Yeah this is pretty specious. That is not, in fact, how successful balance teams have been built in the UU tier.
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np: ORAS UU Stage 6 - Slow Hands
- Thread starter Sam
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That was not aimed at gen 6 UU specifically, at all, but let's look at...
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/generation-vi-rmt-archive-index.3503622/
Going down the list of gen 6 UU balance teams, center pieces are...
Slowbro/Mew
Victini
Maero
Mandibuzz
Out of 4/5 mon's we've got 1 banned, 2 former S ranks risen to OU on usage (If I remember right that happened in XY before mega bro), and the tippy top S rank of UU. Vs one Mandibuzz.
This is a pretty consistent trend with balance in every metagame it's been relevant in.
Edit for clarity: I define relevancy in a metagame by how centralizing the level of risk/reward the playstyle/mon/team is in any given matchup. That's not to say balance players as a whole need this to win games, there are always variations in player skill, but it is what balance needs to be a dominant or even a relevant teamstyle. For proof of this consider gen 5 UU, it's what we all tote as a fun/balanced meta where... balance did not exist for all intents and purposes.
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I know what's included in the UU Archives, one of my teams is in it. Before I begin, I'd like to make a preliminary observation; Mega-Aero and Mandibuzz are in our tier, with the latter being average. Victini shouldn't have been banned, so there's that. I'm not even going to attempt to debate those points, because the assumptions have no bearing on my following argument.
First of all, why are you using ancient teams to somehow prove your argument? How come my teams don't use banned Pokemon? Why do I have 50 usable balance teams sitting in my teambuilder, some of which that don't use S or A+ rank mons? Why do Dodmen, Christo the Gr8, Teal6, Hogg, and countless other good players not struggle in their balance teambuilding? The answer is that you're absolutely wrong; balance has never had so much variety to be able to successfully build cores. Especially considering the evolution of Gen VI UU, Balance has shaped almost every major core we've utilized (think traditional Swamp/Umby/Crobat, to our current Empoleon/Zap/Florges [again, just an example]), with the exception of a few dedicated Stall and HO cores.
Now, of course, I agree with you in that balance tends to take the best cores available because, by design, they are intended to beat as many possible match-ups. Yes, they struggle against surprise sets, but that's more indicative of inexperience as opposed to "being forced" to do anything in particular when using balanced teams. However, I don't even care in the slightest what the "trends" are in other metagames. This is the Underused tier, it has its own diverse, nuanced, complexities. The competitive threshold that we find ourselves in does not allow for poor core teambuilding. Simply put, the playerbase is too good, and the metagame is far too developed to allow for tripe to function. This does not mean that balance is limited to core teambuilding in any sense. As Omfuga so generously claimed in the SPLcast, I build Quirky teams. How come I don't succumb to your universal claim? It's because the claim is undeveloped.
I get what you're trying to say, but some of it is unnecessary extra information that has no bearing on the UU tier. Keep the information relevant, and feel free to consult with Balance players before posting something that could be necessarily false.
e: UUPL Champion Christo won his match with a Shedinja, right? It was a team that utilized balance.
Balance is an ARCHETYPE within the metagame, which is what the post you cropped out was discussing, gen 6 gen 3, OU PU, when and where the team structure appears is irrelevant in that context as I am not discussing purely gen 6 UU balance but rather I was explaining the inherent nature of the archetype. The teams have the same relevance in that respect without requiring me to dig through 200 pages of rmt's to make a point.
I totally agree that tini was not ban worthy but it's still a 100% S ranker. Plus that team was pretty classic balance, with all of the inherent strengths and weaknesses. It won vs average ladder by abusing a strong core strategy while holding off teams with "enough" bulk. It had a pretty strong neutral game against the entire generic spectrum but lost at preview to high ladder focused semi/HO piloted by equally skilled players. It's a really good example of beatdown balance and is relevant to my overall argument.
It's not difficulty of building I'm discussing but rather the raw power of the archetype. Personally I have no issue building balance for this ladder (and covered why in the post you cropped TL:DR good players beat bad players, and lets face it player quality has bottomed out in gen 6, and midrange teams are consistent). It is just soooooo much more efficient to roll semi/HO and have both that good ladder matchup, and a solid no brain win against equal or lesser skill players packing balance.
TL:DR Teams become dominant by being uncompetitive and borderline overpowered. Balance by nature is just worse at doing that due to it's mediocre ability to force wins in a neutral metagame. Extrapolate that onto the crawdaunt meta as you will.
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did you really just say balance didnt exist in gen 5 uu?
you must be new.
honest question here, what do you think balance consists of? because i'm pretty sure me and you have two very different ideas regarding balance builds.
mind you i don't particularly disagree that balance sacrifices good matchups in favor of less bad/unwinnable ones, but you make it sound like that's a bad thing, when it really really isn't.
Let me rephrase, balance was irrelevant in BW2 UU, it was common as sin, but I never really considered it a threat. I didn't play much BW1 so I can't vouch for that metagame but in BW 2 I never saw a single strong balance build, plus there's none in the archive, and I never really saw a good RMT of balance. That said BO and Semi stall were both really damn good in BW2 and there's a lot of perceived overlap between the archetypes.
Balance: Balance is a mix of offense and defense. It will usually include both powerful attackers, tanks, and defensive supporters.
There's an old thread defining team structure that I internalized years ago that more clearly defined the midrange archetypes and gave a nice clear cut separation between balance semi and BO but I couldn't find the damn thing. For now I'll just say that personally I differentiate between balance/BO/semi by the way the team paces the game (For example BO has a lot more upfront pressure than balance, etc. It's fairly intuitive).
