Actually, it can't without an Adamant nature.
252 Jolly Choice Band Dugtrio Earthquake.
248/0 Adamant Passho Berry Aggron +1 : 81.6% - 98%
252 Jolly Choice Band Dugtrio Earthquake.
248/0 Adamant Passho Berry Aggron +1 : 81.6% - 98%
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np: UU - Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head
- Thread starter JabbaTheGriffin
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PBF is epic win. Also, I still think we're being just a little too hasty on Heracross atm. The arguments in the PR thread about quick-boots come to mind.
You bet. Specially Defensive Aggron (252 HP / 252 SpD Sassy) takes around 60% from Militotic/Slowbro/Slowking surf WITHOUT the passho berry.
Honestly, it's pretty much a forgone conclusion that, if Heracross drops, it will be banned. I thought the entire point of the quick boot was to save time. You're always going to have stupid people saying "adapt to the metagame hurr", which is probably the worst argument you could make in defense of a suspect. You could drop Rayquaza down into the metagame and I could probably still beat it by running teams with Scarf HP Ice Mismagius or Occa Steelix or whatever, but that doesn't mean Rayquaza isn't capable of sweeping through a significant portion of the metagame. That's why the Offensive characteristics says what it does, and not "capable of sweeping through teams full of obscure pokemon using suboptimal sets specifically designed to counter this one pokemon".
Are we even sure Hera is dropping yet? I dont think it's use % has QUITE dropped into UU. Im thinking we'll get Roserade back before Hera *shudder*
100th page ftw.
100th page ftw.
I would LOVE that. Roserade was Perfect for this metagame. It let me stay offensive while dealing with bulky Waters. Venusaur is too much of a pussy to fill this void.
And Heracross won't be theorybanned, FLUFFY BIRD. It may get a quick boot though.
I actually don't object to the quick-boot process that allows for a shorter testing period. I'm just suggesting that we do not jump the gun.
This. I never got to use her but she looked mad fun. Venusaur wouldn't like that one bit though...
And if you think that's what adapting to the metagame means in reference to most of the posts that comment is uttered in response to we might want to rescind the upper reqs for allowing people so theory-inept to vote.
I'm not so sure about that - I would have been really, really surprised if Roserade had survived more than another period in UU if it hadn't been bumped up because of usage. It was somewhat overshadowed in its last days in UU by Yanmega, who had that ridiculous 10-0 BL vote, and was definitely perceived as the next biggest offensive threat. I think it'd have been in some serious trouble afterward with the spotlight firmly on it.
Slightly different game now, though, so maybe it'd fit in - I don't think it'd be very likely to stay long if it dropped down even now, though.
The upper reqs are there because players who have reached a certain point on the ladder are aware of the capabilities of the suspects in the ladder and can accurately judge whether or not said suspects are BL. If you're going to advocate rescinding them because you value the ability to theorywank over actual playing experience then that is of course between you, the policymakers, and those in the community that give a shit about this sort of thing.
That said, the point of my post was that the "adapting to the metagame" argument could be applied to literally any suspect that we can think, primarily because competitive Pokemon is so complicated that it's possible to theorymon any check for any Pokemon in any tier. In practice, however, people who are taking multiple precautions against being swept by a Heracross will quickly find that they are inadequately prepared for other threats, or that Heracross will be paired with Pokemon which make the jobs of its "counters" much more difficult. Understand that the suspects don't exist in a vacuum, and that the more ridiculous the centralization "adapting to the metagame" requires, the more likely it is that a suspect is broken.
That said, the point of my post was that the "adapting to the metagame" argument could be applied to literally any suspect that we can think, primarily because competitive Pokemon is so complicated that it's possible to theorymon any check for any Pokemon in any tier. In practice, however, people who are taking multiple precautions against being swept by a Heracross will quickly find that they are inadequately prepared for other threats, or that Heracross will be paired with Pokemon which make the jobs of its "counters" much more difficult. Understand that the suspects don't exist in a vacuum, and that the more ridiculous the centralization "adapting to the metagame" requires, the more likely it is that a suspect is broken.
