Which aspect of Dragons is more broken: Pokémon or Moves?

[RBG]

I'm guessing that banning Draco Meteor/Outrage on just the considered Suspects/Ubers is out of the question then.

That is correct. It is either a blanket ban or no ban at all.

I don't think this is a very fair question to ask, as we have very little practical experience using one without the other. Only Dragon types learn Draco Meteor, and the only Pokemon you see Outrage on in OU is Dragon types. Sure, we've used Dragons with Dragon Claw/Dragon Pulse before and I think no one would argue that that combination is broken, but is that because the moves are weaker or the Dragons are hitting less hard (obviously it's a combination of the two, but it's very hard to say to what extent each factor contributes to hitting less hard, and thus which one is broken).

Agreed, that has to be some theorymon in order for this to work. Short of holding a Tournament with Latios and Garchomp Legal and Draco Meteor and Outrage banned, there is no way to see what type of metagame this would create. And also agreed, I think it is rather difficult to see which is more broken. The Pokemon do have great stats and wide movepools, but the moves themselves are used so frequently on them, one wonders if it is the moves more than the Pokemon.

I don't think the banning of Outrage would necessarily improve the metagame, as pokemon like Flygon, Altaria, Kingdra, etc, would lose their main STAB. By introducing Garchomp into OU, you take away any advantage Kingdra or Flygon had, moving them to UU(Kingdra doesn't have any other physical STAB). I do, however, believe Draco Meteor being banned could improve the metagame. By taking away some of the unpredictability and sheer power of pokemon like Salamence and Latios, you can alleviate the stress on steel types in OU. This would allow Latios(most likely) to become suspect, likely voted OU, but not taking away the niches of Kingdra and Flygon(and Altaria in lower tiers). Salamence is not nearly as threatening once Draco Meteor is out of the question, as Porygon2 can switch into it with impunity(Specs Dragon Pulse can be EV'd to not 2HKO).

Honestly, if banning those moves makes Chomp, Mence, and the Lati twins easier to handle, that I would be willing to sacrifice those moves from Kingdra, Flygon, Altaria, and Dragonite. Although it makes those 4 pokemon not as good, the same effect happens by lowering the other dragons all to manageable OU levels. Not to mention one of those Pokemon currently isn't useful at all in OU. I think those Pokemon would be hurt more by the introduction of the other dragons than the banning of the moves.

 

[cantab]

How will it make it too complicated? If we only ban moves from All pokemon that use it BECAUSE it would make too many pokemon that know it broken, then it isn't complex. It is not like we are cherry picking pokemon and moves and banning them. It is more akin to Evasion Clause where no pokemon can use those moves.

Well OK, if you ban it from everything, that's simpler. But then that seems to me, to use an old adage, like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Sure, it might make Chomp and Mence solidly OU, but at least for Outrage, a load of Pokemon learn it. Can there really be justification for denying Abomasnow, Gyarados, Kangaskhan, and many many others Outrage? Even for Draco Meteor, do we really need to stop Flygon and Altaria having it?

 

[Felix91]

I voted moves, mostly for the small chance to bring Latios/Garchomp into OU while hopefully avoiding too much chaos and overcentralization toward those two.

 

[Ulevo]

Would the blanket ban include Ubers as well? I would assume no.

 

[DJXO9]

Would the blanket ban include Ubers as well? I would assume no.

When it was being talked about on IRC, it was assumed that it would.

 

[skorpion123]

That is correct. It is either a blanket ban or no ban at all.

I prefer no ban then. And i assume almost everyone else would also . I am not sure if even one would think otherwise.

 

[Stylish Interval]

Honestly, if banning those moves makes Chomp, Mence, and the Lati twins easier to handle, that I would be willing to sacrifice those moves from Kingdra, Flygon, Altaria, and Dragonite. Although it makes those 4 pokemon not as good, the same effect happens by lowering the other dragons all to manageable OU levels. Not to mention one of those Pokemon currently isn't useful at all in OU. I think those Pokemon would be hurt more by the introduction of the other dragons than the banning of the moves.

