How high on the ladder were those two replays? I'm just curious with Cresselia being used in one of the replays despite being mostly inviable due to Gengar having a little lunar Peking duck for a quick snack. I'm not trying to argue for Mawile being shit, as the main reason for its rise out of D was its ability to escape or gain momentum with baton pass, but quite a few Arceus forms can easily burn it, which will cripple it and make it dead weight for the most part.
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ORAS Ubers Viability Ranking Thread (Final ORAS Update - Post #1164)
- Thread starter Nayrz
- Start date
- Status
Dilwar
Hi
You can check at the end of the replays. Those replays are in 1500+. The team peaked at rank 9 with 1650+ elo (can't remember exact number). Obviously it's not a serious team, I was just having some fun lol and TR is very hard to pull off successfully in Singles. Cress being weak to Gengar doesn't make it unviable, that's just one reason of many (it's mainly outclassed by Lugia). I just had to use it since it gave TR + HWish support and it walls almost the same amount of things Lugia does.
Alright i'll probably be updating this in a couple days, but i'd like to ask a general kinda question here before i do make the update.
There are a bunch of mons in this tier that people will call awful, garbage, should not be used and what have you but still need to be ranked (they are uber by tiering after all). Would anyone say mons like Palkia and regular Kyogre deserve spots on any serious team? The arguments i'm reading here seem to say no. In this case, if i was to stick extra mons in D rank to show this, is everyone ok with having like 8+ mons in D rank? There are already 6 mons in there and after putting mons like Palkia and Kyogre in here, that may look alarming to the average user that there are 8 mons completely unviable in the tier and looked at as jokes (that is essentially what D rank is for after all). Theres a decent amount of strong opinions going around with "this mon shouldnt be used, stick it in D" and thats perfectly fine, but i do want some clarification from the community that having so many pokemon in D is acceptable over what was done in older viability threads (ehhhh id never use this mon but i guess it can be in C or something...)
Once we get that out of the way, i'll update. Im gonna ask Sweep and Fireburn to chime in with their thoughts here too. Good discussion going on here so far, just keep the amount of sarcastic replies and posts i'm seeing here to a minimum eh?
There are a bunch of mons in this tier that people will call awful, garbage, should not be used and what have you but still need to be ranked (they are uber by tiering after all). Would anyone say mons like Palkia and regular Kyogre deserve spots on any serious team? The arguments i'm reading here seem to say no. In this case, if i was to stick extra mons in D rank to show this, is everyone ok with having like 8+ mons in D rank? There are already 6 mons in there and after putting mons like Palkia and Kyogre in here, that may look alarming to the average user that there are 8 mons completely unviable in the tier and looked at as jokes (that is essentially what D rank is for after all). Theres a decent amount of strong opinions going around with "this mon shouldnt be used, stick it in D" and thats perfectly fine, but i do want some clarification from the community that having so many pokemon in D is acceptable over what was done in older viability threads (ehhhh id never use this mon but i guess it can be in C or something...)
Once we get that out of the way, i'll update. Im gonna ask Sweep and Fireburn to chime in with their thoughts here too. Good discussion going on here so far, just keep the amount of sarcastic replies and posts i'm seeing here to a minimum eh?
Honestly there shouldn't be a problem with that at all. This list is supposed to reflect the current metagae and if there are a lot of shitmons that should be ignored then rank them accordingly. Palkia and Kyogre are both completely outclassed and nearly useless as of right now so they should be put in D-Rank to show this along with anything else that is like this.
Thugly Duckling
I play TCG now
He means that in the sense that it still does what it is supposed to do, but just not with more included; for example, both Palkia and Latias soft check Kyogre, but Latias outclasses it because it can also check Groudon, has access to Calm Mind, and has access to Defog. The part in which he claims it is a decent Pokemon is true because Palkia still has perfect coverage between its STAB attacks and Fire Blast, a free slot to run more coverage or status moves, and an excellent Special Attack and good speed tier to utilize what it has. It's far more useful than the truly useless D rank mons such as Reshiram, which has absolutely no utility, checks nothing, is weak to sr, and weak to ground type attacks.
Keep Palkia out of D rank; you'll never want to build with it, but to say the least it does what it's supposed to which is soft check Kyogre.
