DP Tier Discussion - BL and UU (mark 2)

[Caelum]

I have to disagree Aldaron, you can't support testing every BL for the UU tier and not every Uber for standard play. It's logically indefensible.

Anyway, I question the feasibility of testing every BL just given the sheer amount of time this process will take to sort out not to mention testing NFEs etc. and going through each one of those. I just ask whether or not a test of this scale is even feasible. Does anyone have a ball park time range for how long something like this could take?

My main question was,, call me ignorant if you will but lets say Abomasnow in now UU but the Abomasnow + Froslass combination is deemed "broken" but both Abomasnow and Froslass individually are not, which one is sent to BL? Is Abomasnow sent to BL, Froslass, both or neither?

Edit: Wanted to make it clear I support testing, it's just I'm curious about time constraints.

 

[Aldaron]

Um, you guys are being irritating. I never said in this topic that I support the process in ubers.

Saying we are inconsistent does not say we are wrong.

BL was created incorrectly. Do you even get what I am saying?

If you support the current UU metagame, you support choosing BL Pokemon with no experience.

That is what I am saying is flawed.

Just to tell you I have from day one supported unbanning everything at once in OU, but my peers decided this was illogical for some reason. I was drowned out, even though this point is irrelevant.

 

[Cynthia]

I see their point. Pokemon were autobanned from OU and sent to Ubers without testing, and no one is suggesting all the Ubers be dropped down all at once. I think there are certain BL Pokemon that can be excluded from the beginning, and removing said Pokemon would allow everything else to sort out without their influence. I'm thinking of things like Abomasnow, who has been OU quite a few times in the past and would turn UU into a hailfest.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

the difference is we have a base OU metagame and therefore we can simply test pokemon individually. there is no base uu. uu was just arbitrarily created based on theorymon and every so often a random group of pokemon is brought down. definitely flawed.

edit:

might as well explain what i mean by base ou. i know there really isn't an accepted definition of uber, but there seems to a common consensus on a few key points. using some of these loose guidelines it's pretty easy to determine that several pokemon are extremely uber. this essentially leaves a small number of pokemon that are on the fence. in the beginning of dp, what side they fell on largely depended on theorymon and past generations. however we're soon going to start testing these questionable pokemon that fell on the uber side. the number is so low that this is possible. in regards to uu/bl there really is no determined definition of a BL. "too strong for uu" is such an odd way of looking at it when you don't even know what level of strength uu should start at.

 

[Aldaron]

Their point is irrelevant man who cares if you can "see it."

Also, their point is wrong. We have unbanned all ubers.

Do you guys know we have a Uber's ladder?

Upon analysis of this ladder we decided the Pokemon currently Uber deserved to be uber.

 

[Cynthia]

The thing is, no one uses Uber ladder data to determine placement into OU because the presence of all the other Ubers screws up the statistics. I'm afraid that that's what will happen if all the BL are instantly dropped down, the more Pokemon you add the more difficult it is to see the effect of each individual. That's why I'm trying to at least remove some obvious red flags beforehand.

Also many people are questioning the placement of some of the current Ubers. I would hardly say all has been decided on the OU/Uber line.

 

[Aldaron]

Good, because neither would I.

 

[Drakhun]

Also, a bulk of the pokes in the ubers teir are slated to be tested in OU. The reason we can't use that model is there are way way way too many pokes in the BL teir, and we really never looked at what we were doing worth a crap. We just xeroxed the RSE tier list. We really just need to go back and do this right, because right now BL is 55 pokemon, a larger than OU, and larger than what would be the core UU tier (39 iirc).

