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

[Chou Toshio]

I'll just say that it would be very sad to see Kingdra and Flygon drop from OU, as both of these pokes (especially flygon) play a very involved role in the meta, adding another dynamic dimension to play without being truly dominant.

And yes, Flygon without Outrage is just . . . yeah . . .

There was one game where I was elated to have it in the bag until Flygon failed to kill a Suicune at 32% with its STAB Adamant 252 evs Outrage. Dragon Claw Flygon? Yeah, it's a joke.

Kingdra doesn't even get a physical dragon STAB outside Outrage, which means it loses Dragon Dance, probably its most viable OU set.

 

[Deucalion2]

I think we can agree that moves by themselves are not inherently bannable. Even if there was a move that guaranteed an OHKO, never missed, and had top priority, if only one Pokemon could use it, and that Pokemon that used it had straight Shedinja stats (1 in everything), it still probably wouldn't be Uber, because of entry hazards and so on. Moves are only made Uber through the Pokemon that use them, which in a way, makes them a lot like the Support Characteristic:

Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to fulfil either of the other two Uber characteristics.

If we edit that slightly, we get:

Move Characteristic
A move is bannable if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently allow a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for the using Pokemon to fulfil either of the other two Uber characteristics.

Draco Meteor is learnt by Altaria, Arceus, Dialga, Dragonite, Flygon, Garchomp, Giratina, Kingdra, Latias, Latios, Palkia, Rayquaza, and Salamence. Arceus, Dialga, Giratina, Palkia and Rayquaza would obviously be Uber, regardless of whether they learnt Draco Meteor or not. Tha leaves: Altaria, Dragonite, Flygon, Garchomp, Kingdra, Latias, Latios, and Salamence. Altaria couldn't be considered broken, even with Draco Meteor, nor could Dragonite, Flygon, or Kindra. Draco Meteor certainly helped Garchomp, simply because of the occasional surprise of a Chainchomp set - it added to some of the unpredictability that makes him to so hard to effectively check. Latios was basically banned entirely on the grounds of Choice Specs Draco Meteor spam. Latias is vastly helped by Draco Meteor, and was considered Suspect at one point because of this. Salamence, similarly, would definitely not be as threatening from the special side if Draco Meteor was banned, and almost certainly couldn't be considered Uber. So, we see that if we removed Draco Meteor, then a) It's likely that Garchomp and Latios would be returned to the OU metagame, and b) Latias and Salamence would be less dominating. Kingdra and Flygon tend not to use Draco Meteor so much in account of being physically orientated, but Flygon would probably drop a little due to the return of Garchomp - possibly out of OU. With the reduction of Dragon attacking capabilities, then Steel types would not be so dominating, and you'd probably see a slight reduction in Steel type numbers, and possibly a few new walls climbing into OU. All in all, I think banning Draco Meteor would actually open the metagame up more than it would constrict it.

I need to go now, so I'll edit this post in more detail later, but because Outrage has a much larger movepool, and obviously very a smaller proportion of Pokemon are made Uber on grounds of Outrage, then banning Outrage would be more harmful than allowing it, however, I would firmly agree that you could make a firm argument supporting banning Draco Meteor.

 

[cantab]

Smogon's ideal metagame would be one that is perfectly balanced. Not uncentralized, or most diversified as stated by other users.

That may be true. But the converse is not the case. A metagame that is perfectly balanced is not necessarily Smogon's ideal metagame. For example, allow only one Pokemon and there's perfect balance for you.

Maybe there could just be a DP ladder, and a Platinum ladder? Would be very cool to play without the changes, and the mathematicians around here could probably contrast the two with statistics(this would also solve the problem of Outrage on Salamence).

This may be the best idea that's been said. For the simple reason that it's not us making up rules. Playing strict DP is playing one version of "pokemon as it is given to us". That said, everything still gets Draco Meteor in DP. It's only Outrage that isn't widespread.

@Deucalon2: I understand what you are saying. But I have one counterargument. What is a Pokemon? Surely it is a combination of typing, stats, ability, and movepool. Change even one of those, and you're changing the Pokemon. Is Garchomp without Outrage+DM really 'Garchomp', or is it Smogonchomp?