Thugly Duckling
I play TCG now
Going to shift the topic over because it seems arguing over Palkia / Kyurem is fruitless until Sweep or Fireburn decide what will be done about these Pokemon which have no niche whatsoever.
Alright I hope in dropping this team some light is shed on Kyogre so it doesn't join the real shitters:
This team is basically standard Kyogre sand specialized to support a scarf set (standard Kyogre sand being Ttar / Excadrill / Primal Kyogre / Ferrothorn / Latias or Salamence / Ho-Oh or other flyer). Standard sand teams that traditionally gravitate towards using Primal Kyogre will always be weak to Mewtwo, Darkrai, and other fast attackers like Skymin at the benefit of being slightly better against Primal Groudon -- any way built these teams will over rely on Excadrill to pin down these threats, which defeats the purpose of even using sand because the selling point of it is to use Tyranitar as a Salamence check and Excadrill as a Geomancy Xerneas check, not to sack your sand setter to one of these midgame mons for the sake of stopping what will steamroll through your team if you don't get Excadrill into battle; which when done, leaves your team wide open to Salamence and GeoXern once sand has settled.
And so, ScarfOgre is here to fix the problem -- it takes pressure off of Excadrill by being able to revenge kill the fast aforementioned attackers in any given 1v1 situation. However, to viably do so it does need an extensive amount of support in solid primal groudon checks, spikes support, hazard control, and pursuit support. Though, given that providing all of this to Kyogre is possible while maintaining integrity versus the metagame's other threats, and that a certain amount of material reduction is provided by Kyogre, its use can most certainly be justified and actually effective in practice.
Just my example of a build in which a team benefits more from using Regular Kyogre than from using Primal Kyogre.
Alright I hope in dropping this team some light is shed on Kyogre so it doesn't join the real shitters:
Kyogre @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Water Spout
- Origin Pulse
- Thunder
- Ice Beam
Tyranitar @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 72 Atk / 188 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
- Thunder Wave
Excadrill @ Air Balloon
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance
Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 200 HP / 252 Atk / 56 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Double-Edge
- Refresh
- Roost
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 48 Def / 208 SpD
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Leech Seed
- Power Whip
- Protect
Arceus @ Sky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 132 HP / 200 SpA / 176 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Judgment
- Earth Power
- Recover
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Water Spout
- Origin Pulse
- Thunder
- Ice Beam
Tyranitar @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 248 HP / 72 Atk / 188 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Stone Edge
- Pursuit
- Thunder Wave
Excadrill @ Air Balloon
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Swords Dance
Salamence-Mega @ Salamencite
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 200 HP / 252 Atk / 56 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Double-Edge
- Refresh
- Roost
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 48 Def / 208 SpD
Careful Nature
- Spikes
- Leech Seed
- Power Whip
- Protect
Arceus @ Sky Plate
Ability: Multitype
EVs: 132 HP / 200 SpA / 176 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Judgment
- Earth Power
- Recover
And so, ScarfOgre is here to fix the problem -- it takes pressure off of Excadrill by being able to revenge kill the fast aforementioned attackers in any given 1v1 situation. However, to viably do so it does need an extensive amount of support in solid primal groudon checks, spikes support, hazard control, and pursuit support. Though, given that providing all of this to Kyogre is possible while maintaining integrity versus the metagame's other threats, and that a certain amount of material reduction is provided by Kyogre, its use can most certainly be justified and actually effective in practice.
Just my example of a build in which a team benefits more from using Regular Kyogre than from using Primal Kyogre.
Palkia, while certainly an ineffective Pokemon in this metagame, is still nowhere near as unviable as Fire Arceus / Bug Arceus / Lando-I (drop this out of C rank entirely please) / Deoxys-D. Same thing goes for regular Kyogre, which should never be used on a serious team as it has zero niche, yet can still deal damage vs certain teams once Groudon is weakened. I feel we can make a rank below "D" for especially bad Pokemon. There's a difference between merely being unviable and being absolutely fucking horrendous.