You are right here saying you would like to change the metagame to how you would like it. We all want our favorite dragon buddies to be down here with us in OU, and we would most certainly like for them to all be easier to counter, but if we do this because it would make the metagame more enjoyable or easier to play, why don't we get rid of Blissey too? That type of thinking ties in with the Blissey thread, as I mentioned earlier, in that by getting rid of a certain thing or Pokemon the metagame only shifts for enjoyment or less difficulty.

Is Garchomp really going to be manageable if we get rid of Outrage? It still has great attack and defenses. Is Latios really going to be manageable if we get rid of DM? It still has ridiculously high Base Special Attack and great defenses. They will probably sit in Uber or at the point of where Salamence is now, maybe higher. All this will do is make it easier for us to handle Salamence in my opinion. This is all theorymon though.

I think that if you really want to find out, you should round up a good group of well respected members who can test this over a deal of time and find out what the metagame is like. Otherwise we're stuck with theorymon.

 

[SevveN]

1. Is banning 2 moves to allow 2 Pokemon from Uber to be potential OU, as well as making two suspects less deadly?

Decent concept I guess, but thats like sorta like saying a football team can't use an un-defendable formation. It just seems wrong.

2. Will it be worth it if other non borderline Pokemon (Flygon, Kingdra) are hurt by this decision?

No, it wouldn't. Kingdra and Flygon are great pokemon in the current metagame, they are just outclassed by their fellow dragons.

3. Which is more broken, the Dragons or the Moves?

I believe it's a bit of both, a few pokemon have just as great stats (See: Tyranitar, Heatran, Celebi, etc) and are still effective, it's just those 2 moves that make them that step above the rest.

 

[Sheshi]

If we're banning all moves that make Mence and Latias too good, then lets ban Dynamic Punch from Machamp and Spore from Breloom and Smeargle. It just doesn't make sense that you would want to ban moves that make a Pokemon good. Both Latias and Mence are handled to an extent using a combination of resists and priority.

 

[Glen]

banning moves seems ridiculous, it makes the process completely arbitrary.

unless, of course, you intend to suspect test every single currently uber pokemon with its most powerful move(s) removed. if you don't, it's safe to say that banning moves isn't the best idea.

edit: to elaborate, the past several years have been spent perfecting the fourth generation metagame. we are extremely close to arriving at our destination. to start suspect testing moves is to say 'jk the metagame isnt even close to balanced' and essentially undo all the work done thus far.

 

[RBG]

Maybe people aren't understanding, but the only reason I am suggestion that these moves be banned, is that they make 4 of the current suspects easier to deal with. If Machamp or Breloom were suspects because of those singular moves, then I would think about potentially banning those moves if that was part of the main reason they were suspect. As it is, they are not, nor are Togekiss or Jirachi, which means their is no reason to ban moves off them.

And I encourage people to think a bit before posting. Yes, this is a controversial suggestion different than other things discussed. That is all the more reason to pause and give it thought rather than coming to a quick decision as it seems many are jumping to.

You are right here saying you would like to change the metagame to how you would like it. We all want our favorite dragon buddies to be down here with us in OU, and we would most certainly like for them to all be easier to counter, but if we do this because it would make the metagame more enjoyable or easier to play, why don't we get rid of Blissey too? That type of thinking ties in with the Blissey thread, as I mentioned earlier, in that by getting rid of a certain thing or Pokemon the metagame only shifts for enjoyment or less difficulty.

Is Garchomp really going to be manageable if we get rid of Outrage? It still has great attack and defenses. Is Latios really going to be manageable if we get rid of DM? It still has ridiculously high Base Special Attack and great defenses. They will probably sit in Uber or at the point of where Salamence is now, maybe higher. All this will do is make it easier for us to handle Salamence in my opinion. This is all theorymon though.

I think that if you really want to find out, you should round up a good group of well respected members who can test this over a deal of time and find out what the metagame is like. Otherwise we're stuck with theorymon.

