Resource Simple Questions, Simple Answers Thread

Bulky pivot is the best set by far; those stats are not indicative of how it should be used in the metagame.
Well I agree with you but then this topic (Official Smogon University Usage Statistics Discussion Thread) should definitively change it's content:

What's the best way to make use of the moveset stats?
  • If you're trying to figure out what's good in a tier (in terms of movesets), 1760/1825 is probably the way to go, since that tells you what the very top players use on their Pokemon.
 
Hi it's me again, this time it's a silly and quite classic question.
If I have Effect Spore Vileplume, put something to sleep with my move Sleep Powder.
Opponent switches, I use another move.
New opponent Pokemon touches me, Effect's Spore 30% activates, it picks Sleep.
Now my opponent has two asleep Pokemon. This is on cartridge.
Did I lose
 
Any good resources for getting back into the metagame? Been out for quite awhile (couple years) so I'll browse the forums but any pointed help would be appreciated.
 

Ruft

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Any good resources for getting back into the metagame? Been out for quite awhile (couple years) so I'll browse the forums but any pointed help would be appreciated.
To give you a quick general idea of the metagame you can check out the viability rankings (currently quite outdated but they'll still give you a general idea and they're bound to be updated soon). If you need help with specific Pokemon you can consult the Strategy Dex which has movesets with explanations as well as advice on teammates for most Pokemon in the tier.
 
hello, there is something i want to understand, why do we still exclude so many pokemon to uber when uber itself become a balanced playable tier with almost as many pokemon than OU ?

first i want to say i understand that the pokemon there are obviously more powerfull than overused ones but originally uber is just a ban list to balance the game so the way i see it when there is enough pokemon in uber to balance themself there is no point to still keeping them banned

i just feel that with so many excluded pokemon we don't have the real OU, so would it be a problem just to unban most pokemon, making uber a banlist with the fewest things possible like still keeping banned a few broken things like mega rayquaza, trappers or dynamax and just judge all pokemon based on their usage ?
 
hello, there is something i want to understand, why do we still exclude so many pokemon to uber when uber itself become a balanced playable tier with almost as many pokemon than OU ?

first i want to say i understand that the pokemon there are obviously more powerfull than overused ones but originally uber is just a ban list to balance the game so the way i see it when there is enough pokemon in uber to balance themself there is no point to still keeping them banned

i just feel that with so many excluded pokemon we don't have the real OU, so would it be a problem just to unban most pokemon, making uber a banlist with the fewest things possible like still keeping banned a few broken things like mega rayquaza, trappers or dynamax and just judge all pokemon based on their usage ?
You bring up some fair points. To start, Ubers was originally, as you said, a ban list. Although it has become more than just that, it still at it's core is the ban list for OU. That is why Pokemon deemed unfit for OU get sent to Ubers, regardless of the state of Ubers. Also, Pokemon can be used in Ubers before they are even banned from OU, so forcing their usage to be Ubers only should not really affect the state of Ubers that much. As for your point on the real OU, the reason Pokemon get sent to Ubers is because they are deemed too polarizing in OU. This means that the meta gets very stale around these specific Pokemon and the other pokemon who are good checks / counters for these specific threats, have to be ran in order to effectively deal with them. This leads to stagnant competitive comps and poor variance among Pokemon used. Most people, myself included, find this unhealthy and that's why people would rather them get banned from the Tier so it opens the metagame more.

I do want to preface that this may be outdated, so if someone sees misinformation please correct me.
 
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How we tier OU has nothing to do with Ubers. We ban anything that is banworthy from our metagame and that is our sole focus. The identity of Ubers or playability of Ubers is entirely irrelevant to us in how we treat our own tiering decisions.
I think the core of their question (or at least the question I got out of it) was "if a metagame full of box legendaries can be somewhat balanced as evidenced by Uber being a commonly played tier, why does OU autoban box legendaries?"

