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np: Latias - Don't Do the Dew! (NOTE: explanation of Skymin's fate within)
- Thread starter Jumpman16
- Start date
I can think of one reason:
They're unnecessary.
Like I said before, if people feel that they are forced to run two counters, they will vote uber.
I agree it would help, but not as you say it, not "trememndously".
What would help "trememndously" is to counter actual threats. and latias isn't one of those yet.
Once again keep in mind that not all scizors and t tars are counters, but they themselves are the actual threats, even before the suspect ladder was open.
So where's the problem then? We base our decision off how the top players feel about it, not off usage statistics.
No we're not. We're basing our decision about how decidedly average players that obviously don't put enough effort into their vote feel about it. And why is everyone clusterfucking about the usage stats part when the real point is that the experience garnered is being adversely affected by the way the metagame is set up?
So basically you're saying not reaching the required points / deviation (which shows that atleast they aren't pulling shit out of their ass) whatever the fuck is called not "putting enough effort"?
I suppose I phrased that wrong. The way I see it, people genuinely are not putting enough effort into how they vote. Reaching the vaunted 1655/65 is not too terribly difficult, and from there, they once again have to justify their vote. I know that can work to weed out voters that don't put effort into their votes, but in the end, we're putting a band-aid on a wound that obviously needs stitches. We can phase out every shitty vote, but the final aim should not be "throw out shitty votes" but "make the community less likely to cast shitty votes".
Remember where I noted that the side effect of the metagame as is would be that two main lines of thought would arise: OU will say that Latias is easily managed because there are so many counter, while Uber will say that Latias is on every team and counters are overly necessary. Jumpman's answer was to simply say, "These votes suck, why do we care about them? We'll just throw them out." This is the wrong way of going about fixing the problem. The safeguards in place don't address the problem of a faulty metagame.
At this point, I am only concerned about one thing: "How can we refine the Suspect Test ladder in order to produce more useful results, both for statistics and experience?" I believe that the suspect should be dropped into the Standard metagame, and that a separate Suspect Test metagame should exist comprised of the metagame before the Suspect. This will have the effect of correctly gauging the effect of the suspect on the metagame, rather than creating a new metagame solely for the purpose of using said suspect. This will force most players to look at the effect the suspect has on the metagame. Alternately, many players, after playing in a metagame with the suspect enables, will want to return to the old metagame in order to compare the two, which is where the Suspect Test metagame comes in. People already have tons of experience in the current metagame, so the Suspect Test ladder will act as somewhat of a refresher course on the pre-suspect metagame. The end result is that you get a more informed public, more useful usage statistics, and a Suspect Test that works.
Remember where I noted that the side effect of the metagame as is would be that two main lines of thought would arise: OU will say that Latias is easily managed because there are so many counter, while Uber will say that Latias is on every team and counters are overly necessary. Jumpman's answer was to simply say, "These votes suck, why do we care about them? We'll just throw them out." This is the wrong way of going about fixing the problem. The safeguards in place don't address the problem of a faulty metagame.
At this point, I am only concerned about one thing: "How can we refine the Suspect Test ladder in order to produce more useful results, both for statistics and experience?" I believe that the suspect should be dropped into the Standard metagame, and that a separate Suspect Test metagame should exist comprised of the metagame before the Suspect. This will have the effect of correctly gauging the effect of the suspect on the metagame, rather than creating a new metagame solely for the purpose of using said suspect. This will force most players to look at the effect the suspect has on the metagame. Alternately, many players, after playing in a metagame with the suspect enables, will want to return to the old metagame in order to compare the two, which is where the Suspect Test metagame comes in. People already have tons of experience in the current metagame, so the Suspect Test ladder will act as somewhat of a refresher course on the pre-suspect metagame. The end result is that you get a more informed public, more useful usage statistics, and a Suspect Test that works.
Okay, I tried thinking about it after Tangerine said I couldn't think for myself on #smogon and I think I might see why I'm wrong. Correct me if I'm more wrong now.
The test is designed for people to whore Latias to see what happens in a metagame where Latias is popular. This helps account for the low amount of time "It won't catch on" complaints as seen in the Deoxys-S unban.
Countertrends will form to combat this. If despite these, Latias stays domineering and popular, people will qualify easily with their Latias team and vote Uber.
If it is sufficiently checked to the point that it is just as easy or easier to win without Latias, these people will qualify and vote OU.
The rating requirements have the side effect of making the game more competitive, forcing these changes in battlers.