I don't think balance is bad, I think it's limited: Without a really strong centerpiece neutral matchups with balance create more 50/50 predictions than any other matchup in my experience because lacking strong matchups is honestly the biggest flaw a team can have imo (But I see unweighted predictions as human brain rng). This isn't as big of a problem when you're playing a neutral or advantages game, but it makes bad matchups practically unwinnable. Going to the extreme's in teambuilding gives you the ability to break from that and play out games with more of 70/30 low risk low reward/high risk high reward style that allows a really good player to force win's against full blown counter teams.
Edit: I tend to showcase the flaws of balance more than it's strengths in these posts because devils advocateish situation.
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I think you're underestimating the vast range of possible team structures within the 'balance' archetype. I'm relatively new on the gen 6 scene but I've got a long history of playing and doing well with balance teams across the gens and tiers. Innovation in teambuilding isn't limited to the fringes of the team spectrum, which you seem to imply.
There are common balance cores just like there are common HO cores and stall cores - good players recognise these and often know how to play around them. Regardless if you're using balance or a 'focused' playstyle, I strongly disagree that by ascribing to a particular style you are doomed to 'lose at preview'. One of balance's best features is its inherent flexibility which lets it bounce back from surprises and random bullshit, arguably to a greater extent than HO or stall.
This is an interesting discussion and I'd love to continue but I'm not sure how relevant it is to the current Crawdaunt test though.
There are common balance cores just like there are common HO cores and stall cores - good players recognise these and often know how to play around them. Regardless if you're using balance or a 'focused' playstyle, I strongly disagree that by ascribing to a particular style you are doomed to 'lose at preview'. One of balance's best features is its inherent flexibility which lets it bounce back from surprises and random bullshit, arguably to a greater extent than HO or stall.
This is an interesting discussion and I'd love to continue but I'm not sure how relevant it is to the current Crawdaunt test though.
So, as I have been playing against Daunt, I realizee that it is similar to Gatr. Access to SD, DD, priority in Aqua Jet, similar water/dark coverage. Gatr gets the Sheer Force boost while Daunt gets Adaptability boost. They both can go mixed with ice beam to nail Tangrowth/Chesnaught.
But, with that being said, they begin to differ. The secondary dark typing and Knock Off is stronger than Gatr's LO Crunch. I think that daunt is hard to RK thanks to Aqua Jet.
Some of the reliable checks are Scarf Helioisk, defensive Mega Amphy, Salamence, and Cobalion. Tangrowth and Chesnaught are probably the closest to counters as possible, but Ice Beam prevents them from.being fullblown counters.
I'm more ban side currently, but will continue to play.
But, with that being said, they begin to differ. The secondary dark typing and Knock Off is stronger than Gatr's LO Crunch. I think that daunt is hard to RK thanks to Aqua Jet.
Some of the reliable checks are Scarf Helioisk, defensive Mega Amphy, Salamence, and Cobalion. Tangrowth and Chesnaught are probably the closest to counters as possible, but Ice Beam prevents them from.being fullblown counters.
I'm more ban side currently, but will continue to play.
There was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth over "crawdaunt kills balance", then king though I was insulting balance players by suggesting...something? I'm going with it because it's more fun and it's a pretty decent logical step to break down the "threatened playstyle" so we might get some half decent debate on if and how daunt messes with it.
By and large I agree with your post though, minus the part where teams don't lose on preview, teams do, it's mon's. You can play out of team disadvantage if you are a lot better than your opponent but there's a reason playing out of a bad matchup vs a player in the same skill tier is considered serious bragging rights. Balance is a lot better at holding down the fort in a bad matchup, will rarely ever lose to a player of lower skill and has less overall bad matchups. But it really is the hardest team style to break out of a disadvantageous match with vs a more skilled opponent in my opinion. (Ok 2nd hardest but playing out the team disadvantage when using full stall is pure masochism). But yeah, balance HAS to make plays, often at 50/50 or worse from turn 1 to win a bad matchup, other styles generally have a built in backup plan, for example HO can just fodder off everything not the wincon and pray for the big crit (this is depressingly effective) while semi can just turtle up till turn 300 and wait for the opponent to slip up and then go balls deep on their wincon (yes, I do this x.x). There's nothing to stop other styles from making plays or double bluffing the backup plan into plays etc. You always have options. Balance has to make plays, this is why I consider the play style limited and is a big part of why people love to scream about daunt killing balance while the higher tier balance players go "the hell is wrong with you people".
Keep i mind when I say "focused team" I mean a team where all 6 mon's and all 24 moves are there for the purpose of forcing win's in a premeditated manner while still preforming the minimal requirement of checking and countering the relevant metagame. So when I say "unfocused balance loses at team preview to focused offense/semi" that's not me taking a shot at well made focused balance teams. Those are entirely legit (rare as hens teeth though, for reasons i'm not repeating). Balance is just the worst offender on ladder in terms of nauseatingly unfocused teams in my experience.
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Disclaimer: I'm not an English speaker so I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors. This might end up being a long post so I'll put a tl;dr at the end of the post.
After having played about 75 games on the UU ladder with Crawdaunt allowed and having managed to acquire reqs, I can say pretty surely that I will be voting that Crawdaunt should be allowed to stay in the UU metagame and I'll explain you why. Even though Crawdaunt has a very high damage output and is a major threat to all kinds of teams, Crawdaunt has many flaws which I think balances it's positive points out. I will try to list some arguments from the do-not unban side, and say why I think the listed attributes to Crawdaunt aren't making it a banworthy Pokémon.