Do you know that is the metagame as I want it? For the record, I like Kingdra and would be sad to see it lose it's best Mix set. However, I do feel that if banning these moves gives us a more balanced metagame, then that balance is worth sacrificing the aforementioned pokemons usefulness. And yes, everything here is theorymon right now. Unless some people actually decide to battle with these rules (no Draco Meteor Outrage, all 600 and lower dragons allowed) to see how this metagame looks, we will have to make guesses based on how these pokemon currently operate.

banning moves seems ridiculous, it makes the process completely arbitrary.

unless, of course, you intend to suspect test every single currently uber pokemon with its most powerful move(s) removed. if you don't, it's safe to say that banning moves isn't the best idea.

edit: to elaborate, the past several years have been spent perfecting the fourth generation metagame. we are extremely close to arriving at our destination. to start suspect testing moves is to say 'jk the metagame isnt even close to balanced' and essentially undo all the work done thus far.

The moves I choose were not arbitrary at all. They are very commonly used moves on 4 of the current suspects. People seem not to understand that in this topic. It was not an example of Cherry-picking certain moves so these Pokemon could potentially be OU. It's because these moves are a common trait amongst 4 suspects with not a very big distribution outside of that subset for OU useable Pokemon.

 

[Stylish Interval]

Maybe people aren't understanding, but the only reason I am suggestion that these moves be banned, is that they make 4 of the current suspects easier to deal with. If Machamp or Breloom were suspects because of those singular moves, then I would think about potentially banning those moves if that was part of the main reason they were suspect. As it is, they are not, nor are Togekiss or Jirachi, which means their is no reason to ban moves off them.

And I encourage people to think a bit before posting. Yes, this is a controversial suggestion different than other things discussed. That is all the more reason to pause and give it thought rather than coming to a quick decision as it seems many are jumping to.

Alright. Here is what I see.


1) We ban the moves, we bring down Salemences versatility, we bring down Latais' chance to sweep. We possibly bring down Ubers to suspects and we make 4-5 Pokemon worse.

2) We leave the moves and continue playing with the metagame we have.


I will expand on how I see things:


We can ban the moves. Now, this then takes away Draco Meteor from every Dragon-type and eliminates Outrage from 40 different Pokemon's movepools. Alright, so what we did was take away a move that could in some way we don't see it be competitively viable from Pokemon that weren't doing anything with those moves. Why? We felt like making other Pokemon easier to deal with.

Let's think of it another way. Why would we ban these moves? We find it hard to take on Mence. We find it hard to take on Garchomp. So we really want to make it easier for us to play Pokemon because we're having a hard time with Dragon types. Banning the Dragon-type moves won't do anything. We lose 2 of the 9 attacking Dragon moves. We lose Outrage to Dragon Rush or Dragon Claw. We lose Draco Meteor to Dragon Pulse. We take away the good Dragon Moves for what, so that we can play easier and have an easier time? I don't see any pros to this other than that one point, where we play easier and get more Pokemon in OU and have a more fun time with our Dragon buddies.




EDIT: Alright, you basically told me you don't want the metagame to be easier. Well it sure doesn't look that way. Will the metagame really be more balanced, or will it just end up being that we lose the Dragon-type. I personally think we can't theorymon this one out. The only way to do it is get a collective group of people to test it. I could sit here all day and argue just because. You could probably do the same. We're not going to accomplish anything by theorymoning about what it would look like or what it would possibly be like, we'd have to test it. This is like Suspect in a way. We have to ban the moves and try the metagame without them to see what it's like.


Edit 2: We can't really guess based on what these Pokemon currently do. They use the moves we're talking about most often. We can't assume they will work the same at all, in fact they'll have much less power and survivability probably if they lose these moves. Another reason why theorymon isn't going to prove anything for this and it will have to be tested.

