np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory

[Mario With Lasers]

As far as weather goes, it seems like people are just annoyed at seeing the same thing repeatedly. I can understand that. During round 2, I once saw Shrang's team with toxicroak and virizion being used by FIVE DIFFERENT PEOPLE in the same day. And I see specially defensive mixed tyranitar in just about every match. All Gliscor run the exact same set with the exact same EVs. It gets old really fast.

Wanna know why this is happening? It's simple. People have to win to have a say on the voting. As long as we have suspect testing after suspect testing, people will take the easiest route to victory only so they can amass enough rating to vote on whatever they want to see out of the metagame. As long as we have to vote, the ladder will be filled with "the same teams over and over again".

 

[jas61292]

Overcentralization IS a word. It's technically supposed to have a hyphen after over, but who cares.

Well, then technically, "over-centralization" is a word, and it is correct to say "overcentralization" isn't. Just thought I'd clarify. But whether or not it is actually a word is completely irrelevant.

Wanna know why this is happening? It's simple. People have to win to have a say on the voting. As long as we have suspect testing after suspect testing, people will take the easiest route to victory only so they can amass enough rating to vote on whatever they want to see out of the metagame. As long as we have to vote, the ladder will be filled with "the same teams over and over again".

So are you saying we should get rid of the democratic process, or change how one qualifies for it. If its the former, then I will oppose you to no end. But if its the latter, then well, that's currently being discussed elsewhere and is not what this thread should be about.

 

[Meru]

Tangrowth is really the underrated pokemon of this round. Walling Excadrill, Gliscor, Terrakion, and Landorus is amazing. Sleep Powder is insanely powerful. Guess I'm the only one smart enough to abuse him.

 

[Acritter]

---

If what you say is true, Excadrill would have been banned long ago. However, the community learned to adapt to it. Some threats can be adapted to. Some cannot. Or rather, the process of adapting to them cripples you against other teams and makes it far more efficient to simply run the threat yourself.

Perhaps that should be the qualification of a broken sweeper: when it's easier to run it than to deal with it. Eh, just an idea.

 

[Stellar]

I've been playing a bit as finals are winding down and the only possibly broken aspect of the metagame I've encountered is Sand Veil. Even without Brightpowder I continue to repeatedly miss against Garchomp. Pokémon that should counter it 100% (aka defensive Ice Fang Gliscor) seem to lose more than they win. If I qualify, I plan to vote to ban Garchomp until Rough Skin is released; it simply introduces too much luck into the game.

 

[mien]

Tangrowth is really the underrated pokemon of this round. Walling Excadrill, Gliscor, Terrakion, and Landorus is amazing. Sleep Powder is insanely powerful. Guess I'm the only one smart enough to abuse him.

Yea i don't understand why apparently nobody uses it, i've been using it for months now and it never ceases to amaze.

I guess Tangrowth's former status of an NU pokemon is still haunting it to this day.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Wanna know why this is happening? It's simple. People have to win to have a say on the voting. As long as we have suspect testing after suspect testing, people will take the easiest route to victory only so they can amass enough rating to vote on whatever they want to see out of the metagame. As long as we have to vote, the ladder will be filled with "the same teams over and over again".

I don't think you can every have true democracy on competitive anything, becuase people are saddly influenced, and whats right really in there opinion gets overdone by what they want for themselfs. You can't really deny this either because already a few council members have said, or atleast insinuated "oh I don't like dealing with this, lets just get rid of it." I am not saying thats there fault either, people in power will and can make desicions for themselfs, and not on there true ideals. Now in real life, I am a socialist, but even I must admit there is not way to eliminate the competitveness factor in games such as this, its the nature of the game, and you just can't get rid of it.

The only way I can think of to eliminate, or atleast lessen the effects of self interest, would to have a more Republic based voting system. That way the counsil members would be voted in, and be forced, under threat of no re-election, to vote for what they believe. Of course this has its problems too, but I believe such a system would be a lot fairer then the current oligrachy system smogon has, where your influence comes from your skill and power, as opposed to what you just think.