 

[MrBlack]

WARNING! Wall of Text coming up...

This may be the best idea that's been said. For the simple reason that it's not us making up rules. Playing strict DP is playing one version of "pokemon as it is given to us". That said, everything still gets Draco Meteor in DP. It's only Outrage that isn't widespread.

Pokemon wasn't given to us. It was given to the much wider audience, who have no concept of "competitive" or "metagame". This much is very clear, and understandable since the makers are only after money.

If they were ever going to cater for this side of Pokemon, they certainly won't anymore because of Shoddy. The most obvious fact about competitive Pokemon is that it's centred around Shoddy, it all happens in Shoddy. For competitive minded people, there's no point buying the cartridge.

X-Act, you say GameFreak made a mistake when they introduced Outrage. No, it wasn't a mistake, because they don't give a flying fuck about competitive Pokemon, if they even know anything about it. I agree that Outrage has had some bad effects on us, but that means nothing to them.

People are very adamant about playing the game "as it is". But if you insist on this, you can't complain about an imbalanced metagame. The game was not designed to have a balanced metagame and anything not designed for balance will be very imbalanced without some incredible luck. So, by playing the game as is, you're choosing to deal with something you'll never even get close to balanced. The lengths you've gone to achieve it are admirable, not complaining there, but in the end you unfortunately can't win because the pure base of what you're working with is too flawed in the first place.

So, there are two possible reasons why everyone insists on keeping with competitive Pokemon "as it is".

1. They don't realise the above fact, or choose to ignore it
OR the much more likely
2. It's the only true middleground; any attempt to alter the game will result in endless arguments and wars over what happens. "Who will ultimately decide?" would be the unanswerable question.

So in the end we choose the invisible presence, the one not involved in any discussion, the one with no concept of what we're on about: GameFreak. Leave the game as is, we say. Leave it to GameFreak to set the foundation.

Basically, we're all GameFreak's bitch. We've appointed them universal lords of something they don't give a shit about: Competitive Pokemon.

Btw I'm not trying to achieve anything here. Not suggesting it's a bad idea sticking with the game as it is. Not suggesting we go in a different direction. Just voicing my thoughts on the problem at hand. It's an endless pit really, no definable solution.

Now, on the topic of strict DP as an option. I also like that idea. I enjoyed the game a lot more during DP days and played a lot; in fact, it wasn't so long after Platinum was released that I lost interest. So Platinum could very likely be the reason.

 

[cantab]

So in the end we choose the invisible presence, the one not involved in any discussion, the one with no concept of what we're on about: GameFreak. Leave the game as is, we say. Leave it to GameFreak to set the foundation.

Basically, we're all GameFreak's bitch. We've appointed them universal lords of something they don't give a shit about: Competitive Pokemon.

In the end, we are choosing to play Pokemon. Pokemon is a commercial game developed and controlled by Game Freak. As you say, Pokemon is a game that is intrinsically not fully balanced. If you want a game that is fully balanced, play something else.

I answered most of your other points in Upsetting the Metagame.

 

[blasphemy1]

This may be the best idea that's been said. For the simple reason that it's not us making up rules. Playing strict DP is playing one version of "pokemon as it is given to us". That said, everything still gets Draco Meteor in DP. It's only Outrage that isn't widespread.

True, but atleast we would be able to play without Scizor's Bullet Punch or Salamence's Outrage, and have two completely different metagames constantly evolving. You could battle in different generations on Netbattle, and at this point each game introduces a lot of changes(Platinum being the most apparent). I don't think Draco Meteor alone is broken, but I believe the ability for pokemon like Salamence to run both Draco Meteor AND Outrage is over the top. I'm not even sure if Shoddy 1 can introduce this mechanic though, hopefully for 2 it will have something similar.

 

[MrBlack]

In the end, we are choosing to play Pokemon. Pokemon is a commercial game developed and controlled by Game Freak. As you say, Pokemon is a game that is intrinsically not fully balanced. If you want a game that is fully balanced, play something else.