So franky showed me this set while we were testing shit, and i really have to say that it is not only one of the most fun pokemon to use in this metagame, but it's really deadly. I'd say that the only things that stop it are a) sleep b) fast shit revenge killing it and c) registeel. a and b apply to all sweepers anyway, so i mean it's mainly registeel. Here's the set
EXEGGUTOR @ Life Orb
252 Spa / 220 Spe / 36 Hp
Modest / Chlorophyll
- Leaf Storm
- Psychic
- Sleep Powder
- Synthesis
It looks a lot like lo roserade, and that's how it functions, but with less speed and more physical bulk, plus an arguably better secondary STAB. 383 special attack is amazing, especially with awesome coverage and power moves and a life orb. It loves coming in on torterra, dugtrio, donphan, IB-less milotic, blastoise, etc. It actually beats chansey through psychic -> sleep -> psychic -> leaf storm. Leaf storm deals 60% to max/max careful umbreon and 40% to max/max calm chansey. When you get it in, just spam psychic to nail those moltres / venusaur for a solid ohko to the face. the speed evs beat out defensive venusaur and milotic, and that's all you're going to be outrunning. It's roserade + torterra in one package pretty much; roserade's power and coverage, torterra's great bulk. I'll put up exact calcs on a lot of stuff tomorrow, but i highly recommend this set. If you want a bulky grass that smashes faces in, and rips stall apart, i suggest exeggutor. Once again, franky's set, not mine.
EXEGGUTOR @ Life Orb
252 Spa / 220 Spe / 36 Hp
Modest / Chlorophyll
- Leaf Storm
- Psychic
- Sleep Powder
- Synthesis
It looks a lot like lo roserade, and that's how it functions, but with less speed and more physical bulk, plus an arguably better secondary STAB. 383 special attack is amazing, especially with awesome coverage and power moves and a life orb. It loves coming in on torterra, dugtrio, donphan, IB-less milotic, blastoise, etc. It actually beats chansey through psychic -> sleep -> psychic -> leaf storm. Leaf storm deals 60% to max/max careful umbreon and 40% to max/max calm chansey. When you get it in, just spam psychic to nail those moltres / venusaur for a solid ohko to the face. the speed evs beat out defensive venusaur and milotic, and that's all you're going to be outrunning. It's roserade + torterra in one package pretty much; roserade's power and coverage, torterra's great bulk. I'll put up exact calcs on a lot of stuff tomorrow, but i highly recommend this set. If you want a bulky grass that smashes faces in, and rips stall apart, i suggest exeggutor. Once again, franky's set, not mine.
Speed speed speed. I remember Speed really let me down when I tested this set. I mean, when I was looking for a good Roserade replacement, I tried Exeggutor before Venusaur, but without Natural Cure and good SpD it isn't really a great switch in for Pokemon like Milotic and even Slowbro.
Obviously it's fun and actually quite good, but it isn't Rosreade. It isn't Torterra. It isn't Roserade + Torterra.
Could be a great Donphan counter though!
And not adapting to a threat means you're being lazy and shouldn't be voting. The problem is how far do you have to go to adapt to the threat and how easily the threat is able to overcome the checks/adaptions. So while a Rayquaza-filled UU is theoretically possible with stupid stuff like Scarf HP Ice Missy coming in to revenge it, but Ray can easily run Yache Berry to overcome the check and continue sweeping (Like he really needs LO to sweep UU anyway). Adapting to a threat is not a crappy argument at all, because if that didn't happen, you'd be assured that any half-decent Pokemon would be banned because they are all capable of sweeping, walling or supporting a metagame in some way. While yes, some people may use "Adapting to a threat" in a bad context, like the HP Flying argument on Heracross (I mean, how hard would it be to just run Coba Berry on Cross and watch your Rotom or something get assraped the next turn, SD Cross certainly won't need any additional power of LO anyway), it is still an important argument to make. In short, it is how easily a check can run through a team (Offensive) even with its checks. Although, I won't support an auto-ban on Heracross if it does come down, it should treated with the same justice that all the other Suspects had (Cresselia was probably even more broken than Hera, and she still got the full testing period), because you never know, somehow Heracross may just fit into the metagame (Although I doubt it).
I didn't say anything about Heracross, who I'm confident will be horribly broken if we ever have to bother with the formality of testing it.
What I was commenting on was you(and more importantly players in general, I guess) dismissing that "adapt to the metagame" argument. Whenever a new Pokemon is added to the metagame, or when a new threat rises in popularity, you should need to adapt to the metagame. This is obvious - teams fit better or worse into different eras of the metagame even when few bans are occuring because of trends in uses, so it is foolish to expect a team to work well in any iteration of "UU". The problem arises when suspects - Dugtrio and rain are probably the two best examples - are considered suspects mostly because people are too lazy or too unwilling to adapt even though there are reasonable adaptations available. That is "not adapting to the metagame" - people trying to change the metagame to adapt to their playstyle so they don't have to change themselves. When a suspect is overcentralizing a metagame it is because it causing people to do what you mentioned in your post - resorting to niche and unreasonable counters. There's a fairly large difference, and it's worrying you can't seem to find it, since this is hardly an isolated incident.