1. It is a major threat to slower paced bulkier teams, whilst still being a big threat to offensive teams.
While I do admit that this statement is true, this isn't a unique quality in wallbreakers, because their main effectiveness derives from being so threatening towards slower teams. From having played on the ladder using and facing Crawdaunts, i do have to concede the fact Crawdaunt pressures several teams due to it's strong attacks, defensive and offensive teams alike, this being due to it's strong attacks and it's access to a really strong Aqua Jet, which can do heavy damage to the offensive tier at +2. But this isn't something that only Crawdaunt can do, since Pokémon like Gatr and Sharpedo are both top tier Pokémon which have similar capabilites. There are still many viable Pokémon who can be used to beat Crawdaunt, while still having usability outside this, and if you deem Crawdaunt a huge threat to your team, there still is the capability of running a mon to serve as a revenge killer, which most teams can afford to do. Pokémon such as Chesnaught, Tangrowth, bulky waters on defensive teams, and Pokémon like Hydreigon, Salamence, Toxicroak, Shaymin on more offensively paced teams all can come in on Crawdaunt, and even though all these Crawdaunt checks range in how well they check it, they are available for all playstyles. There are also many Pokémon in UU, like Entei and Lucario, which are strong threats to slower teams while still being threatening vs offensive teams, which shows you that Crawdaunt is quite comparable to other mons which are currently residing in the UU metagame.
2. Crawdaunt has no counters depending on it's set.
You could hypothetically say that Crawdaunt has no counters, because it can run a SD set, a CB set, a LO set with Sludge Wave/Ice Beam/Aerial Ace as the fourth move and many more sets. This is the main thing which makes Crawdaunt such a threat, since the sets beats different things, and not all teams can prepare for all the Crawdaunt sets. The thing with this argument is that this statement holds true for many other Pokémon in the UU metagame, such as Hydreigon and Salamence, because what this statement allows you to do is say things like, 'you could run physically based Iron Tail + Superpower LO Hydreigon to beat Pokémon like Blissey/Porygon2/Umbreon/Florges' and 'you can run Choice Band Salamence with Outrage/Earthquake/Fire Fang/Iron Tail' to beat it's usual switchins. The thing with saying this is that these sets have other flaws over more standard sets, which is why the 'standard sets' are so good, and thus used more over these types of sets. What i'm trying to say is that while Crawdaunt is a big threat, other Pokémon in the metagame can do similar things depending on the set, thus this quality of being 'uncounterable' in theory isn't unique to only Crawdaunt, which makes me believe that this argument by the pro-ban side is lackluster.
3. Crawdaunt polarizes the tier around it.
This is another pro-ban argument presented, and in my opinion, this is a flawed statement, because this is how it goes whenever a new Pokémon is introduced into a tier. Like when Mamoswine dropped to UU, it made bulky waters more common in the tier, and this is how it goes for nearly all of the threats in not only the UU meta, but in every metagame, the fact that you have to adapt you team, offensive or defensive to the common trends in the metagame. Crawdaunt itself has issues getting on the field, and most of the pro-ban posts i've seen are assuming that Crawdaunt already has an advantageous matchup vs what it's facing. A well played Crawdaunt is a huge threat, but this could be said about every usable Pokémon in UU. I believe Crawdaunt to be a trend in the metagame, and even though in the beginning it might seem too overpowering for certain teams/playstyles, over time the metagame will adapt to it, like the metagame always does to new Pokémon. And that's why I believe that Crawdaunt will soon be another threat to prepare for, and because of this I will be voting to unban Crawdaunt.
Tl;dr:
While Crawdaunt might be a big threat to all kinds of team archetypes, many of the listed qualities of it aren't unique to it, and Craw itself has flaws as well, and it's different sets all have different limitations, and I believe that it will soon just be another Pokémon to prepare for in the UU metagame. And that's why I will be voting to allow Crawdaunt back in to UU.
I also want to thank King UU for giving me advice about my post.
After having played about 75 games on the UU ladder with Crawdaunt allowed and having managed to acquire reqs, I can say pretty surely that I will be voting that Crawdaunt should be allowed to stay in the UU metagame and I'll explain you why. Even though Crawdaunt has a very high damage output and is a major threat to all kinds of teams, Crawdaunt has many flaws which I think balances it's positive points out. I will try to list some arguments from the do-not unban side, and say why I think the listed attributes to Crawdaunt aren't making it a banworthy Pokémon.
1. It is a major threat to slower paced bulkier teams, whilst still being a big threat to offensive teams.
While I do admit that this statement is true, this isn't a unique quality in wallbreakers, because their main effectiveness derives from being so threatening towards slower teams. From having played on the ladder using and facing Crawdaunts, i do have to concede the fact Crawdaunt pressures several teams due to it's strong attacks, defensive and offensive teams alike, this being due to it's strong attacks and it's access to a really strong Aqua Jet, which can do heavy damage to the offensive tier at +2. But this isn't something that only Crawdaunt can do, since Pokémon like Gatr and Sharpedo are both top tier Pokémon which have similar capabilites. There are still many viable Pokémon who can be used to beat Crawdaunt, while still having usability outside this, and if you deem Crawdaunt a huge threat to your team, there still is the capability of running a mon to serve as a revenge killer, which most teams can afford to do. Pokémon such as Chesnaught, Tangrowth, bulky waters on defensive teams, and Pokémon like Hydreigon, Salamence, Toxicroak, Shaymin on more offensively paced teams all can come in on Crawdaunt, and even though all these Crawdaunt checks range in how well they check it, they are available for all playstyles. There are also many Pokémon in UU, like Entei and Lucario, which are strong threats to slower teams while still being threatening vs offensive teams, which shows you that Crawdaunt is quite comparable to other mons which are currently residing in the UU metagame.