 

[Glen]

The moves I choose were not arbitrary at all. They are very commonly used moves on 4 of the current suspects. People seem not to understand that in this topic. It was not an example of Cherry-picking certain moves so these Pokemon could potentially be OU. It's because these moves are a common trait amongst 4 suspects with not a very big distribution outside of that subset for OU useable Pokemon.

how are they not arbitrary? you are going outside the standard procedure for suspect testing for two moves and two moves only, despite the fact that multiple pokemon would go from uber to OU if you were to restrict them from using their best move(s). say you decide to test outrage and draco meteor as suspect moves; they are, for some reason, voted uber. now you can say 'ok we have made the pokemon metagame more balanced.' but you've also opened a whole can of worms because you've established the idea that banning moves can make the meta better, so why would we stop at just this?

why don't we test skymin with no seed flare? why don't we test wobbuffet with no encore? we don't we test darkrai with no dark void? testing all of these out could potentially broaden the metagame but it's such a big undertaking. you can't just ban two moves and expect to be done with solving the balance issue in our metagame.

 

[bigfoots]

Maybe people aren't understanding, but the only reason I am suggestion that these moves be banned, is that they make 4 of the current suspects easier to deal with.

Now I don't really want to bring up the Garchomp debate again, but after playing with it through the suspect tests, removing these two moves does not make it any easier to deal with--Outrage does not gain any notable 2HKO's over Dragon Claw on the SD set. I feel like this point was beaten to death during the last stage of suspect testing.

Now I don't doubt that the other three suspects would be easier to deal with. I don't know how much easier, as I haven't played with them not carrying these moves, but such a substantial reduction in power most likely would hurt them in some way. There is still the possibility that they do not need this extra power to get the same 1 and 2HKO's, just as Garchomp didn't, but I don't think that would be the case.

On a different note, I'd like to bring up a comparison to a similar, yet somewhat different situation here. We have the Soul Dew clause in place to allow Latias to be used in OU. Without this clause in place, I highly doubt Latios or Latias would even have been tested as suspects. However, banning their specific item allowed one of them to be dropped from Ubers. This was different in that no other Pokemon could take advantage of Soul Dew, but is the same concept in that limiting a Pokemon could make it usable in a lower tier.

The major difference in these situations is just this: no other Pokemon was limited by the banning of Soul Dew. However, it does create a precedent that it is okay for a Pokemon to be limited in some way to allow it to be played in a lower tier. The question at hand is can we limit a set of Pokemon to allow them to be played in a lower tier even if this restriction limits others who have been deemed able to use these moves without needing suspect testing or banning.

I'm confident that we could achieve a balanced metagame by either banning or not banning these moves. They would be very different balanced metagames, but they would be balanced nonetheless. It seems like a double edged sword with this set of Pokemon and moves; the Pokemon are only broken because of the moves or the moves only seem broken because of the powerful Pokemon using them. It would be very difficult to prove either one, as they are very closely related by the nature of the game. Right now I'm leaning toward the moves only seeming broken because of the Pokemon using them, but I think it deserves more thought as to if it could possibly be the other way around, as I can form a coherent argument for that side as well. I would like to see if anyone can put together a good argument for either side that cannot be easily refuted and put to use for the other. If not, this becomes more of a philosophical question of would we rather see more Pokemon allowed to be used with restriction or less without.

Edit 2: We can't really guess based on what these Pokemon currently do. They use the moves we're talking about most often. We can't assume they will work the same at all, in fact they'll have much less power and survivability probably if they lose these moves. Another reason why theorymon isn't going to prove anything for this and it will have to be tested.

Also, I completely agree with this.

 

[haunter]

It's neither the Pokemon nor the move, it's the dragon type in general that is extremely hard to counter. Being only resisted by steel-type Pokemon makes dragon attacks, and hence Pokemon that have STAB on those attacks, incredibly powerful and hard to sponge, especially considering that most steel-types can be dealt with using Magnezone (see the famous Sala-Zone combo).

Also, the dragon type is also an extremely good defensive typing, being resistant to common attacking types such as fire, grass and electric; especially when it is not paired with the flying one. So I'd say that dragons are "broken" because of the dragon-type being the best typing in the game, blame Game Freak for that.

