★ np: SS UU Stage 3: As the World Falls Down (Venusaur banned, see post 110)

[Donphantastic]

Aite so I've laddered a few games after hearing about the infestation of sun teams to see if it's true and lo and behold it was. Imo Sun itself is incredibly overbearing as there is literally nothing in the tier that can both switch into a sunboosted darm flare blitz and then also be able to take out a +2 speed venusaur, esp if it manages to get a growth off which isn't unreasonable as it has quite decent bulk for something that powerful.
I think the best course of action is to get rid of the sun setters, because even though drought is broken I do not see vulpix being as viable a setter as either koal or tales. Maybe I'm wrong and some people will adapt to a vulpix version of sun but I don't see it.
TL;DR get rid of the setters and save Darm
-Donny P (W)

 

[Lily]

In order to be an obnoxious contrarian I'm going to make a post about why I believe Drought itself to be the issue, rather than Ninetales/Torkoal. To do this, I gathered 6 replays (not all of the best quality, but they showcase my point) where I used a sun team posted by Adaam (who I also found on the ladder with it) but with a Vulpix where Ninetales would usually be.

In all of the following replays, my team was able to function perfectly fine - lacking in some brute strength due to Vulpix being pretty pathetic, but good enough to at least set the sun up at least twice per game and therefore allow me to use my broken abusers to get the win.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1096799482-rvjkw2xtomk33h1oxcy3haer8ro2mkhpw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1096801518
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1096803334
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1096806937
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1096813530
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1096810923

The issue is Venusaur. Darmanitan is a nuclear wallbreaker under sun, but even if it were to go we could just replace it with a Chandelure or Incineroar and the exact same thing would happen. Venusaur, however, is incredibly fast, strong and immune to Toxic. This makes it very, very difficult for teams of all types - from defensive balance teams to hyper offense - to actually deal with it, because playing around it is just a lost cause. There is no defensive counterplay to +2 Venusaur in this tier. In addition, with the exception of First Impression and like, Scarf Noivern??? There isn't really any offensive counterplay either. Its STAB coverage + Weather Ball is enough to OHKO everything minus Chandelure and Gigalith, both of which can drop after some chip.

However, Venusaur should not be banned. It's a perfectly healthy standalone Pokemon in both defensive and offensive roles outside of the sun, and it should be preserved. The same goes for Darmanitan, which, while certainly potent in offensive roles, is very manageable without sun. Ninetales/Torkoal/Vulpix... are not overwhelming mons without Drought and, while I don't particularly care whether they're "saved" or not, I'd much rather see the ability gone because it's extremely clear that the ability itself is the issue and not these setters.

With all that said, I think Drought should be the ability to go. However, there is a significant amount of planning that must go into this process - tiering framework needs to be changed, tests must be conducted etc. so I can understand the council and administration's hesitation to do so. I think that banning Ninetales and Torkoal is a temporarily serviceable solution, but if my experience is anything to go off, it won't solve it altogether.

Please don't ban the abusers btw. There are too many of them that are already good mons in the tier, and it'd really suck to see them go.

 

[Indigo Plateau]

With sun infesting the ladder after drops and several people agreeing to no sun in UUPL, I think it’s clear to anyone that plays the tier that it’s an issue. I agree that Venusaur is the main issue since it’s basically impossible to counter its coverage, but this issue only got worse with Darm’s drop since it nukes everything under sun.

In order to be an obnoxious contrarian I'm going to make a post about why I believe Drought itself to be the issue, rather than Ninetales/Torkoal.

With all that said, I think Drought should be the ability to go. However, there is a significant amount of planning that must go into this process - tiering framework needs to be changed, tests must be conducted etc. so I can understand the council and administration's hesitation to do so. I think that banning Ninetales and Torkoal is a temporarily serviceable solution, but if my experience is anything to go off, it won't solve it altogether.

Banning Drought would be ideal, but also not the easiest solution. We’d have to most likely take it into policy discussion if we want to ban the ability outright. I think the best action to take given the timing of this is definitely look at Ninetales/Torkoal first. Sure, Vulpix might still be an issue later on, and although Ninetales/Torkoal aren’t the best individual mons outside of sun, there’s a clear advantage of having setters that can actually do something besides just set sun. If Vulpix proves to be an issue down the road, which is hard for anyone to know without outright testing Vulpix sun, then we can look at it again down the line. It’s more about being efficient now with UUPL halfway done and UULT coming up soon.

tl;dr: Council vote on Ninetales/Torkoal now, open up policy discussion if sun is still problematic down the line with Vulpix

 

[Stuntfisk]

The topic of sun has been much discussed and I don't want to repeat the excellent points made already, just that I agree with an awful lot of them. That being said, I believe that banning drought is the best course of action.