2. Crawdaunt has no counters depending on it's set.
You could hypothetically say that Crawdaunt has no counters, because it can run a SD set, a CB set, a LO set with Sludge Wave/Ice Beam/Aerial Ace as the fourth move and many more sets. This is the main thing which makes Crawdaunt such a threat, since the sets beats different things, and not all teams can prepare for all the Crawdaunt sets. The thing with this argument is that this statement holds true for many other Pokémon in the UU metagame, such as Hydreigon and Salamence, because what this statement allows you to do is say things like, 'you could run physically based Iron Tail + Superpower LO Hydreigon to beat Pokémon like Blissey/Porygon2/Umbreon/Florges' and 'you can run Choice Band Salamence with Outrage/Earthquake/Fire Fang/Iron Tail' to beat it's usual switchins. The thing with saying this is that these sets have other flaws over more standard sets, which is why the 'standard sets' are so good, and thus used more over these types of sets. What i'm trying to say is that while Crawdaunt is a big threat, other Pokémon in the metagame can do similar things depending on the set, thus this quality of being 'uncounterable' in theory isn't unique to only Crawdaunt, which makes me believe that this argument by the pro-ban side is lackluster.
3. Crawdaunt polarizes the tier around it.
This is another pro-ban argument presented, and in my opinion, this is a flawed statement, because this is how it goes whenever a new Pokémon is introduced into a tier. Like when Mamoswine dropped to UU, it made bulky waters more common in the tier, and this is how it goes for nearly all of the threats in not only the UU meta, but in every metagame, the fact that you have to adapt you team, offensive or defensive to the common trends in the metagame. Crawdaunt itself has issues getting on the field, and most of the pro-ban posts i've seen are assuming that Crawdaunt already has an advantageous matchup vs what it's facing. A well played Crawdaunt is a huge threat, but this could be said about every usable Pokémon in UU. I believe Crawdaunt to be a trend in the metagame, and even though in the beginning it might seem too overpowering for certain teams/playstyles, over time the metagame will adapt to it, like the metagame always does to new Pokémon. And that's why I believe that Crawdaunt will soon be another threat to prepare for, and because of this I will be voting to unban Crawdaunt.
Tl;dr:
While Crawdaunt might be a big threat to all kinds of team archetypes, many of the listed qualities of it aren't unique to it, and Craw itself has flaws as well, and it's different sets all have different limitations, and I believe that it will soon just be another Pokémon to prepare for in the UU metagame. And that's why I will be voting to allow Crawdaunt back in to UU.
I also want to thank King UU for giving me advice about my post.
P sure nobody cares what I think but after having played games on two different accounts (one for reqs and the other for fun) I'm probably going to vote to keep Crawdaunt. Yeah it has good matchups vs stall and balance (just as any Pokemon has strengths and weaknesses against certain playstyles) but I don't feel like Daunt makes such a significant impact on any playstyle's viability that it would need to stay banned (such a justification would be akin to the justification used to ban Lando-I in OU, imo Crawdaunt really isn't quite up there).
Balance is not much worse with or without Crawdaunt, it's still arguably the best playstyle for the ladder and it has perfectly viable options to hard check Daunt that already had other merits without Daunt's presence and were already being used in UU (Chesnaught, Cobalion, Hydra, Mega Ampharos, Heliolisk, and Toxicroak all come to mind). And for those wailing about Ice Beam and Sludge Wave, Crawdaunt has to give something up (usually SD, which comes at the cost of not breaking stall as easily) in order to use these moves and they still doesn't make it any harder to check offensively. I've honestly have yet to come across a Daunt player willing to give up SD to go mixed, if anything I've run into Band and that garbage Sash set.
Stall is still ballsack with or without Daunt save for the few and the dedicated that make the playstyle work and will therefore just have to innovate and adapt to Daunt like they do the tier's other stallbreakers in order to succeed (shoutouts to Yifeng and Lapras).
And any form of offense generally has no problems with this thing, most teams naturally carrying several checks.
So yeah free the lobster. [:
Balance is not much worse with or without Crawdaunt, it's still arguably the best playstyle for the ladder and it has perfectly viable options to hard check Daunt that already had other merits without Daunt's presence and were already being used in UU (Chesnaught, Cobalion, Hydra, Mega Ampharos, Heliolisk, and Toxicroak all come to mind). And for those wailing about Ice Beam and Sludge Wave, Crawdaunt has to give something up (usually SD, which comes at the cost of not breaking stall as easily) in order to use these moves and they still doesn't make it any harder to check offensively. I've honestly have yet to come across a Daunt player willing to give up SD to go mixed, if anything I've run into Band and that garbage Sash set.
Stall is still ballsack with or without Daunt save for the few and the dedicated that make the playstyle work and will therefore just have to innovate and adapt to Daunt like they do the tier's other stallbreakers in order to succeed (shoutouts to Yifeng and Lapras).
And any form of offense generally has no problems with this thing, most teams naturally carrying several checks.
So yeah free the lobster. [:
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If you have 2650 COIL (which you do) you have enough w/that record and you can vote. The N value is just useful for people who want to know how many more games they will need to play to obtain said 2650 COIL. As for the confirming thread, it's not posted yet. It'll be up any day now.
The thread is up now, just click here.
