No Scald Ladder

[Lucipurrr]

Every day I find it harder and harder to find matches...I feel like more people are realizing that Scald is the Hax they deserve, not the Hax they want. It's a wet and moist protector, a Slippery Guardian. A Dank Hax. I'm really happy to see people thinking outside of the box with the bulky water mons now. No Scald went from being a Hax free ladder to a full blown experiment regarding how we as a community view the "bulky water issue".

 

[kokoloko]

it's actually mostly cause no one plays the scald ladder, so then less people play the scald ladder, which leads to even less people playing the scald ladder, etc.

nice vicious cycle. two lower tier ladders ALWAYS ends up with the non-official one being dead, unfortunately.

shit was great while it lasted though

 

[Shrug]

Hi!! I dont play much uu but since theres little discussion i have some earnest opinions about scald!

as someone who derives endless enjoyment from sitting alone in his room, flipping coins for the thrill of seeing what happens, im gonna say i miss the excitement of getting scald burns. i cant imagine a better way for a battle to be decided than RNGs cranking out 30% chances - what a rush! Some say scald burns remove "skill" from the game, but that's overrated... i want to be able to spam a move and get crippling burns to win instead of "predicting" or "outplaying" during my fites.

also the scaldless ladder is much harder to play on - sooo many threats are broken now! dragons absolutely ruin my day when i have out my uninvested bulky water with three moves - some good users tell me to run ice beam or roar but that's not cool, i want to be able to spam 1 move for the threat of crippling hax, "covering typical threats in the meta with coverage moves" is gay and annoyingly gay. everyone knows scald is a 100% counter to dragons - you always get the burn! not like there's ever a situation where a game comes down to "if i get the scald burn i win if i dont i get fucked in the ass with a PVC pipe by the haxorus i've let get to +3 +3"! also i miss switching in heracross to try and get burns - i read a risk vs. reward article in the smog once, isnt that what they were talking about???

i'll finally say walls are too broken when scald doesnt exist. without scald, users cannot beat florges with empoleon, and the whole meta is fucked if that's impossible:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/fusx-ou-2476
it's not like a vast proportion of the A-rank viability ranking mons are wallbreakers or something!! hydreigon m-beedrill chandy m-snow and all those other mons are shit dont use them lol!

finally i'd like to admonish those uppity tier leaders for having the temerity to even create a ladder without scald. as someone who has twice beaten the pokemon: black edition elite 4 on "hard mode" and shitposted on smogon over 55 times, i feel qualified to say i understand the tiering process better than you guys and know for a fact moves and game features that make the game "uncompetitive" and "luck-based" (not even real words lolol!!) have never been ever evaluated on smogon. free moody you assholes!!

 

[Patrick1088]

Shrug empoleon can run flash cannon to beat florges...

Im not sure if that post is serious or sarcastic...

 

[Roseguardin]

Shrug empoleon can run flash cannon to beat florges...

Im not sure if that post is serious or sarcastic...

"free moody you assholes"
Sarcasm/trolling probably

 

[IAmNumberWan]

Let's have a no thunder/lava plume/scald ladder while we're at it.

Also Empo VERY RARELY ever runs flash cannon and even then it's to solely hit florges, but then florges just wishes off the damage
4 SpA Empoleon Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 24+ SpD Florges: 116-140 (32.2 - 38.8%) -- 8.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Utility Empoleon is hurt bad in this meta so if you wanna use empoleon you gotta run offence which there are better water types to do this with *cough* fera *cough*

It's nice to see the bigger variety of pokemon in the tier, but this hurts bulky waters bad. Also, it's basically whoever reaches +2 attack/special attack is usually gonna win 65% of the time.

TL;DR
If Scald is broken, thunder is broken, and lava plume is broken. Yet MORE GAME DECIDING FACTORS include lucky misses and crits yet none of those are "broken" now are they?
Luck is part of the game and you gotta deal with it

 

[YABO]

Let's have a no thunder/lava plume/scald ladder while we're at it.

Also Empo VERY RARELY ever runs flash cannon and even then it's to solely hit florges, but then florges just wishes off the damage
4 SpA Empoleon Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 24+ SpD Florges: 116-140 (32.2 - 38.8%) -- 8.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Utility Empoleon is hurt bad in this meta so if you wanna use empoleon you gotta run offence which there are better water types to do this with *cough* fera *cough*

It's nice to see the bigger variety of pokemon in the tier, but this hurts bulky waters bad. Also, it's basically whoever reaches +2 attack/special attack is usually gonna win 65% of the time.