I can kinda see where they're coming from. The decision to autoban the upper echelons of legendaries made sense in earlier generations because there were only a small handful of obscenely powerful legendaries, and the gap between them and the Pokemon below them was massive, so they'd be centralizing as fuck. But now that there a lot more superlegends to play with, and the gap between them and the peasantry has shrunk somewhat, the decision to continue banning them from the start seems more like upholding a tradition than anything else. Due to usage tiering and general power creep, it's not uncommon for a tier in one generation to resemble the tier above it in the previous generation. Why not let that happen with OU?

If nothing else, it makes for an interesting alternate timeline to ponder. Imagine an alternate USUM UU that vaguely resembles our USUM OU, but Magearna, Ferrothorn, Excadrill, Mega Diancie, Mega Scizor, Toxapex, Ditto, Mega Tyranitar, Chansey, and Landorus Therian are banned. What mons would rise up in their absence to deal with threats like Heatran, Garchomp, and Ash Greninja? Might some of our lesser-used Ubers like Blaziken and Solgaleo end up being good for the tier instead of being banned to UUBL? It's probably not worth alienating players next gen by shaking up tiering to this degree, but it's fun to think about.
 

Finchinator

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I think the core of their question (or at least the question I got out of it) was "if a metagame full of box legendaries can be somewhat balanced as evidenced by Uber being a commonly played tier, why does OU autoban box legendaries?"
Ubers is hardly balanced; it's been playable, but that's about the best I can say about it personally. Anyway, the answer to this question is because they would all be blatantly broken and it would slow an already slowed tiering process at the beginning of metagames when we have to rid the tier of obviously broken things. The community wants us to be more liberal with the initial banlist if anything, not much less so.

I can kinda see where they're coming from. The decision to autoban the upper echelons of legendaries made sense in earlier generations because there were only a small handful of obscenely powerful legendaries, and the gap between them and the Pokemon below them was massive, so they'd be centralizing as fuck. But now that there a lot more superlegends to play with, and the gap between them and the peasantry has shrunk somewhat, the decision to continue banning them from the start seems more like upholding a tradition than anything else. Due to usage tiering and general power creep, it's not uncommon for a tier in one generation to resemble the tier above it in the previous generation. Why not let that happen with OU?
Nothing about these decisions are for upholding traditions. The council discusses them at length and has pretty much always come to a near unanimous decision. If we were to unban any of the recent box legendaries, they would have been one of the first things banned, slowed the crucial first days of metagame development, and led to community wide criticism for this unnecessary step. Also, the bit about tiers resembling the tier above them is historically a really poor, opinion based argument that cannot be grounded in fact whatsoever. Every generation brings so many unique variables and this should never be factored into our decisions, especially considering the relationship between OU and Ubers that I outlined in my last post.

If nothing else, it makes for an interesting alternate timeline to ponder. Imagine an alternate USUM UU that vaguely resembles our USUM OU, but Magearna, Ferrothorn, Excadrill, Mega Diancie, Mega Scizor, Toxapex, Ditto, Mega Tyranitar, Chansey, and Landorus Therian are banned. What mons would rise up in their absence to deal with threats like Heatran, Garchomp, and Ash Greninja? Might some of our lesser-used Ubers like Blaziken and Solgaleo end up being good for the tier instead of being banned to UUBL? It's probably not worth alienating players next gen by shaking up tiering to this degree, but it's fun to think about.
This is just getting to ridiculous, unrealistic hypothetical at this point. Theorymon is disallowed in this subforum for a reason. With all due respect, I think your post is far too idealistic and does not consider the practical implications of things enough. I am glad people take an active interest in the tiering process and encourage more posts about it, especially if people have questions like the one posted in this thread, but I disagree with the points raised.
 
Ubers is hardly balanced; it's been playable, but that's about the best I can say about it personally. Anyway, the answer to this question is because they would all be blatantly broken and it would slow an already slowed tiering process at the beginning of metagames when we have to rid the tier of obviously broken things. The community wants us to be more liberal with the initial banlist if anything, not much less so.