 

[Tortferngatr]

...

Power and skill are the main ways you tell if someone is qualified to actually vote.

However, after much puzzling, the approach seems...kind of stupid. There are always politicians. There are a limited number of truly good Smogon battlers, and they replenish themselves much more slowly than politicians.

Honestly, I get the idea, but the republic idea is more prone to bandwagoning/abuse of it to get in power, then going in the exact opposite direction to maintain it.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

People pointed out the corruption in such a system, which may not be huge, but is evident.

 

[jas61292]

I don't see what the problem with the current system is. If you are good, you get a vote. Aren't those people the ones we want voting?

 

[TorchicBlaziken]

Well, I bet Slaking won't be NU this Gen thanks to Eject Button Yamask and Slaking's Pursuit. Even if that is gimmicky in Standard, it's an easy setup of a Pokémon that would be far away from NU if it weren't for its ability. You can switch in a Yamask to a contact move, and then its Eject Button will let you switch in Slaking instantly, so that Slaking can use Pursuit next turn and lose its crippling ability.

If we ever set up a NU tier, we should probably keep Slaking out.

^ BrightPowder, while it was only viable on Cacturne, was banned on a whim, since there was no downside to banning it. However, there was one downside that they forgot about: nerfing Cacturne. And Lax Incense is just terrible. You can argue all you want that nerfing Cacturne was worth it, but I still don't think it's good to be whim-banning stuff, especially not Lax Incense, which is only viable for breeding Munchlax.

The Cacturne D/P analysis should edit out Brightpowder since it's banned.

 

[Taylor]

Talk about an oversimplification of the process. There's a difference between dominating the game in the way that former suspects have and being good. I'm pretty sure the people that consistently qualify to vote are quite able to draw that line. Or at least a majority opinion is formed on a suitable line especially considering the voting pool has definitely fell on the side of cautious banning so far.

Also to jrrrr (this is from several pages ago, but it's in Haunter's sig for some reason and it's been bothering me). Overcentralization IS a word. It's technically supposed to have a hyphen after over, but who cares (unless you're insanely pedantic, but this is directed at jrrrr so who am i kidding). And it doesn't refer to a Pokemon being used a lot. It refers to how the metagame reacts to it. Heatran was used a ton but the game didn't become overcentralized because you could handle heatran the same way you handled other fire types. It was just the best fire type. Overcentralization speaks to how you handle the threat, not the rate at which it's used. It's a very legitimate reason to ban a Pokemon. Garchomp in Gen IV created overcentralization because it had a very limited set of checks and counters and to deal with it you had to have at least 2/3 of those Pokemon on your team (with garchomp/ttar on top for even more centralization in the way that you're looking at it).

totally agree with what jabba is getting at here.

to name a few, supposing we banned (lol) toed/ttar/etc. and ridiculous abilities under weather conditions, you still have pokemon like multinite, reunicles, garchomp, deo-s, lati@s and volcorona to look at individually.

you cant ban the majority of these pokemon and not others; its just not "healthy" for the tierlist.

i think we know we are set for a weather induced metagame. how we play under such circumstances though is why everyday there are lots of dedicated ladderers and competitive battlers striving to improve the game.

 

[breh]

Yea i don't understand why apparently nobody uses it, i've been using it for months now and it never ceases to amaze.

I guess Tangrowth's former status of an NU pokemon is still haunting it to this day.

I've had similar success with Shaymin, which everybody seems to ignore. Even better is that everybody is extremely stupid when it comes to understanding it runs HP fire...

On a side note,
@ TorchicBlaziken: lax incense breeds wynaut, not munchlax.

 

[Glen ^^]

I don't see what the problem with the current system is. If you are good, you get a vote. Aren't those people the ones we want voting?