My proposed list:
C- Rank:
Arceus-Psychic (terrible Pokemon but can check Mewtwo, the rare Deoxys-A, and Rayquaza / Salamence with a physically defensive spread)
Ditto (xD)
Giratina-A (this is ranked appropriately, physical sweepers often have Refresh and giving Xerneas and Defog users free switches isn't fun, but it does have a tiny niche of being a ridiculously fat SD Arceus check that can Defog. Horrible 4MSS)
D Rank:
Deoxys (kinda strong, obviously 100% outclassed by Deo-A but still a much less dreadful Pokemon than something like Arceus-Fire)
Landorus-I (walled by any decently constructed balance team and too frail and slow to do much vs offense. It OHKOes Primal Groudon!!!!!!! too bad they will never stay in and you'll be attacking a Lugia or an Arceus-Water or something)
Kyogre (has a good match-up vs much of the metagame, but sadly Primal Groudon is not one of those Pokemon)
Reshiram (Sun support allows it to hit REALLY HARD! Too bad Ho-Oh exists & the Fire-typing doesn't actually allow it to beat Xerneas)
Heatran Rank:
Arceus-Bug (loses to virtually everything, even Darkrai, 1-1)
Arceus-Fire (Xerneas "check" that can't do anything back to it besides throw out status, Primal Kyogre bait, Primal Groudon bait, walled by dragons unless you can fit Ice Beam, weak to all hazards. I am using this on my Aerodactyl / Kabutops / Omastar team and it is not only the worst Pokemon on the team, it isn't even CLOSE)
Deoxys-D (kinda like deoxys-N in that it is outclassed by another Deoxys forme, except deoxys-N might actually do something every once in awhile whereas all Deoxys-D will do is get Taunted by Mewtwo when it tries to check it. Extraterrestrial garbage.)
TL;DR there are a ton of bad Pokemon in Ubers and I feel we need more than D rank to divide them. So long we make it clear that D is for unviable Pokemon, I don't see an issue with having a tier below it. The blacklist can remain as is.
My proposed list:
C- Rank:
Arceus-Psychic (terrible Pokemon but can check Mewtwo, the rare Deoxys-A, and Rayquaza / Salamence with a physically defensive spread)
Ditto (xD)
Giratina-A (this is ranked appropriately, physical sweepers often have Refresh and giving Xerneas and Defog users free switches isn't fun, but it does have a tiny niche of being a ridiculously fat SD Arceus check that can Defog. Horrible 4MSS)
D Rank:
Deoxys (kinda strong, obviously 100% outclassed by Deo-A but still a much less dreadful Pokemon than something like Arceus-Fire)
Landorus-I (walled by any decently constructed balance team and too frail and slow to do much vs offense. It OHKOes Primal Groudon!!!!!!! too bad they will never stay in and you'll be attacking a Lugia or an Arceus-Water or something)
Kyogre (has a good match-up vs much of the metagame, but sadly Primal Groudon is not one of those Pokemon)
Reshiram (Sun support allows it to hit REALLY HARD! Too bad Ho-Oh exists & the Fire-typing doesn't actually allow it to beat Xerneas)
Heatran Rank:
Arceus-Bug (loses to virtually everything, even Darkrai, 1-1)
Arceus-Fire (Xerneas "check" that can't do anything back to it besides throw out status, Primal Kyogre bait, Primal Groudon bait, walled by dragons unless you can fit Ice Beam, weak to all hazards. I am using this on my Aerodactyl / Kabutops / Omastar team and it is not only the worst Pokemon on the team, it isn't even CLOSE)
Deoxys-D (kinda like deoxys-N in that it is outclassed by another Deoxys forme, except deoxys-N might actually do something every once in awhile whereas all Deoxys-D will do is get Taunted by Mewtwo when it tries to check it. Extraterrestrial garbage.)
TL;DR there are a ton of bad Pokemon in Ubers and I feel we need more than D rank to divide them. So long we make it clear that D is for unviable Pokemon, I don't see an issue with having a tier below it. The blacklist can remain as is.