I answered most of your other points in Upsetting the Metagame.

Agreed. This is not the game for people who want something well balanced. I believe I made that point quite clear in my post anyway.

I'll just say again, in case anyone takes it the wrong way; I'm not complaining about anything. I don't mind playing the game "as it is", I believe I made it clear why that's probably the best option.

 

[RBG]

In the end, we are choosing to play Pokemon. Pokemon is a commercial game developed and controlled by Game Freak. As you say, Pokemon is a game that is intrinsically not fully balanced. If you want a game that is fully balanced, play something else.

I answered most of your other points in Upsetting the Metagame.

What you seem to not understand is the point of bans and suspect tests IS too make the metagame as balanced as possible.

 

[Deucalion2]

@Deucalon2: I understand what you are saying. But I have one counterargument. What is a Pokemon? Surely it is a combination of typing, stats, ability, and movepool. Change even one of those, and you're changing the Pokemon. Is Garchomp without Outrage+DM really 'Garchomp', or is it Smogonchomp?

No, Garchomp without Draco Meteor isn't the same as Garchomp with Draco Meteor, which is surely the entire point - Garchomp sans Draco Meteor may happen to be a Garchomp suited for OU, where as Garchomp avec Draco Meteor may not. Incidentally, I find that a highly flawed point because unless we essentially unban everything and play exactly as the cartridges allow (ie, no formes, etc), then we're playing Smogonmon. Does this really matter? Smogonmon is a much more balanced and competitively viable version of mon than Pokemon is.



Is anyone going to tackle the post I made earlier at all? I'm aware it's mostly ramblings, but I thought I came up with some decent ideas there, and nobody seems to want to respond to them. =/

 

[MrBlack]

What you seem to not understand is the point of bans and suspect tests IS too make the metagame as balanced as possible.

I know this wasn't directed at me but I want to clarify anyway.

The work you do here is great. It's amazing how far you've gone to make the metagame as balanced as possible. All I'm saying is that we can never have a balanced metagame, or close to it. Can get closer, as I think you've proven, but never close.

My point, and I'm sure cantab's, is not directed at you, but everyone who complains about an imbalanced metagame. There is no way to balance the metagame while keeping the game itself as it is; and since that's the best option, we're in an endless pit of imbalance and there's not much point complaining.

On a side note, love your comment under your username. Amazing movie, that.

 

[cantab]

What you seem to not understand is the point of bans and suspect tests IS too make the metagame as balanced as possible.

That is true, but as I have explained before, there are factors pulling the other way. Conciseness and simplicity in our ruleset is probably a good thing. A diverse metagame is also probably a good thing - one Pokemon makes a perfectly balanced game, but not a diverse one. Banning moves on specific Pokemon (which I know is not what you are suggesting, but it has been suggested) could lead to a very balanced game, but at the cost of overcomplicated rules.

Banning Outrage+DM increases rule complexity. I don't think it has much impact on balance to be honest; since the alternative of banning the Pokemon surely tackles the balance issue.

So is not what we really hope to accomplish by banning DM+Outrage is to increase the diversity? On account of letting certain Pokemon in OU, and reducing the power and usage of certain existing OU Pokemon.
But at the same time, we reduce the diversity WITHIN those Pokemon. All these dragons currently have the option of running Outrage, Dragon Claw, or both.

A question: Do we even have an overall principle regarding rules and clauses? Something that sets down what our objectives are, that essentially says, in general terms, WHY we make the rules we do.

 

[Guesty]

I personally think that even without Outrage and Draco Meteor, dragons (except for Altaria) will still be quite effective.
Then again, I'm curious: why are they considered broken?

 

[cantab]

Because they're very high powered moves, on a type only resisted by one other type.

 

[skorpion123]

I personally think that even without Outrage and Draco Meteor, dragons (except for Altaria) will still be quite effective.
Then again, I'm curious: why are they considered broken?

They are not considered broken.

 

[Mattman324]

The pokemon by far. If it was the moves, then why do Meganium, Gyarados, Tyranitar, Feraligatr... ect. never use Outrage, and Arceus never use Draco Meteor.