I don't want somebody who only wants to have a high rating and doesn't gives a damn to whether the metagame is good/healthy or not to vote.


I'm one of the people abusing sandstream evasion right now. I'm getting much better results than using any other weather. If I ever got the chance to vote and had the urge to keep winning, hell, I would never vote Sand Veil uber, even through I know it's right now over powered.

But I have to say this: Sand Veil never bothered anyone when Swift Swim + Drizzle was OU. Now it does. See the pattern? What will be next?

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

I But I have to say this: Sand Veil never bothered anyone when Swift Swim + Drizzle was OU. Now it does. See the pattern? What will be next?

Sand veil was never a problem when sand was the only premenent weather that existed in gen 3.

 

[jas61292]

Sand veil was never a problem when sand was the only premenent weather that existed in gen 3.

Hey. HEY. Abomosnow is offended.

But in all seriousness, I don't find sand a problem. Or Rain. I just think the metagame needs to adjust to it before we start banning things that are broken because of weather.

 

[Glen ^^]

Sand Veil was constantly brought up as a reminder that your Garchomp counter may fail.

 

[MSB]

Just gonna say that Gen 3 didn't have Garchomp, who's just a little bit better than Sandslash or whoever ran sand veil then. And Garchomp got taken out of 4 early, so yeah. Right now sand veil is a problem, because of Garchomp and only Garchomp.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

Yea i don't understand why apparently nobody uses it, i've been using it for months now and it never ceases to amaze.

I guess Tangrowth's former status of an NU pokemon is still haunting it to this day.

Well, Tangrowth was actually OU at one point in Gen IV too. Infact, it was the only Pokemon that managed to be in all three of OU, UU and NU at one point. Porygon 2 almost managed it too. It was in NU and UU, but kept narrowly missing out on getting into OU.

Hey. HEY. Abomosnow is offended.

But in all seriousness, I don't find sand a problem. Or Rain. I just think the metagame needs to adjust to it before we start banning things that are broken because of weather.

Abomasnow (and Snover) weren't in Gen III.

 

[Taylor]

gen 3 had swampert, which to be fair kept dragon dance and 600bst pokes from turning advance into a very offensive metagame.

heatran was introduced in gen 4 and unfortunately while it did take years to develop, everything did seem fine after mence was banned. what we know as "cores" today would gel teams together for competitive play.

gen 5 is what we were all afraid of five years ago...

 

[666lumberjack]

Wasn't Sand Veil an element in Garchomp's banning last gen? Obviously, it wasn't the only thing that made it broken, but it does allow mr. shark to muscle his way through almost any check with a little prediction.
Also I'm sore because I missed a Garchomp three times in one match and lost to it, all using moves with 95% accuracy or more (Tyranitar Ice Beam, Gliscor Ice Fang, Excadrill Earthquake) so ignopre my minirant or something.
Just to play devils advocate, didn't someone mention a few posts ago that overcentralization is when the best way to deal with something is to use it yourself? Because the best way to deal with weather hands down is to use weather yourself. Perhaps it doesn't apply in the same regard because we're talking about five pokemon rather than one, but that's still one tenth the size OU was last gen.
Again, I'm not sure that weather deserves to be banned, but I've gotten relatively high with both sand and non-weather (the sand team is still climbing, the nonweather peaked #200) and Sand gives you a huge advantage from the get-go. I'm not saying you casn't lose to other weather but running it yourself gives you a HUGE advantage. Some people are downplaying it and suggesting that having no weather is only slightly worse than having it, but it's massive. Running no weather really means you want either Heavy Stall or a really fast scarfer (like base 102+) and priority. (And yes, you do want both, because Priority isn't enough versus bulkier stuff like Venasaur so you have to sac your prioritier and then hit them with a scarf for the 2hko. I guess it may also work the other way round, but I think saur survives Scarf Jolly Terrakion Stone Edge and Energy Ball is obvious own. Anywaym no going for or against any bans, just mentioning shit.

