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Lower Tiers RBY ZU Hub

As much as it carried me through the kick off tour, it's just too much of a coinflip, and hyno+amnesia is too much cheese for my liking, and I love cheese
 
SMHorizon said:
As much as it carried me through the kick off tour, it's just too much of a coinflip, and hyno+amnesia is too much cheese for my liking, and I love cheese
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:pinsir: PINSIR SUSPECT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL :pinsir:​

While Poliwag is no longer in the tier, the overall health of RBY ZU continues to be a hot-button issue. Following the recent tiering survey that led to the Poliwag ban, Pinsir was also identified as potentially problematic for the tier, with Nidoqueen trailing a decent bit behind it. So in the wake of the recent ZU Open tournament, the RBY ZU Council has decided to conduct a suspect test on Pinsir.

With a combination of strong offenses and amazing speed for RBY ZU, as well as tools such as Slash and Swords Dance, Pinsir is able to function within the tier as both an earlygame wallbreaker and a lategame sweeper. With a speed stat of 85, Pinsir can outrun any relevant threat in the metagame, with the exception of Ponyta, making revenge killing exceptionally difficult. Staple ZU Pokemon that could have answered Pinsir, such as Magmar, Primeape, and Scyther, have since risen to PU and have dodged the proverbial smoke with our big beetle. A large portion of the tier has been compelled to use Fire Blast, an 85% accurate move, to stop Pinsir before it steamrolls teams. Many people seem to find that relying on an inaccurate move to curtail the beetle is unhealthy— especially since with Pinsir's blazing speed, a single miss can allow either an extra Swords Dance or a Substitute to make traditional counterplay like Ponyta no longer applicable. It also constrains the builder quite a bit, as with nothing to reliably and reactively switch into a Pinsir, every mon on your team conceivably needs to be able to stop Pinsir in its tracks with either Fire Blast or paralysis.

Despite being difficult to revenge kill, Pinsir is vulnerable to status-spreading, and many mons in the tier do pack paralysis for it— notably Vileplume, Dragonair, Wigglytuff, Arbok, Slowpoke, and Drowzee. Ponyta also functions as a quite consistent answer to Pinsir, capable of outspeeding it and doing 85 - 101% with Fire Blast as long as Pinsir doesn't have a substitute up. Rock types like Omanyte or Onix are also able to wall Pinsir, though that's contingent on Pinsir dropping Submission.

Qualifying Players and Methodology:
- Placed in the Top 4 of the RBY ZU kickoff tour
- Played three games and won at least once in ZUCL
- Played three games and won at least once in RBYOMPL
- Placed in the Top 4 of the RBY ZU Open II

Placed in the Top 4 of the RBY ZU kickoff tour
SMHorizon
MinorBug
czim
budgetplayer

Played three games and won at least once in ZUCL
Melbelle
NotVeryCake
Lafell
acluh1
ButtGallon
hammer798
PHB11677
SaDiSTiCNarwhal

Played three games and won at least once in RBYOMPL
anesidora
hammer798
Msousa
RealJester
acluh1

Placed in the Top 4 of RBY ZU Open II
Toxin Boost
NotVeryCake
bydy
ButtGallon

A suspect vote will be opened shortly, and the results will take effect before the next ZU tournament. Reqs or not, we welcome anyone to voice their opinions on Pinsir, as all forms of constructive discussion are appreciated. Thanks everyone for your time!
 
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I think the most annoying part of Pinsir in ZU is that most game plans to deal with it still hinge on hitting an 85% accurate move. For a fast SD user that can snowball the game with one free turn of setup, having a 15% chance for the game to just say “fuck you you’re not killing Pinsir today” makes it quite unhealthy in my opinion.

This is quite different from similar mons in other tiers. One may draw a comparison to something like UU Dugtrio where it can rob a game if it lands a crit coming from its absurd critrate, but the difference is that Dugtrio has alternative defensive counterplay outside of “don’t get crit lmao”, such as using fliers or Tangela. Pinsir doesn’t really have that kind of alternative counterplay here. You just have to click Fire Blast and pray.
 
This tier has 5 viable Pokemon, are we really going to make it 4. There is no magical replacement for Pinsir waiting in the shadows to take its spot or diversify the metagame. The pool of available Pokemon is so limited you're just going to take away one of the few good options left. Think as well, Ponyta will become practically unusable now as well, as it simply lack purpose in a metagame without Pinsir. This will result in an even further homogenized metagame.

I would also like to say, the tier will not get better because Pinsir gets banned. It will continue to be plagued by largely the same issues under a different cost of paint. Tiers above ZU like UU at least have the option of banning Pokemon over and over, since they have plenty of Pokemon available to use. RBY ZU lacks this grace as there is legitimately very little serious Pokemon with real stat spreads and movepools. It makes me wonder how RBY ZU players will handle the next big "issue" Pokemon that pops up? For example, I don't think it ridiculous to think people will target Nidoqueen as the next pariah to ban. Will they ban whatever it may be and bring the total number of viable Pokemon down to 3? And so on so forth until they begin unbanning things once they have no where else to turn and have already banned everything?