 

[Philip7086]

I personally think specific Pokemon are more broken than the moves themselves. However, I am still not opposed to testing the moves. I know for sure that the likes of Mence would not even be considered to be suspect, were it not for Outrage and Draco Meteor. Removing those two moves would definitely resolve a lot of issues people seem to have with dragons. If this is a more generally acceptable idea than flat out banning the powerful dragons, then for the sake of a balanced metagame, I am all for it.

 

[ultimifier]

I personally think its a bit of both. The moves are over powered, but it takes an already powerful pokemon using these overpwered moves to create a broken situation. To determine which one I think is more important I'm going to go over a little thought experiment: For example, look at infernape, who has close combat and overheat, the pair of moves that come the closest to matching outrage and draco meteor. Both are 140 and 120 base power with pretty much no downsides, and he gets stab on both of them. Now we all know how good infernape is, even with its relatively low stats. Now imagine if infernape got +10 in all stats...

How amazing would that pokemon be. Infernapes base stats would now be 86/114/81/114/81/118 for a total of 594. Compare this to 95/135/80/110/80/100 for a total of 600**. He would have close combat and overheat, which aside from not hitting gyarados and latias are pretty much similiar overall to the dragon moves salamence has at its disposal.

** Notice how strikingly similiar these two spreads are.

So Which pokemon do you think would be more broken? I would definately be more afraid of this crazy infernape thing over salamence because his stabs can be used more effectively. Sure dragon hits everything neutral, which is good hitting switchins, but fire/fighting hits plenty more super effective, which is great for netting OHKOs instead of 2HKOing everything.

If anyone is actually reading, I'd like to hear from you which pokemon you think would be more overpowered, salamence or souped up infernape

So in general i think that although both are over powered, the actual pokemon and its base stats are more broken than simply the move.

 

[IcyMan28]

Ugh, I voted for the wrong options.

I definitely think that the pokemon is overpowered, not the moves. Without stab, dragon moves are generally eschewed in favor of better coverage moves. Platinum's Outrage tutor made the move available to a much wider range of pokemon, including even random things like Venusaur and Tyranitar. No one uses the move on them, however, and I feel the same would be true of Draco Meteor - after all, no one uses it on Jirachi.

 

[Ninjadead]

I'd say the moves. Most Dragon Pokemon are 4x weak to Ice with others having 2x to Ice and 2x weak somewhere else.

 

[cantab]

It's neither the Pokemon nor the move, it's the dragon type in general that is extremely hard to counter. Being only resisted by steel-type Pokemon makes dragon attacks, and hence Pokemon that have STAB on those attacks, incredibly powerful and hard to sponge, especially considering that most steel-types can be dealt with using Magnezone (see the famous Sala-Zone combo).

Also, the dragon type is also an extremely good defensive typing, being resistant to common attacking types such as fire, grass and electric; especially when it is not paired with the flying one. So I'd say that dragons are "broken" because of the dragon-type being the best typing in the game, blame Game Freak for that.

Fortunately, Game Freak know that full well, which is why outside of legendaries, only Kingdra and Latias lacks a 4x ice weakness.

 

[Broken Wing]

I say the dragon pokemon they all are very versatile with good stats and move pool. sure there weak to ice but they end up being paired with ice resist pokemon or the yache berry.

The move isn't quite so broken with an overabundance of dragon resist pokemon primarily steel covering it although it still does quite a bit of damage even to them.

Also dragon pokemon have good abilities as well intimidate and levitate letting them live even longer with and most dragon pokemon have access to healing moves outside of rest such as roost and recover.

 

[MrBlack]

edit: to elaborate, the past several years have been spent perfecting the fourth generation metagame. we are extremely close to arriving at our destination. to start suspect testing moves is to say 'jk the metagame isnt even close to balanced' and essentially undo all the work done thus far.

I must ask a question here; What classifies as a "perfect" or "balanced" fourth generation metagame? What are you trying to do to the metagame?

As for the topic, I'm going to go with an on-the-fence answer because it's how I see it; it's a combination of the Pokemon, their moves and the Dragon type itself. Without STAB on a difficult to resist type, the moves wouldn't be so powerful. But without good Pokemon of said type, there wouldn't be anyone to use the moves.