I actually want to draw emphasis on something that Lilburr mentioned (and I'm sure many others have eluded to) which I believe makes clear the decision before us:

'It's extremely clear that the ability itself is the issue and not these setters.'

The majority of us most likely agree with this statement and, rather than banning setters now and addressing the ability later (which feels far more like a roundabout way to address a clear problem), I suggest that we address the problem of drought through a policy discussion immediately. Though I understand that concerns with UUPL and UULT will affect decision making, drought is the problem and short term solutions are unlikely to change that.

 

[Jade]

Banning Drought, in my opinion, would be the superior choice to banning Ninetales and/or Torkoal. As someone who watched Lily ladder with Vulpix sun, while her opponents aren’t exactly the best, it shows how even with a terrible mon outside of Drought, Sun still finds ways to survive. Venusaur and Darmanitan are perfectly fine Pokemon on their own that are driven to unhealthiness under Sun, which is why I believe they should not be banned. Ninetales and Torkoal being banned would change little from what I’ve seen - Vulpix can still be provided with enough turns to let Sun sweepers run wild, as sad as it sounds.

My main concern is UULT, which will start in less than a week. Sun is a brainless archetype that requires little thought in certain matchups and is very easy to spam and rack up points with. Attempts to counterteam Sun that I’ve seen often either fall flat to the rest of the meta, aren’t as consistent as other teams, or lose in certain situations. For example, Gigalith + Escavalier will lose if Ninetales uses Sunny Day as Gigalith comes in, removing Sandstorm and setting up Sun once again. Goodra is a rather niche mon and it means you’re not using the far superior Dragons in Noivern / Flygon / Haxorus. It’s honestly very worrying how easy it is to get far on the ladder with just Sun. So, what are the main factors of this?

To me, Venusaur is the main issue. Grass + Poison + Fire coverage is ridiculous and has virtually no answers besides specific things like Assault Vest Reuniclus and Boots Chandelure. There is also little speed control aside from Scarf Gardevoir and Scarf Noivern (lol) that’s capable of revenging it. Golisopod needs chip to score the kill with First Impression, and if it doesn’t kill, Venusaur can merely Giga Drain all of its HP back. Mamoswine being gone also means we lost a form of priority in Ice Shard that annoys Venusaur, so there’s that too.

In short, Drought as an ability should be targeted instead of the setters in Ninetales and Torkoal. Echoing Lilburr that even fucking Vulpix is viable and has room for concern. With UULT on the horizon I believe that Vulpix sun would still be spammed, though not to the extent that Ninetales or Torkoal sun.

 

[Hogg]

I wanted to expand a bit on the Drought versus Torkoal/Ninetales question.

A few people have been asking what changed since last gen, where we banned Drought rather than banning any individual setters. The basic answer is that prior to gen 8, we tightened up tiering standards a bit, including clarifying what power tiering councils/TLs have and better defining what constitutes a complex ban.

The TL;DR version is that while tiering councils still have the power to look at individual pokemon that are unhealthy, anything more complex, including banning an ability, would require a broader policy discussion. Such bans should have higher standards than a typical test, and we’d need to demonstrate that a simple pokemon ban wouldn’t resolve the issue on its own. Because of this, it’s certainly not a short term solution.

So in this case, to ban Drought, we’d need to demonstrate that it is broken independent of what pokemon you put it on. Juuno and Lilburr and TheTraininator have brought up that Vulpix could feasibly slot into most sun teams over Ninetales/Torkoal and still farm wins, and they may be right, but I think it’s something that we’d have to explore more if we wanted to go that route. While you can theoretically just lead with it, get sun up and sack it later for 14 turns of sun, it lacks both the offensive potential and the utility of the other two sun setters, making it an otherwise dead slot that is much easier to play around.

What I’m proposing is that we address the sun issue in the short term by holding a council vote on Ninetales and Torkoal, and use this time to look at whether sun is still a problem with the two primary setters banned. We can open up a policy discussion at the same time to talk about Drought instead, and with Ninetales and Torkoal possibly gone, that will give us a good testing ground for the viability of Vulpix sun teams. If we end up subsequently banning Drought, we would unban Torkoal and Ninetales accordingly.

It seems like the council is overall in agreement with going this direction, so we were planning on holding a vote at the end of the week if there were no significant issues. That said, before we did, I wanted to see some community discussion on the issue and figure out if people preferred we go in a different direction.