Most of the voters will have already put their mind set on banning Pinsir regardless of what I say or not, because on paper, it's unhealthy, it's a "problem". Which sure, go ahead. But it's not going to solve the principal issues of the tier. I'm posting this as a message to RBY ZU players to take a wider look at the systematic issues which result in the tier being in such a poor state, and will continue to regardless of if one, or two, or however many Pokemon get banned or not until there's nothing left to ban and the tier is still in a sorry state. I am not going to pretend to have the answer, but the current method taken by RBY ZU players (and RBY lower tier plauers as a whole, RBY ZU simply exaggerates the issues faced by every single one due to it having so little legal Pokemon) of singling out one specific issue is clearly not working and never will. Though I am sure there is something that can be done that doesn't involve this cat and mouse game of constant bans and general discontent.
 
NotVeryCake said:
This tier has 5 viable Pokemon, are we really going to make it 4. There is no magical replacement for Pinsir waiting in the shadows to take its spot or diversify the metagame. The pool of available Pokemon is so limited you're just going to take away one of the few good options left. Think as well, Ponyta will become practically unusable now as well, as it simply lack purpose in a metagame without Pinsir. This will result in an even further homogenized metagame.

I would also like to say, the tier will not get better because Pinsir gets banned. It will continue to be plagued by largely the same issues under a different cost of paint. Tiers above ZU like UU at least have the option of banning Pokemon over and over, since they have plenty of Pokemon available to use. RBY ZU lacks this grace as there is legitimately very little serious Pokemon with real stat spreads and movepools. It makes me wonder how RBY ZU players will handle the next big "issue" Pokemon that pops up? For example, I don't think it ridiculous to think people will target Nidoqueen as the next pariah to ban. Will they ban whatever it may be and bring the total number of viable Pokemon down to 3? And so on so forth until they begin unbanning things once they have no where else to turn and have already banned everything?

Most of the voters will have already put their mind set on banning Pinsir regardless of what I say or not, because on paper, it's unhealthy, it's a "problem". Which sure, go ahead. But it's not going to solve the principal issues of the tier. I'm posting this as a message to RBY ZU players to take a wider look at the systematic issues which result in the tier being in such a poor state, and will continue to regardless of if one, or two, or however many Pokemon get banned or not until there's nothing left to ban and the tier is still in a sorry state. I am not going to pretend to have the answer, but the current method taken by RBY ZU players (and RBY lower tier plauers as a whole, RBY ZU simply exaggerates the issues faced by every single one due to it having so little legal Pokemon) of singling out one specific issue is clearly not working and never will. Though I am sure there is something that can be done that doesn't involve this cat and mouse game of constant bans and general discontent.
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You could also look at the metagame and how Pinsir impacts it instead of trying to make it about the amount of legal mons.

Speaking of, the legal mons in this tier don’t rlly check it, the move fire blast does. But as others have said in discord and wherever else, not exactly the king of reliability. Additionally, if ponyta’s viability is entirely based on Pinsir’s presence, doesn’t that kinda highlight the problem Pinsir brings? I don’t got reqs bc I found this tier horrific in ompl even after wag ban (sorry lickis) but for those who do have them I recommend looking at the impact Pinsir has on the tier and not “we only have 5 viable mons” (which is kinda just wrong even rn).
 
NotVeryCake said:
This tier has 5 viable Pokemon, are we really going to make it 4. There is no magical replacement for Pinsir waiting in the shadows to take its spot or diversify the metagame. The pool of available Pokemon is so limited you're just going to take away one of the few good options left. Think as well, Ponyta will become practically unusable now as well, as it simply lack purpose in a metagame without Pinsir. This will result in an even further homogenized metagame.

I would also like to say, the tier will not get better because Pinsir gets banned. It will continue to be plagued by largely the same issues under a different cost of paint. Tiers above ZU like UU at least have the option of banning Pokemon over and over, since they have plenty of Pokemon available to use. RBY ZU lacks this grace as there is legitimately very little serious Pokemon with real stat spreads and movepools. It makes me wonder how RBY ZU players will handle the next big "issue" Pokemon that pops up? For example, I don't think it ridiculous to think people will target Nidoqueen as the next pariah to ban. Will they ban whatever it may be and bring the total number of viable Pokemon down to 3? And so on so forth until they begin unbanning things once they have no where else to turn and have already banned everything?

