http://pastebin.com/p1uqR2WS vr discussion on personal skype chat if my tl;dr isn't sufficient
We rank way too many mons. There are around 150 mons ranked on this list, less than a third of those are considered for any serious team without being set out to be built around.
If we want an ideal VR that accurately showcases whats usable and good in this metagame in relation to each other, we need to have a VR that's restricted to like 40 Pokemon because there simply aren't enough "viable" pokemon. If we want to arbitrarily rank the other "usable" mons in the tier then fine, but make it a different thread because it legit is just cluttering this one up and leading to inflation.
Realistically I don't think this will happen, but prove me wrong because it should.
First, I'll just casually note that at 40 mons we start to unlist stuff like Gurdurr or Mantine (S-A- is like 38 mons ftr), which is just sounding ludicrously harsh. Now I do definitely agree, things are over-inflated, and a lot of say, D rank are just mons I don't think anyone's going to seriously consider, at least often enough to bother ranking. Obviously there are small niches unranked mons can fulfill so it's hard to draw an arbitrary line as to where that cutoff should be, but I'd say we should at least raise the bar a bit higher than 1/1000 odds or higher of actually using say, Larvesta. So I guess I'll just drop my '2' cents.
1. Make each letter ranking's pokemon at least close in the arbitrary lines of viability. Yes, this isn't easy, but I mean if I look at say B Rank as a whole, I'm definitely going to consider using Omastar or Pelipper a hell of a lot more often than say, Sandslash or Klinklang. I don't think the differences between a specific letter should be that blatant and different in terms of viability level, and I'd say there's a good argument to drop down a fair few mons if we tried to do that.
2. Maybe play with definitions a bit, make D rank the new C rank so to speak and drop the garbage below, or make D rank into an E rank of listed mons and drop stuff down from there. Something like this, perhaps.
S Rank: What it is now, top tier amazing meta-defining mons, etc etc etc
A Rank: Great, effective pokemon, not as amazing as S rank but still really good, common, threatening stuff
B Rank: Good, solid pokemon, they have a few issues but definitely outweigh them with pros, a few common stops or things that break them but still are fairly relevant/threatening/splashable/whatnot albeit not as much as the two ranks above, still things you'd probably consider using on a team on a reasonably frequent basis
C Rank: Decent pokemon, they have flaws but still have a solid amount of pros that make them worth using, partly overshadowed by the upper ranks but still pull off things that make them worth using/stand out
D Rank: You'll consider using these pokemon sometimes, they're not bad, but they're also not good. They can fit into slightly uncommon team niches, or be threatening if built around with the right support, but generally they're overshadowed and there's more practical choices.
E Rank, if people are desperate to save whatever shitmons laying around that you'd be lucky to see in 3 months, I'd say just make these unlisted but w/e: Pokemon that in rare situations can fit onto teams, but 95% or more of the time they're bad choices, they at least have some viable niche you could consider using. Or basically what most of D rank is, probably some of C- or higher even too.
3. If people are bringing up random mons to be ranked that are flavour of the week for a couple people, or trying to bump up the irrelevant low ranked mons, get them to drop some replays as a rule unless there's obvious agreeing between a lot of people. Be ready to drop these mons quickly as well, when the metagame shifts if they just happen to pull off a small effective niche at the time or smth like that.
4. Perhaps consider the last time you actually saw someone seriously use one of these mons when looking at lower ranks and drop them to D/E/Unlisted/etc if it's clear that they haven't been used at all in a long time, because while say, Swanna has some cool on paper niche, in practice it has a mediocre speed tier, it's frail and unreliable, and there's more threatening and effective things to consider as water or flying type wallbreakers like Samurott, Rotom-Fan, Articuno, there's faster mons to use if you want something fast like Floatzel or Swellow who have much better speed tiers but still hit hard, there are far better/more reliable hazard control mons out there, etc, and the last time I recall seeing someone seriously use a Swanna was like 3 metas ago/like 4-5 months, which I mean it wasn't even that impressive then from what I saw.
5. Perhaps consider splashability a bit more, as for instance when I look at B rank I see like 8 random wallbreakers or set-up sweepers that aren't either common or that amazing, require team support and are partially overshadowed by better pokemon anyways, beside pokemon that are actually usable on a reasonable basis at that
6. Consider what niches pokemon actually have more that are worth using on a basis that isn't 1/1000 teams. What does say, Zebstrika have for instance, in this metagame? Speed tier completely overshadowed by Electrode, still doesn't do well against things like Sceptile with the grass immunity (it does okay vs what with that, lilligant and gourgeist, and I guess a bit of vivillon? all of which can probably wear it down easily), it's weak, raichu has comparable coverage moves that don't force it to switch/become set-up fodder in exchange for speed tying tauros/archeops and has a few other cute tricks as well. I can't see a scenario that isn't absurdly uncommon where I actually want to use this thing, because it needs to be like, I'm building offensive and my last slot needs to be something that's struggling with tauros/archeops while is also capable of like bopping vivillon, oh wait I can just use say, steelix as a check to all of those as my rocker instead and then throw on a specs swellow with sleep talk in that slot instead, or something like that so it also needs to be at the point of I can't switch out anything on my team it needs to be Zebstrika or else it doesn't work and I need to remake it. Something like that is just so unlikely that I don't think it's worth ranking, and if you're in a spot like that you should probably be digging through creative ideas that are generally subpar to get around it anyways.
Probably said like 8 stupid things in there, but you guys probably get the gist of my thoughts. I don't feel we need to go as harsh as Kiyo says, instead putting things lower that you need to build around to work with. I don't have a problem with ranking niche mons, but I think we're too broad with our allowances on them and they often don't get cleaned up after their niche has evaporated or shrunk. I also think some niche mons have just risen a bit too high among things that actually pull weight reliably, or vice versa that we've got some too low.
tl;dr we're too nice rn play around with policy and criteria to fix some of the common problems that occur here and do another revamp to fix over-inflation