 

[Slobroking]

the difference is we have a base OU metagame and therefore we can simply test pokemon individually. there is no base uu. uu was just arbitrarily created based on theorymon and every so often a random group of pokemon is brought down. definitely flawed.

edit:

might as well explain what i mean by base ou. i know there really isn't an accepted definition of uber, but there seems to a common consensus on a few key points. using some of these loose guidelines it's pretty easy to determine that several pokemon are extremely uber. this essentially leaves a small number of pokemon that are on the fence. in the beginning of dp, what side they fell on largely depended on theorymon and past generations. however we're soon going to start testing these questionable pokemon that fell on the uber side. the number is so low that this is possible. in regards to uu/bl there really is no determined definition of a BL. "too strong for uu" is such an odd way of looking at it when you don't even know what level of strength uu should start at.

there seems to a common consensus for a BL pokemon. If you look at the BL list and then look at the UU list, you see that most BLs are statwise and/or movepoolwise, much better then most pokemon in UU. I mean, Raikou, Medicham, Kingdra, Slowbro etc in UU? It's common sense (for a lack of better word) that the current BL pokemon, with a few exceptions, do not belong in UU, due to their superior stats/movepool/trait. Of course this is a different situation but you can somewhat compare it to how it's common sense that (most) Ubers don't belong in OU even if they're not used much (Deoxys regular for example), due to their superior stats/movepool/trait.

I'll just post what i posted before

Dropping all Bl's in UU to test is basically the same as dropping all ubers in the OU tier to ''test'' them. Even if Kyogre is broken, Latias counters it. Does that mean both pokemon should stay in OU and not uber? ;/ Same thing pretty much happens when you drop all BL's into UU: Exeggutor (BL) can be countered by Houndoom (BL), but that doesn't mean these 2 pokemon should be UU, rather then BL.

Also what is it with the people that are saying the BL list is too big? In RSE, the BLlist was 41 pokemon, in DP its 55. Doesn't seem like a huge increase, it's just because there are lots of new pokemon. By comparison, the UU list is double the amount compared to RSE. So whats the problem.

Also to the guy who said that I ''don't know what Im talking about'' could you stop with the insulting remarks thanks.

 

[Stagnant]

Wow, this is out of hand. It has been stated several times that BL system was flawed. At least how it was setup. So.. logic would say instead of nit picking that we start over and do it right. Right? I would think so.

Steelix
Clefable
Absol
Aerodactyl
Articuno
Drapion
Glaceon
Jynx
Kabutops
Leafeon
Miltank
Ninetales
Venusaur
Weezing

I can most certainly attest my hatred for Steelix, Clefable, and Weezing. However, whats the point of removing them if there are other poke's still an option to add to UU? Ok, lets say Steelix is removed. Now, we have 1 more reason not to add... lets say Tauros. As Steelix walls 3/4 of Tauros' standard attacks. Or if we remove Kabutops. Would that not just turn into another "Well Kabutops was way to strong for UU, there is no reason to even consider moving Azumaril". Dead lead ons I suppose.

Now, the 2 options I see to be viable would be... 1. Add together the NFE's (as they are UU by definition), UU tier, and BL's and see what happens or
2. Simply removed Clefable...

 

[ODDish]

However, whats the point of removing them if there are other poke's still an option to add to UU?

Not everybody agrees that there are other pokes that are still an option for UU ...

Ok, lets say Steelix is removed. Now, we have 1 more reason not to add... lets say Tauros.

Or, lets say Steelix is removed. Now, several existing pokemon UU become more useable.

"Well Kabutops was way to strong for UU, there is no reason to even consider moving Azumaril".

Seeing as Azumarill was initally UU and moved up due to the lack of counters, its doubtful it will be reconsidered anyway.

 

[Stagnant]

Always the first person to contridict me. I'm curious ODDish what is your view point on UU. Is it Flawed or not? What do you think needs to be changed? If anythign at all...

 

[ODDish]

To be pefectly honest I can't imagine hating it anymore than the current UU metagame, however, I guess only time will tell.

At the moment I only wish we'd stopped moving things down with Claydol and Cloyster.

Whilst I have genuinely enjoyed the addition of certain pokemon (Cloyster, Claydol, Leafeon), I've come to loathe others (Steelix, Weezing, Articuno, Milktank, Venusaur), and I'm indifferent to the rest (Shedinja, Drapion, Jynx). However at momenet I believe that I would actually favour a return to the "Pinsir era", over the current metagame.