Additionally, don't fool yourself - the upper reqs were made because UU voter turnout is startlingly low and we hoped the lowered writing requirements would offer enough of a benefit by drawing out more of the intelligent, thoughtful users who were skilled and understood the implications their votes would have on the metagame who weren't voting that it would outweigh the cost of giving gratuitous votes to a few clueless ladderwhores.
"What I was commenting on was you(and more importantly players in general, I guess) dismissing that "adapt to the metagame" argument."
If you wanted to make that point, throwing it in after posts about how "adapting to the metagame" involves HP Flying Rotom was not the best idea. It gave me the impression that you were legitimately considering that a healthy metagame shift, for instance.
My whole point was that such is clearly an example of overcentralization, which you apparently agree with later on in your post, so I really have no idea where your implication that I don't know the difference between overcentralization and "reasonable" centralization comes from.
"Whenever a new Pokemon is added to the metagame, or when a new threat rises in popularity, you should need to adapt to the metagame."
Obviously. This is why we have voting requirements in the first place, so that the people who do vote would need to have a working understanding of the suspects and how to beat them and the people who just want to get rid of them because they can't handle the suspects will never get to vote.
The underlying implication in your post, particularly in the last paragraph, seems to be that me and bluewind and ironbullet and thund and jak and whoever else all got in the top 10 of the ladder while refusing to adapt to Froslass/Raikou/[insert broken suspect]. I don't really know/care what you personally think about our skills as players, but it's a bit alarming that you don't consider the leaderboard a valid metric of metagame knowledge when that's what the entire suspect testing process is based around. Might not be such a great idea to differentiate the so-called "intelligent" users from the "ladderwhores" then, because ultimately both are given the same privileges, which suggests to me that either there's a fundamental flaw in the system or that the two groups are the same.
Edit: Missed your post, Shrang, but there's not much I can respond to. I'll just say that I hope you recognize the difference between running HP Grass on Moltres to deal with bulky waters versus running Aerial Ace on Scarf Pinsir for Heracross.
If you wanted to make that point, throwing it in after posts about how "adapting to the metagame" involves HP Flying Rotom was not the best idea. It gave me the impression that you were legitimately considering that a healthy metagame shift, for instance.
My whole point was that such is clearly an example of overcentralization, which you apparently agree with later on in your post, so I really have no idea where your implication that I don't know the difference between overcentralization and "reasonable" centralization comes from.
"Whenever a new Pokemon is added to the metagame, or when a new threat rises in popularity, you should need to adapt to the metagame."
Obviously. This is why we have voting requirements in the first place, so that the people who do vote would need to have a working understanding of the suspects and how to beat them and the people who just want to get rid of them because they can't handle the suspects will never get to vote.
The underlying implication in your post, particularly in the last paragraph, seems to be that me and bluewind and ironbullet and thund and jak and whoever else all got in the top 10 of the ladder while refusing to adapt to Froslass/Raikou/[insert broken suspect]. I don't really know/care what you personally think about our skills as players, but it's a bit alarming that you don't consider the leaderboard a valid metric of metagame knowledge when that's what the entire suspect testing process is based around. Might not be such a great idea to differentiate the so-called "intelligent" users from the "ladderwhores" then, because ultimately both are given the same privileges, which suggests to me that either there's a fundamental flaw in the system or that the two groups are the same.
Edit: Missed your post, Shrang, but there's not much I can respond to. I'll just say that I hope you recognize the difference between running HP Grass on Moltres to deal with bulky waters versus running Aerial Ace on Scarf Pinsir for Heracross.
I don't think there's anyone anywhere who thinks the leaderboard is a valid metric of much of anything in any metagame other than the players who have a fascination with trying to climb it. This is also why rating is not a particularly relevant part of the OU suspect process(which obviously has its own issues). That said, you're bringing in details with specific suspects and users where I'm mostly just speaking in generalities. There's more than just the top 10 and the people who post in this thread(many of which thankfully are no where near the upper reqs) that the upper reqs extend to, too - and I'm sure people like Thund will be fine voters.
A defensive Pokemon will rarely if ever be more broken than an offensive Pokemon (hint: look at the Ubers). The defensive Pokemon are almost always easy to set up on and get around - Cresselia was really no exception.
