Smogon Usage-Based Tier Update: November 2015

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Everyone is talking about Ambipom that should drop, so what im wondering is why was Ampibom placed in RU at the beginning of XY?
Usage. People still think it's a good revenge killer, though in reality he's the definition of bad.
Personally I see no reason why RU keeps on using him.
#dropitfromRU
 
It was used as a counter to NU's fighting types such as Sawk and Gurdurr, which are getting more dominant.
yeah if you look at pretty much any high level of NU play people never used granbull as a fighting answer at all. talprone pretty much got it, but people would rather use mons like bulky rotom, phys def mesprit, scyther, garbodor, musharna etc to deal with fighting types because they aren't completely useless outside of dealing with stuff like sawk
 

Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
if people are annoyed at mons that are low on the viability rankings still being in a tier, why not use viability rankings to tier stuff instead of usage? It's not like players never use the ladder to test stuff/still use pokemon or strategies even if they think they're toxic [see goth in ou for example] etc

plus the whole community can be involved in the viab ranks

but hey whatever because I don't have 8 years of studying statistics under my belt my opinions are irrelevant (ty joim for poiting that out)

e: o and also u can tier megas separately without any issues or weird jumps

e2: so: do u want 2 be objective, or do u want better tiers?
 
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Take Azelfie

More flags more fun
if people are annoyed at mons that are low on the viability rankings still being in a tier, why not use viability rankings to tier stuff instead of usage? It's not like players never use the ladder to test stuff/still use pokemon or strategies even if they think they're toxic [see goth in ou for example] etc

plus the whole community can be involved in the viab ranks

but hey whatever because I don't have 8 years of studying statistics under my belt my opinions are irrelevant (ty joim for poiting that out)

e: o and also u can tier megas separately without any issues or weird jumps

e2: so: do u want 2 be objective, or do u want better tiers?
It should be more like "You have to be X ranking for your team to contribute towatds the statistics since low ladder tends to use other things.
 

Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
no becuase 1 ambipom is at 7% usage even with highly weighted stats in RU 2 it allows top users to get shitmons into tiers they shouldn't be in [i.e. abuse of the system]

ur basically suggesting a worse version of what's already done [weighted usage]

does anyone want to respond to my post seriously

if people are annoyed at mons that are low on the viability rankings still being in a tier, why not use viability rankings to tier stuff instead of usage? It's not like players never use the ladder to test stuff/still use pokemon or strategies even if they think they're toxic [see goth in ou for example] etc

plus the whole community can be involved in the viab ranks

but hey whatever because I don't have 8 years of studying statistics under my belt my opinions are irrelevant (ty joim for poiting that out)

e: o and also u can tier megas separately without any issues or weird jumps

e2: so: do u want 2 be objective, or do u want better tiers?
e: also since idt it was clear, one of the points I was making was that usage is a flawed metric since it comes from flawed assumptions [weighted stats openly acknowledges this, and furthermore the choice of where to weight the stats is subjective!]. The flawed assumption being that players will always use whatever they think is best [doesn't take into account jokes/testing teams etc]. I guess it's also a flaw insomuch as you have to assume the people playing the game at the top are good enough at the game to make sensible choices [as evidenced by RU ambipom with weighted stats, this is not sufficiently true to be wisely assumed]. You'd also have to place a similar assumption if you did viability rankings-based tiering, except that it functions even with a smaller number of sufficiently competent plaeyrs, yet it is still very community-inclusive.
 
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Why do usage tiers have to turn viability tiers? It's entirely biased to a community's ever-changing opinion, not to mention outright subjective (when a group of 3 or so moderators essentially decide whether or not to change a Pokemon's rank based on their perceptions and acceptance to others' offerings, it's not without faults). It's also a drastic change to a core system that frankly doesn't deserve to be removed because of a few specific community bemoanings.

If people get mad over Ambipom continuously being RU despite their efforts to prevent it from seeing ladder usage, too bad. Accept the fact that low ladder will use horrid mons, NU isn't wasting away from not having Ambipom.

To be honest though I don't see usage tiers ever fading away so I'm not exactly passionate about this topic.
 
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Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
Why do usage tiers have to turn viability tiers? It's entirely biased to a community's ever-changing opinion, not to mention outright subjective (when a group of 3 or so moderators essentially decide whether or not to change a Pokemon's rank, it's not without faults). It's also a drastic change to a core system that frankly doesn't deserve to be removed because of a few specific community bemoanings.