Just read back through this thread ...

 

[sanjay120]

Even if Kyogre is broken, Latias counters it. Does that mean both pokemon should stay in OU and not uber?

If both had enough checks then yes. If Kyogre was OU and almost unstoppable, and then Latias was moved down for testing, determined fair, and Kyogre became manageable, then both would stay. It's the same thing with BL.

I don't see the problem with unbanning everything and letting it settle.

 

[Age of Kings]

If both had enough checks then yes. If Kyogre was OU and almost unstoppable, and then Latias was moved down for testing, determined fair, and Kyogre became manageable, then both would stay. It's the same thing with BL.

I don't see the problem with unbanning everything and letting it settle.

No. Kyogre would be booted out for the fact that only one Pokemon counters it if it were previously "unstoppable" if not for one Pokemon. There's the whole overcentralization thing mentioned many times.

 

[Athrosu]

My thoughts on the idea of combining BL and UU as many have proposed (sorry if I'm a bit off-topic, but I read the first forty pages of this thread before the endless repetition of the same few arguements, debates, and nutty suggestions convinced me I wouldn't miss anything by skipping to the end) is that there wouldn't be any problem with it if tiering was consistent. Thing is, it isn't. It's much easier for a BL Pokemon to climb into OU as it is for it to fall into UU, but because BL is the banlist for UU and based far more on power than on usage, I'd have to say that BL is closer to a "OUs that aren't used enough to be considered OU" tier than a "UUs that were banned from OU" tier. The usage criteria just confuses things, because BL Pokemon are just as often OU-strength Pokemon that simply have had their usage minimized by specific OU threats (for example, I hear Porygon2 usage has spiked in the Suspect Test ladder) as they are arbitrarily-banned Pokemon that would be top-tier UU if moved down, and in terms of power there's a definite and more or less constant slope from the top to the bottom, with no obvious places to draw the "OU" and "UU" lines.

Yes, I know that power isn't supposed to be a major consideration in tiers, but there's no avoiding the fact that it is, since usage is largely determined by power (the best are used the most and therefore become OU) and UU bans stuff based on power. I think the revamp supporters think that testing all the BLs would make things less arbitrary and more natural, rather than the current metagame which was produced by a bunch of theorymonning.

That's a flawed assumption, though, because what it comes down to is that the instant we acknowledge the need to have a UU banlist beyond "no OUs, no non-unique NFEs" we're drawing a random, arbitrary line in the sand beyond which things are too strong for our desired UU, and retesting everything at once doesn't do anything but move the line. It doesn't fundamentally change the way the metagame is produced or make things more "correct", it just means the new UU will overlap more with OU and be less distinct because of that - which many find undesirable. To have a true, natural, usage-based UU means throwing balance out the window, and the very act of attempting to produce a balanced UU metagame means that it's no longer merely a tier of UnderUsed Pokemon but rather a tier that is merely named "UU" and only contains critters that aren't OU and are weaker than X, where X is the line between UU and BL. Pokemon that can't function in the OU metagame but are too strong for the UU metagame are likewise a natural byproduct of having a UU metagame.


I haven't even seen any Steelix or Weezing yet, given the newness of the changes and the fact that I've been mostly playing UU with the recent Smogon Tour in mind, and I'm already struck by how much more defensive the UU metagame is compared to OU. I can't see Weezing and Steelix improving that.


Given all the talk about BL's creation being "flawed" and therefore it needs to be started all over from scratch...Red and Blue were quite flawed, yet I didn't see any complaining when Nintendo merely improved on them for later games rather than gutting the entire system and redoing it from scratch.

 

[thecrazylazyguy]

I am definitely in favor of combining both. I think that there are enough BL pokemon to probably create a new tier. We obviously have no idea how things will shake out. But Thats why we play and test the game

 

[Bourbon]

I think it's be a decent idea to make a UU suspect test ladder where we add BLs to the tier, and leave the regular one at the pre-steelix metagame.