 

[Game Freak201]

I must ask a question here; What classifies as a "perfect" or "balanced" fourth generation metagame? What are you trying to do to the metagame?

Frankly, a balanced metagame exists for the same reason as the word "perfect" exists. They're both impossibilities. Centralization will always occur due to trainers wanting to use what they see to the best pokemon.

On the subject at hand, I agree with the fact that its the dragons that make themselves broken. I liken the effectiveness of a dragon move as to having a really good sword that has a dull edge to it for the reason that it hits many things for a lot of damage, but it only hits one type for super-effective damage. In addition, if Outrage was such a good move, then why isn't Gyrarados and Tyranitar abusing the moves as well? They have good attack stats which can be bolstered to even greater heights with a DD, but they lack the STAB to use such a move that hits for only neutral damage. Therefore, I believe that the Dragons are responsible for making themselves Suspect/Uber, not their overpowered moves.

Though this may be not completely related to this thread, but doesn't Jirachi get DM through an event?

Edit: never mind about my last paragraph, I just learned it wasn't programmed on Shoddy yet.

 

[RBG]

Ugh, I voted for the wrong options.

I definitely think that the pokemon is overpowered, not the moves. Without stab, dragon moves are generally eschewed in favor of better coverage moves. Platinum's Outrage tutor made the move available to a much wider range of pokemon, including even random things like Venusaur and Tyranitar. No one uses the move on them, however, and I feel the same would be true of Draco Meteor - after all, no one uses it on Jirachi.

The reason no one uses it on Jirachi is beacuse it isn't programmed into shoddy yet. Theorymon has a bunch of plans for using it when he gets the chance.

And what about the fact that the 2 moves are on 4 of our current suspects? Do you not think that plays a part in whether they are uber or not? I think it makes a rather big difference. It is not like removing outrage from every pokemon that gets it would hurt most of them, since most of those rarely use them.

how are they not arbitrary? you are going outside the standard procedure for suspect testing for two moves and two moves only, despite the fact that multiple pokemon would go from uber to OU if you were to restrict them from using their best move(s). say you decide to test outrage and draco meteor as suspect moves; they are, for some reason, voted uber. now you can say 'ok we have made the pokemon metagame more balanced.' but you've also opened a whole can of worms because you've established the idea that banning moves can make the meta better, so why would we stop at just this?

why don't we test skymin with no seed flare? why don't we test wobbuffet with no encore? we don't we test darkrai with no dark void? testing all of these out could potentially broaden the metagame but it's such a big undertaking. you can't just ban two moves and expect to be done with solving the balance issue in our metagame.

The fact remains that it is only these moves that are breaking only a few pokemon that count as a significant portion of the movepool. It's not like encore is breaking every pokemon that uses it. Dark Void is not the move that is making Darkrai uber by itself. I'd give you seed flare, although banning one move to make on pokemon legal isn't quite what I would want to do. The whole point here is that these two moves make 4 pokemon suspects, and I believe that they would all be less suspect if these moves were removed.

 

[Ulevo]

Reducing a Pokemon's movepool will undoubtably reduce the Pokemon's overall worth. So one may ask, if removing Draco Meteor and Outrage from Standard would place 4 suspects in to OU, could we not follow the same decision with other Uber Pokemon?


Arceus
Darkrai
Deoxys
Deoxys-E
Deoxys-F
Deoxys-L
Dialga
Garchomp
Giratina
Giratina-O
Groudon
Ho-Oh
Kyogre
Latios
Lugia
Manaphy
Mew
Mewtwo
Palkia
Rayquaza
Shaymin-S
Wobbuffet
Wynaut

From looking at just the base stats alone, Arceus, Darkrai, Deoxys, Deoxys-F, Deoxys-L, Dialga, Giratina, Giratina-O, Groudon, Ho-Oh, Kyogre, Lugia, Mewtwo, Palkia, Rayquaza, are all unfit for competitive Standard Play. Even assuming you took away signature moves, such as Darkrai's Dark Void, or Arceus's Judgement, or Palkia's Special Rend, or Ho-Oh's Sacred Fire, all of these threats are still capable of severely damaging the integrity of the OU meta.