If people get mad over Ambipom continuously being RU despite their efforts to prevent it from seeing ladder usage, too bad. Accept the fact that low ladder will use horrid mons, NU isn't wasting away from not seeing Ambipom.
It's high ladder using it (since weighted usage stats). And you could increase the amount of people who get the final say on a Pokémon's position in a tier (e.g. by using seasonal tour results or something). Weighed usage is subjective too, don't forget. Reducing the effective sample size (not strictly true but sufficiently true for this point) in order to make the tiers better represent what they think they should be. Why not go more subjective and yknow have the tiers that the people involved with them actually want? It's not as bad PR if people who complain about their favourite not being OU because they're free to argue till their face turns blue that their favourite should be OU in the thread. What is the demographic which would disapprove of having better tiers at the cost of objectivity (which was only partial to begin with) 9the arguement of whether the tier would be better is separate though]. If you want to retain the threatlist aspect of tiering, why not in the teambuilder change the titles OU, UU, etc. to 'Popular in OU', 'Popular in UU', etc.? Anything not popular but a member of the tier could have a separate heading (e.g. Only legal in RU and above). I just came up with that last part from the top of my head and can see flaws but surely the threatlist aspect can be effective in the teambuilder without having to warp the tiers?
 
I don't think usage-based tiering is bad enough to be replaced tbh. However, I could get on board with some sort of viability clause. If a 'mon is considered bad enough to be unranked from the viability rankings or even blacklisted from being discussed, it could be dropped from the tier. Doesn't stop the Pokémon from still being used in the tier but things like Hitmonchan and Ambipom wouldn't cause such arguments again.
 

Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
I don't think usage-based tiering is bad enough to be replaced tbh. However, I could get on board with some sort of viability clause. If a 'mon is considered bad enough to be unranked from the viability rankings or even blacklisted from being discussed, it could be dropped from the tier. Doesn't stop the Pokémon from still being used in the tier but things like Hitmonchan and Ambipom wouldn't cause such arguments again.
that would be somewhat self-defeating. The tiers as they currently are do act as threatlists for whilst you ladder - with ambimpom having high usage, even if it's bad and easy to check, you still need an answer to it on the RU ladder, especially since it's so common. Anyway, what you're suggesting takes us on a further subjective route and leaves us both with the tiers still not looking quite how we want them to look (some A rank mons are not in their tier, C+/b- stuff is, for example in some cases) but at the same time significantly more subjective. I feel both the current situation and my proposition are both better for PR.
 
People are all like "noooo NU is ruined without Granbull! Ban Sawk111!!11!!" from my obversations. Before this happened, those same people were like "lol granbull sucks lol". NU's hardly changed, but people don't seem to realize that.


Edit: A lot of people are like "WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO VS SAWK", well ofc Sawk's got a bit better, but NU still has a plethora of offensive/defensive checks for Sawk and other fighting types, and Granbull wasn't even that relevant to begin with, if we lost like gourgiest and musharna then sawk's threat level would actually be a noticable increase lmao.
 
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A

Joker fan
is a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnus
Guys do you wanna know something amazing? No? Well screw you, I'll tell you anyway!

Spoiler Alert: NU is fine without Granbull, and Gurdurr isn't broken

That's right! It isn't. I mean, it's not like Vileplume, Musharna, Colbur Gourgeist, Scyther, Clear Smog Weezing, Garbodor, Pelipper, Physically Defensive Mawile exist to handle those threats..right? Right?

Bro. Chill. Pinsir wasn't used much here either, it was quite mediocre. SD + 3 Attacks was okay at best. And there were other mons suited for SR like Aurorus, which made it so Xatu was in a 50-50 position to switch in, since it'd die to Hyper Voice.

Meanwhile we have plethora of checks and counters to deal with Gurdurr and Sawk, although Sawk is quite good atm. NU isn't going to be broken or ded.
 
Guys do you wanna know something amazing? No? Well screw you, I'll tell you anyway!

Spoiler Alert: NU is fine without Granbull, and Gurdurr isn't broken

That's right! It isn't. I mean, it's not like Vileplume, Musharna, Colbur Gourgeist, Scyther, Clear Smog Weezing, Garbodor, Pelipper, Physically Defensive Mawile exist to handle those threats..right? Right?

Bro. Chill. Pinsir wasn't used much here either, it was quite mediocre. SD + 3 Attacks was okay at best. And there were other mons suited for SR like Aurorus, which made it so Xatu was in a 50-50 position to switch in, since it'd die to Hyper Voice.

Meanwhile we have plethora of checks and counters to deal with Gurdurr and Sawk, although Sawk is quite good atm. NU isn't going to be broken or ded.
just to point something out, sd+3 attacks was pretty shit anyway, because what the fuck is a megahorn? aimirite? so it's only really solid niche was like sash MB lead rocker or smth. we lost nothing terribly relevant.
 
