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

[Mario With Lasers]

I'm assuming you mean all three of steel's weaknesses, and I would actually like to suggest a couple of reasons 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.

Furthermore, two of the types it is weak to are also the only types that hit others for super effective damage. Fighting is the only thing super effective vs. normal, and the same for ground vs. electric. Furthermore, both fighting and ground hit the most types for super effective damage, with fire only just trailing behind.

Yes, that's pretty much the reason they gave those weaknesses to the Steel type; they had to balance its defensive abilities. I still feel they didn't make it 100% right exactly because of the Dragon resist. It should have been given instead to some other typing with less resistances but also less common weaknesses, so people wouldn't always resort to Steels as their ultimate defensive typing. Giving Dragon resistance to Steels only didn't help much in stopping Dragons from dominating as they can easily use Earthquake/Fire Blast or even Magnezone to stop them. And then proceed to spam Outrage/DM and kill everything else. Even being an Altaria.

 

[Kachalski]

Also, it is worth noting that Steel type Pokemon have commonly less HP than other types (1. Is 100 with Jirachi, 2. is 84 with Empoleon, which is beaten by Yanmega)

 

[frogbandit]

I think its got to be the Pokemon. While Dragon moves are strong in their own right, what really makes the difference is the attacking stat that boosts it. Flygon, Dragonite, Kingdra, and Altaria all have access to Outrage and all but one have access to Draco Meteor IIRC. But you don't see them nearly as much as Salamence and Latias (Altaria's even been banished to UU) The only reason I can see for this is the base stats of each pokemon. Latias and Latios: 110 and 130 base SpA respectively. Combine that with the 120 BP of Draco Meteor, and you get Borderline-Uber and Uber. Flygon, Dragonite, and Kingdra too have access to Draco Meteor. But why aren't they used nearly as often as Latias/Latios? Their Special Attack stats are considerably worse: 80, 100, and 95 respectively. While thats still an above average Special Attack (my statement that Dragons are still blessed with the highest stats) it is not nearly enough to make them as menacing as the premier dragons, Latias and Salamence, of OU (and not nearly enough to make them worthy of even thoughts of suspect testing). Take another case: Salamence is the most used dragon in OU, but it carries almost the same movepool as Flygon and Dragonite: Outrage, Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, Earthquake... Then why are Flygon and Dragonite sitting in the middle of OU? If you consider their base attack stat, Salamence beats Flygon handily (135 to 100) but only beats Dragonite by one point.

Thats when you factor in the next stat: Speed. Salamence has a respectable 100 base Speed Stat. Dragonite: 80. Even with access to Dragon Dance, Dragonite is still inferior to Salamence in sweeping ability.

Another factor is attacking from both ends of the spectrum, and is one of the main reasons why Salamence is so overused today (lol) Many are only prepared for one version of Salamence, the Dragon Dance set coming off 135 base attack and STAB Outrage. However, his 110 base Special Attack is often overlooked, and is what makes its Mixed Set so powerful. Couple that with access to Draco Meteor and your only hope to take it down is to revenge it.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Take another case: Salamence is the most used dragon in OU, but it carries almost the same movepool as Flygon and Dragonite: Outrage, Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, Earthquake... Then why are Flygon and Dragonite sitting in the middle of OU?

Maybe because all three of them have Outrage and Draco Meteor, so one has to choose their dragon using other criteria (read: stats and ability)?

 

[Objection]

Maybe because all three of them have Outrage and Draco Meteor, so one has to choose their dragon using other criteria (read: stats and ability)?

Or they could go for a triple dragon sweep with all three.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Or they could go for a triple dragon sweep with all three.

Of course, but when the player prefers to/has to use only one dragon, then he's probably going with Salamence out of the three. He may go with Dragonite for the marginal bulkiness+Extremespeed, or with Flygon for U-Turn and SR resistance but these are more situational then Salamence's sheer brute force.

 

[Rikter]

I think the Dragons themselves are the problem. Although Outrage and Draco Meteor have amazing damage potential they almost always have a Stab Bonus backing them up. Even if they where removed the commonly used Dragons still have some rather good moves availible and I don't think the loss of thier old tools would hinder them much at all. I mean they may lose a few OHKO's but they could still deal large ammounts of damage and effectively cripple other Pokemon still. The only thing I see happening is that they would become easier to revenge kill.

 

[blasphemy1]

I think the Dragons themselves are the problem. Although Outrage and Draco Meteor have amazing damage potential they almost always have a Stab Bonus backing them up. Even if they where removed the commonly used Dragons still have some rather good moves availible and I don't think the loss of thier old tools would hinder them much at all. I mean they may lose a few OHKO's but they could still deal large ammounts of damage and effectively cripple other Pokemon still. The only thing I see happening is that they would become easier to revenge kill.