The vote system seems ideally to force overzealous Uber or OU voters to own up. Uber voters would find trouble sweeping with their broken Pokémon if it actually was OU (of course they may just say "the metagame is overcentralized sorry"), and OU voters would be beaten down by the Uber and "forced to use it".
I don't think it actually works like that, but is that the aim?
----
One thing this shows though? If that was the theory, it doesn't work like that in practice. Look at Skymin. The "OU case" is exactly what happened yet it was still voted Uber.
Thus, either I'm wrong about the theory (likely) or the theory the test is based on is flawed.
Perhaps there really is no tie to a good battle and a good vote? Good battlers don't connect the dots and figure out a result based on their experience. That's the assumption that the theory works on, that being good at pokemon makes you smart. Then again, I could be completely wrong about what the theory is.
From there, the current vote system attempts to patch that by screening votes, just to be sure. However, the best battlers still get a free pass, so there's still the fatal flaw of "good battler means smart" being an assumption. If that is eliminated, I think the test will be nearly ideal. (Sorry, IPL) IPL's vote is the antithesis to this assumption that the whole theory is based on.
The test is designed for people to whore Latias to see what happens in a metagame where Latias is popular. This helps account for the low amount of time "It won't catch on" complaints as seen in the Deoxys-S unban.
Countertrends will form to combat this. If despite these, Latias stays domineering and popular, people will qualify easily with their Latias team and vote Uber.
If it is sufficiently checked to the point that it is just as easy or easier to win without Latias, these people will qualify and vote OU.
The rating requirements have the side effect of making the game more competitive, forcing these changes in battlers.
The vote system seems ideally to force overzealous Uber or OU voters to own up. Uber voters would find trouble sweeping with their broken Pokémon if it actually was OU (of course they may just say "the metagame is overcentralized sorry"), and OU voters would be beaten down by the Uber and "forced to use it".
I don't think it actually works like that, but is that the aim?
----
One thing this shows though? If that was the theory, it doesn't work like that in practice. Look at Skymin. The "OU case" is exactly what happened yet it was still voted Uber.
Thus, either I'm wrong about the theory (likely) or the theory the test is based on is flawed.
Perhaps there really is no tie to a good battle and a good vote? Good battlers don't connect the dots and figure out a result based on their experience. That's the assumption that the theory works on, that being good at pokemon makes you smart. Then again, I could be completely wrong about what the theory is.
From there, the current vote system attempts to patch that by screening votes, just to be sure. However, the best battlers still get a free pass, so there's still the fatal flaw of "good battler means smart" being an assumption. If that is eliminated, I think the test will be nearly ideal. (Sorry, IPL) IPL's vote is the antithesis to this assumption that the whole theory is based on.
With all due respect to you and Jump, (1) how the Suspects are tested directly affects our experiences with them and (2) The opening posts of this thread directly detail the process in which they are tested, so under the basic forum philosophy of "responding to the original post" discussing the process would be entirely within the bounds of this thread.
I faced a lead Reflect / Light Screen / Safeguard / Roost Latias earlier. It sounds useless but without the knowledge that it didn't pack any attacking moves I found it very difficult to hurt it. Mind you the team I was using lacked ttar and had a bug moveless scizor. I lead with a stealth rock heatran which couldn't do shit to it, and switched in an hp fire latias of my own. I mention hp fire because it meant that I was running 30 speed ivs and the opposing lati was always able to light screen in front of my draco meteor. It was silly.
Point is, Latias makes a very scary support pokemon. It seems to be easily walled by several pokes including blissey, regice, empoleon... etc. However special tankish stats, good resists and a supportive movepool make it a nice alternative to the usual wishers. I see it as a welcome addition to OU, at least keeping heatrans in check if not also cementing ttar and scizor in their top used spots. =/
Point is, Latias makes a very scary support pokemon. It seems to be easily walled by several pokes including blissey, regice, empoleon... etc. However special tankish stats, good resists and a supportive movepool make it a nice alternative to the usual wishers. I see it as a welcome addition to OU, at least keeping heatrans in check if not also cementing ttar and scizor in their top used spots. =/
I've noticed a number of Life Orb Latias springing up and to be honest I'm very unimpressed. Since Latias' stats tilt towards defense I would think that it would be a better choice instead of a Latios lite.
Another trend is the Sub Latias, but I personally find them to be realatively easy to handle and I ask myself why didn't they spare that slot for some better move? If you're going to get into S-Toss/Toxic wars with Blissey you're eventually going to lose since Latias doesn't have 101 subs.