So, since zekrom does have a niche and provides some defensive synergy, palkia doesn't have a real niche, kyurem-w doesn't have one either, can we leave zekrom where it's at (krau+hack's posts justify it well), put palkia in c-mid. NOT in d because, while palkia is outclassed, it is BETTER than the mons in d, and c- for that matter. I'd rather use palkia than deo-n because palkia is less bad. Same goes for kyu-w, I'd say both to c. They are not very viable, but suck less than other unviable mons. Hack's aegislash arguments were pretty sound, but can we at least agree on the fact that jirachi isn't worse than aegis? I really think it's on b mid level, as b- has some very shitty mons in it that you don't really consider using
Also smh why was terrakion removed :( With stuff like lando-i in c-, terrakion deserves c- at least as well. Terrakion is an ekiller check and arceus dark check, and gets emergency damage on +2 xern. Oh and a strong dakrai check as well. It's good at its niche but bad in general. Lando is really bad and personally I don't see why you would use it, whereas terak is better than palkia and kyu-w because it actually does something. So c-mid, but if you don't want to for some reason, c- for sure.
e: dammit multiple people ninja'd me. Sweep, don't you think we can already do this by making heatran rank the d-rank and have another list for mons that get kicked out of ou, and are unusably bad as well as unviable?
that made no sense, I'm trying to agree with you on having a rank for mons like kyu-w and palkia, who are not viable but better than unusable, and mons who are both bad and unusable. Call the 'not horrendous yet not viable' rank d-rank and the 'banned from ou but arceus bug level' rank something that relates to ou bans.
Also smh why was terrakion removed :( With stuff like lando-i in c-, terrakion deserves c- at least as well. Terrakion is an ekiller check and arceus dark check, and gets emergency damage on +2 xern. Oh and a strong dakrai check as well. It's good at its niche but bad in general. Lando is really bad and personally I don't see why you would use it, whereas terak is better than palkia and kyu-w because it actually does something. So c-mid, but if you don't want to for some reason, c- for sure.
e: d
that made no sense, I'm trying to agree with you on having a rank for mons like kyu-w and palkia, who are not viable but better than unusable, and mons who are both bad and unusable. Call the 'not horrendous yet not viable' rank d-rank and the 'banned from ou but arceus bug level' rank something that relates to ou bans.
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This is true, however you are missing what they're trying to get at. Palkia and arceus fire are unviable, you would never use them on a serious team. However, if you were to use them on a serious team, palkia would benefit you more, or hinder you less, than arceus fire. Hence it should be ranked higher; it's a better mon. Terrible, but less terrible.
(post is a reply, as well as relevant, so double post sry)
I don't get it. It says clearly d-rank is for mons that are ubers for tiering purposes but not viable... Idk how you wanna interpret it but the only sensible way is "can I make a serious team with this mon". Palkia, Kyogre, Lando-I, Mega Mawile, Arceus-Steel/Poison/Dragon/Fighting and Genesect are all mons I can't make serious teams with. Who gives a damn if Palkia is better than mons in currently in d-rank? It's still not good enough to use in a serious game. Either you change the definition of ranks so you can supposedly decide which of these shitmons are less shit or stop with this nonsense and put them all where they belong.
The metagame is overcentralized and this list should reflect that better.
The metagame is overcentralized and this list should reflect that better.
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Ferrothorn = B: With all honesty, I don't think Ferrothron is that great in the metagame. It's both one of the easier things to take advantage of and wear down. It provides really good Spikes support, and blanket checks a bunch of stuff, but every time you send it out you risk it getting worn down and being unable to switch in afterwards and giving a free turn to really scary stuff like the Primal-groudon, Ho-oh and Mega-sableye. When your average well built team has an automatic answer to Ferrothorn with little to no effort I think that becomes a problem in maintaining its current rank. Offense pretty much beats it with continuous offensive pressure as well as stallbreakers. It can't be compared with the B+ mons as it's role is nowwhere near as theirs (Besides Skarmory). According to SPL 6 weekly usage statistics:
Ferrothorn:
Use: 13
Use%: 14%
Win%: 8%
Posting some replays from SPL 6, In order to support my nomination here:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-32407 (Steelpheonix Vs Donkey)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-32914 (Jibaku Vs Hack)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-33346 (Problems Vs Evuelf)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-33490 (Edgar Vs Jibaku)
Having said all this, the current metagame is not DESIRABLE for ferrothorn.
Ferrothorn:
Use: 13
Use%: 14%
Win%: 8%
Posting some replays from SPL 6, In order to support my nomination here:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-32407 (Steelpheonix Vs Donkey)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-32914 (Jibaku Vs Hack)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-33346 (Problems Vs Evuelf)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-33490 (Edgar Vs Jibaku)
Having said all this, the current metagame is not DESIRABLE for ferrothorn.