 

[cantab]

Now that I think about it, Outrage at least, far from being broken, is worse than a lot of other moves. Being unable to switch until it runs its course is a pretty severe drawback. Consider that drawback compared to those of other high-powered physical moves:
(Note that when I say BETTER and WORSE, I am considering only the severity of the move's DRAWBACK. I'm ignoring typing and the move's users, just focussing on one aspect of the moves.)

Focus Punch: Only works if you're behind a Sub or the opponent doesn't attack. Not really sure if this is better or worse than Outrage's lock-in.

Head Smash: Massive recoil, but two of it's users avoid it with their ability. On those users, BETTER than Outrage.

Sky Attack: Chargup move, without even semi-invulnerability. WORSE.

Last Resort: Can only be used last. Does anyone ever use this? WORSE.

Close Combat, Superpower: Drops defenses. BETTER.

Gunk Shot, Mega Kick, Zap Cannon: Inaccurate, the last grossly so. I'd say worse.

Megahorn, Power Whip: No drawbacks. BETTER.

Brave Bird, Double-Edge, Flare Blitz, Volt Tackle, Wood Hammer: All 1/3 recoil. BETTER.

All these moves have the same or greater power than Outrage, and most have what I consider to be less severe drawbacks than Outrage's lock-in (given that leaves you VERY exposed to revenge-killing, as well as inviting in steels). If these aren't broken, then why is Outrage? Just because of the typing? I don't think that's enough.

 

[Pheano]

there are other pokemon that have moves as power full as them and there are other pokemon that have stats like them what makes them broken is their typing
having only 2 weaknesses a multitude of resistances, and only 1 type that has a resistance to them makes them ridiculous and on top of that most of them have a second type that will give them even more resistances and they have amazing abilities like levitate and intimidate

 

[YTP]

I voted the Dragon. Bidoof can have Draco Meteor and Outrage and still be a very weak pokemon. It has to have the stats like Latias, Salamence and Kingdra ect do.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

(I'm ignoring typing and the move's users, just focussing on one aspect of the moves.)

If these aren't broken, then why is Outrage? Just because of the typing? I don't think that's enough.

What's next, will you compare Outrage with Mega Kick? :/ Really, you try to compare all these moves and "just" forget the main aspect of them!

I voted the Dragon. Bidoof can have Draco Meteor and Outrage and still be a very weak pokemon. It has to have the stats like Latias, Salamence and Kingdra ect do.

Have you ever looked into Entei's stats?

 

[cantab]

What's next, will you compare Outrage with Mega Kick? :/ Really, you try to compare all these moves and "just" forget the main aspect of them!

I did include Mega Kick.

Sure, typing's important. But is the dragon type really worth enough to offset the lock-in effect of Outrage, and make it broken when all those other moves are not? I'm sceptical. After all, if a resist switches in on any of the other moves, you just took an attack that didn't do much damage. Unless choiced, you can make your next attack one that won't be resisted by what you're facing. Unless facing a trapper, you can switch out. With Outrage you can do neither.

 

[MrBlack]

I did include Mega Kick.

Sure, typing's important. But is the dragon type really worth enough to offset the lock-in effect of Outrage, and make it broken when all those other moves are not? I'm sceptical. After all, if a resist switches in on any of the other moves, you just took an attack that didn't do much damage. Unless choiced, you can make your next attack one that won't be resisted by what you're facing. Unless facing a trapper, you can switch out. With Outrage you can do neither.

The typing AND the users. You ignored both in your post, as stated at the beginning. Plus you seemed to ignore that Outrage has 100% accuracy, so you can rely on it to hit.

Megahorn and Power Whip don't, and only one Pokemon gets STAB on Megahorn while Power Whip has a bad attacking type.

Close Combat and Superpower are blocked by Ghosts and resisted by Psychic & Flying. Rotom, Latias, Salamence, Zapdos... yeah, I'd say typing definitely pushes Outrage above those moves.

With Head Smash, the key thing you said was "on those users". Yeah, Aggron and Relicanth. If Head Smash without recoil was on something like Tyranitar, then yeah, maybe we'd complain about it too.

