

The only Pokemon I have seen that actually attempts to "Stall Out" foes (with some success) in Little Cup is Stockpile Lileep, all other LC "Walls" act by switching into a move that is only a 3-4 KO and either hitting back hard (Munchlax, Gligar, Slowpoke) or setting something up that makes up for the damage you are taking (Bronzor, bulky SR users). In Little Cup walls are all but non-existent, maybe this simply means that the defensive characteristic will never be used as an argument here, or maybe we can interpret it in a way so it is useful.

Again we can take a look at the current ubers...only about four of the 23 could meet the DC: Deoxys-D, Giratina, and Lugia, with a nod to Arceus because depending on whatever plate it holds it can wall any team pretty badly with Recover, Calm Mind, Roar, Reflect, Light Screen, and 120 base speed (basically everything Lugia can do with slightly worse defenses, unequivocally better typing by default, and better speed).

Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep.

While this applies reasonably well to Little Cup, but when using it we have to take note of the massively increased general power of Rain, Sun and Trick Room teams. Any Pokemon capable of setting those effects up can make it "substantially easier" for other Pokemon to sweep (fell like facing Kabuto under the rain, Bellsprout under the sun or Cubone/Cranidos under Trick Room?). The consistently part is also not hard to achieve. Basically, unless we want to ban most Pokemon who learn Rain Dance or Trick Room we need to be careful when applying this characteristic.

You'll have to play this one by ear and see if random pokemon can actually enable those pokemon to sweep in spite of the considerable threat you said revenge already posed to "true" sweeping. This is something you all will learn as the metagame evolves, and is probably the most difficult characteristic to actually fulfill for pokemon that don't have broken abilities like Kyogre, Groudon and Wobbuffet (which leaves three, Arceus [surprise], Deoxys-S [Dual Screen but also its own OC helped ban it] and Mew [BPing literally anything in OU? lol]).

Again, anyone who wants to deviate from the terminology should probably have a very good reason for doing so.

[eric the espeon]

Originally Posted by Fat Jumpman16

Unless there is an overwhelming reason to do so I strongly suggest leaving the terminology of the original Characteristics intact so they can be interpreted the same way they have been for OU and UU.

I am in agreement that we probably don't need to change the wording of the characteristics of an Uber, and that doing so would be inconsistent. However there are enough differences in the style of Little Cup for it to be worth discussing whether they should be interpreted in a different way.

Luckily (and I think intentionally) the characteristics of an Uber are written in a way that allows the reader to fit them around what they want to an extent, for example you have to decide how much a "significant portion" means. In OU being able to sweep a significant portion of teams could be taken to be different from being able to sweep a significant portion of LC teams, due to the large difference in the offensive/defensive balance, almost total lack of counters, and much stronger emphasis on revenge killing.

The same is true of OU, when you think about it. Only about 15 of the 23 ubers are uber under the OC, out of 493 (505) pokemon. You can bet that Salamence would be considered more uber if it resisted any of the popular priority moves, and the same is true of Latios even in spite of it being sent back to Ubers. Lucario and Scizor are all the more effective because it resists BP, ES and IS, where something like Breloom (going with SD + STAB priority) is not nearly as effective because not only does it not resist any of those three, it is weak to IS. Choice Scarf revengers apply equally to both metagames as well. You're right to realize that "cleaning up 2-3 Pokemon" is vague...which is why it was left out of the original definition.

While the same is true of OU to an extent, as almost any player who has experienced both metagames will assert, there is a difference in the importance and ease of revenge killing between the two metagames. All the same forces apply, but with different power and popularity, Choice Scarf for example is significantly more common in Little Cup. The same goes for Priority and Focus Sash. This is because without the emphasis on revenge killing a clean sweep would be very easy to achieve for a large number of Pokemon.

In short, yes this characteristic still applies, but we need to be careful how to interpret it. Chinchou in LC may sweep as often as Manaphy in OU (not saying it does, just an example), but given the relative sweeping ability compared to the rest of the tier, one is much more suspect.