Nothing about these decisions are for upholding traditions. The council discusses them at length and has pretty much always come to a near unanimous decision. If we were to unban any of the recent box legendaries, they would have been one of the first things banned, slowed the crucial first days of metagame development, and led to community wide criticism for this unnecessary step. Also, the bit about tiers resembling the tier above them is historically a really poor, opinion based argument that cannot be grounded in fact whatsoever. Every generation brings so many unique variables and this should never be factored into our decisions, especially considering the relationship between OU and Ubers that I outlined in my last post.


This is just getting to ridiculous, unrealistic hypothetical at this point. Theorymon is disallowed in this subforum for a reason. With all due respect, I think your post is far too idealistic and does not consider the practical implications of things enough. I am glad people take an active interest in the tiering process and encourage more posts about it, especially if people have questions like the one posted in this thread, but I disagree with the points raised.
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I was trying to elaborate on the original question so it might get a more comprehensive answer, so thank you for providing one. Also, thank you for informing me that "tiers resemble last gen's higher tiers" is a bad take. After hearing it so many times from False Swipe Gaming, I was under the impression that it was actually a thing.

As for the theorymonning, that last part wasn't really intended to be my own predictions of how such a timeline would play out, but rather an encouragement to the reader to ponder how it would play out. So I guess it's second-degree theorymonning? All I know is that if you did consider such a timeline and thought it looked worse than our own, then I trust your judgement.
 

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What would be the most ideal team archetype for this current meta?
Probably balance wish Wish+Teleport Clefable!

:blobthumbsup:
I was trying to elaborate on the original question so it might get a more comprehensive answer, so thank you for providing one. Also, thank you for informing me that "tiers resemble last gen's higher tiers" is a bad take. After hearing it so many times from False Swipe Gaming, I was under the impression that it was actually a thing.
It actually has a lot more value there; BKC writes those videos and what he is basically trying to convey is that a lot of Pokemon that remain unimpacted from one generation to another (i.e: things that did not gain new moves or abilities, things that did not get mega evolutions, things that did not abuse Z moves much last gen, etc.) tend to decrease slightly in viability each generation. However, the list of these things is limited -- everything is sorta impacted or shafted in some capacity, so it's a generalization. In those videos, he is covering individual Pokemon across generations and it could be true to that specific Pokemon if and when he mentions it, but it's less true to larger groups of Pokemon/entire metagames mirroring each other.
 
It actually has a lot more value there; BKC writes those videos and what he is basically trying to convey is that a lot of Pokemon that remain unimpacted from one generation to another (i.e: things that did not gain new moves or abilities, things that did not get mega evolutions, things that did not abuse Z moves much last gen, etc.) tend to decrease slightly in viability each generation. However, the list of these things is limited -- everything is sorta impacted or shafted in some capacity, so it's a generalization. In those videos, he is covering individual Pokemon across generations and it could be true to that specific Pokemon if and when he mentions it, but it's less true to larger groups of Pokemon/entire metagames mirroring each other.
Ah, so it's less "tier actually resembles the old high tier" and more "some of the things that this one mon struggles with that kept it out of the old high tier have now dropped for whatever reason, pushing this one mon down further". I can see how that might be difficult to communicate concisely.
 
the thing is that i truly believe that the uber banlist should be as short as possible and for that, i think that when there is a substantial update in the game like a new generation, the release of pokemon home or the dlc who are coming soon, we shouldn't be afraid to start from zero and try to get the banlist shorter than during the previous meta, off course some like zacian-C, kyurem white or lunala would have been banned the same but maybe not in the future, maybe some like zamazenta or solgaleo wouldn't have been banned, maybe they would have prevent melmetal to get banned as well, or maybe not, the thing what i want to say is when there is so many maybes, test are not some unnecessary steps but necessary ones when there are things we don't know for sure and all we want is the best or just to try to keep things new
that being said, i started from the principle that all of this don't cost any money to anyone, so if it does to take time to make tests then i'm sorry don't minding my own business, i was just sad to see so many pokemon with so few love
 
Sorry but I hate the idea of having any Pokémon with a BST that exceeds 600 begin in OU unless they are restricted in some way (terrible ability, mega stone slot, etc.). Any Pokémon with 600+ BST should be retested to be allowed in OU. Plus, I also think that in addition to being balanced in OU, another requirement for an uber Pokémon retest is that they must also be absolutely terrible in ubers, which I will explain in my next paragraph.

