The Reasons People Oppose Tiers (Read before you judge please).

[FlareBlitz]

Going to massively co-sign Capefeather's post. I really don't have much else to add, except for this.

The purpose of tiers in any community oriented around a competitive metagame is to sort the given elements in that metagame into broad, easily understood categories. It's not to say "Oh, if you don't use Meta Knight, you'll lose". Rather, it's to say "Out of all the characters in the game, Meta Knight is best suited to perform well in this current metagame".
In fact, Smogon's tiers don't even make that value judgement. They're based strictly on usage, except for the Ban tiers. What this means is that people don't use your (incredibly bad) Primeape set because it would simply not pull its weight on any team. You mention stagnation, but often that's simply not true. Look at Heracross, a Pokemon who at the dawn of D/P was an absurdly dangerous sweeper. Now, even though Heracross itself has not changed at all, it's in deep OU, and even in danger of dropping to UU, simply because the current metagame is not favourable to it. As an example of the opposite, look at Tentacruel. Back before Latias was OU, stall teams were having massive amounts of trouble with Nasty Plot Mixape. But then, more and more of them started using Tentacruel, which could both solidly counter Infernape and set up/absorb Toxic Spikes, and its useful niche in the metagame quickly became apparent. And look at Magneton, which was NU just a few months ago. However, during the Yanmega metagame in UU, a few people (such as myself) realized that Magneton had massive potential as a steel-trapper with all the Registeel running around, and it quickly rose out of NU and into UU.

I don't want to write too much (I think I already have) but simply put, the foundations of your argument are not based in reality. Pokemon can and do shift tiers all the time, and people can and do think outside the box while still respecting the usefulness of tiers in organizing the metagame into easily understandable chunks.

 

[skorpion123]

other than the " it increases competiveness thing" , it also creates new metagames where UU pokemon CAN be used because they are the best there is for their metagame.

In reality the OU tier includes everything not uber. You want to use Ludvisk ? Use it.

What the UU or NU tier does is create an environment where specific pokemon can and will be used because there is not a better alternative available.

This makes the game more creative ,exiting , creates variety etc.

If no tiers where invented. Well OU tier would still exist because ...

None forces you not to use UU pokemon in the OU environment. But Scizors , Blisseys , mence , Tyranintar , jirashi ,etc would still dominate the metagame.

The OU tier is made by what the people consider the most viable. At a point it might create a slight " people use whatever is already considered popular-most viable " syndrome , however. Or people will assume that an UU pokemon can't be better than an OU in a specific situation. But that is not as common as we thing.

For example , an OU rain dance team will generally have both UU and OU pokemon because people know that UU pokemon are useful in that situation.
Another possible slight issue with the tiers is the basing it on use thing in the case of UU. Maybe it should remain like that and gain a select few spots of new pokemon in the metagame , so long they are not considered uber for the metagame.

For example , from a competitiveness perspective , usually OU pokemon can outmatch UU ones. It's possible an UU pokemon is equally good in both tiers however and so it's used often but it's not superior than UU pokemon.

If this happens maybe we can have exceptions to the rules ?

For example , imagine that people used porygon 2 more often. Maybe it should have also remained as part of UU metagame even then ? Currently i can't think of any examples really.

It just seems unfair for the UU metagame if something becames viable for OU and happens to not outclass things in the UU metagames , to be banned.

Now i understand Roserade being OU and not UU , currently there are no such examples but if an example does arise which feets the criteria maybe it should be given serious consideration whether there can be an exception to the rules.

 

[X-Act]

TL;DR: Tiers, no matter their function, will create a problem of some form or another, even if not widely discussed.

This is true for any other system you would care to implement as well, since no system is perfect. :(

 

[mtr]

Regarding the OP: First of all, people here play to win.

But that's beating a dead horse, so I'll go further. In chess, you win a brilliancy for making a clever sacrifice or simply a masterpiece of a tactical plan. You don't win one for using half a set of pieces and proceeding to lose, which you invariably will against skilled players. That's basically what you're doing when you use outclassed Pokemon: handicapping yourself and using half a team.

If you want to be creative, then

1) Learn the metagame: If you don't know what works and what doesn't, you can't possibly hope to make a revolutionary set. You can't learn a language without learning its alphabet.

2) Study creativity: The user Theorymon has managed to get Pokemon such as Jumpluff, Lucario, and Kingdra into Ubers. How does he do it? He doesn't use random UUs/NUs, he picks Pokemon that have roles that Ubers can't fulfill, and then he builds teams around them. Because of his infamous RMT, Jumpluff is popular on Ubers stall and balanced teams alike. I'll link you to his thread.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51300

3) Don't use outclassed stuff: If a Pokemon is totally outclassed by another in a certain metagame, don't use it. Ever. Sure, Primeape with two Nasty Plots might cause problems. But Infernape with ONE Nasty Plot can OHKO Blissey with Focus Blast, is faster, doesn't need Baton Pass support, which lets you employ things like Screen support instead, and is better for that role.