Salamence would be pretty easily handled by Porygon2, Hippowdon, Suicune, Swampert, etc, without the threat of Draco Meteor. CB Dragon Claw is a 3HKO(maybe even 4HKO) so it would not be able to threaten them. Hell, even Milotic could finally be usable in OU, as it would be able to invest in defense to preven a 2HKO from Dragon Claw while not being 2HKOed by Dragon Pulse. Without Draco Meteor and/or Outrage, Salamence becomes a lot less threatening.

 

[Darkartisan]

I still cannot see why everyone is raving over dragon Pokemon. We already banned the best one (Garchomp) so what's the point of banning Salamence? He sure does have broken moves, but it's so difficult for Salamence to SWITCH IN SAFELY and still be able to sweep. Salamence already takes 25% or 1/4 of its health away from Stealth Rock, a move that over 80% of teams already carry, and a move that is normally guaranteed up T1.

 

[frogbandit]

Maybe because all three of them have Outrage and Draco Meteor, so one has to choose their dragon using other criteria (read: stats and ability)?

Yeah, which reinforces my point. Its the Pokemon. Salamence has almost the same moves as Dragonite/Flygon but has much better overall stats and Intimidate.

Or they could go for a triple dragon sweep with all three.

Usually not the best idea, and like Mario said, most would go with Salamence.

EDIT: But one also has to consider that Flygon doesn't get Dragon Dance...

 

[ANinyMouse]

I have a feeling that this thread's creation had something to do with me, so I think it's only fair that I chime in now that I've broached the subject.

RBGolbat, I think your poll is slightly misleading, and this is why:

It is the Dragon-type itself that is unbalanced, not the moves or Pokemon who carry this type.

If Dragon was not a broken offensive typing, things like Salamence, Latias & Garchomp would be much more manageable. Imagine if any other typing besides Steel also resisted Dragon... even one! The ability to counter their blanket onslaughts would suddenly open up to many more Pokemon, and things with Stats like 135/110/100 could be managed much easier.

Unfortunately, however, changing the type chart is taboo. It is a fundamental aspect of the game; even moreso than the Pokemon themselves, some would say.

Now, the fact that Draco Meteor & the "new" Outrage were added to the 4th generation has obviously opened up a whole new world of potential for Pokemon who carry this admittedly broken typing. The removal of those two moves does not in fact fix the typing itself, it merely "cripples" those Pokemon. This could in fact make Salamence, Latios or Garchomp "less broken," but there's more to the story.

You see, because of the stat allocation, abilities, movepool and, most of all, type allocation of all the other Pokemon in the game (in comparason to the Dragons specifically), I postulate (and I think this is no stretch of the imagination!) that there is quite possibly a mathematical threshold for "just how acceptable" the offensive stats of a Pokemon using STAB Outrage/Draco Meteor can be. What does this mean? There is not a sufficient allocation of "attributes" on the "opposing side" of the Dragons to balance out their monopoly on raw power. Speed is also a large part of the equation! Think on Dragonite, whose 80 base speed allows his comparable power to Salamence to be much more manageable...

But once again, without adding in new pokemon or abilities, we are left with the type chart glaring us in the face. If Latios was any other type BESIDES Dragon, for instance - but alas...

And, since Outrage & Draco Meteor are not broken on Pokemon who do not exceed the "threshold of Dragon-type power," or are not fast enough to abuse this power, the moves themselves are hard to ban across the board. And here we are, in the suspect test, trying to sort out the Pokemon who are capable of abusing the Dragon-type.



The way I see it, banning Draco Meteor & Outrage is a viable option if you want to have an OU metagame that allows as many Pokemon as possible. If, instead, your goal is to play a game that is as balanced as possible while also making as few changes to the natural metagame as possible, then here we are, banning Latios, etc.

It comes down to the very philosophy of the metagame itself.

And of course, there is always CAP: for those who do not want to wait for Game Freak to wake up to the reality of the unbalanced game that they have created.


Edit: If I had to pick between Dragon-type moves or Pokemon, I would choose Moves, and this is why: It is possible to keep all the Dragon-type Pokemon and lose all the Dragon-type moves, and the metagame would still flourish. Think back to RBY, when all we had was Dragon Rage! Dragon STAB is what's broken. But as I have said, it does come down to a matter of principle.