The problem with allowing those kinds of Pokémon is that it heavily tilts the power of OU. It's possible that Pokémon like Solgaleo and Zamazenta may actually be balanced in OU, but once we allow the weaker ubers to be allowed in OU, the meh ubers may end up being "balanced" by the weaker ubers, and then the stronger ubers would be "balanced" by the meh ubers. Imagine if we have Zamazenta and Solgaleo in OU. Melmetal would definitely be unbanned as a result. Then, people might even argue for stronger ubers like Zacian-C to drop because Melmetal and Solgaleo, in addition to Quagsire, Corviknight, Ditto, Arcanine, and Centisorch could check it. The reason why I'm fine with absolutely terrible ubers staying in OU is that there is a better chance that they won't cause a power creep in OU. In gen 7, Kyurem-B and Hoopa-U are so bad in ubers that they can't even be used as a check to weak ubers like Darkrai, Deoxys-N, Shaymin-S, or some Arceus forms. Kyurem-B and Hoopa-U fits both categories of being balanced in OU while being so terrible in ubers that they won't cause a huge imbalance in power. And while Solgaleo and maybe Zamazenta are weak ubers, I'm not sure that they fit the requirement of being absolutely terrible in ubers.
 

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Why doesn't aegislash sets use king's shield? wouldn't it be stupidly easy to kill off with anything faster than it due to 60/50/50 bulk?
What's the context on this, in terms of metagame? If you're referring to Aegislash in SS OU, it has a Sub + Toxic set that utilizes King's Shield.
 

Ruft

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Why doesn't aegislash sets use king's shield? wouldn't it be stupidly easy to kill off with anything faster than it due to 60/50/50 bulk?
Aegislash generally functions as a wallbreaker (Choice Specs/Band) or more of a sweeper (Swords Dance). It's obviously not a good idea to run King's Shield on Choice sets and it can't afford to run King's Shield on its Swords Dance set since it is struggling to fit moves as is (Swords Dance, Shadow Sneak, and Iron Head are pretty much non-negotiable and then it's between Shadow Claw or Close Combat as its 4th move for much-needed coverage). Without either a Choice item or Swords Dance it really struggles to break through anything in this bulky metagame. There is a SubToxic Aegislash set with King's Shield but it is very mediocre right now as it can't really do anything against common Clefable/Corviknight/Toxapex cores.
 

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Why do people often use 7 Speed IVs on Clef, instead of 6, if the rationale is to get the slowest possible Teleport while still outrunning Hippowdon? Wouldn't Clef with 6 Speed IVs still outrun Hippo, or is 7 used to account for the possibility of people putting 4 Speed EVs on Hippo or something? I know I'm probably missing something and this isn't a super important detail, but I was wondering why I often see 7 Speed IVs for Clef and not 6.
 

Ruft

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Why do people often use 7 Speed IVs on Clef, instead of 6, if the rationale is to get the slowest possible Teleport while still outrunning Hippowdon? Wouldn't Clef with 6 Speed IVs still outrun Hippo, or is 7 used to account for the possibility of people putting 4 Speed EVs on Hippo or something? I know I'm probably missing something and this isn't a super important detail, but I was wondering why I often see 7 Speed IVs for Clef and not 6.
You're correct, there's people that run the remaining 4 EVs in Speed to outspeed the mirror and Clefable's 7 Speed IVs account for that. However, this does mean they risk getting undersped by Clefable that run 6 Speed IVs.
 

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