 

[TheTraininator]

I feel that what Hogg is proposing is ideal in the situation UU finds itself in. If it’s not possible to ban Drought by itself right now without providing ample proof that it is the problem due to tiering policies, then we simply have to work with that fact. However, Juuno brings up a good point that UULT is coming up, and if you wanted to go for a simple ban that would end up probably making the tier healthiest, then a Venusaur ban is certainly worth considering. It is Sun’s best abuser and certainly what pushes it over the edge; I think Sun would be much more manageable without it, kind of like Mega Houndoom last generation. The only reason I bring up the possibility of a Venusaur ban is just because it seems like there is a consensus that we have to do a non-ideal, probably short-term ban no matter what, and in my eyes, that would leave us with two courses of action. Banning the two main sun setters would allow us to better analyze how powerful Sun is with Vulpix and would give us the most amount of information we could get in order to make better tiering decisions in the future, but it would potentially come at the cost of a healthy meta in the short term. On the other hand, banning Venusaur almost certainly would reign in Sun a good enough deal for it to not be a major problem, (especially since Victreebel doesn’t exist to replace it in this generation yet), but would not be the ideal ban if we wanted to make a case for banning Drought down the line. Darmanitan I personally don’t think should be considered, so I think that the debate at this point should be between Tork/Tales and Venusaur.

 

[ceal]

My primary concern with the banning of ninetales + torkoal is taking the mons from lower tiers. Ninetales is already in RU, and Torkoal has typically been a low-tier mon so it can be expected to find its way down there too at some point, so it would be unfair to rob lower tiers of two mons that by all likelihood not be broken in those tiers. Banning drought is the best case scenario since it'll both get rid of the issue of Sun and preserve mons that otherwise wouldn't be broken save for the specific position UU finds itself in atm. Plus RU can do the things it did last gen and opt out of the drought ban to preserve drought ninetales in that tier which would be very cool since tales is usually a great pokemon there with drought. I understand that the primary concern for the UU tiering council is for UU itself, not the tiers below it, but I still believe in banning Drought as being the option with the least collateral, both for UU and the tiers below it.

 

[Gross Sweep]

The universal sense of angst the UU community has shown towards sun is interesting, as I believe I'm yet to see anyone even try and argue that it isn't an over-centralizing archetype that is unhealthy for the tier as a whole. However, many people have different views on what pushes this problem over the edge, leaving us with a lack of uniformity when it comes to pinpointing what is actually causing the tier distress.

The first option that I saw getting considered was the abusers themselves.

and

are extremely potent in the current metagame when accompanied by sun, and definitely part of the reason the style as a whole is being looked at in such a negative light. The power of Flare Blitz in the sun from Darmanitan is enough to make some of the tiers premiere fire resists fold. While Venusaur has an incredible speed tier under the sun, great coverage, and the ability to set up to +2 comfortably thanks to its solid bulk making it a match up nightmare. Overall these two are strong, but I fail to see them as the root problem of sun being an unhealthy influence on the UU metagame. While these two definitely contribute to sun being overbearing they get some slack from me, as outside of sun they're far from broken. Darmanitan will be a force in the tier thanks to its tremendous power no matter what, but if you remove sun from the equation mons like

and

begin to regain their ability to come in on Darmantian helping keep it in check better defensively. Venusaur similarly remains a decent looking mon on paper, but without the ability to double its speed and access to a move like Weather Ball make it a shell of what it was with a sunny sky. When it comes down to it I do see removing VenuDarm as a potentially successful option towards the bettering of the UU metagame, but I do not see it as best.

When I think about the best way to neutralize sun I cannot help but thinking about

and

. These are two mons that exist solely in UU to set sun reliably and not act as a momentum suck for the rest of the team. I'm not entirely sure if it's the correct way to look at it from a tiering perspective but if UU decides to ban Venu and Darm these two will similarly fall from the tier and lose most sense of relevance. However, if these two are the ones removed from the tier we can preserve two mons that could actually be beneficial. Also it's worth noting that while these two may exist in the tier solely to provide sun for their teammates the general utility and presence they provide do play a role in their success. Torkoal is a mon with solid bulk, access to hazards and removal, and the ability to force some switches with moves like Yawn. While Ninetales has respectable speed for the tier, access to Hypnosis, and The ability to grab momentum in a match and help its teammates set up by way of the move Momentum. The fact these two set sun in such an efficient and successful manner is part of the reason I'd be ok with these two being on the chopping block as opposed to Drought in general, as I believe other sun setting options would diminish the success sun has grown accustom to.

