np: BW Ubers Suspect Testing Round 1 - Mama Said Knock You Out UPDATE POST #95

[Fiction.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpX0DqlEdrM

[mostwanted]

Just saying, Great Sage isn't even kidding to the slightest.

@Aqualoius: Probably not, since that's only for the special applications.

On the another note, I'm fissure.

[ZetoTarken]

Suddenly, the statistics course I had to take is actually being useful...
Good thing I payed attention! HAHA

[AfroThunderRule]

That quiz seems kinda fun. <.<

If I have the requirements already (2051, deviation of 55) and decide to take this quiz and do badly will I not be able to vote? :s

[ThisMysteriousGuy]

I might sound really stupid in this post but, just to clarify, are we allowed to send in a special app as long as we get the deviation/battle reqs by November 9 or is it only available for people who made the deviation/battle reqs by November 2?

[Focus]

Will there be a special application quiz like this one each round, or is this just a one-time thing?

[ala]

That's hilarious, probs for originality. I'm still glad that I don't have to do it lol

[locoghoul]

Originally Posted by Fat Poppy

Do we go for a metagame wherein we attempt to unban anything that is 'not broken'? Or a metagame which we(?) find to be enjoyable and diverse?

In this case, I'm for the latter.

At least you can determine what is 'broken' in a somewhat objective manner. "Enjoyable" is a very very subjective term (lol who is "we" when you are talking about enjoying something?).

A lot of ppl don't find OU Gen II/V "enjoyable" just to mention an example. It should not be a measuring stick on whether we ban/unban things (I don't recall Blissey being banned in Gen II; hint: she was not broken).

[ala]

Off topic: Blissey is not even good in Gen 2, js

Its also kinda hard to gauge some things as making the game more enjoyable. OHKO moves are obviously pretty dumb and only hinder the game, but they were pretty rare in my experience on the ladder and don't really affect it too much seeing as they are as unreliable as it gets.

Things like Kyurem-B going down to OU imo doesn't make the game enjoyable at all, making steel types even more of a necessity. Is Kyurem-B broken though? Since the majority voted no, it clearly isn't. Just something to think about I guess.

[Pocket]

I actually think OHKO moves are broken. We're talking about a 30% chance to OHKO here. No, not a Scald burn or Thunder paralysis, which doesn't spell immediate doom. Immediate OHKO. An instant-kill on one crucial mon or two is just game-changing. We have no place for OHKO in a healthy metagame.

[Poppy]

Originally Posted by Fat locoghoul

At least you can determine what is 'broken' in a somewhat objective manner. "Enjoyable" is a very very subjective term (lol who is "we" when you are talking about enjoying something?).

A lot of ppl don't find OU Gen II/V "enjoyable" just to mention an example. It should not be a measuring stick on whether we ban/unban things (I don't recall Blissey being banned in Gen II; hint: she was not broken).

it's a matter of neccessity, if we were to go purely by 'objective' levels of brokenness in pokemon then we may very well end up unbanning sleep, it's probably manageable with sdef manaphy, but if ubers turns into a metagame revolving around sleeping and managing sleep then you'll be damned sure i'll argue it's an unenjoyable metagame, regardless of being 'subjective'. there's a need to bring up enjoyable vs broken because an extreme of the former can lead to a severely stagnant and shitty tier, and while some might be content in adhering to consistencies, precedents, and a strict stick to and abide by objectivity whenever possible, i argue that doing so will ruin the metagame.

can we not just apply philosophies and argue semantics? look at the bigger picture, think of what acutally happens / will happen to the metagame, presence should be considered over prevalence; experienced players have presented extremely strong cases for viable OHKO pokemon. regardless of how popular / unpopular they are now, they will rise in usage when people learn to build around them properly, they will be a legitimate threat whose best response leads to the stagnation of a metagame to offense and the invalidation of defensive playstyles.

when tiering pokemon there will always be a large amount of subjectivity, that's why we have voting in the first place; one cannot deduce the objectively correct answer.

the fact of the matter is that i can't see anyone 'enjoying' a metagame with OHKO moves, and although their actual effects might seem low their potential is huge, and it is that potential that i am afraid of.

[locoghoul]

Originally Posted by Fat Poppy

tl; dr

the fact of the matter is that i can't see anyone 'enjoying' a metagame with OHKO moves, and although their actual effects might seem low their potential is huge, and it is that potential that i am afraid of.

exactly my point. I know you won't enjoy it.

[Pocket]

and neither will most of us.

Poppy's definition of an enjoyable metagame is one that is diverse and balanced. OHKO moves does not bring anymore diversity, but rather restricts the metagame further to an extent that its centralization force is undesirable to the metagame. Poppy's (and most of our) enjoyable metagame is far more aligned with Smogon's spirit of a competitive game than yours.

[syrim]

Originally Posted by Fat locoghoul

exactly my point. I know you won't enjoy it.