 

[Hegna]

I would have to say the users are more broken, if they're even broken.

Other types have moves with the same power, and we don't deem them broken.

Thus, it has to be the Pokemon, their stats, and the fact that they have STAB on a move with only 1 resist.

 

[cantab]

The typing AND the users. ...

With Head Smash, the key thing you said was "on those users". Yeah, Aggron and Relicanth. If Head Smash without recoil was on something like Tyranitar, then yeah, maybe we'd complain about it too.

Indeed. Therefore, as you probably know has been my opinion for a while now, it is the dragon Pokemon that are broken, not their moves in and of themselves.

Draco Meteor, OTOH, I'm not so sure about. 140 Base Power is nuts. Even if you use it twice, the second attack's a (just) respectable 70 BP, or you can switch to an undiminished physical move.
There are of course several moves like Draco Meteor, and Eruption and Water Spout are more powerful in the right circumstances. So in this case, the typing certainly elevates DM above the others.
Also, it seems Draco Meteor specifically is a lot of the reason Salamence is such a big threat. The elevated move power offsets his slightly weaker special attack stat, meaning he truly can hit equally hard on both sides (there's about a 1% difference between a max attack Outrage and a max SpA DM). If Salamence had to run Dragon Pulse over Draco Meteor, the Mixmence sets would have a lot more safer switch-ins. Of course they might have to fear Specsmence, but that's rare anyway.

So I'm thinking
Outrage - definitely not broken.
Draco Meteor - MAYBE broken.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Draco Meteor, OTOH, I'm not so sure about. 140 Base Power is nuts. Even if you use it twice, the second attack's a (just) respectable 70 BP, or you can switch to an undiminished physical move.

Technically, the first is 210 BP and the second one, 105, as only Dragon pokémon learn it (and Jirachi and Arceus) >_>

(...)
So I'm thinking
Outrage - definitely not broken.
Draco Meteor - MAYBE broken.

Yes, you do have a point. While Outrage is more used in mid-endgame (when the Steels are dead/too weak), you can just spam Draco Meteor in the beginning and weaken anything that switches in (except you're Blissey). It's even more effective when you're not special-based like Mixmence, so you may not switch-out after using it. And as you said, even a -2 Draco Meteor may hurt, as with STAB, it's still a 100+ BP move...

That's why Game Freak never hear the fanbase's suggestions. They hear us once and we fuck up the metagame. Oh wow.

I did include Mega Kick.

Oh lol. I completely overlooked it.

Sure, typing's important. But is the dragon type really worth enough to offset the lock-in effect of Outrage, and make it broken when all those other moves are not? I'm sceptical. After all, if a resist switches in on any of the other moves, you just took an attack that didn't do much damage. Unless choiced, you can make your next attack one that won't be resisted by what you're facing. Unless facing a trapper, you can switch out. With Outrage you can do neither.

The main problem of Outrage is exactly the typing. How do you stop something with such high Base Power and with only one resistance? And it doesn't help when the only resisting type is weak to shit like Fire Blast and Earthquake, which every dragon except for the Latis learn by TM. If Fight-type resisted it instead, or if any other type resisted Dragon too, then thankfully this thread wouldn't even exist, but Game Freak just had to give the resistance to one type with such common weaknesses...

 

[Objection]

The main problem of Outrage is exactly the typing. How do you stop something with such high Base Power and with only one resistance? And it doesn't help when the only resisting type is weak to shit like Fire Blast and Earthquake, which every dragon except for the Latis learn by TM. If Fight-type resisted it instead, or if any other type resisted Dragon too, then thankfully this thread wouldn't even exist, but Game Freak just had to give the resistance to one type with such common weaknesses...

I'm assuming you mean all three of steel's weaknesses, and I would actually like to suggest a reason for these weaknesses being common. Steel has so many resistances, including the unshared dragon resist, making it arguably the best defensive typing. Therefore, it is to be expected that steel-types will be used frequently in OU, and that's without considering the offensive powers of the likes of Metagross and Scizor. People will want to get past such common steel-types any way they can, and the best way seems to be by hitting them super effectively.