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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 2 - Who am I to break tradition?
- Thread starter Philip7086
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An intense confusion between something being broken and something being unhealthy for the meta-game has occurred for many pages now, and it's getting tiresome to wade through.
If something is broken, it is unhealthy for the meta-game, and should be banned. Something is broken by being too powerful for the standard meta-game. If no otherwise viable counter exists for a suspect, than it is almost certainly broken. In fact, I have yet to see a single Pokemon that had an uncounterable set not get voted Uber. However, this is not to say that if a Pokemon does have a counter that it isn't broken. those who think that way need to learn a bit more about a thing called logic.
At the same time, something can be unhealthy for the meta-game meriting a ban, without necessarily being broken. Again, this does not mean that the argument for having no counters is invalidated. The two arguments are almost entirely separate.
If it helps, think back to 6th grade when you learned the magic phrase, "All Squares are Rectangles, but not all Rectangles are Squares." Now apply it like this, "All broken Pokemon are unhealthy for the meta-game, but not all Pokemon that are unhealthy for the meta-game are broken." Even further now, "All Pokemon without counters are broken, but not all broken Pokemon have no counters."
Isn't this fun? I found it enjoyable myself.
If something is broken, it is unhealthy for the meta-game, and should be banned. Something is broken by being too powerful for the standard meta-game. If no otherwise viable counter exists for a suspect, than it is almost certainly broken. In fact, I have yet to see a single Pokemon that had an uncounterable set not get voted Uber. However, this is not to say that if a Pokemon does have a counter that it isn't broken. those who think that way need to learn a bit more about a thing called logic.
At the same time, something can be unhealthy for the meta-game meriting a ban, without necessarily being broken. Again, this does not mean that the argument for having no counters is invalidated. The two arguments are almost entirely separate.
If it helps, think back to 6th grade when you learned the magic phrase, "All Squares are Rectangles, but not all Rectangles are Squares." Now apply it like this, "All broken Pokemon are unhealthy for the meta-game, but not all Pokemon that are unhealthy for the meta-game are broken." Even further now, "All Pokemon without counters are broken, but not all broken Pokemon have no counters."
Isn't this fun? I found it enjoyable myself.
That's not quite true. There are plenty of pokemon that, when they come in, have no safe switch-ins. Take Salamence. If I have my Salamence in, nothing you have can switch in because the right move will kill it. A counter has to be able to safely switch in on any of a sweeper's common moves. Between Outrage, Fire Blast, Brick Break, Draco Meteor, etc. nothing can come in on Salamence risk-free. The only way to come in is on a predicted move, which means it has no counters.
And yet, Salamence is not broken.
btw, if u want to argue be aware that u prolly wont get a response till tomorrow night >.<
You know what's really funny about that? This whole "no counters" argument came up last gen as well, about that very Pokemon. That was a gen that was defined by banning what was broken. And in hindsight, I guess you're right, he really wasn't that broken, since he eventually wasn't voted Uber because of his uncounterable se-
Oh... wait. :[
I just realized that you're right. For some reason, I thought that Gen4=/=Gen5 but I guess I was wro-
Oh... wait. :[
Because we all know that being Uber in Gen4 has relevance to our tiering now. /sarcasm
I could've sworn we had the same talk, well, similar talk about no counters /=/ broken in Gen 4. Of course, I think that was including all common sets but I could be wrong...
Of course this is 5th gen which means standards for banning goes up obviously, whether that makes uncounterability to that degree = broken is upto the voters.
Of course this is 5th gen which means standards for banning goes up obviously, whether that makes uncounterability to that degree = broken is upto the voters.
Oh, so you were basing your argument on Salamence's brokenness in this meta-game? After 2 rounds of testing we know everything there is to know about it?
Good one.
Personally, when talking about an ideology that has spanned generations, and trying to refute an argument about what we've done historically, I like to think about those other generations, rather than just focusing on the one that is entirely unstable and unfinished. Perhaps that's just me being eccentric though.
Doesn't legitimate countering put a lot of strain on a team though? Because let's face it, the number of large threats has kinda taken off into space. "It's literally impossible to counter everything now. It was shaky at best in 4th Gen." You could have a few big threats covered, and all of the sudden, a random sweeper tears through team like butter. You could try to patch up that hole, but then Sweeper Number 2 gives you trouble.
I'd say trying to build a team that can keep a wide variety of things at bay and beat the opponent at the same time rather than building a team that can counter a handful of threats quite easily, but might be slow against knocking out six pokes, sounds more efficient.