Hi
after getting reqs and seeing how crawdon does it this meta. crawdon is a powerhouse and amazing wallbreaker. It has very powerful STAB Knock Off and Crabhammer, which are very hard to switch into. Crawdaunt also has an excellent matchup against stall and slower defensive teams, as they struggle to take boosted hits.
however crawdon is frail + speed makes it less powerful it goes on matchup. however there are some hard counters to this mon such as chesanaught and many checks like shaymin, Hydreigon and many more. all I want to say is crawdon is good addition to uu meta (fuck stall) and its not much threatening needs match up and many checks are counters are already there.
so i am voting unban
after getting reqs and seeing how crawdon does it this meta. crawdon is a powerhouse and amazing wallbreaker. It has very powerful STAB Knock Off and Crabhammer, which are very hard to switch into. Crawdaunt also has an excellent matchup against stall and slower defensive teams, as they struggle to take boosted hits.
however crawdon is frail + speed makes it less powerful it goes on matchup. however there are some hard counters to this mon such as chesanaught and many checks like shaymin, Hydreigon and many more. all I want to say is crawdon is good addition to uu meta (fuck stall) and its not much threatening needs match up and many checks are counters are already there.
so i am voting unban
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Hi I'm not looking to get into some kind of petty argument over this like what most of this thread has been, since there's honestly a 0% chance anyone changes their stance if they've already chosen their side, but I'm gonna post anyway :^). First off, I really don't think it was the best time for a suspect, especially with meta-changing mons like Metagross, Sableye, and Gardevoir quick-dropping the day before (No discredit to the TLs though). So the tier has technically had to adapt to 4 Pokemon in the last 2 weeks, 3 of them being wallbreakers in Gardevoir, Metagross (CB is nice), and Crawdaunt (obviously the most overwhelming), ALL putting some sort of strain on balanced and defensive playstyles. I'd think it probably would've been better if the meta settled a bit before the suspect, but it doesn't really matter now. As for the addition of Crawdaunt, if you're trying to play balance and putting in walls (balance usually has 2 or 3) you're bound to just lose to something/don't have a switch-in for said mon now, whether its Hydreigon, Mamoswine, Gardevoir, Feraligatr, Heracross or soon to be Craw (there's obviously overwhelming support for it, which doesn't make sense to me). There's a point where Balance doesn't even become Balance anymore, "forcing" it to become some sort of hyper balance with sick double switches or Semi-Stall to account for everything.
To me, this seems a lot like the Victini suspect, Crawdaunt falling into the same almost-unwallable category as Victini, Staraptor, Diggersby, Mega Hera, etc. I can also compare it to the ban of Weavile in XY, both having insane STABs, priority, bad bulk, and they can each take their toll on different playstyles, Weavile putting strain on offensive builds and Crawdaunt putting strain on Balance and Stall builds. Both also have Knock Off, widely considered as one of the best, if not the best attacking move in the game that discourages anything from coming because of the insane power + item loss. It might also be worth mentioning that Crawdaunt has the second strongest Knock Off in the game (Yveltal beats it by like 2% with 11 higher base attack + Dark Aura), so saying things like "Gatr, Sharpedo, and Crawdaunt all have the same checks" isn't true at all, because a majority of their checks need to have their item when they're against it (ex: Florges against Sharp)
Even though its not mentioned much at all in this thread, I'd also like to bring up the DD set, which is actually pretty underrated. Crawdaunt forces a TON of switches, giving it a lot of opportunities to set-up. Obviously its not going to set up and kill everything Turn 1, but after a DD it does outspeed a majority of the unboosted tier (and with Scarfed Pokemon it gets better), only getting beat out by notable offensive checks like Cobalion, Sceptile, and Heliolisk after the +1. I ran DD quite a bit in testing using Dread/Splash plate over (to survive priority moves like Mach Punch and ESpeed w/o LO recoil) and "checks" like Shaymin, Zapdos, and Mence aren't really checks anymore. Unlike some of the sets like "LO Superpower Iron Tail Hydreigon", Daunt could have 2 or 3 good standard sets being LO 4 Attacks, SD, and DD, so it definitely has versatility.
Although I do respect a lot of the Pro-Craw points that IB and King made, I do disagree with the point in that it doesn't hurt/restrict balance/stall. In my opinion, a healthy meta is one where all playstyles are equally viable, and Crawdaunt being in UU definitely does not end up with UU being a healthy product. Crawdaunt will probably end up being unbanned, but I'll be voting to keep it BL.
TL;DR:
don't put me on blast pls
To me, this seems a lot like the Victini suspect, Crawdaunt falling into the same almost-unwallable category as Victini, Staraptor, Diggersby, Mega Hera, etc. I can also compare it to the ban of Weavile in XY, both having insane STABs, priority, bad bulk, and they can each take their toll on different playstyles, Weavile putting strain on offensive builds and Crawdaunt putting strain on Balance and Stall builds. Both also have Knock Off, widely considered as one of the best, if not the best attacking move in the game that discourages anything from coming because of the insane power + item loss. It might also be worth mentioning that Crawdaunt has the second strongest Knock Off in the game (Yveltal beats it by like 2% with 11 higher base attack + Dark Aura), so saying things like "Gatr, Sharpedo, and Crawdaunt all have the same checks" isn't true at all, because a majority of their checks need to have their item when they're against it (ex: Florges against Sharp)
Even though its not mentioned much at all in this thread, I'd also like to bring up the DD set, which is actually pretty underrated. Crawdaunt forces a TON of switches, giving it a lot of opportunities to set-up. Obviously its not going to set up and kill everything Turn 1, but after a DD it does outspeed a majority of the unboosted tier (and with Scarfed Pokemon it gets better), only getting beat out by notable offensive checks like Cobalion, Sceptile, and Heliolisk after the +1. I ran DD quite a bit in testing using Dread/Splash plate over (to survive priority moves like Mach Punch and ESpeed w/o LO recoil) and "checks" like Shaymin, Zapdos, and Mence aren't really checks anymore. Unlike some of the sets like "LO Superpower Iron Tail Hydreigon", Daunt could have 2 or 3 good standard sets being LO 4 Attacks, SD, and DD, so it definitely has versatility.