We just try to make the best possible tiers for our site and if other sites choose to follow our tiers, then that is their choice.

You're too modest, RB Golbat. Everbody follows our tiers because they know that they could never do it better than us. Sure, it helps that we've had our tiers established for a while, but the former reason is still true.

Regarding Capefeather's post: elitism on smogon is a problem, but less so here than on many forums that I've been on. Smogon is a nice place in that it gives people a variety of ways to get involved, have fun, and meet new people. Be it posting in Cong or (shudder) Firebot, rating teams, talking in stark, posting and editing sets in C&C, participating in tournaments, or whatever, Smogon is better than most sites in that its easier to make yourself known to people in whatever way you choose.

 

[mattj]

I am definitely not a singles player whatsoever. I've dabbled in it, but I just like doubles better. Because most of my play is centered around the VGCs which have their own distinct ruleset and allowable pokemon list, I use pokes like Garchomp, Latios, and now even Kyogre and Groudon literally ALL the time. It's a whole lot of fun in my opinion.

However, whenever I want/need to battle somebody on this site, or others, in a "standard singles" battle, I'm very grateful for the smogon tiering system. It gives two players that may or may not be very skilled in the metagame an idea of what pokemon would be "fair" to bring out against each other. I'd hate to bring a team of OUs to a match only to find my opponent's lead is a Kyogre or something. That just wouldn't be fun in my opinion. And equally, it just doesn't seem fun for me to have such a huge advantage either.

 

[lati0s]

here is the whole thing I am trying to convey with it. This trait is probably one of my biggest banes here on Smogon in reference to competitive battling. I am dead serious (as some other probably are) about being as original as can. If I can use a different move set that does not use any of the moves listed in the Strategy Dex, I will try to make it work. If I can use the same move set with a weaker Pokemon that I think maybe has a better ability, I'll go for it.

When you want to be competitive, originality is as much of a bane as it is a gift.

...I think I better stop before I go on a full blown tangeant that will probably go nowhere.

Cheers.

originality for the sake of originality is not a successful strategy, and never will be. successful players will be creative if and only if, a creative strategy will benefit thier teams more so than a standard strategy would.

Sure luvdisc might be decent if I pass it 3 swords dances and an agility, but why would i bother when I could pass the same boosts, or even less boosts, to a metagross and have it be amazing.

when you are choosing a pokemon for a team you should not think "Can I support this pokemon to be somewhat viable?" instead you should think "Will this pokemon preform its role better than any other pokemon would?" If the answer to the second question is a no then you should not be using that pokemon on your team. When it comes to pokemon like luvdisc the answer to the second question is almost always a no and that is why it is rarely used, not because of anything to do with tiers.

 

[Ken Sical Ifreet]

originality for the sake of originality is not a successful strategy, and never will be. successful players will be creative if and only if, a creative strategy will benefit thier teams more so than a standard strategy would.

Sure luvdisc might be decent if I pass it 3 swords dances and an agility, but why would i bother when I could pass the same boosts, or even less boosts, to a metagross and have it be amazing.

when you are choosing a pokemon for a team you should not think "Can I support this pokemon to be somewhat viable?" instead you should think "Will this pokemon preform its role better than any other pokemon would?" If the answer to the second question is a no then you should not be using that pokemon on your team. When it comes to pokemon like luvdisc the answer to the second question is almost always a no and that is why it is rarely used, not because of anything to do with tiers.

Let me pose you a few small questions.

"How many people read the Strategy Dex entries?"

"If they do, do they read it all the way through?"

and finally...

"Do they look at a Pokemon's tier placement then make an assumption?"

 

[lati0s]

good players do not make team decisions based on tiers or straqtegy dex entries.

 

[cantab]

Let me pose you a few small questions.

"How many people read the Strategy Dex entries?"

I do

"If they do, do they read it all the way through?"

I usually skip to the opinion and counters section at the end first.

"Do they look at a Pokemon's tier placement then make an assumption?"

Personally, no. Uxie and Clefable have both found places on my OU teams, to good effect. (Both in the Dual Screens supporter role.)

 

[Mike Legend]

"Do they look at a Pokemon's tier placement then make an assumption?"

Obviously most newer players will make the assumption that if it's OU it tends to be better and if it's UU it tends to be worse. These assumptions are perfectly valid too. Simply for the fact that the better Pokemon tend to be used more.

 

[mtr]

Let me pose you a few small questions.

"How many people read the Strategy Dex entries?"

"If they do, do they read it all the way through?"

Err, not to brag, but I wrote and helped edited quite a few of them. Check out Smeargle, it's my latest one for OU. I sincerely hope people read them.

and finally...