Heracross on the other hand would destroy the tier. You can't set up on it like you can against Cresselia. You can't "counter" it, unlike Cresselia who has many threatening counters. You simply cannot compare the two; one is dangerous and one is "too hard to kill".
The adapting to Heracross would be using god damn max SpA HP Flying Rotom. Adapting to Mismagius = not doing much...
In PR I think we (I guess we being me and Erazor lol) agreed on the fact that we need to have a process for quick-booting and not even consider theorybanning. Theorybanning based on precedent, even though it seems semi-logical, is still quite flawed when you dialectically compare two Pokemon (i.e. Gallade and Heracross seem similar but when you sit down to compare the two they are quite obviously different in many ways).
Before I get off topic, I do think Heracross will be broken but the point of this was to just say that "testing isn't just a formality".
Synre said:
While I agree that "adapting to a metagame" can be a valid argument, FlareBlitz is 100% correct when looking at the arguments for it in this thread about Raikou in particular. People will go on forever about how an obscure set of a non-existent Pokemon walls a variant of Raikou, but it doesn't matter if you're using a bad Pokemon; it will be destroyed by something else. A similar thing happened with Crobat. People were getting up on their high-horses and saying "noobs adapt like us better players and use Ampharos, and 3 Rock-types with Earthquake. Also use Zap Cannon on Registeel like Heysup."
Synre said:
Too be honest I think the upper req's are just going to get people who are too lazy to write paragraphs. Not much of a difference, but less paragraphs.
Again, not trying to turn this into an argument about how adapting to the metagame applied to a specific suspect(and if I wanted to I would do it about the two examples I mentioned with rain and Dugtrio). It was specifically in reference to
FlareBlitz said:
Though obviously we have differing views on Raikou's impact in the metagame right now. Either way, we're way past the point of an argument on centralization on him - it's more about power relative to checks at this point.
Actually, we don't try and distinguish them. Ladderwhores are required to show their intelligence via paragraphs.
The upper reqs were only added as a practical compromise to increase voter pool. Note that they still require a submission, just a less demanding one.
Glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way lol.
Let's let Mence in UU for a day, guys! It'll be fun. ;)
@ Bluewind: Gallade being banned isn't the do all end all. You are talking about Gallade like it was some ridiculously broken beast like Cresselia or Staraptor. Just because it was voted BL dosent mean that people weren't against doing so.
Looks like I missed another debate. :\
If we can adapt to the metagame by running max SpA HP Flying Rotoms and a bunch of other Flying/Fire pokemon, than why can't we apply this logic to some other suspects? Simply run Shed Shell on your Registeel to switch out of Dugtrio, run a fast taunter like Electrode to stop rain from setting up [and OHKO some common leads like Omastar (HP Grass) and Qwilfish (Thunderbolt)], or if you really want to you could make sure to keep up the rocks and give everyone Stone Edge or HP Rock to deter Crobat, Yanmega, or Moltres. Adapting to a metagame doesn't mean running insane counters just so an overpowered Pokemon (that is probably vital to your team) doesn't sweep everything and destory an entire playstyle (sure, I don't really like the playstyle that would be destroyed, but still).
If we're willing to all run crazy niche counters like HP Flying Rotom, I can't see why running Shed Shell or packing a fast taunter lead is so terrible. Even running a few extra rock types is pretty much same as runnign a few extra flying/fire types.
Sure, Hera would be a fun, new megasweeper for a while, but I could see the metagame getting pretty centralized and boring after a few weeks of dealing with so may Heracrosses.
If we can adapt to the metagame by running max SpA HP Flying Rotoms and a bunch of other Flying/Fire pokemon, than why can't we apply this logic to some other suspects? Simply run Shed Shell on your Registeel to switch out of Dugtrio, run a fast taunter like Electrode to stop rain from setting up [and OHKO some common leads like Omastar (HP Grass) and Qwilfish (Thunderbolt)], or if you really want to you could make sure to keep up the rocks and give everyone Stone Edge or HP Rock to deter Crobat, Yanmega, or Moltres. Adapting to a metagame doesn't mean running insane counters just so an overpowered Pokemon (that is probably vital to your team) doesn't sweep everything and destory an entire playstyle (sure, I don't really like the playstyle that would be destroyed, but still).
If we're willing to all run crazy niche counters like HP Flying Rotom, I can't see why running Shed Shell or packing a fast taunter lead is so terrible. Even running a few extra rock types is pretty much same as runnign a few extra flying/fire types.
Sure, Hera would be a fun, new megasweeper for a while, but I could see the metagame getting pretty centralized and boring after a few weeks of dealing with so may Heracrosses.
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