The whole project went way downhill after these recent BLs were added (told ya so) to the point that most of the original UU fanbase isn't even playing anymore. OU players have the option of playing with Chomp/D-E so I think we should have the option of playing the traditional UU or the Steelix/Weezing/Aerodactyl UU.

 

[evolutia]

I think it's be a decent idea to make a UU suspect test ladder where we add BLs to the tier, and leave the regular one at the pre-steelix metagame.

I disagree.

3 UU metagames? It's hard enough getting enough attention and movement towards the creation of a ladder to test the BL pokemon. The OU metagame has a significant larger audience than the UU one and I would say is alot better defined than UU's. You can't literally compare them like you did with your comparison of D-E and Garchomp ladder option.
------------------

Slobroking's list of pokemon really did peak my interest but since he did not elaborate on the pokemon he listed (Yes more detail was needed) I feel that the discussion was cut short.

So I really would like to move the discussion to Slobroking's list and I hope that he will elaborate more on the pokemon he listed. I'll give my opinion on some of the pokemon on it later today(hopefully).

 

[Bourbon]

How is there "3" UU metagames.... there'd be "classic", the one that is actually fun to play, and there'd be "testing" where we drop all the BLs.

I don't understand you guys. Games are supposed to be fun to play... and UU right now is not fun at all. No one is really going to care how we reached the end result as long as it's playable.


EDIT:

I'm pretty sure someone is going to pull the whole "it's a competitive game!" arguement on me so I'll prepare for it.

The recent changes to UU have not made it a competitive game. It's so centralized right now, it's not even funny. People are arguing to ban stuff from OU for overcentralization, correct? Well, in UU it's even worse. Steelix usurps the role of pretty much every bulky Rock or Steel in UU. One replaces many. This is exactly the opposite of what we want in a metagame. To try and handle Steelix, players are forced to pack powerful fighting pokemon with STAB Close Combat.

How tough is Steelix exactly? Well, Adamant Choice Band Iron Fist Hitmonchan only does 92.37-109.04% to 252/0 Relaxed Steelix with Close Combat. This is by far the strongest fighting attack in UU, and Steelix can survive it with no defense EVs whatsoever. If it does run max defense, it takes 95% max from this attack.

Then somebody had the great idea to drop Weezing down, who conveniently resists both Fighting and Ground, being 3HKOed by the previously mentioned super powered fighting attack (31.74-37.72%). The Steelix and Weezing combo is unbreakable by any physical attacker found in UU.

So obviously, the best course of action is to use Special Attacks, right?

Wrong.

We have this annoying pink blob called Clefable who is immune to residual damage and has access to instant recovery, a huge commodity in UU. With it's respactable stat placement, Softboiled and unparralled type coverage, it puts any attempts at special attacking to a halt.


So essentially we've reduced UU to a stallfest centralized around three pokemon. Most individuals here think that the logical course of action is to bring down MORE BLs to try and fix the problem. This is a very stupid idea. If these pokemon are broken in UU, we should remove them. No one is asking for Lugia to be brought down to counter Garchomp. If Garchomp is proven to be broken, it will be banned.

The insane Steelix usage in one month alone should be enough to prove how much it overcentralizes. With a whopping 39 pokemon making up 75% of the pokemon used in UU, obviously we did something wrong. It's time to fix it, the proper way, and by this I mean NOT dropping down more BLs until we've gotten rid of these ones.

And don't get me started on Aerodactyl. It it weren't for Steelix it'd be on a bloody rampage.

 

[evolutia]

How is there "3" UU metagames.... there'd be "classic", the one that is actually fun to play, and there'd be "testing" where we drop all the BLs.

I don't understand you guys. Games are supposed to be fun to play... and UU right now is not fun at all. No one is really going to care how we reached the end result as long as it's playable.

I thought you were talking about leaving this one behind to start this "classic" UU. That is where I got the 3 UU metagames from.