"Do they look at a Pokemon's tier placement then make an assumption?"

not really. Going back to what I said before, Jumpluff is NU, but happens to be good in Ubers, where it has access to permanent sun, which makes it the fastest Encore-user, sleep-inducer, and SubSeeder in the game, which makes it fulfill a unique niche. Players don't see the tier, they look at which Pokemon does it's job best.

 

[chenman333]

However, a Primeape that is trained to have a Special affinity, and equipped with the move "Vacuum Wave", has the potential to defeat Scizor; the lower Special Defensive stat is Scizor's biggest weakness, and in the current meta-game, a Scizor never carries a Special Defense higher than 196. Which makes it weak against such a Primeape, even if Lucario can potentially fill this role.

I don't even know what you are trying to say here.

Overall, I just don't get the point of your post. Your final statement that tiers cause problems is ignorable; any system will have problems. Are you trying to care about originality? Who cares about originality if you can't win. You aren't going to win using Primeape and Vacuum Wave. Your signature is correct in that sometimes, originality will help. But using something completely outclassed like Luvdisc or Primeape is not going to get you far.

 

[Zog]

ITB Syndrome - There is a bigger world...

​

The reason why the most overused Pokémon are overused is because they are good for winning matches. That's all.

People don't use your examples of special Primeape and Luvdisc because other Pokémon are better at doing the same thing.

I see this kind of argument a lot, especially on less competitive sites, used by players who think they're elite for using UUs in OU and such. If it's not used a lot, there will be a reason why. Usually because something else is better than it, or it's not any good in the first place. Much less often, it's because nobody's thought of it yet. And even then, breakthroughs like Chainchomp and Boah don't come often.
​

 

[mattj]

I will say this though. There may be "some" truth to the whole "people don't use certain pokes because they are in a low usage tier (why use it? no one else does.)

For last year's VGCs I found out that Torkoal was an amazingly good TR counter because of it's incredibly low speed and the fact that it learned Eruption (I used a Sunny Day Team anyway). They would set up TR, I would bring out Torkoal. They would protect because they assumed I would Explode like most people do, and I would just spam eruption till everything died. Worked every time I used it (against TR that is). I had several people comment that they never would have thought of using Torkoal that way, especially when Garchomps and Latios's could be around. I assume that's because he's of a low usage tier.

 

[Yehom]

I assume that's because he's of a low usage tier.

The reason why some Pokemon are in such a low tier is because some people just don't how to use some Pokemon properly. New and interresting movesets can only be made if people are willing to try and use a Pokemon. The Smogon tiers are based on usage. If for instance Torkoal is going to be used by half of Smogon, then Torkoal will surely go to the next tier. It's just what it here called the ITB Syndrome that causes that certain Pokemon are in such low tiers: people are just won't use that Pokemon, although it can be very useful

 

[tennisace]

Just as a note: I'm all for "originality". However, there is a point where originality turns to stupidity. If you want to use Luvdisc and dedicate valuable team slots to supporting it, be my guest. Just know that a simple Calm Mind Suicune performs the same task while being better in almost every aspect (except speed, but your whole shtick is baton passing boosts).

here is the whole thing I am trying to convey with it. This trait is probably one of my biggest banes here on Smogon in reference to competitive battling. I am dead serious (as some other probably are) about being as original as can. If I can use a different move set that does not use any of the moves listed in the Strategy Dex, I will try to make it work. If I can use the same move set with a weaker Pokemon that I think maybe has a better ability, I'll go for it.

When you want to be competitive, originality is as much of a bane as it is a gift.

...I think I better stop before I go on a full blown tangeant that will probably go nowhere.

Cheers.

You rant about some communities being discriminatory, yet it seems like you discriminate against standard Pokemon for no apparent reason besides "they're standard". I'll reiterate the point made several times in this thread already: standards are standards for a reason. They're standard because they are the most useful Pokemon on a team in the most situations. You seem to assume that means they're definitively the best, which isn't always true. For example, I've used Shaymin over Celebi before, since Shaymin has Seed Flare and Air Slash, and lacks a weakness to Dark-type attacks. However, I used it because it filled a distinct niche on my team that the "standard" couldn't fill. Using a Choice Band Blissey on the other hand, is counterproductive.

 

[A.P.]

I dunno how much of what I say will be considered as new points, because most people have already said them. But I'll try and explain things from my point of view anyways.

Tiers are not there to say, 'these Pokemon are the best, use them.' They're there because they indicate which Pokemon work well, because of how often people use them. Unfortunately, it happens that some Pokemon will always stay OU, because they originated on the list, and noobs chose them solely because they were on said list (ex: Electivire over Porygon2, or something like that).