Again we can take a look at the current ubers...only about four of the 23 could meet the DC: Deoxys-D, Giratina, and Lugia, with a nod to Arceus because depending on whatever plate it holds it can wall any team pretty badly with Recover, Calm Mind, Roar, Reflect, Light Screen, and 120 base speed (basically everything Lugia can do with slightly worse defenses, unequivocally better typing by default, and better speed).

The difference is that here, I don't think it will ever be used. Nothing even comes close to the defencive charicteristic of being able to "wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame". Maybe this is not an issue, and if there was some doubt about a Pokemon being able to fulfil this its good to have this characteristic around.

You'll have to play this one by ear and see if random pokemon can actually enable those pokemon to sweep in spite of the considerable threat you said revenge already posed to "true" sweeping. This is something you all will learn as the metagame evolves, and is probably the most difficult characteristic to actually fulfill for pokemon that don't have broken abilities like Kyogre, Groudon and Wobbuffet (which leaves three, Arceus [surprise], Deoxys-S [Dual Screen but also its own OC helped ban it] and Mew [BPing literally anything in OU? lol]).

Yes, agreeing, but even if rain/TR teams do turn out to be a major threat and very capable of true sweeps, that does not necessarily mean banning the setuppers is the right step. Having theme teams as viable options is to an extent one of the attractions of LC, so unless they really dominate it would be wise to take care when considering the set up Pokemon as suspects. Removing sweepers that are too much may be a better way to go.

Again, anyone who wants to deviate from the terminology should probably have a very good reason for doing so.

Understood. I don't think we need to actually change anything, but its worth discussing how to use what already exists most effectively in this environment.

[Jumpman16**]

Originally Posted by Fat eric the espeon

Luckily (and I think intentionally) the characteristics of an Uber are written in a way that allows the reader to fit them around what they want to an extent, for example you have to decide how much a "significant portion" means. In OU being able to sweep a significant portion of teams could be taken to be different from being able to sweep a significant portion of LC teams, due to the large difference in the offensive/defensive balance, almost total lack of counters, and much stronger emphasis on revenge killing.

It should be perceived differently, but relative to the LC metagame itself the differences should not be that pronounced.

While the same is true of OU to an extent, as almost any player who has experienced both metagames will assert, there is a difference in the importance and ease of revenge killing between the two metagames. All the same forces apply, but with different power and popularity, Choice Scarf for example is significantly more common in Little Cup. The same goes for Priority and Focus Sash. This is because without the emphasis on revenge killing a clean sweep would be very easy to achieve for a large number of Pokemon.

In short, yes this characteristic still applies, but we need to be careful how to interpret it. Chinchou in LC may sweep as often as Manaphy in OU (not saying it does, just an example), but given the relative sweeping ability compared to the rest of the tier, one is much more suspect.

The key word would then be "significant". If many pokemon are indeed capable of sweeping LC compared to OU, pokemon like Chinchou would not be significant offensive threats if they could only sweep three pokemon instead of four.

The difference is that here, I don't think it will ever be used. Nothing even comes close to the defencive charicteristic of being able to "wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame". Maybe this is not an issue, and if there was some doubt about a Pokemon being able to fulfil this its good to have this characteristic around.

I just don't feel there's any reason to ignore the characteristic itself. There aren't any OU Suspects that were expected to fulfill this, but it's convenient to have just for the sake of completeness if nothing else.

Yes, agreeing, but even if rain/TR teams do turn out to be a major threat and very capable of true sweeps, that does not necessarily mean banning the setuppers is the right step. Having theme teams as viable options is to an extent one of the attractions of LC, so unless they really dominate it would be wise to take care when considering the set up Pokemon as suspects. Removing sweepers that are too much may be a better way to go.

I don't think a necessary attraction of LC should be theme teams in the first place, certainly if this would preclude the priority of making it it a viable competitive metagame. If it's true that weather/TR teams are a major threat then you can look at it differently, but again, the SC is the most difficult characteristic to analyze and we would need concrete evidence of many pokemon possibly possessing the SC before deciding to take action.