Please explain the perfect classic metagame with specific details if you would, and why your against discussion Slobrokings list that I brought up that would perhaps; not only return UU to it's more classic stage but help remedy the problomatic pokemon within it...

 

[Aldaron]

Might as well interject here.

There will never be three ladders, so no more of that.

At most we will keep the UU ladder and the process in this topic while simultaneously running a BL + NFE allowed ladder.

That's all.

 

[Bourbon]

I am not against SlowBrokings list at all, in fact, I fully support it. I think we need to remove most of these pokemon right away (although I don't see how absol is a problem)

For me the ideal UU metagame would probably be a game without Steelix, Clefable, Venusaur, Aerodactyl, Weezing, Kabutops, Omastar, and Miltank.

The only BLs left I would even consider testing are Honchkrow, Gardevoir, Zangoose and maybe Crobat (i'd much rather him than aero)

 

[ODDish]

The only BLs left I would even consider testing are Honchkrow, Gardevoir, Zangoose and maybe Crobat (i'd much rather him than aero)

If Drapion and Absol are being considered for the chop, as Slowbroking's list suggests, I can't see Honchkrow being considered, and their absence would likely dent Gardevoir's chances for consideration too.

 

[gengod]

Well, in UU it's even worse. Steelix usurps the role of pretty much every bulky Rock or Steel in UU. One replaces many. This is exactly the opposite of what we want in a metagame. To try and handle Steelix, players are forced to pack powerful fighting pokemon with STAB Close Combat

If packing Fighting pokemon with Close Combat is your ideal way of taking out Steelix then i'm not surprised you're having trouble with it. Obviously Steelix will usurp the defensive roles of the Rock/Steel Pokemon in UU, but I don't see how that justifies it being BL material. Each UU Rock/Steel is different and can be used in different ways. Steelix just happens to function better defensively than the other Rock/Steel Pokemon but it by no means play every role they can.

Then somebody had the great idea to drop Weezing down, who conveniently resists both Fighting and Ground, being 3HKOed by the previously mentioned super powered fighting attack (31.74-37.72%).

First of all Iron Fist does not boost Close Combat therefore Hitmonlee has a stronger Close Combat and regardless, Claydol already resisted Fighting and Ground as did Pelipper and Vespiqueen and hell even a Hypno can be 3hkoed by that Close Combat with a few Defense EVs.

The Steelix and Weezing combo is unbreakable by any physical attacker found in UU.

This is hardly true as there are quite a few Physical attacker that can get past both of them.

We have this annoying pink blob called Clefable who is immune to residual damage and has access to instant recovery, a huge commodity in UU. With it's respactable stat placement, Softboiled and unparralled type coverage, it puts any attempts at special attacking to a halt.

Obviously that isn't true as Clefable can be 2HKOed by some Specs Special attackers and the ones that don't 2HKO generally do 40%+ with their STAB attacks. Also Clefable will fail to stop most Special attackers with a way to boost their Special Attack, honestly I don't know why people seem to think Clefable will wall all manner of Special attackers when it clearly cannot.

Most individuals here think that the logical course of action is to bring down MORE BLs to try and fix the problem. This is a very stupid idea.

To be honest I don't remember most individuals (or for that matter any individuals) saying we should bring down any Pokemon simply to counter another.

And don't get me started on Aerodactyl. It it weren't for Steelix it'd be on a bloody rampage.

Yea, i'm sure it would too since obviously Steelix is the only Aerodactyl counter.

As far as I see it most of the people that are complaining about these new Pokemon (and Clefable) are only doing it because they don't find it "fun to play" or because they get "annoyed" with certain Pokemon. Either way I agree with Aldaron in saying that the UU/BL merger ladder is probaly the best idea at this point and the only objective way of actually determining what should really be UU or BL. However, as i've stated before, that is something that will be a smogon wide effort and simply complaning how you think it should be done now isn't going to change much as UU is low on the list of things to be done at th emoment as can be seen in the Order Of Operations thread in Policy Review.