Although I do respect a lot of the Pro-Craw points that IB and King made, I do disagree with the point in that it doesn't hurt/restrict balance/stall. In my opinion, a healthy meta is one where all playstyles are equally viable, and Crawdaunt being in UU definitely does not end up with UU being a healthy product. Crawdaunt will probably end up being unbanned, but I'll be voting to keep it BL.
TL;DR:
don't put me on blast pls
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Ok I've been waiting a while to gather my thoughts before articulating them. I'm glad Shiba has already posted a number of relevant points which I was going to cover, and I agree with most of the things he said.
I think Crawdaunt exerts a very unhealthy effect on the metagame. We all know it hits extremely hard from the get-go; that much is obvious. We also know that it is 'slow' and has lackluster defenses (particularly SpD). However, there are a number of factors that make playing against it seriously problematic.
First there is his Knock Off. I think this has been overlooked in this thread to some extent. There are plenty of scary wallbreakers in UU such as Hydreigon, Salamence and Mamoswine. One big difference between these guys and Crawdaunt is that although they have a scarily powerful primary wallbreaking attack - Draco Meteor, Earthquake, etc - these attacks are not nearly as easy to spam as Crawdaunt's Knock Off is. There are numerous immunities to the aforementioned wallbreaking attacks, and you don't have to go particularly out of your way to include them in any of the team archetypes. Draco Meteor is a scary attack, sure, but it has the big downside of halving your power output thereafter and leaving you vulnerable to being set up on by even frail Pokemon like Lucario. Conversely, there are no immunities to Knock Off, and even those Pokemon that resist it will lose their item in the process.
This is a big deal - when Hydreigon clicks Draco Meteor it is not guaranteed to provide some future support for its team, and is in fact risks putting its team in a potentially disadvantageous position by allowing for a countersweep on the -2 SpA. When Crawdaunt clicks Knock Off, it is guaranteed wallbreaking - even if the switch in is not fully broken, it is now crippled by losing its Leftovers or what have you. Even Cobalion, basically the only UU Pokemon that can actually reverse momentum by coming into Crawdaunt's Knock Off, still loses its Life Orb / Shuca / Leftovers, and so is now playing at a deficiency for the rest of the game. We have Megas to switch in but the only UU Megas that resist Dark are Sharpedo and Houndoom, both of which have paper defenses and are very vulnerable to a follow up Aqua Jet. People have said Crawdaunt rewards skillful play but in fact it is one of the simplest things - check to see if opponent has Cobalion; if not, press Knock Off; if so, possibly consider Crabhammer.
Crawdaunt is different because of point number 2 - it's sheer unboosted non-choice locked power. Apart from dedicated fat mons like Chesnaught, everything takes a big chunking. Hydreigon has good 92/90/90 bulk, but if it comes in on LO Knock Off it not only takes around 60% damage, it has now also lost its item and will not be a true wallbreaking threat, and in fact it is now almost in range of being picked off by Aqua Jet! This is with just SR damage alone; god forbid if Hydreigon had taken LO recoil or switched in on a weak Scald or something previously. Krookodile's Knock Off and Entei's Sacred Fire both hit very hard, but the difference is that in order to do real damage they lock themselves into these attacks. Crawdaunt retains the luxury of having a guaranteed chunker + crippler and the opportunity to thereafter simply dispose of targets if they let them carelessly get into Aqua Jet range. It provides too little risk for too much reward once it has come into play, moreso than the comparable Pokemon. It doesn't *need* to Choice Lock it self to do that kind of crippling damage.
Points 3 and 4 were going to be more embellished but I'm in an airport lounge and running out of laptop battery, but basically Crawdaunt also has unpredictability that is very dangerous against anything but super fat teams if you guess the wrong set. I'm probably not the only one who was using a bulky offense team or something without dedicated 'walls', and while expecting an SD or CB, I come in and this little lobster is fucking dragon dancing...
forget Ice Beam / Sludge Wave shenanigans, this is the real "oh fuck" moment if your way to deal with it is to switch in a moderately fast resist that eats Aqua Jet. i.e. how most offensive or other momentum-reliant archetypes will normally be poised to deal with such threats.
These single factors may not be enough to push it over the edge individually, but together they deliver a very nasty package. Point 4 is that Crawdaunt does not exist in a vacuum, and you have to consider the existing UU threats and how their management changes with Crawdaunt. We now have a 3rd Water / Dark hitting monster to back up Feraligatr and m-Sharpedo, and like as mentioned although they do not share the exact same checks and counters, they are similar enough that they are able to severely weaken them for each other to the point that one can break through easily. Water and Dark spam becomes a very real thing and one that forces significant teambuilding distortions to properly address. A number of ladder players realised this and were running two out of these three in a kind of "double dragon" strategy a la gens 4 and 5. To beat combos such as this you have to adapt to an extent that gives you notable disadvantages to any other matchup. The opportunity cost of adapting to deal with these type of assaults is high - I've seen far too many item-less Tangrowths and passive-as-fuck Mega Blastoises to be able to say this is healthy adaptation.