 

[undisputed]

Hi my name is undisputed and I don't really like no-skill strategies. see: gorebyss baton pass teams

They honestly take so little skill to win, and are so high risk + high reward, that i rarely see any good players use them. In gen 4, screens + gliscor pass was sketchy at best, but it wasnt a terrible way for a bad player to have a remote chance at beating a good player. They couldn't out play the better player, and rarely does a team prepare for baton pass, so it was a good way for some lame wins.

The above example has gotten worse in Gen 5. They are ten-fold more reliable to set up, but they can lose to random things too which make them unreliable to execute (i hate knowing my team archetype flat out loses to threats x,y,z.). I think that's the reason not a lot of good players use them. before you jump down my throat with bull shit like "beatable = NOT BROKEN", youre wrong. i can beat the pass to chomp with a skarmory or a lot of priority, but i basically have to sacrifice something to even have a shot to have a shot to beat the rest of the team. i dont want to worry about that when gen 5 has a million threats anyway.

can we ban shell smash since its the engine that makes the baton pass teams such a cheap tactic?

discuss

 

[Thorhammer]

I'm one of the people abusing sandstream evasion right now. I'm getting much better results than using any other weather. If I ever got the chance to vote and had the urge to keep winning, hell, I would never vote Sand Veil uber, even through I know it's right now over powered.

But I have to say this: Sand Veil never bothered anyone when Swift Swim + Drizzle was OU. Now it does. See the pattern? What will be next?

Sand Veil was bothering people since Garchomp's reign in Gen IV. The reason Sand Veil is being discussed now that Swift Swim + Drizzle has been banned is that the ban of Swift Swim + Drizzle provided, for the first time, a reasonable method of dealing with Sand Veil. It's not a change in the metagame that's making people want to ban Sand Veil; it's a change in the tiering process that makes it so that the ability that people always wanted to ban can now actually be banned, solving the problem that was always there without causing any more problems.

 

[jas61292]

Hi my name is undisputed and I don't really like no-skill strategies. see: gorebyss baton pass teams

They honestly take so little skill to win, and are so high risk + high reward, that i rarely see any good players use them. In gen 4, screens + gliscor pass was sketchy at best, but it wasnt a terrible way for a bad player to have a remote chance at beating a good player. They couldn't out play the better player, and rarely does a team prepare for baton pass, so it was a good way for some lame wins.

The above example has gotten worse in Gen 5. They are ten-fold more reliable to set up, but they can lose to random things too which make them unreliable to execute (i hate knowing my team archetype flat out loses to threats x,y,z.). I think that's the reason not a lot of good players use them. before you jump down my throat with bull shit like "beatable = NOT BROKEN", youre wrong. i can beat the pass to chomp with a skarmory or a lot of priority, but i basically have to sacrifice something to even have a shot to have a shot to beat the rest of the team. i dont want to worry about that when gen 5 has a million threats anyway.

can we ban shell smash since its the engine that makes the baton pass teams such a cheap tactic?

discuss

I do agree that something does not have to be widely used to be broken. However I disagree on this one. True, beatable does not mean not broken, but just because something can easily beat you because you don't prepare for it does not make it broken. To me, this is a perfectly legitimate strategy, and just because it is good does not mean it is cheap. If you don't like it, prepare for it.

 

[Demoness]

I do agree that something does not have to be widely used to be broken. However I disagree on this one. True, beatable does not mean not broken, but just because something can easily beat you because you don't prepare for it does not make it broken. To me, this is a perfectly legitimate strategy, and just because it is good does not mean it is cheap. If you don't like it, prepare for it.

Yeah, really easy to prepare for when your facing down a +2/+2/+2 Garchomp with Screens. The only way I could remember beating it was with a Trick Romm Reuniculus + Wobbuffet combo, and it pretty much always worked like a charm, but really, what teams would have both of those Pokemon besides the one I used?