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Why not go more subjective and yknow have the tiers that the people involved with them actually want? It's not as bad PR if people who complain about their favourite not being OU because they're free to argue till their face turns blue that their favourite should be OU in the thread.
Respectfully disagree, I mentioned earlier what I believe is the flaw of viability rankings and would rather use a markoff that invites usage from all ladder positions to have some sort of effect on the system. It's obviously subjective, but it keeps to a static line of opinion (1685) and doesn't rapidly change over the course of a year and yield inconsistent results. Plus, we alienate those who are not comfortable or persuasive from contributing to a Pokemon's tier (again, earlier mention of mods ultimately deciding - essentially a few running the show, which in my eyes it even worse PR)

If you want to retain the threatlist aspect of tiering, why not in the teambuilder change the titles OU, UU, etc. to 'Popular in OU', 'Popular in UU', etc.? Anything not popular but a member of the tier could have a separate heading (e.g. Only legal in RU and above). I just came up with that last part from the top of my head and can see flaws but surely the threatlist aspect can be effective in the teambuilder without having to warp the tiers?
OU literally means OverUsed, if you want this change then just eliminate these acronyms entirely since you're establishing the fact that tiers would come down to the writing and evidence of players to persuade moderators into buying that the Pokemon is good. It would have nothing to do with usage, after all.
 
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Disaster Area

formerly Piexplode
Respectfully disagree, I mentioned earlier what I believe is the flaw of viability rankings and would rather use a markoff that invites usage from all ladder positions to have some sort of effect on the system. It's obviously subjective, but it keeps to a static line of opinion (1685) and doesn't rapidly change over the course of a year and yield inconsistent results. Plus, we alienate those who are not comfortable or persuasive from contributing to a Pokemon's tier (again, earlier mention of mods ultimately deciding - essentially a few running the show, which in my eyes it even worse PR)


OU literally means OverUsed, if you want this change then just eliminate these acronyms entirely since you're establishing the fact that tiers would come down to the writing and evidence of players to persuade moderators into buying that the Pokemon is good. It would have nothing to do with usage, after all.
since mods have removed my ability to like posts, I'm just posting this to say I like your post and I think your criticisms are valid. I still prefer what I've suggested, and think your problems could all be dealt with, but unless someone who has some infleunce in this place decides what I wrote is not a total waste of time (they mostly hate my guts and this is an obscure enough part of the forums I doubt it would happen) or someone else in this thread wishes to discuss it, this is all I have to say for now on the matter, here.
 
I don't think usage-based tiering is bad enough to be replaced tbh. However, I could get on board with some sort of viability clause. If a 'mon is considered bad enough to be unranked from the viability rankings or even blacklisted from being discussed, it could be dropped from the tier. Doesn't stop the Pokémon from still being used in the tier but things like Hitmonchan and Ambipom wouldn't cause such arguments again.
And Typhlosion. I want to see Cinccino drop too, but only so people won't laugh/rage at me when I use it.
 
Yes, Typhlosion was banned from NU. Even if it dropped out of RU usage, it would become BL3 (unless NU decided to suspect it again and it was unbanned).
typhlosion's banning was one of the closest votes on smogon this generation. The reason people want it to drop from RU is that if it did in fact drop back down to BL3, there would almost certainly be a re-test for it.
 

Martin

A monoid in the category of endofunctors
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In the policy review section, when discussing separate tiering of megas, there has been a suggestion to use "educated guesses" (i.e. "we know this is outclassed by this without its mega, so it should go below it) to tier the 'mons that would drop (e.g. Manectric to NU, Charizard to NU, Gardevoir to NU... wow there are a lot of things which would drop to NU lol) so that they can drop in time for SPL. I know this may sound out of line or whatever, but couldn't the same be applied to, say, Ambipom and Cinccino? I respect that there are problems associated with this (inconsistency and whatnot), but it could be a valid system to auto-drop anything which is C/D rank in its tier at the turn of the month, because when something stays in a tier despite being bad to the point of having analysis sets called "DON'T USE AMBIPOM!" (this has worked in the past for Claydol, although it took players a year and a half to read it with Hitmonchan) then there is something clearly going horribly, horribly wrong.

I respect this probably wouldn't happen because of the problems associated with it, but it was just running through my head and I thought I might as well post while here lol.
 

Aberforth

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The majority of tier leaders are voting so that there is no educated guessing to go on.

Also this is a change in policy and you would be talking about charizard in ou when it will fall into NU. It's a bit different.

Also also it goes completely against the current tiering system.

Just let them fall in usage, they should drop eventually.
 
Not sure if this is the right place to ask this kind of question, but will the base forms of ORAS Megas (that jumped multiple tiers solely because of their Mega form) be instantly quick-dropped to their original tiers should the Tier Leaders form a consensus on changing the tiering policy in December 2015?

Such as:

Base forms of Altaria and Lopunny from OU to PU
Base form Sceptile from UU to NU
Base form Beedrill from UU to FU
Base forms of Camerupt and Glailie from RU to PU

This special condition wouldn't specifically apply to the base forms of ORAS Megas that only jumped one tier due to their Megas, because they should drop to their original tiers again once this policy change takes place at the start of December. (such as base forms of Metagross and Sableye from OU to UU, base form Sharpedo from UU to RU, base form Steelix from RU to NU, base form Audino from NU to PU)
 
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