I'm not saying Crawdaunt is wihtout its own limitations - it is notoriously difficult to directly switch in and non-DD sets are prone to being revenge killed by healthy fast water-resists - but these are by no means insurmountable nor do they particularly lessen its overall effect.
TL;DR - lobster is very very stronk, and we need to really think carefully before giving this thing a permanent place in our tier.
I think Crawdaunt exerts a very unhealthy effect on the metagame. We all know it hits extremely hard from the get-go; that much is obvious. We also know that it is 'slow' and has lackluster defenses (particularly SpD). However, there are a number of factors that make playing against it seriously problematic.
First there is his Knock Off. I think this has been overlooked in this thread to some extent. There are plenty of scary wallbreakers in UU such as Hydreigon, Salamence and Mamoswine. One big difference between these guys and Crawdaunt is that although they have a scarily powerful primary wallbreaking attack - Draco Meteor, Earthquake, etc - these attacks are not nearly as easy to spam as Crawdaunt's Knock Off is. There are numerous immunities to the aforementioned wallbreaking attacks, and you don't have to go particularly out of your way to include them in any of the team archetypes. Draco Meteor is a scary attack, sure, but it has the big downside of halving your power output thereafter and leaving you vulnerable to being set up on by even frail Pokemon like Lucario. Conversely, there are no immunities to Knock Off, and even those Pokemon that resist it will lose their item in the process.
This is a big deal - when Hydreigon clicks Draco Meteor it is not guaranteed to provide some future support for its team, and is in fact risks putting its team in a potentially disadvantageous position by allowing for a countersweep on the -2 SpA. When Crawdaunt clicks Knock Off, it is guaranteed wallbreaking - even if the switch in is not fully broken, it is now crippled by losing its Leftovers or what have you. Even Cobalion, basically the only UU Pokemon that can actually reverse momentum by coming into Crawdaunt's Knock Off, still loses its Life Orb / Shuca / Leftovers, and so is now playing at a deficiency for the rest of the game. We have Megas to switch in but the only UU Megas that resist Dark are Sharpedo and Houndoom, both of which have paper defenses and are very vulnerable to a follow up Aqua Jet. People have said Crawdaunt rewards skillful play but in fact it is one of the simplest things - check to see if opponent has Cobalion; if not, press Knock Off; if so, possibly consider Crabhammer.
But LR this is nonsense - we've already dealt with powerful Knock Offs in UU before. Have you ever faced a CB Krookodile? How is this different?
Crawdaunt is different because of point number 2 - it's sheer unboosted non-choice locked power. Apart from dedicated fat mons like Chesnaught, everything takes a big chunking. Hydreigon has good 92/90/90 bulk, but if it comes in on LO Knock Off it not only takes around 60% damage, it has now also lost its item and will not be a true wallbreaking threat, and in fact it is now almost in range of being picked off by Aqua Jet! This is with just SR damage alone; god forbid if Hydreigon had taken LO recoil or switched in on a weak Scald or something previously. Krookodile's Knock Off and Entei's Sacred Fire both hit very hard, but the difference is that in order to do real damage they lock themselves into these attacks. Crawdaunt retains the luxury of having a guaranteed chunker + crippler and the opportunity to thereafter simply dispose of targets if they let them carelessly get into Aqua Jet range. It provides too little risk for too much reward once it has come into play, moreso than the comparable Pokemon. It doesn't *need* to Choice Lock it self to do that kind of crippling damage.
Points 3 and 4 were going to be more embellished but I'm in an airport lounge and running out of laptop battery, but basically Crawdaunt also has unpredictability that is very dangerous against anything but super fat teams if you guess the wrong set. I'm probably not the only one who was using a bulky offense team or something without dedicated 'walls', and while expecting an SD or CB, I come in and this little lobster is fucking dragon dancing...
forget Ice Beam / Sludge Wave shenanigans, this is the real "oh fuck" moment if your way to deal with it is to switch in a moderately fast resist that eats Aqua Jet. i.e. how most offensive or other momentum-reliant archetypes will normally be poised to deal with such threats.
These single factors may not be enough to push it over the edge individually, but together they deliver a very nasty package. Point 4 is that Crawdaunt does not exist in a vacuum, and you have to consider the existing UU threats and how their management changes with Crawdaunt. We now have a 3rd Water / Dark hitting monster to back up Feraligatr and m-Sharpedo, and like as mentioned although they do not share the exact same checks and counters, they are similar enough that they are able to severely weaken them for each other to the point that one can break through easily. Water and Dark spam becomes a very real thing and one that forces significant teambuilding distortions to properly address. A number of ladder players realised this and were running two out of these three in a kind of "double dragon" strategy a la gens 4 and 5. To beat combos such as this you have to adapt to an extent that gives you notable disadvantages to any other matchup. The opportunity cost of adapting to deal with these type of assaults is high - I've seen far too many item-less Tangrowths and passive-as-fuck Mega Blastoises to be able to say this is healthy adaptation.
I'm not saying Crawdaunt is wihtout its own limitations - it is notoriously difficult to directly switch in and non-DD sets are prone to being revenge killed by healthy fast water-resists - but these are by no means insurmountable nor do they particularly lessen its overall effect.
TL;DR - lobster is very very stronk, and we need to really think carefully before giving this thing a permanent place in our tier.
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Before people start posting whacky conspiracy theories, just like they did with Pidgeot vote when I was busy studying and watching Evo...
I'm going to the beach today and I won't be available till tomorrow midday. I cannot realistically setup the vote from my phone, so I will not post it till I'm back home.