Palkia and Kyogre shouldn't drop too low imo.
Palkia: SpD Palk is still pretty useful imo. Seeing as P Ogres spam Ice Beam a lot more early on to chip down P Donner, it's not very nice switching Latias into that, while Palkia's neutrality helps it quite a bit. Even without reliable recovery, Palkia can switch into P Ogre more comfortably than Latias a lot of the time. Another key niche that Palkia has over Latis is the fact that it's not Klefki bait - you can easily 2HKO it with Fire Blast while Latis just fights a losing battle a lot of the time trying to Defog away Spikes that Klefki sets up... after they get Toxiced. Same thing applies to Ferrothorn.
ScarfOgre: Personally I still like ScarfOgre. Bad match-up against Donner, but it is amazing against a lot of offense teams after you can whittle down P Donner. Once you cripple P Donner with say GeoXern or something like that, ScarfOgre cleans house against a lot of teams that use Arceus formes as their main pivot.
Palkia: SpD Palk is still pretty useful imo. Seeing as P Ogres spam Ice Beam a lot more early on to chip down P Donner, it's not very nice switching Latias into that, while Palkia's neutrality helps it quite a bit. Even without reliable recovery, Palkia can switch into P Ogre more comfortably than Latias a lot of the time. Another key niche that Palkia has over Latis is the fact that it's not Klefki bait - you can easily 2HKO it with Fire Blast while Latis just fights a losing battle a lot of the time trying to Defog away Spikes that Klefki sets up... after they get Toxiced. Same thing applies to Ferrothorn.
ScarfOgre: Personally I still like ScarfOgre. Bad match-up against Donner, but it is amazing against a lot of offense teams after you can whittle down P Donner. Once you cripple P Donner with say GeoXern or something like that, ScarfOgre cleans house against a lot of teams that use Arceus formes as their main pivot.
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If you label genesect as unusable (it's terrible, by that's not the entire point) which has been proven /usable/, but bad, shoudlnt mons like ditto, poisonceus, regular sab and mega metagross also be in d? Should they (except poisonceus) get removed entirely? Where do you want to draw the line between 'this is not a great mon' and 'this is a bad Mon' and 'this mon is unusable'? You're arguing like they're the same thing. If something listed here is bad, it goes to d rank. D rank would then be filled with 10+ mons between which there is a great difference is effectiveness (deo-d vs genesect for example). Even then, what mons are good enough to use on a serious team? Because I don't think mons like mega metagross are, and why would you use mega luke? It's not unviable, but there are better options. So not using those makes your build, MOST of the time, worse. (a mon doesn't deserve b+ because it's good on one team, we all get this). If there are better options available, a build with mega Luke thus isnt a serious competitive team. To d rank it goes. ??? You can replace mega Luke for most mons ranging from b- to c-.
I wouldn't oppose to this idea per se as it would actually make this thread a helpful and accurate list, but doing this defeats the purpose of a relative ranking system. A good/average/bad ranking system seems to be what you're hinting at it looks like.
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Bad mons are unusable. I don't draw any line of difference between unusable and bad mons, they are all in the same pile of trash to me. Great mons are splashable, whereas "not so great mons" as you put it, are usable with more team support. But yeah you pretty much understood my logic well.
I probably forgot to mention some mons, they were just examples I could come up with from the top of my head. Regular Sab and Mega Meta should be removed from the list according to me, yes. Mega Lucario I can't really make a statement about but yes it's on the borderline to D-rank for me. P much like Kyurem-W I'd say.
I wasn't really hinting at revamping the system, but I think you guys really don't need to be as specific towards which unviable mon is better than the other.
I don't see how scarf ogre is "amazing" vs offensive teams even if you remove pdon from the equation (which you won't do fast enough to make scarf ogre worthwhile lol). Say you manage to remove pdon- well, you are still set up bait for mence when locked into to surf and if you don't have rain up, ekiller and xern set up on you with relative ease as well. I can't name one of those many teams scarfogre cleans up.The only thing scarf Ogre is good at is checking Darkrai.
