Shouldn't it be clearer that our tests aren't just for extra credit?

[jrrrrrrr]

I fail to see how you'd use anything but the actual measure of how centralized things are to measure centralization.

Would you care to expand on this a little, especially since you're refuting the last few posts in this topic with just one really vague sentence? It seems to me that you, along with a select minority, are using this "no centralization" argument based sheerly on numbers instead of taking the actual gameplay into account. Numbers are always great to have, but the opinions of the actual players are much more important when deciding the fate of the game we are playing. This is evidenced by the fact that this board was created.

You say it yourself in your post in this topic:

it's fairly obvious that a pure 'majority' isn't enough.

If this is really the case, then why is so much emphasis being placed on usage statistics in determining "uber status"? What is the point of even trying to collect the data if we aren't going to use it? We have seen Garchomp usage skyrocket every month (it was literally almost 10 million points above the #2 pokemon), yet mentioning that he may be uber quality to Colin has been responded to by him saying "Garchomp won't ever be banned on this server". Gee, I really love it when people demand statistics and then ignore them when given. Hipmonlee's post about pokemon benefitting from weighted usage is much more convincing to me than yours about how "most people rarely take it into account", since that statement is blatantly inaccurate.

 

[Jumpman16]

Anyway, how about this proposal? If we can conceivable define a team as "stall" and "offensive" and "bulky offensive", and label a team as such (perhaps give this feature to only the top 100 in the ladder, who would be capable of labeling their own teams I suppose) and see how Wobbuffet and Deoxys E does against each - IE if Wobby vs Stall Teams has a significantly higher win ratio against stall teams than the others then we will find that Wobby *is* indeed limiting options.

The reason I don't like this is because of the "pendulum swing" to which Obi referred in an earlier post. While it may be true that Wobby and/or DX-S are too powerful for standard play in general, there is no logical reason to believe that, if Wobby and DX-S do indeed prove too powerful for any one proposed type of team, that that's really a bad thing in terms of the health of competitive play. Tyranitar and Lucario would theoretically have a great win percentage against "stall" teams. The same would likely be true of Hippowdon and Cresselia against "offensive" team. And even the coining of "bulky offensive" seems to combine two complimentary attributes of a pokemon and make it that much harder to try to combat that playing style with another set style like "stall" or "offensive" alone.

And even if we extend the argument to cover the current metagame (which is "bulky offensive" now, evidently, if it's not I don't care that's not the point) it would be foolish to assume that the metagame wouldn't either adapt to better deal with the current style of play or just change with the natural ebb and flow of competitive pokemon to make it less dominant.

 

[Cathy]

We have seen Garchomp usage skyrocket every month (it was literally almost 10 million points above the #2 pokemon), yet mentioning that he may be uber quality to Colin has been responded to by him saying "Garchomp won't ever be banned on this server". Gee, I really love it when people demand statistics and then ignore them when given. Hipmonlee's post about pokemon benefitting from weighted usage is much more convincing to me than yours about how "most people rarely take it into account", since that statement is blatantly inaccurate.

What I have actually said is that no pokemon need to be banned from the current standard metagame if we accept the method I have been advocating. Not Wobbuffet, not Garchomp, not Blissey, no pokemon at all (other than the ones already banned). Until that situation changes or we adopt a different method, no pokemon need to be banned from the current standard game. I have never said that the most used pokemon should be banned, even though people continually think I have said this. You could look over dozens of posts I have written and find that I have never suggested the most used pokemon need to be banned, and indeed I have corrected it many times.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

What I have actually said is that no pokemon need to be banned from the current standard metagame if we accept the method I have been advocating. Not Wobbuffet, not Garchomp, not Blissey, no pokemon at all (other than the ones already banned). Until that situation changes or we adopt a different method, no pokemon need to be banned from the current standard game. I have never said that the most used pokemon should be banned, even though people continually think I have said this. You could look over dozens of posts I have written and find that I have never suggested the most used pokemon need to be banned, and indeed I have corrected it many times.

I wasn't putting words into your mouth, and I'm not really even trying to start an argument here. I just want to know what methods you are/have been using to actually decide what is and isnt Uber, since a large part of the community is having difficulty understanding and accepting those methods as standard.

People may misunderstand you because you and other proponents of keeping things as they are now (with D-S, Wobb and Garchomp) consistently bring up "well, Deoxys-Speed and Wobbuffet aren't even used that much in OU, so they must not be uber material" as one of the few arguments in favor of them, but somehow this argument doesn't hold up when talking about Garchomp. You are saying on one hand that usages do matter when deciding Uber vs OU tier status, and then on the other hand you are saying that they don't matter. I know that the most used pokemon aren't always the most powerful, but Garchomp seems to be stepping right on that line and the only method I have seen advocated in these instances is number of usages (which obviously too vague at this point to give a definitive answer). Garchomp has 10 million points more than #2 Gengar, which translates into what? about 6400 more usages? Where exactly does your method draw the line at when the amount of usages stops mattering and then it becomes more about power?