I don't see how this is too terribly complicated. If a majority of players who have proven their competence, and at least in some way dedication, to the ubers metagame, decide that they feel it is not a healthy addition, it will not be allowed. Arguing that any type of voting, or suspect, process can be objective is an irrational stance, even if you don't qualify it afterwards by stating that your potentially minority opinion should dominate the tier.

[locoghoul]

^ lol, that's the problem. If you check my last posts, I haven't even said anything about my position about OHKO moves. I'm just rather pointing out how people like you and poppy are not so smartly trying to discuss things (based on subjective matters).

Diverse is hardly applicable to Ubers where due to competitiveness the best pokes are mainly used. If you check the monthly stats you will see Ubers that rarely see any play. Then again, it could be diverse to you (subjectivity again) but not to other people. Failure to recognize what I'm trying to say here is what -usually- keeps me out of discussion with "moderators". I actually like that some of these things are being tested but the way that some of the players are arguing is questionable if not somewhat amusing to say the least.

@Syrim: I don't care much about the final decision (whether Tornadus is OU or Uber, Swift Swim ban, Moody, etc.) but rather the way people favor one thing over the other. The voting process itself doesn't guarantee that let's say 3 friends that are decent at Ubers create multiple accts, ladder to get the requisites and then vote for "X" giving mediocre explanations why.

[syrim]

How are we discussing things in an unproductive or irrational way. We have set out with no preconceived notions, and tested the moves in an new environment. We have attempted to simulate what the metagame would eventually look like by discussing possible sets as a community and furthering knoweldge.

I'll attempt to prove this and answer your latest post by making it relevant to your earlier ones.

Originally Posted by Fat locoghoul

At least you can determine what is 'broken' in a somewhat objective manner. "Enjoyable" is a very very subjective term (lol who is "we" when you are talking about enjoying something?).

A lot of ppl don't find OU Gen II/V "enjoyable" just to mention an example. It should not be a measuring stick on whether we ban/unban things (I don't recall Blissey being banned in Gen II; hint: she was not broken).

Once again, you are being at the very least unproductive. You can't really define "broken" without defining enjoyable. The very defintion of broken, if we use the "charecteristics of an uber" post as a jumping off point, center around keeping factors that the vast majority of players don't enjoy from being present, e.g. a mon that sweeps with ease, sets up with ease, or makes the game very centric on the playstyles or strategies it and it alone enables.

Originally Posted by Fat locoghoul

exactly my point. I know you won't enjoy it.

Again, the two terms aren't as dissonant as you make them seem. The fact that this is a subjective vote, and that the factors that make a player in any metagame decide something is broken are subjective, mean this is essentially a moot point that doesn't even correctly address semantic problems.

Edit for an edit; If all you care about is the way we favor one thing or the other, and that feeling comes about from the result of the closest thing to objectivity we have, suspect ladder testing and many many matches, then what is your claim based on?

GreatSage and his pocket IP checker also ensure the security of the ladder.

[Nightmare]

Originally Posted by Fat tehy

The only way to block OHKO moves is with sturdy, which basically means you switch a steel with 70/70 or 70/60 Special defenses into a pokemon with 150 Spatk that is, at the very least, running an attack with 180 power that has a 30% chance to burn.

I find Substitute to be the biggest bane of OHKO moves: A lot of times on the first turn OHKO's tend to miss, letting the person get their Sub up. Then, while they're still attempting to OHKO you, you get a free turn of set-up, like Swords Dance, Calm Mind, Spore, you name it. Then the OHKO user is back on their heels. It's probably one of the biggest reasons I stopped using them for the most part (as well as the increased attack scores in D/P/Pt and up)

-James

[tehy]

Originally Posted by Fat Nightmare

I find Substitute to be the biggest bane of OHKO moves: A lot of times on the first turn OHKO's tend to miss, letting the person get their Sub up. Then, while they're still attempting to OHKO you, you get a free turn of set-up, like Swords Dance, Calm Mind, Spore, you name it. Then the OHKO user is back on their heels. It's probably one of the biggest reasons I stopped using them for the most part (as well as the increased attack scores in D/P/Pt and up)

-James

I find it to be the bane of sleep as well. If we reintroduced sleep into the metagame, sweepers with substitutes and lum berries, as with the postulated lum SubDD mence would become much more popular. I'd also like to point out that i didn't mention safeguard, magic coat, or heal bell/aromatherapy. The last option is great for my argument, too-you can wipe away all that sleep with just one move. The other two are... not particularly viable; Safeguard is occasionally used on wobbuffett, and magic coat on leads.

Not to mention, unless you're carrying subs on everything (Or even just a lot of your pokemon), OHKO moves can still be used as you switch them in. If you force them out from there so badly, they're probably not going to risk using a 30% move and allowing you to set up, even without a sub. Meanwhile, most sweepers have trouble forgoing a move in general, especially for substitute. The ones that do are either bulky, double dancers, or SD ray, but t-wave>SD, especially for a pokemon that can attract both scarfers and phazers.

Face it, anything GF has ever made "can" be adapted to. The main breaking points usually come when people start overpreparing to a point that it seriously hurts their team against any other team, or when people just start fighting fire with fire. The only other breaking point is generally "Stupid luck BS", such as the evasion clause, which comes when people are tired of so many games hinging on dice rolls and the RNG.