What you perceive to be our big problem with tiers is not because of our elitism and such (If you've seen bulbaking's 'Smogon's Truth:' video, you'll know what I'm referring to), but because newer players have an erroneous, uneducated mindset (nothing against them, I was once there too), because of their relative newness to the metagame. People like these automatically choose only from this list because they think that they're the best (or they just pick their favorites and throw them together, but that's usually only a temporary mindset).

The truth though, is that some Pokemon that aren't featured in OU can be used there. It only depends on your team. Perhaps they have better synergy than anything else, maybe they have a certain move, or a certain job. The bottom line is: people use a specific Pokemon on their team because it fills a particular set of conditions that nothing else fits, or nothing else does better.

These, I think, is your fallacy; you gravitate towards the idea that if a Pokemon is on the OU list, it's set in stone there, and people automatically only use that. That's only a generalization that applies to newer players, good players use Pokemon regardless of tier, because the Pokemon does something for them that other Pokemon can't.

To address your other point, 'tiers are stagnant,' nothing could be further from the truth. Apart from the testing and artificial changes we implant like suspect tests, and the outside changes via Nintendo, tiers, movesets, and the like naturally change, because of metagame shifts. Someone inventive finds a new set, sees it works well, renowned players pick it up, use it well, and eventually the cycle spreads till it's widespread. Someone may find a good counter (that occupies other tasks), and the cycle repeats again. Mind you, it's not a cycle, rather, a continuous, shifting line, in such terms.

To sum it up, a Pokemon is OU because of its niche, and tiers do not stagnate because of metagame shifts.

 

[Lee]

The Smogon Tier lists are in stagnation

Stagnant? Even at this busy time of year we have several tests going on - the tier statuses of Garchomp, Manaphy, Latias, Raikou, Froslass and Gallade are all liable to change. Just recently, the previously unimaginable occurred when Rhyperior and Alakazam dropped to UU. Roserade went up (because its usage was too high despite it being a UU Pokemon which in itself really destroys your argument of ITB and Tentacruel anyone?), Crobat got the kick, Yanmega got banned, Umbreon came down, Duggy took a fall - I could go on and on. The tiers are anything but stagnant - in fact there's been a lot of disagreements lately surrounding how we should handle UU because the tiers won't stay still for long enough for a proper metagame to develop!

, and the players mindsets are limited, disallowing new and exciting ideas to be thought up by the players whom enjoy the Pokemon metagame

Nope, not buying it.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62724

That's the fifth version of that thread and that's without even going into the UU and Uber versions or the 'best of' compilation that Stathakis put together a while back. They always end up being one of the most popular threads on Smogon and each of them contains thousands and thousands of posts and hundreds and hundreds of new and 'creative' movesets. A lot of them make it onto an analysis. In fact, let me show you something.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44666

Recognise that set? Well, you should because it's the standard set for the second most popular Pokemon in Ubers and it came from humble beginnings as a proposal in the Creative Moveset thread. If your theory were true, then surely we would have shot him down? No. Because your theory isn't true. Take a gander around, I can think of dozens of similar examples.

and people whom do not come up with new things that coincide with what is 'Standard' are usually chided upon

Example please? And no, you can't use any posts from this thread because Luvdisc and max SpA Primeape are so ridiculously bad that you got precisely what you deserve.

Wanna know what I think?

I think you've came here with a solid idea already in your head of what Smogon's all about. Perhaps it's patchworked together from bits and bobs that you've heard over on other forums, I dunno. None of it's true. It's just all negative propaganda - you seem like a smart guy, surely you can see that there's nothing on this entire site to back up any of your claims whereas there are thousands of posts that completely refute them. Just take a step back and rethink.

 

[skorpion123]

I don't like how i am the only one who argued that the tiers exist for the profit of the UU and NU metagame , and the OU metagame is simply everything people use to win including UU and NU pokemon.

You want to be creative and use Primeape ? Use it in OU , Ubers or in UU also. The UU tier gives pokemon that would not be used as regularly otherwise , their time to shine. same with Ludvisk. In reality , the only real tiers that exist are UU , NU .

 

[cantab]

One thing I would say is, be creative by all means, but generally play to Pokemon's strengths. There's nothing wrong with using Primeape; it has a fairly good attack and speed, and a choice of two nice abilities. But using it as a special attacker? Ask yourself what you actually want to do with it. I suppose if you want a fairly fast, non-scarfed, sleep blocking special attacker, then maybe use Primeape. But would you really need such a thing? What's wrong with physical, or at a push mixed, Primeape? What's wrong with Honchkrow?

 

[Jibaku]

Alright I believe enough has been said in this thread, and I'm locking this to prevent any more repetition of what's been said. Plus, I honestly don't think this thread will make any sort of progress. Furthermore, the OP has not made any sort of attempt to refute everybody's point about "being creative and not be outclassed at the same time" for quite a while now, and does not that he will do so.