Yesterday I ran:
Lati Butt (Latias) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/240 Spd/16 SDef
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Calm Mind
- Dragon Pulse
- Wish
(The name is a joke as I pronounce Latias as "Lati ass" and well, yeah...)
This is enough speed to outrun Jolly Infernape (I might reduce it a bit just to outrun Adamant Dugtrio as Infernape is hardly a threat with Latias around). Before you say "Go max Speed!" I absolutely hate trying to gamble with speed ties and HP Fighting reduces your Speed anyway. HP Fight won't hit Tar exactly that hard, but it will let you hit it for at least usually a third of its HP with a CM that's about half. It also prevents Heatran from being a counter to it. I use this in tandem with CM Suicune and basically they can handle each others weaknesses pretty well. Wish allows it to be supporting other team members that lack a recovery move (I run a Bulk Up Machamp without Rest). Also more SDef EVs allow it to multiply its SDef a lot.
I might try Protect, Refresh, or HP Ground over HP Fighting, but I'm not 100%. I've tried HP Fire and Heatran just comes in and does its thing.
Instead of just having her as a late game sweeper she can be quite useful with helping recover the team's HP and taking some special hits (base 130 SDef, why putt it to waste?). Oh and it can survive some Heatran's Explosions.
My current impression is this thing can be a very nasty sweeper (can wall stuff like Celebi, which Suicune has trouble doing). She's very capable of sweeping teams if you don't have enough checks. I would say she might be high OU material at this point.
Another trend is the Sub Latias, but I personally find them to be realatively easy to handle and I ask myself why didn't they spare that slot for some better move? If you're going to get into S-Toss/Toxic wars with Blissey you're eventually going to lose since Latias doesn't have 101 subs.
Yesterday I ran:
Lati Butt (Latias) (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP/240 Spd/16 SDef
Timid nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Calm Mind
- Dragon Pulse
- Wish
(The name is a joke as I pronounce Latias as "Lati ass" and well, yeah...)
This is enough speed to outrun Jolly Infernape (I might reduce it a bit just to outrun Adamant Dugtrio as Infernape is hardly a threat with Latias around). Before you say "Go max Speed!" I absolutely hate trying to gamble with speed ties and HP Fighting reduces your Speed anyway. HP Fight won't hit Tar exactly that hard, but it will let you hit it for at least usually a third of its HP with a CM that's about half. It also prevents Heatran from being a counter to it. I use this in tandem with CM Suicune and basically they can handle each others weaknesses pretty well. Wish allows it to be supporting other team members that lack a recovery move (I run a Bulk Up Machamp without Rest). Also more SDef EVs allow it to multiply its SDef a lot.
I might try Protect, Refresh, or HP Ground over HP Fighting, but I'm not 100%. I've tried HP Fire and Heatran just comes in and does its thing.
Instead of just having her as a late game sweeper she can be quite useful with helping recover the team's HP and taking some special hits (base 130 SDef, why putt it to waste?). Oh and it can survive some Heatran's Explosions.
My current impression is this thing can be a very nasty sweeper (can wall stuff like Celebi, which Suicune has trouble doing). She's very capable of sweeping teams if you don't have enough checks. I would say she might be high OU material at this point.
I agree with you, but won't bother engaging your concerns again until you address the fact that people cannot just "play counterteam pokemon" for very long at all and expect to win consistently for 30 days. Your latest "Salamence Dragonite Latias Heatran Metagross Scizor" example is still 6-0ed by the SD Lucario (Ice Punch) I actually posted before you did, and with very minimal effort (and I don't want to hear "Scarf", Gyarados itself will ensure that Sala, Draggy and Heatran don't do much about SD Luke for long). Both you and SDS are ignoring the faiulre of extended counterteam-pokemon (that isn't a very solid team by itself anyway) even though I said it two days ago. So how about this, we'll only infract people if anyone wants to continue your line of discussion but doesn't address this or the fact that usage of Suspects actually does go down during at test.
um people use substitute on lati not for the purpose of 'beating blissey.' they use it to scout what people switch in, and is a 100% full proof counter to 'pursuit.' the fact that it can beat toxic+ib/ft blissey just happens to be an added bonus.
@Jump: See my next post (111), I basically rescinded my "inherently centralized sky is falling" argument after thinking about it. Basically, I think now that forcing a metagame where Latias is popular is exactly hte point of the Suspect Test... and that if countertrend teams are completely successful / Latias stays popular that's a sign it's broken. Sorry for any trouble! ^_^
Though on a side note, SDS is having a ton of success with that team. How he is, I don't know.
Though on a side note, SDS is having a ton of success with that team. How he is, I don't know.