Provide a good team/couple of good replays with scarf ogre or palkia and I'm all ears but rn it's we're just doing the typical baseless theorymonning around here
I probably forgot to mention some mons, they were just examples I could come up with from the top of my head. Regular Sab and Mega Meta should be removed from the list according to me, yes. Mega Lucario I can't really make a statement about but yes it's on the borderline to D-rank for me. P much like Kyurem-W I'd say.
I wasn't really hinting at revamping the system, but I think you guys really don't need to be as specific towards which unviable mon is better than the other.
So sdef palkia is useful and then you point at palkias niche over latis in being good vs steels? Last time I checked sdef palkia had no room for fire blast.
I don't see how scarf ogre is "amazing" vs offensive teams even if you remove pdon from the equation (which you won't do fast enough to make scarf ogre worthwhile lol). Say you manage to remove pdon- well, you are still set up bait for mence when locked into to surf and if you don't have rain up, ekiller and xern set up on you with relative ease as well. I can't name one of those many teams scarfogre cleans up.The only thing scarf Ogre is good at is checking Darkrai.
Provide a good team/couple of good replays with scarf ogre or palkia and I'm all ears but rn it's we're just doing the typical baseless theorymonning around here
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If building with a particular Pokemon is like playing with a handicap then it should be the lowest rank. D Rank is for Uber exclusives that are unviable; the Pokemon that got analyses because they had to not because they deserved them. If you agree that Palkia is completely outclassed and that it cannot be used on any serious squad then you agree that it should be D rank. An entire rank has been reserved for Pokemon that fit this very criterion. C rank is for Pokemon that have a legitimate niche, yet the very people who are arguing for Palkia to be in this rank have already admitted that it doesn't have a niche.
There are a few reasons why I'm against sub-ordering the shitmons. First, it's pointless. These Pokemon have been deemed not usable on a serious build so why waste time meticulously placing them in a list. Second, it becomes vague what the dividing criterion should be. The current division between C and D rank is very explicit; does this Pokemon have a niche or not? But who is to say what shitmon is better than another when they are both under the line? It doesn't matter if Palkia is marginally "better" than something like Arceus-Fire because if something can never find its way onto a team it's like multiplying by zero. In the grand scheme of the tier they're both terrible, so they end up being divided by the whim of a more abstract argument along the lines of "in my limited experience of using shitmon X it tends to work out better than using shitmon Y". The more concrete arguments of "this Pokemon can fit on several good builds", "this Pokemon has a distinct niche", "this Pokemon is worth using" cannot be made in this lower division. Too much consensus has to be made on if some arbitrary shitmon can see more use than another shitmon.
There are a few reasons why I'm against sub-ordering the shitmons. First, it's pointless. These Pokemon have been deemed not usable on a serious build so why waste time meticulously placing them in a list. Second, it becomes vague what the dividing criterion should be. The current division between C and D rank is very explicit; does this Pokemon have a niche or not? But who is to say what shitmon is better than another when they are both under the line? It doesn't matter if Palkia is marginally "better" than something like Arceus-Fire because if something can never find its way onto a team it's like multiplying by zero. In the grand scheme of the tier they're both terrible, so they end up being divided by the whim of a more abstract argument along the lines of "in my limited experience of using shitmon X it tends to work out better than using shitmon Y". The more concrete arguments of "this Pokemon can fit on several good builds", "this Pokemon has a distinct niche", "this Pokemon is worth using" cannot be made in this lower division. Too much consensus has to be made on if some arbitrary shitmon can see more use than another shitmon.
hyw
Banned deucer.
This is just my 2 cents but I think Hack's angle of approaching this is most accurate. Instead if nitpicking the relativity of the independent variables within and between the ranks, I think we should just purge all of this theorymon stuff and frankly the disillusional bullshitting of ourselves when looking at the Pokémon being ranked; if a Pokémon doesn't make the cut to a serious team barring the assumption that team support is there, then it simply shouldn't rise above D, period. Also, about Ditto, I think that unlike other Pokémon, its Scarf set can be slapped on both hyperoffensively and balance-inclined teams as a great omnipotent answer to all of the set-up Pokémon that make this tier scary. By having Ditto on a team that's more or less offensively inclined, the player gains the great advantage of not having to worry about his or her opponent setting up with a Pokémon, ever; and if the opponent does and you play your cards right to get enough chip damage via hazards or other means, Ditto will neutralize the threat for sure. The only Pokémon this does not apply to is Ghostceus but this is a minor flaw in my eyes since Darkrai and Yveltal both form good synergy with Ditto. Thus Ditto should not dip below the D-rank.