Edit: Of course they lose you more than they win. But they win you matches based not on strategy but on luck, which makes it the opposite of any competitive endeavor.
Also, it's 90 power. But that whole "lack of distribution" thing-only ubers has serious distribution;other than that it's lucario and togekiss.

[MikeDecIsHere]

Electrode Kaboom
A formal Pokemon exam? Jesus Christ... To anyone seriously filling this out, stop for a minute and please re-evaluate your life.
3 minutes ago


This made me lol.

Edit: But on a more serious note, OHKO Moves really just eliminate all aspects of competitive play in my opinion. Yeah, 30% accuracy sucks, but the fact that you don't need to do anything, and just slap Sheer Cold on something just to eliminate any Pokemon of your choosing seems like shit to me.

[Nightmare]

Originally Posted by Fat tehy

Face it, anything GF has ever made "can" be adapted to. The main breaking points usually come when people start overpreparing to a point that it seriously hurts their team against any other team, or when people just start fighting fire with fire. The only other breaking point is generally "Stupid luck BS", such as the evasion clause, which comes when people are tired of so many games hinging on dice rolls and the RNG.

Personally, I find evasion moves too much the roll of the dice: It has cost me more matches than it has won me (by not a small margin either) and don't understand why it's even in place (even if it's stupid). I think there should be more perfect accuracy moves with better accuracy to deal with the problem however: Aura Sphere with 80 power as the strongest move isn't exactly a surefire counter.

[LuckOverSkill]

Originally Posted by Fat MikeDecIsHere

A formal Pokemon exam? Jesus Christ... To anyone seriously filling this out, stop for a minute and please re-evaluate your life.

I'd rather do a test about probability (because this is what this test is on, granted, it's about Pokemon, but a good 80% of it is just about probability, like any test you do at school) than playing other 50 matches on any given ladder hoping I don't get haxed by some skillful trainer and his very well trained Pokemon, it takes a lot less time, and it saves me anger and frustration, and it helps me revising stuff too!

On the topic of OHKOs, I played both with and against them. Aside from the "luck" factor, I think that they are, in fact, broken. The fact that they bring "luck" into the game isn't a factor to consider them broken though, because literally everything in this game is about luck (Damage rolls, secondary effects and all that kind of stuff), but rather seeing as how they harm a regular Pokemon match. Seeing as how, for example, Kyogre can now defeat CM Latias by killing it (and you have more than one shot at it, since Latias can't OHKO Kyogre at +0 and usually it's Latias that switches into Kyogre) with Sheer Cold more than 50% of the times (30% - 51%), or any other Pokemon that's switching in seems rather terrible to me.

Blocking Excadrill from spinning with Giratina becomes literally impossible, since it has more than a chance to Fissure your Giratina, killing not only your spinblocker, but also your check for a whole lot of Pokemon, and if it missed Fissure the 1st time, I'd be very reluctant to send my Giratina in again, making Excadrill's job (spinning, you shouldn't really run Fissure on a offensive SD set) too easy to do.

Instead of actually having to play the right mindgames (EQing with Excadrill Giratina on the switch in et similia), all I have to do is click on Fissure, having a 30% to one shot a good portion of the metagame, and then spinning freely, removing the skill factor by the equation.

I also faced a SubToxic Gliscor with Guillotine, and it was terrific to say the least, the only ways to defeat it are: RestTalk Giratina/-O or Skarmory, all the rest is simply Toxic stalled /taken out of the game easily, especially since Gliscor will most likely be behind a sub AND faster, so it has, again, a chance to win that is higher than the 50%, and if you send in something faster it will most likely be Toxic stalled.

I won and lost games thanks to OHKOs (lost more because I didn't use them for long), and while they may seem unreliable on paper, they can change games drastically without having to rely on any sort of skill / prediction / mindgame / whatever you like to call it. Both offensive and stall teams have problems facing OHKOs.

As I already said, Excadrill can now take out Giratina easily, Gliscor can take out a lot of stuff easily (and even if Skarmory comes in, you can just go to your Excadrill and spin, or go for Fissure!). Kyogre can now defeat CM Latias / Gastrodon easily without having to play around them and even kill other switch ins if the opp wants to save Latias/Gastrodon for later.

I'll send my test answers as soon as I'm not too braindead from university work to finish them all.

[SoulWind]

Zayn Malik
Really hard work to get the damn reqs, again sorry if I raged to anyone in any battles.

[Pocket]

laddering brings out the worst of us... we understand ;( I'm glad you made it!

[Lavos Spawn]

Two questions:

When will voting begin?

If I've already met reqs and posted a screenshot, do I need to fill out the special application questions as well?

[AfroThunderRule]

Don't know the answers 100% but I assume...

1) Great Sage did say that on Friday at 11:59:59 PM the special application are due, so I assume the round is over as well. So maybe 2-3 days afterwards they will sort everything out and voting will begin?

2) If you got 2000 points then nah you don't have to do this.