Edit edit: Though we may ban all the Dragons to Uber, they still exist. Unless something changes in Gen V, Pokemon have never been "lost." Moves, however, have a precedent for being "lost": Fissure for Machamp (and a lot of things), Submission on Typhlosion, Thrash on Jynx... But anyway. I would have us continue in the manner we always have: banning Pokemon over moves. And like I've said a million times in this post already, whichever of the two between Pokemon & moves is more broken in this case is irrelevant, since they are not the actual root of the problem (which cannot be fixed).

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Yeah, which reinforces my point. Its the Pokemon. Salamence has almost the same moves as Dragonite/Flygon but has much better overall stats and Intimidate.

I think you didn't get what I meant. The three of them have these moves, which means STAB-wise, they are equals. Of course people planning to use only one dragon will need other criteria other than the STABs to choose their pokémon from. Flygon has SR resist and U-Turn, Dragonite has Superpower, a bit more bulk and ESpeed, Salamence has Intimidate and more Speed. People then go for Salamence.

EDIT: I pretty much agree with everything ANinyMouse said!

 

[cantab]

It is the Dragon-type itself that is unbalanced, not the moves or Pokemon who carry this type.
<snip>
Edit: If I had to pick between Dragon-type moves or Pokemon, I would choose Moves, and this is why: It is possible to keep all the Dragon-type Pokemon and lose all the Dragon-type moves, and the metagame would still flourish. Think back to RBY, when all we had was Dragon Rage! Dragon STAB is what's broken. But as I have said, it does come down to a matter of principle.

This may be correct; the dragon type is indeed somewhat off-balance.
Back in RBY though, of course the Psychic type was very-badly off-balance, and it didn't seem to adversely affect the metagame too much. Other than Mew and Mewtwo, no psychics were banned. Then again, the fact that Psychic self-resists keeps it in check. If Dragon self-resisted, then the best switch-in to a dragon would often be another dragon. Mence would be pretty well self-countered thanks to Intimidate. Instead, dragon is self-weak.
If Game Freak ever add another type, they have to make it resist dragon, and give it something bulky.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

They don't really need to add any other type; actually, I remember reading an interview (or something like that) years ago with a Game Freak employee officially saying they would not add any new types to the franchise.

If anything, they'll either a) reduce Outrage's and DM's base power, b) give another typing a Dragon resistance (Fight? Ice? Normal?), c) both of them or d) will just not care.

 

[TVboyCanti]

This argument was dragged out into eternity when it was suggested that Stealth Rock be suspect tested to see if a Stealth Rock-less metagame would have more diversity by being less prohibitive to pokemon that are weak to rock (Moltres, Yanmega etc). It was concluded however that the benefits that would be enjoyed by those UU pokemon from a lack of Stealth Rock would be equally enjoyed by the rock-weak pokemon that are OU despite Stealth Rocks presence, and therefore there would be no net-shift in the diversity of the metagame.

You are trying to do the same thing here. The only difference is that your trying to bring pokemon down from Uber instead of up from OU. You would be willing to neuter 4 OU pokemon (Kingdra, Flygon, Dragonite, and Latias) just to bring 2 Ubers down(Garchomp and Latios) and make 1 OU (Salamence) a bit more balanced. That is not a net-gain.

Dragonite may be able to maintain it's niche as a choice bander and anti-lead as Extremespeed and Superpower are the moves that truly make it viable, but losing Outrage and Draco Meteor would still be a big detriment to it's usability. But then again, looking at Dragonite's standard sets, taking away OR/DM from the other dragons might actually make some of Dragonite's sets more viable. Kingdra would go back to UU where it was before it got Outrage. Flygon would be outlcassed by Garchomp in nearly every way (speed, attack, defenses, movepool) except U-turn and Levitate, and I think most battlers would take Swords Dance over U-turn anyday. Latias would be outclassed by Latios, as it is essentially a clone with less special attack, and nobody uses Latias for stall.

A move should only be considered broken if it is broken no matter what pokemon utilizes it, i.e. OHKO moves. Just as with Stealth Rock, the problem with Dragon types lies in an unbalanced game mechanic (the type chart), not with the pokemon or the moves themselves.

 

[Veles]

I still cannot see why everyone is raving over dragon Pokemon. We already banned the best one (Garchomp) so what's the point of banning Salamence?

What? I'm not calling Salamence broken (irrelevant to this) but that's some seriously flawed logic. Why does banning Garchomp suddenly make it pointless to ban any other dragons?

If something is broken, ban it, if not, don't. A banning of another Pokémon altogether should have no impact on this, same type or not. (At least in this situation. In a situation where a banning (for example) Pokemon A was a counter to Pokemon C which dominated Pokemon B. Thus making Pokemon B no longer potentially ban-worthy. This isn't the case here though.)