Most of the voters will have already put their mind set on banning Pinsir regardless of what I say or not, because on paper, it's unhealthy, it's a "problem". Which sure, go ahead. But it's not going to solve the principal issues of the tier. I'm posting this as a message to RBY ZU players to take a wider look at the systematic issues which result in the tier being in such a poor state, and will continue to regardless of if one, or two, or however many Pokemon get banned or not until there's nothing left to ban and the tier is still in a sorry state. I am not going to pretend to have the answer, but the current method taken by RBY ZU players (and RBY lower tier plauers as a whole, RBY ZU simply exaggerates the issues faced by every single one due to it having so little legal Pokemon) of singling out one specific issue is clearly not working and never will. Though I am sure there is something that can be done that doesn't involve this cat and mouse game of constant bans and general discontent.
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I get the sentiment, but if the concern is a homogenized meta, I would consider reevaluating what pinsir is currently doing. The existence of Pinsir has a bit of a stranglehold on the meta right now, since only one relatively weak mon (ponyta) can answer it after it's set up. That means that every mon on the field has to be able to either chunk it for immediate big damage or cripple it with paralysis. To your point, a magical replacement for pinsir isn't coming out of nowhere, it fills a pretty unique role. But that's kind of the point, no? The role it and it specifically fills is bad for the metagame. Will it make ZU the best tier ever? Unlikely. But simplifying it to "there will be two less viable pokemon" is very obviously missing the forest for the trees. The downstream effect on the builder is that a moveslot on every mon on your team doesn't have to be dedicated to answering one pokemon. Mons like Machamp or Nidoqueen or dragonair or lickitung suddenly don't have to slot fblast and can try out wackier stuff like counter or substitute. Physically frail mons like drowzee/dragonair/butterfree can be less dead weight in endgames and explore new niches without worrying about being okho'd by a pinsir that won the mirror. With less fblasts being thrown around, Parasect has a chance to do things. Since Nidoqueen will likely be the new top dog, there are 2 viable mons that outspeed and chunk her for big damage, and a lot of trademons that can whittle her into their range.

Do I know how this will all shake out? Definitely not, I could be eating crow in a few months. But I strongly suggest at least reconsidering the downstream effects as a whole, because I think they're more nuanced than you let on. We don't want perfect to be the enemy of good, and if we say "pinsir sucks but banning him won't completely fix the tier" then the alternative of NOT banning Pinsir shouldn't be a reason not to move forward with an improvement.
 
I consider Pinsir to be broken. It’s a swords dancer with all the coverage it needs, but the bigger problem is the constraint it places on the builder - packing Fire Blast or status on everything to stop one mon is ridiculous over-centralization, and Fire Blast’s nature as a relatively inaccurate move makes it an inconsistent answer. Missing Fire Blast very often loses you the game, and set variation such as Substitute just gives Pinsir more opportunities to fish for that game winning miss.

The idea that we shouldn't tier because there aren't enough viable mons in ZU is utter nonsense. As I mentioned before, you basically have to run Fire Blast or status to be viable in this tier (or be Kingler). Removing the guy that requires that will only increase set variety and mon viability.

I'll also take a moment to address the Nidoqueen in the room - I have no interest in arguments along the lines of "Nidoqueen will only be more broken without Pinsir". Regardless of the fact that Nidoqueen and Pinsir make each other worse (Pinsir requires you to keep certain mons healthy to answer it, which in turn makes Nidoqueen harder to trade with), broken checking broken isn't a justification to avoid tiering. If Nidoqueen is broken we'll ban it next, and I personally welcome our future Marowak overlords.
 
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hammer798 said:
I have no interest in arguments along the lines of "Nidoqueen will only be more broken without Pinsir". Regardless of the fact that Nidoqueen and Pinsir make each other worse (Pinsir requires you to keep certain mons healthy to answer it, which in turn makes Nidoqueen harder to trade with), broken checking broken isn't a justification to avoid tiering. If Nidoqueen is broken we'll ban it next, and I personally welcome our future Marowak overlords.
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Piggybacking off this, the Nidoqueen mirror doesn’t even get the winning Nidoqueen into Pinsir range so it’s not like Pinsir’s that important in checking Nidoqueen in the first place
 
Ngl, I think Pinsir is part of the reason why you're forced to run the same 5 mons tbh. (And people know I was basically running the same 4/5 all the time throughout RBY OMPL and being unpunished for it). Being forced to run ponyta is kinda annoying, specially cause unlike others, it IS abusable, even if you can bait its counters and somewhat abuse them, and although counterplay exists, having that 85% to dodge and lose/win the game based of it, EVERY game, is for sure unhealthy. I also think that this should open up the tier tbh in that you can actually run a wider variety of mons, so I disagree with the notion that you can only run 4/5 mons viably post ban. Before I'd probably have found it not broken but in hindsight the fire blast issue is big imo and it's just too good of a mon that outspeeds everything. While before I'd prob have voted DNB, I think the tier might just be better without it.
 
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BREAKING NEWS PINSIR HAS BEEN FOUND SHOT DEAD IN HIS 1 BEDROOM APARTMENT
AUTHORITIES SUSPECT A PONYTA DID IT

With a roughly 80% ban vote, Pinsir has cleared the 60% required for a ban from RBY ZU— tagging Marty and dhelmise to implement these changes at earliest convenience. Thanks to everyone who voted, and good luck in the new Pinsirless meta!

To view individual votes, see this link: https://www.smogon.com/tools/suspects/view/235
 
On one hand, this ban is great since it makes movesets more interesting without having to run blast and aswell will most likely lead to higher usage of a lot of currently "bad" mons in the tier, particularly mons like Sandslash.


On the other hand, it buffs the already broken Nidoqueen even more and hinders the viability Ponyta and Charmeleon, 2 of the few viable non drops from PU.
 
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