TL;DR
If Scald is broken, thunder is broken, and lava plume is broken. Yet MORE GAME DECIDING FACTORS include lucky misses and crits yet none of those are "broken" now are they?
Luck is part of the game and you gotta deal with it

30% effect chance isn't the defining factor. It's the fact that the things that normally would switch into Scald are hit with this negative effect. Water and Grass types are crippled. However, with something like Thunder and Lava Plume, you have both Electric and Fire types to take them on. The amount of competitive games that boiled down to bulky waters using Scald versus one another was the real issue. The ladder was also to see HOW the meta would shift when one of the most meta defining moves was removed. Thunder and Lava Plume are far from meta defining and your reasoning is very questionable.

 

[IAmNumberWan]

30% effect chance isn't the defining factor. It's the fact that the things that normally would switch into Scald are hit with this negative effect. Water and Grass types are crippled. However, with something like Thunder and Lava Plume, you have both Electric and Fire types to take them on. The amount of competitive games that boiled down to bulky waters using Scald versus one another was the real issue. The ladder was also to see HOW the meta would shift when one of the most meta defining moves was removed. Thunder and Lava Plume are far from meta defining and your reasoning is very questionable.

I'm not seeing how burning roserade or mega amphy is "crippling". For them all it is is residue damage.Basically a weaker toxic. Toxic isn't broken.
These pokemon aren't crippled in the slightest, and given how
prevalent stuff like florges are, burns are manageable.

I think the biggest issue people on the side of suspecting scald are thinking scald has a 100% chance of burning. It doesn't. There are times when scald fails to burn in 10+ turns. If you can't stand scald run a cleric, resttalker, water absorb,natural care, etc,

Saying Burns cripple Special Attacking Grass and eletric types is no different from saying toxic completely cripples clerics because it kills them.

 

[Schpoonman]

That residual damage makes serving as defensive answers difficult-to-impossible. Roserade doesn't typically have room for Synthesis, so it has to rely on Giga Drain or Black Sludge for recovery. So Roserade being put on its back foot by the Pokemon it's supposed to counter is clearly an issue. Mega Ampharos has similar issues, only it doesn't get Natural Cure, reliable recovery, or Leftovers, so you're forced to run RestTalk or a cleric ON TOP of your answer to Water-types.

 

[Sam]

Just going to announce that 3/30/15 will be the last day for the ladder.

 

[YABO]

I'm not seeing how burning roserade or mega amphy is "crippling". For them all it is is residue damage.Basically a weaker toxic. Toxic isn't broken.
These pokemon aren't crippled in the slightest, and given how
prevalent stuff like florges are, burns are manageable.

I think the biggest issue people on the side of suspecting scald are thinking scald has a 100% chance of burning. It doesn't. There are times when scald fails to burn in 10+ turns. If you can't stand scald run a cleric, resttalker, water absorb,natural care, etc,

Saying Burns cripple Special Attacking Grass and eletric types is no different from saying toxic completely cripples clerics because it kills them.

Taking 12% extra damage per turn is ridiculously crippling. Numerous people have come out saying that No Scald ladder has made it more difficult to answer things like Porygon2 since burning them is no longer an option. The extra burn damage is noticed even more with Wish users who, in order to WishTect need to take two rounds of burn damage, significantly diminishing what they can wall. Also, Scald's burn chance limits the Grass, Electric, and Water type checks to be purely special or to risk doing pitiful damage to the Scald user after a burn. You'll have noticed that Mega Abomasnow is a terror on the No Scald ladder due to the fact that it can actually beat Water types reliably. Feraligatr is in the same boat. Finally, Scald is far from "a weaker toxic". Scald is an 80BP STAB move that has a chance to cripple, yes cripple, most relevant switch ins. This does NOT mean it is broken. I am simply outlining the reasoning behind the separate ladder's formation.

 

[Sam]

The ladder has been taken down, I'll leave the thread up for the rest of the day for everyone to leave their thoughts.

 

[Schpoonman]

RIP In Pepperonis best ladder since HGSS OU. Hopefully Hikari and Sam channel their inner Kokos and say "Fuck the police, we're doing what's best for the tier," and try a for-realzy Scald suspect test.