I understand the arguments made around Banning Drought as a whole, using

as the backbone of the argument. I'm just not convinced. While Torkoal and Ninetales provide utility and some ability to aid a team in general, Vulpix fails to do this in my eyes. It's essentially a dead slot that doesn't really provide anything besides initial sun + a weather reset and a sack later in the game. Using something like Vulpix hurts the style and makes it much less flexible. That being said it still provides sun and when combined with mons that take such advantage of the sun like VenuDarm is potentially dangerous. When it comes down to it I can't speak with certainty that Vulpix wont find a way to keep the style going, but I don't see it being as problematic. Since it will will also most likely force teams into investing in winning with sun 110% with vary little variance making them easier to check as a whole, as the teams will have to make up for a mon as lowly as Vulpix. I think people tend to forget how important a good setter truly is to a weather style, but it really does make a big difference. Like how Pelipper, among other things, helped shape Rain into a more consistent and successful archetype in OU as opposed to when Politoed was the sole Drizzle user in the tier.

Overall I would not protest the decision for either Torkoal + Ninetales to get the boot or Drought as a whole, but I lean towards believing a ban of Ninetales + Torkoal will be sufficent. I think both options will leave the meta in a fairly similar place. Sun will be balanced, bringing the tier to a more healthy state. That said, whether it be Vulpix or manual setters carrying the torch I think sun will still find a way to survive and win against teams that just don't have a Venusaur answer or are just weak to a strong Fire type like Darmanitan in general, it will just become much more of a match up fish instead of a consistent seemingly no drawback team choice.

 

[EviGaro]

I find it interesting that everyone is looking at severely limiting a playstyle to preserve newer mons that are quite obviously the reason for the playstyle being broken. And especially so when, people are clearly not very sure this solution actually works: people mentioning Vulpix, or even manual sun in some aspects, to prove that the abusers that are being broken would still have a massive impact on the tier.

I get the whole "well Venusaur and Darmanitan actually have positive value for the tier" but that's like, a massive ton of previous bans follow that rule. What happened to we ban a pokemon, not parts of it? From AV Yama to Rocks Staka to all the z-moves abusers from last gen, there's plenty of mons that had good, viable qualities in a certain tier that ended up being removed due to the broken elements that were entirely theirs. Venusaur has the Chlorophyll ability that makes it stupid, not Torkoal, Darm has that insane offensive capacity, not Ninetales. And you obviously see in this discussion that NO ONE actually considers both Torkoal and Ninetales to be broken in the slightest, again, people are even trying with Vulpix and having success. But everyone considers the abusers to be the problem... and hardly anyone considers they should be banned?

I think weather gets treated way differently than any other style in tiering to the point where it gets removed for things that are barely the weather's fault at this point. This isn't even a past gen scenario where drizzle made mons way below the tier absurd killing machines, uu players all recognize that the pool of stupid mons in drought is at the very best three. And for the record, I actually wanted Drought suspected over Shiftry in RU and I can obviously admit I was dead wrong about it. Removing Shiftry, despite all the "positive qualities" it had, made Sun from the best playstyle in offence to a complete non issue. Same as banning Darm / Mega Houndoom last gen. This proposal just seems like a way to completely circumvent the agreement on settling non pokemon bans through PR as well, yet doesn't really do that correctly, banning two mons that are not broken due to an ability that doesn't even make them broken is a blatant manipulation of it.

 

[Adaam]

What happened to we ban a pokemon, not parts of it?

That's what we are doing - banning pokemon. Banning Drought would be banning "part of a Pokemon" so I do not understand what you mean here.

From AV Yama to Rocks Staka to all the z-moves abusers from last gen, there's plenty of mons that had good, viable qualities in a certain tier that ended up being removed due to the broken elements that were entirely theirs.

Banning Venusaur by this logic does not make sense as we would be banning it for a "broken element" that is not "entirely its own." Sun makes it broken, not Venusaur itself. Sun was not broken with just Venusaur. Sun is not broken with just Darm. Sun, in conjunction with these two, plus other slight abusers with Solar Beam Noivern IS broken so the setters are the most logical target.

Removing Shiftry, despite all the "positive qualities" it had, made Sun from the best playstyle in offence to a complete non issue.

To me, this seems wrong and an arbitrary choice. Do you know what else makes Sun a non-issue? Banning the setters. Why are we obligated to "preserve" a playstyle that you admit will become totally irrelevant if we ban the Drought abusers?