It seems every Blissey I've encountered on suspect ladder has Seismic Toss...but turns out 54.3% of them on standard last month carried it, so I suppose I shouldn't be as surprised. A seismic toss Blissey seems like it can always absolutely wall Latias...even with sub. Sub-recover seems to kinda make it a better Zapdos, although the coverage leads a little to be desired (stab electric + 100bp fire > stab dragon + 90bp water or 70bp anything).
I haven't seen as many defensive super-wall Latias as I thought I would, and the fact that the calm mind sweeper outspeeds Salamence makes it pretty nasty to revenge kill. Not impossible, of course. I don't think it's overwhelming at all, so far...
I haven't seen as many defensive super-wall Latias as I thought I would, and the fact that the calm mind sweeper outspeeds Salamence makes it pretty nasty to revenge kill. Not impossible, of course. I don't think it's overwhelming at all, so far...
My team on the Suspect Ladder right now is as follows:
Shucatran lead for setting up SR and luring Blissey and junk.
Scarfed Flygon for speed and revengeyness.
Specs Magnezone for just general power, as well as kicking the ass of a lot of Steel-types that infest the metagame.
Standard DD Mixmence for its general power and usefulness.
Scarfed Metagross (no Trick) for being a great check to SD Luke as well as numerous other things.
Specs Latias for being able to hit absurdly hard while freeing up my other Dragon slot for Salamence.
This team is kinda stupid, but it works. It's literally the easiest team to make that I've ever made, and it takes pretty much 0 skill to execute. The problem here is... I have no idea if this is just Latias talking or if the Suspect Test metagame is so fucked up due to the Latias-central mentality, or if maybe the strategy itself is inherently good, and we need to look at how good the Dragon type is as a type for offensive power given its great coverage and the fact that most Dragons are BST 600 with ridiculous offensive stats and an obscenely good STAB in Outrage or Draco Meteor.
Shucatran lead for setting up SR and luring Blissey and junk.
Scarfed Flygon for speed and revengeyness.
Specs Magnezone for just general power, as well as kicking the ass of a lot of Steel-types that infest the metagame.
Standard DD Mixmence for its general power and usefulness.
Scarfed Metagross (no Trick) for being a great check to SD Luke as well as numerous other things.
Specs Latias for being able to hit absurdly hard while freeing up my other Dragon slot for Salamence.
This team is kinda stupid, but it works. It's literally the easiest team to make that I've ever made, and it takes pretty much 0 skill to execute. The problem here is... I have no idea if this is just Latias talking or if the Suspect Test metagame is so fucked up due to the Latias-central mentality, or if maybe the strategy itself is inherently good, and we need to look at how good the Dragon type is as a type for offensive power given its great coverage and the fact that most Dragons are BST 600 with ridiculous offensive stats and an obscenely good STAB in Outrage or Draco Meteor.
So, you're using Latias as a Latios lite? That makes me think of what'll happen when Latios is sent out. Given this heavily physical OU metagame, right now I'm thinking Latios might do better.
I find Reflect Latias rapes more. It can take a few more hits, like TTar's Pursuit and stuff like that. Recover seems to work better for screening/status sets, and I'm thinking of replacing Psychic for Draco Meteor since Latias just weaves in and out. Most of my wins are from Jirachi though, but Latias seems to help set up the field for Jirachi the most [occasionally Zapdos/Togekiss/Snorlax help, but...Latias helps the most there].
I find Reflect Latias rapes more. It can take a few more hits, like TTar's Pursuit and stuff like that. Recover seems to work better for screening/status sets, and I'm thinking of replacing Psychic for Draco Meteor since Latias just weaves in and out. Most of my wins are from Jirachi though, but Latias seems to help set up the field for Jirachi the most [occasionally Zapdos/Togekiss/Snorlax help, but...Latias helps the most there].
Reflect / Light Screen / Twave support Latias helps DDMence set up amazingly, i got raped by that combination yesterday.
It survives should survive LO Outrage and Scarf Outrage from Flygon and Salamence with minimal investment and KO back with Dragon Pulse.
On a side note i decided theres no point in me laddering anymore (even though i porbnably still will), as even if i were to make the requirements, i cant play the whole last week or so of voting because of midterms. :\
It survives should survive LO Outrage and Scarf Outrage from Flygon and Salamence with minimal investment and KO back with Dragon Pulse.
On a side note i decided theres no point in me laddering anymore (even though i porbnably still will), as even if i were to make the requirements, i cant play the whole last week or so of voting because of midterms. :\