I'm going to the beach today and I won't be available till tomorrow midday. I cannot realistically setup the vote from my phone, so I will not post it till I'm back home.
From an offense perspective, Crawdaunt is not broken. Staple choices on offense teams, such as Infernape, Cobalion, Salamence, Hydreigon etc. all deal with Crawdaunt without much of an issue. In fact, using an offensive team it's almost always good to see Crawdaunt on the other side of the field, because it means that there is one less thing likely to stop a sweep.
I've written previously on what I thought about balance, there are enough soft checks and a few counters that mean that balance has decent enough options to deal with Crawdaunt.
I'm less educated regarding stall, but frankly from my point of view Crawdaunt seems not to punish players unnecessarily, only when they play extremely passively and give free turns up. Stall is obviously more inclined to do this, but I think from a metagame perspective about what is both fun to play and what sort of play should be rewarded, it's appropriate to put additional pressure on teams that tend to take no initiative during the match. Simply put, Crawdaunt (in my opinion) is a mon that shifts more of the victory toward the game itself, rather than team preview, which to me is always a good thing.
I've written previously on what I thought about balance, there are enough soft checks and a few counters that mean that balance has decent enough options to deal with Crawdaunt.
I'm less educated regarding stall, but frankly from my point of view Crawdaunt seems not to punish players unnecessarily, only when they play extremely passively and give free turns up. Stall is obviously more inclined to do this, but I think from a metagame perspective about what is both fun to play and what sort of play should be rewarded, it's appropriate to put additional pressure on teams that tend to take no initiative during the match. Simply put, Crawdaunt (in my opinion) is a mon that shifts more of the victory toward the game itself, rather than team preview, which to me is always a good thing.
Your opinion is not invalid. There are barely few counters to that thing . It can easily switch in on a special wall such as bliss and set up. A +2 Knock Off OHKOs Tangrowth! Insane I know right,, A lot of people don't mind having that thing in the tier since they don't play stall and just seem to not care about us stall players. I just want to make it clear that defensive playstyle does struggle against that immensely powerful thing.
People are always saying well you have chesnaught, firstly chesnaught is not on every stall team so don't expect every stall player to run that pokemon (which I think is total trash, and look at the viability ranking threats, our uu elite just continuesly considered chesnaught as a bad mons and ask for a drop each time " put a link right here but now fortunetely chesnaught become the best mon of the meta) just to beat crawdaunt (by the way, people do run Aace on crawdaunt to beat stall so its not even reliable!). Other counters such as Poliwrath/Virizion that you speak of are totally irrelevant in the tier and we won't waste a slot on those either.
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 322-382 (81.7 - 96.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock (after SD on switch)
0 Atk Salamence Dragon Claw vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Crawdaunt: 127-151 (47.3 - 56.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Salamence Dragon Pulse vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Crawdaunt: 160-190 (59.7 - 70.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
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pokemonisfun
Banned deucer.
I will allow myself to post since I assume most votes are in and I won't affect anyone's votes.
Some of you guys are incredibly stupid. And when I say some of you I mean 99% of the people who want crawdaunt banned for stall reasons. You are all also probably liars, but mainly stupid.
You are stupid because your argument boils down to the statement "crawdaunt is too hard for stall" either by itself or in conjunction with other threats.
This is a stupid statement because there are other Pokemon that have essentially no defensive counters. Take Lucario. Counters are what? Name one defensive counter. If you do then you confirm my earlier statement that you are a liar since it has no true defensive counter (Pokemon that can switch in on any common set and win).
If you were honest with yourselves and not stupid then you would look at banning Lucario as well. But none of you have.
(Except me that is)
I have a more important point though that I would like the mods not to delete as I am sure they will soon delete the above and infract me.
Why do you care about keeping stall? Our metagame will change. If it changes for the worse for stall, then so be it. Nobody complained about lack of Volt Turn in gen 4...because it couldn't exist obviously. More relevant nobody complains about the lack of HO in gen 3 and earlier. Should we try to balance those metagame a by making HO viable and introduce Lucario to combat skarmbliss? I think not.
I could go on about why I am right and why most of you are wrong but I rather just let you ponder my last point.
Some of you guys are incredibly stupid. And when I say some of you I mean 99% of the people who want crawdaunt banned for stall reasons. You are all also probably liars, but mainly stupid.
You are stupid because your argument boils down to the statement "crawdaunt is too hard for stall" either by itself or in conjunction with other threats.
This is a stupid statement because there are other Pokemon that have essentially no defensive counters. Take Lucario. Counters are what? Name one defensive counter. If you do then you confirm my earlier statement that you are a liar since it has no true defensive counter (Pokemon that can switch in on any common set and win).
If you were honest with yourselves and not stupid then you would look at banning Lucario as well. But none of you have.
(Except me that is)
I have a more important point though that I would like the mods not to delete as I am sure they will soon delete the above and infract me.
Why do you care about keeping stall? Our metagame will change. If it changes for the worse for stall, then so be it. Nobody complained about lack of Volt Turn in gen 4...because it couldn't exist obviously. More relevant nobody complains about the lack of HO in gen 3 and earlier. Should we try to balance those metagame a by making HO viable and introduce Lucario to combat skarmbliss? I think not.
I could go on about why I am right and why most of you are wrong but I rather just let you ponder my last point.
pokemonisfun
Banned deucer.
I am on the pro ban side. I said I wanted Luke and crawdaunt both banned to be logically consistent.
Also I am the best uu ladder player and have already achieved reqs.
Also I am the best uu ladder player and have already achieved reqs.
fml I copied and pasted the wrong thing and voted to keep bl ;___;
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