 

[Mattman324]

Here are the few problems with the theory that the Moves are better:

A) Last gen, when Dragon moves were special, Salamence was everywhere, in fact it was the best lead so much so that it ACTUALLY CENTERED THE LEAD POSITION AROUND ITSELF! Gaining Outrage was good, yes, but it also didn't have it in D/P, and it was worse back then.

B) Because if a pokemon like Garchomp attempts a lategame sweep, and needs to Outrage, and I have a good steel type (Empoleon, Scarf Magnazone, ect.), then it won't sweep. Yeah, I know, it should be kept low on health, but still: Outrage's side effect effectively keeps it for sweeps after counters are weakened.

C) While yeah, Latias's SpecsDraco Meteor is hard to take, what afterwards? It's like a Specs (Fire type)'s Overheat, that effect keeps it to that one, powerful, attack. Do people complain about Light Ball Pika's Thunder/bolt/Volt tackle? No.

 

[Ulevo]

I'm posting this here as I did in the other thread regarding Salamence's specific discussion, and I believe it is quite relevant.

I'm going to post some calculations, not to make any particular point, but because everyone seems to be throwing around arguments based on assumed damage rates and it's skewing the direction of the discussion. It would be nice to be informed. I'm just doing Outrage for now, but I'll likely add Draco Meteor here as well for reference with Life Orb and Specs included.

NOTE: Please keep in mind Leftovers 6% recovery when considering differences between 2-3HKOs.

These calculations assume the following:

Salamence @ Life Orb
252 Attack EVs
Attack+ Nature
Outrage +1


Bronzong
252 HP EVs/252 Defense EVs

Defense+ Nature: 140 - 165 / 41.4% - 48.8%

Neutral Nature: 153 - 180 / 45.3% - 53.3%

Skarmory
252 HP EVs/252 Defense EVs

Defense+ Nature: 123 - 144 / 36.8% - 43.1%

Neutral Nature: 134 - 158 / 40.1% - 47.3%

252 HP EVs

Defense+ Nature: 147 - 173 / 44.0% - 51.8%

Metagross
252 HP EVs

Neutral Nature: 171 - 202 / 47.0% - 55.5%

252 HP EVs/252 Defense EVs

Defense+ Nature: 129 - 153 / 35.4% - 42.0%

Scizor
252 HP EVs

Neutral Nature: 216 - 254 / 62.8% - 73.8%

252 HP EVs/252 Defense EVs

Defense+ Nature: 155 - 183 / 45.1% - 53.2%

Jirachi
252 HP EVs/252 Defense EVs

Defense+ Nature: 155 - 183 / 38.4% - 45.3%

Magnezone
252 HP EVs/252 Defense EVs

Defense+ Nature: 141 - 166 / 41.0% - 48.3%

252 HP EVs

Neutral Nature: 191 - 225 / 55.5% - 65.4%

Forretress
252 HP EVs/252 Defense EVs

Defense+ Nature: 123 - 144 / 34.7% - 40.7%

Neutral Nature: 134 - 158 / 37.9% - 44.6%

252 HP EVs

Defense+ Nature: 147 - 173 / 41.5% - 48.9%

Heatran
252 HP EVs

Neutral Nature: 204 - 241 / 52.8% - 62.4%

If you wish to verify my numbers, refer to Metal Kid's Damage Calculator here: http://www.metalkid.info/Pokemon/Calculators/Damage.aspx

 

[TSPhoenix]

I'd have to agree that the properties of some types are pretty badly balanced. Dragon I'd say is too good offensively being resisted only by Steel and with pretty much every Dragon-type learning Fire and Ground-type moves. Its not a bad defensive typing either resisting four major types.

On the other hand you have Ice as a defensive typing. Resists only itself and has four weaknesses, three of which are pretty crippling. Yet Ice is a fantastic offensive typing.

If you look at Steel, its the best defensively, yet terrible offensively. It would seem Gamefreak tried to balance typing by making ones good on the offenses bad at defending and vice versa. Since there is no obligation for Steel-types to use Steel moves its not always that balanced, sadly for the Ice types.

Then there is Dragon which got preferential treatment in both offensive and defensive typing. Draco Meteor for example exists in other types, but Leaf Storm and Overheat are much easier to handle even from 400+ special simply because many more things resist them.

EDIT: Ulevo's post is pretty revealing. Lets say Mence lures and cripples if not kills their Steel. If they attempt to revenge kill you can run and still spam Draco Meteor a couple times (unresisted if they didn't pack a second Steel-type) before SR eats you. Now lets say you throw a Dragonite on your team. You can pretty much do it all over, except you have Extremespeed to deal with revenge killers and don't need to worry about Steels so much as Mence just crippled them.