Wobbuffet is banned exclusively due to its ability, Shadow Tag. And because we strive to replicate the cartridge, and thus cannot ban Shadow Tag exclusively, it also must remain in Uber. Wynaut is arguable due to significantly lower base stats, however that is a different can of worms I will not open, and it is for the sake of this discussion assumed to be under the same circumstances as Wobbuffet.

Mew is clearly banned because of it's unique ability to learn every TM, HM, and Tutor taught move in the game, resulting in a movepool that eclipses all but the likes of Smeargle. One could argue that banning an assortment of Mews moves could result it is inclusion in to OU, however because it is being established that a blanket ban would be used, this would result in a multitude of Pokemon being subjected to unnecessary removal of options. Clearly in the case of Mew, this is unreasonable.

Manaphy I am going to leave out of this as currently it is either being tested as a suspect and possibly going to be admitted in to OU, or it already is. Shoddy has yet to implement it's placement in to the OU ladder, but for this discussion I will ignore Manaphy for obvious reasons.

So what do we have left?

Deoxys-E
Garchomp
Latios
Shaymin-S

All of these Pokemon have impressive base stats, however, are not threatening enough alone by themselves. Unlike the previously mentioned Uber candidates, who all have at least one distinctively factoring reason for being placed in Ubers, these Pokemon have a plethora of reasons that, while by themselves do not amount to their Uber status, together ultimately led to their banishment.

I will now examine these Pokemon based on the assumption that the removal of key moves will result in their inclusion in to the OU environment:

Shaymin-S

I believe it is reasonable to assume that despite it's impressive Speed and Special Attack, it's inclusion in to Ubers is a combination of Seed Flare and Air Slash, and it's ability Serene Grace.

It is already been established that banned abilities goes against the policy of cartridge replication, so banned Seed Flare and Air Slash is the obvious choice in this case.

The problem here is that banning Seed Flare would result in a negative impact on Shaymin-O, and the banning of Air Slash would result in the negative impact on Togekiss, both of which rely on these moves to compete.

Deoxys-E

While I believe it is arguable that Deoxys-E itself is Uber based on it's Stats and Type, it's claim to fame was the infamous double screen set. This was based around the use of Light Clay + Reflect/Light Screen, and Taunt to stop leads and anti-leads.

While there is no specific Pokemon that rely on the use of Reflect/Light Screen (and possibly Taunt, I'm unsure about that), I do not feel it is reasonable for the exclusion of Double Screens as an option for many Pokemon that make it usable (Jirachi, Bronzong, Cresselia, et cetera) for the sake of bringing Deoxys-E in to OU. Removing Light Clay would only serve to weaken the underlying problem.

Garchomp/Latios

As you can clearly see, we have come down to the two Dragon types that arguably could contend appropriately in the OU environment without the use of Draco Meteor and Outrage.

While the exclusion of these moves may serve to open these Pokemon up to the OU environment, it is interesting to note that the banishment of these moves will not serve to leave any other Pokemon unusable outside of their current tier, as Dragon Pulse and Dragon Claw serve as adequate substitutions on the same sets. Admittedly these Pokemon will drop in use, but it will also allow for the inclusion of two current Ubers (potentially), and the possibly prevention of two other (publically opinionated) suspects, Latias and Salamence.

And unlike the banishment of moves from the reservoir of other Ubers, this will serve to only limit the Pokemon of the same Dragon type. Any non-Dragon type does not use either of these moves to compete competitively. Also, unlike the other Ubers, these Pokemon lack any distinctive criteria that makes the Uber without the inclusion of these moves themselves.


I know this all may serve to be self explanatory, but I thought it would give people some proper insight as to why banning moves until other Ubers are acceptable candidates in OU is not an argument with very solid ground. What we are witnessing here is an exception that may lead to a healthier meta. However the question is whether this will serve to open the door to the exclusion of moves in the future, and whether or not we know where to draw the line. But I'd like to believe we're a smart community, right?