I'd say trying to build a team that can keep a wide variety of things at bay and beat the opponent at the same time rather than building a team that can counter a handful of threats quite easily, but might be slow against knocking out six pokes, sounds more efficient.
Of course you can't counter everything, but the inability to do so to a given Pokemon is an astoundingly large testament to their brokenness. If there is a Pokemon that exists that gives your team trouble, and you can't ever stop it dead in it's tracks, then you have a problem. It's like saying, "Well since trains are getting so fast, we should just forgo brakes, because it's harder to stop them the faster they get."
Counters are always going to be important because at its core, all it really means is something that can switch in and beat the other Pokemon. Everything else is just a playerbase-adopted mindset that dictates what condition has to be met for something else to be considered a counter.
For me? Most of the time is good enough. If I can switch Tyranitar into Victini on most of its moves and KO it with a Scarf set before it moves, I'm going to call that a counter. Maybe it'll stop being a good counter or any sort of counter at all if a Substitute set utilizing Focus Blast becomes popular, but right now, I can safely say Tyranitar is a decent Victini counter and only really has to watch out for a predicted Focus Blast or U-turn.
Does Salamence have counters? Yes. He has Porygon-2 now, and good ol' Cresselia. If I needed to beat him 100% of the time, I can put those Pokemon on my team to beat him. Other than that, there are just more powerful threats on the radar to worry about. Salamence being broken is not an important question right now, and I'm not interested in answering it until the metagame develops to the point that he's one of the biggest problems there is.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that having counters is less relevant because it's still a huge determining factor in whether or not we're really going to call something broken. The fact that we're discussing it now and at such length proves that it's still on the mind of many players and should still be taken into great consideration.
But now, it's important that we all realize that having counters isn't the only thing we should be looking at in determining what's healthy for the metagame. Even if Rankurusu is pretty hard to take down, but counters some key threats, and gives bulky offensive teams a way to combat both stall and weather offense, I'm more inclined to say it's good for the metagame and should stay in OU. If we looked at more things this way, I'm sure we wouldn't have to ban as much and would probably get to a reasonably balanced metagame much more quickly than we expect.
For me? Most of the time is good enough. If I can switch Tyranitar into Victini on most of its moves and KO it with a Scarf set before it moves, I'm going to call that a counter. Maybe it'll stop being a good counter or any sort of counter at all if a Substitute set utilizing Focus Blast becomes popular, but right now, I can safely say Tyranitar is a decent Victini counter and only really has to watch out for a predicted Focus Blast or U-turn.
Does Salamence have counters? Yes. He has Porygon-2 now, and good ol' Cresselia. If I needed to beat him 100% of the time, I can put those Pokemon on my team to beat him. Other than that, there are just more powerful threats on the radar to worry about. Salamence being broken is not an important question right now, and I'm not interested in answering it until the metagame develops to the point that he's one of the biggest problems there is.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that having counters is less relevant because it's still a huge determining factor in whether or not we're really going to call something broken. The fact that we're discussing it now and at such length proves that it's still on the mind of many players and should still be taken into great consideration.
But now, it's important that we all realize that having counters isn't the only thing we should be looking at in determining what's healthy for the metagame. Even if Rankurusu is pretty hard to take down, but counters some key threats, and gives bulky offensive teams a way to combat both stall and weather offense, I'm more inclined to say it's good for the metagame and should stay in OU. If we looked at more things this way, I'm sure we wouldn't have to ban as much and would probably get to a reasonably balanced metagame much more quickly than we expect.
Okay, if I understand the terms correctly, something is broken if it is "unhealthy for the metagame", but how do we determine if this is the case??
Following this logic, may I suggest testing shadow tag shanderaa?? I can't fathom how something that can switch into (and trap) any pokemon that it wants is "healthy for the metagame". I know it hasn't been released yet, but I say we test him sooner rather than later to save time.
Following this logic, may I suggest testing shadow tag shanderaa?? I can't fathom how something that can switch into (and trap) any pokemon that it wants is "healthy for the metagame". I know it hasn't been released yet, but I say we test him sooner rather than later to save time.
Use your best judgment. If you're certain the metagame will be better off without it and can provide proper reasoning, you have a legitimate case. "Broken" is just an all-encompassing term for Pokemon that have little to no counters and damage the metagame by being so difficult to beat consistently.
We don't have a Shadow Tag Shandera metagame yet and it's not an obvious enough candidate for Ubers to preemptively ban. The ship has sailed for that a long time ago, and now it's time to just accept whatever Gamefreak gives us at face value and decide what to do with it later.