From a pure formatting perspective, and the assumption that all 8 main Pokémon discussed here (ie the 6 mon already in D in addition to Kyogre and Palkia; I'm not gonna get into anything else like lando or w/e because I have little experience with ubers) are useless, then yeah I really don't see any problem with putting them all to D. Even if it grows too big at some point you can just put it in a hide tag; the idea of tiering useless Pokémon differently just because maybe Palkia is better than Deo-N or whatever is just kind of dumb. They're all (apparently) useless so they're as unviable as each other, end of story.
Yeah I think when it's been proven that using a mon significantly hinders your build to the point where any build with this mon is going to be less than optimal purely because you're using said mon, it should be considered unviable and all of the mons that fit this description should be sitting in one rank. That way we can actually give new users a better view of the current metagame and actually decide on where viable mons can be ranked with respect to each other rather than having these page long arguments over whether a mon should be C- or C when in reality it's not gonna fit on any optimal build.
Re: Hack - If there was a rank below D rank, there wouldn't need to be much tinkering with the definitions as "D" would still be for Pokemon clearly unviable in the metagame. Although Palkia and Deoxys-N are not ever going to be used on a serious team, they are still so much better than most of the other Pokemon in D rank that lumping them with shit like Bug Arceus is not an accurate interpretation of what they can accomplish in battle on a match-to-match basis. I have defended Mega Lucario before so I won't comment there, and agree that Scarf Kyogre should drop to D and regular Sableye should drop off the list entirely.
Re: Minority - That's the thing though, there isn't a "marginal" difference between Palkia and Fire Arceus. There's a gargantuan difference between them in terms of what each has to offer to a team. It doesn't feel right to me to have "D" rank as a blanket rank for any Pokemon that are not going to be used on a serious team, when there are so many unviable pokemon in the first place & they are so varied in terms of usefulness.
It appears there is (slightly) more support for keeping D rank as a blanket rank for any unviable Pokemon. If that's what you guys -- especially Nayrz -- would like, then sobeit. I understand where you're coming from and that's what the others tiers do anyway (although the other tiers are not saddled with this many unviable Pokemon).
Re: Minority - That's the thing though, there isn't a "marginal" difference between Palkia and Fire Arceus. There's a gargantuan difference between them in terms of what each has to offer to a team. It doesn't feel right to me to have "D" rank as a blanket rank for any Pokemon that are not going to be used on a serious team, when there are so many unviable pokemon in the first place & they are so varied in terms of usefulness.
It appears there is (slightly) more support for keeping D rank as a blanket rank for any unviable Pokemon. If that's what you guys -- especially Nayrz -- would like, then sobeit. I understand where you're coming from and that's what the others tiers do anyway (although the other tiers are not saddled with this many unviable Pokemon).
I don't remember what people used to run on their SpD Palkias, but these days I run D-tail/Toxic/Rest/Fire Blast. I can't see why you need anything else in that last slot (apart from probably Thunder Wave, but you should have reliable GeoXern checks if you want to use Palkia anyway).
Wrt the whole "all bad Pokemon should be in D rank" - I personally don't mind that idea, but the fact that we have so many ranks in this god-forsaken viability thread implies that you need to sort them. We have only really a handful of what you would call "usable" Pokemon in this tier anyway, there is no way to properly fill those ranks with just that many Pokemon. I've been saying it for a while, but the way we have all these ranks is just ridiculous. S- is the same as A+, A- is in effect as B+, etc etc. The fact that people nitpicked on having Ho-oh as S vs S- vs A+ implied that we have such fine delineations between Pokemon, and that would also apply to the shit mons. I'm not saying I support such an exercise (it's really stupid if you ask me), but either get rid of some pointless ranks like C- vs C or stick to pointlessly delineating fine details such as those.
So while writing the Mega Sableye analysis, I asked whether regular Sableye with Leftovers deserved any mention and the QC people told me that it did not and I agree with them. Does that mean that we should take it off of here? It's a pretty lame mon to be honest... It should at least be dropped under B-.
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