 

[Ulevo]

EDIT: Ulevo's post is pretty revealing. Lets say Mence lures and cripples if not kills their Steel. If they attempt to revenge kill you can run and still spam Draco Meteor a couple times (unresisted if they didn't pack a second Steel-type) before SR eats you. Now lets say you throw a Dragonite on your team. You can pretty much do it all over, except you have Extremespeed to deal with revenge killers and don't need to worry about Steels so much as Mence just crippled them.

You're playing by variables. "If x Pokemon switches in I can use y move to weaken it in combination with z Pokemon and then I'll sweep". That's not a very convincing argument if your goal is to promote any Pokemon as a suspect, let alone the moves that Pokemon may use. If you're not, well... I'm not sure what point you were making that shouldn't already be blatantly obvious. That's how OU sweepers operate generally speaking.

 

[TSPhoenix]

I'm saying that Dragons got a very good deal when it came to offensive and defensive effectiveness. Neither Mence or Draggy will sweep without some help in most games, but thanks to their typing and brute power there are far less Pokemon that can get in between them and a sweep.

I don't think Mence is suspect, he tends to at best trade with my team. But this doesn't change how dangerous a LO Draco Meteor is, its just such a safe move that does huge damage to so many things. Very few Pokemon have moves as reliable and likely to score random OHKOes.

 

[cantab]

EDIT: Ulevo's post is pretty revealing. Lets say Mence lures and cripples if not kills their Steel. If they attempt to revenge kill you can run and still spam Draco Meteor a couple times (unresisted if they didn't pack a second Steel-type) before SR eats you. Now lets say you throw a Dragonite on your team. You can pretty much do it all over, except you have Extremespeed to deal with revenge killers and don't need to worry about Steels so much as Mence just crippled them.

The bolded part is a valid point, since we're talking just about Salamence. The second isn't. Running Salamence and Dragonite together has its own problems (like, having 2 team members that can't safely switch into ice attacks)

 

[Ulevo]

I'm saying that Dragons got a very good deal when it came to offensive and defensive effectiveness. Neither Mence or Draggy will sweep without some help in most games, but thanks to their typing and brute power there are far less Pokemon that can get in between them and a sweep.

I don't think Mence is suspect, he tends to at best trade with my team. But this doesn't change how dangerous a LO Draco Meteor is, its just such a safe move that does huge damage to so many things. Very few Pokemon have moves as reliable and likely to score random OHKOes.

If one does not assume Salamence a suspect, even with Draco Meteor/Outrage, then why would one advocate discussing the moves in question for the possibility of banning them? That's a waste of time, really.

I've seen quite a few "I don't think x is suspect, by y is still very powerful/dangerous/threatening/blablablah". What more do we have to gain throughout this thread if we are going on the assumption these Pokemon are not potentially suspect, with or without their respective moves, Draco Meteor and Outrage?

 

[Darth Kaiser]

I highly doubt the moves are broken for example
Draco Meteor 140 BP Decreases SP Atk
Wel have also Leaf Storm with the same effect and Overheat then why are those two other moves not broken? it's not a move only thing if moves were broken then we would ban bullet punch from scizor don't you think?
It takes stats to pull the moves Flygon is also a dragon and it also gets stab but one would rather use Draco Meteor on Mence than on Flygon why? because mence has higher and better stats, I believe the dragons are broken not the moves. But the solution is not banning all the dragons and bringing the UU dragons to OU.

 

[TSPhoenix]

I didn't think this was a suspect discussion, rather just an observation that Dragon is just a fantastic offensive typing, the typing has some awesome moves and when they are backed by STAB they are horrendously powerful.

Despite all that raw power, Mence is hard to switch in, gets eaten by residual damage and is pretty easily revenged.

The point of the thead? Maybe people enjoy discussing things like this. I know the trend is to lock any thread that doesn't have any definite purpose, but people rarely take a closer look at the properties of each typing.

The current metagame is Steel and Dragon orientated and for good reason, you have the best defensive and offensive types right there. Stuff like Lucario with average defenses can still take some heavy hits thanks to his Steel typing which is great for a setup sweeper. While unresisted coverage isn't unique to Dragon movesets, they have the advantage that 9/10 their STAB move will be the one they want to use, whereas many other Pokemon will have to use stuff like Thunderbolt to bolster their coverage.

For custom metagames like CAP that are adding and changing Pokemon, I'd be curious to see what effect altering the Dragon-type's properties would have.