We don't have a Shadow Tag Shandera metagame yet and it's not an obvious enough candidate for Ubers to preemptively ban. The ship has sailed for that a long time ago, and now it's time to just accept whatever Gamefreak gives us at face value and decide what to do with it later.
I really want to say "Anything that easily puts you in a situation where you are simply helpless and cannot respond to said problem." Looking at the bans in R1, Skymin, Darkrai, and Inconsistent would adhere to this definition. Skymin's 60% flinch chance and ridiculous base speed made it difficult to even touch the jerk (and god if you were against the SubSeeder...). Darkrai had the most dangerous sleep, and with the bs new sleep mechanic, you'd have to stay in to shake it off while it NPs up. And if you weren't lucky against Inconsistent, you were pretty much boned.
Fair enough. Then let's start focusing on other threats. Landlos has been discussed in this thread numerous times before. Is he being tested yet, or are we still debating whether or not we should even test him?? Just as a reference, how many pokemon in OU are actually able to outspeed (or at least tie with him)??
Landlos would have been tested, and possibly even banned, but a PO glitch gave sand power a 1.5X boost instead of a 1.3X boost. It was decided that landlos should go back for another round because no one would have a fair opinion on the brokenness of the unglitched landlos.
Jabba you had to read and quote my whole message, as I believe you forgot the most important part of it:
Now, maybe, we should first define what is an hard counter and what can counter a given threat only into some circumstances before going on in this discussion. I believe that looking for hard counters (like Vaporeon for Gyarados) for each and every threat of the current meta will lead us to ban a multitude of Pokemon that, despite not having 100% counters, can be kept in check with team synergy and smart switching.
I believe that the two users quoted below have pretty much my same view on the matter of how not having 100% counters should no longer determine
whether a Pokemon should be banned or not:
I mean, if a Pokemon has no "perfect counters" in a given metagame, then of course that Pokemon should be looked closer to see if it's effectively overpowered for that metagame. But automatically deeming a Pokemon uber just because it has no hard counters is harmful for the diversity of our metagame and is, in my opinion, against Smogon's philosophy which, you know, has no reference to "counters".
Also, if I'm talking about a shift between Gen IV and V is because with the introduction of many offensive threats, such as the Genies, Terakion, Deoxys-S, Excadrill, Reniculus ans many others, I find really hard to pack a dedicated counter for all of them on the same team.
That's why stall has changed its dynamics over the years. In gen 2 it was possible to have a near enough "perfect counter" for every common set whilst in gen 5 (or even 4) that's not possible. Modern stall revolves more around countering by smart switching rather than flat out walling A with B.
And that's not a bad thing. It makes the game less based on match ups (every one of my team can be walled by his team, gg) and more on actually playing skillfully to maximise the cchance of winning in a given match up. Sure, occasionally you'll be flat out unlucky and come up against the 3 or 4 Pokemon that you have trouble with all on the one team, but for the most part it leads to a better metagame.
I just want it to get superpower and maybe some kind of priority and then I'll use it
I haven't found time to test it out, but the power of a +2 Megahorn is pretty extreme i was very suprised when it OHKOed my Magnezone. And it does a shit load of damage against Gliscor and Nattorei wich are pretty common defensive tanks. He can be a great Stall Breaker due to sheer power and good bulk. His biggest Problems are Skarmory and Heatran due to its lackluster move pool and it also sucks that he isn't hard to revenge with everything carrying Hidden Power Fire for Nattorei.
IMO he is one of the things that just don't fit on every Team and trying to fit him in can often be a waste of a Team slot, but with proper support and good partners he can really work wonders.
I HAVE and GOSH ever since i change nattrei for shubarugo, my winning rate goes into SKY HIGH position. His bulk, beast stats, ENOUGH movepool, and baiting is really benefical to my team. So much taht i can say that hes my crimgan of round 2 suspect.
BTW i use SD, Horn, Head, Pursuit with full HP full attack LO and it really work well. Carry some nattrei handler and your ready(natts cant really beat shubar though)
Bottom line, if you havent try it yet, TRY it. Used right he wont let you down with THAT beastly stats.
BTW i use SD, Horn, Head, Pursuit with full HP full attack LO and it really work well. Carry some nattrei handler and your ready(natts cant really beat shubar though)
Bottom line, if you havent try it yet, TRY it. Used right he wont let you down with THAT beastly stats.
vaporeon is a relatively safe switch
So is Burungeru, actually...
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