This proposal just seems like a way to completely circumvent the agreement on settling non pokemon bans through PR as well, yet doesn't really do that correctly, banning two mons that are not broken due to an ability that doesn't even make them broken is a blatant manipulation of it.

Again, we are banning Pokemon so we are not circumventing anything. Blatant manipulation is totally unfair, as I could easily say "banning Venusaur that is not broken in of itself due to an ability that it doesn't even have is a blatant manipulation of it."

 

[EviGaro]

That's what we are doing - banning pokemon. Banning Drought would be banning "part of a Pokemon" so I do not understand what you mean here.

Banning Venusaur by this logic does not make sense as we would be banning it for a "broken element" that is not "entirely its own." Sun makes it broken, not Venusaur itself. Sun was not broken with just Venusaur. Sun is not broken with just Darm. Sun, in conjunction with these two, plus other slight abusers with Solar Beam Noivern IS broken so the setters are the most logical target.

To me, this seems wrong and an arbitrary choice. Do you know what else makes Sun a non-issue? Banning the setters. Why are we obligated to "preserve" a playstyle that you admit will become totally irrelevant if we ban the Drought abusers?

Again, we are banning Pokemon so we are not circumventing anything. Blatant manipulation is totally unfair, as I could easily say "banning Venusaur that is not broken in of itself due to an ability that it doesn't even have is a blatant manipulation of it."

- Basically I address this later so hopefully you understood then, but banning pokemons inherently implies that they are the element that is too much for the metagame. The reasons Ninetales and Torkoal are considered broken have next to nothing to do with themselves. While you can argue that Venusaur is only broken cause of other factors as well, it's a much harder sell because it's the mon that is being overwhelming for the metagame. It doesn't really add up with the tiering framework to ban things that are fine to irrelevant to preserve something that is notably the issue. As such, Venusaur in that logic is broken because its Chlorophyll ability and raw power allows it to take advantage of the metagame. That's a lot cleaner and simpler to argue that Torkoal being broken because of other mons' coverage, speed, and general issues with revenging them.

- Then if sun was obviously not broken with Venusaur + Noivern... it's even harder for me to get why you are not just doing something about Darmanitan lol. What you're saying here is that it's clearly what made the archetype overbearing, not the setters, not Venusaur, and not Noivern.

- Because my worry is largely about tiering consistency in those issues, and at least having the tiers understand what can and cannot be done. If we're all heavily suggested to consider problematic pokemons first and foremost and this happens, it's confusing for little reasons when everyone already seems to agree the issues with the tier are elsewhere.

- But it's a manipulation. Either it's from not suspecting mons that are actively broken in the context of a metagame or avoiding the side effects of proposing an ability ban, not going through PR and removing mons that cannot be considered broken by themselves isn't really what the system was made for. It might be "unfair" for you, but it's equally troubling to others that aren't even sure what should our priorities be in tiering if such a thing happens.

 

[Rabia]

Yeah, I'm very confused as to why Darmanitan is being treated as some holy saint of balance and fairness here given sun was, from what I can tell, very fine and not overbearing before it dropped. I think back to NU last generation when Gigalith dropped and sand became an incredibly dominant playstyle; while some people wanted to preserve Gigalith and ban Sand Stream or Sand Rush, the end decision was to get rid of Gigalith because sand was literally nonexistent before it dropped. This case seems very applicable here: sun was not perceived as a problem (by "problem" I mean something that needed to be banned) until Darmanitan dropped. It seems to me that Darmanitan is very clearly what pushes it over the edge and what should be banned.

 

[Moutemoute]

People do really forgot that Darmanitan didn't drop on its own. Torkoal dropped too and I think it's a bit too easy to ignore this fact by only focusing on Darmanitan and the offensive addition he brought to sun teams when we also got Torkoal which brings a lot of utility to sun teams by being able to set up Stealth Rock on opponent's field but also remove Entry Hazards on its own side on the field.

The issue atm is really Darmanitan + Venusaur + Sun Inducer (either Ninetales / Torkoal). Some people may dislike the current approach we're doing on focusing on sun inducers instead of sun abusers but this is a fact : Darmanitan and Venusaur on their own are fine without Sun and bring way more things to the tier than Ninetales or Torkoal. I know it sucks for RU since we're probably gonna ban Ninetales which is RU and not UU yet but we have to do something about sun teams and get rid of inducers is for us the best way to deal with this issue for now. It's just too easy to say that "Darmanitan is the issue" when several people already claimed a different thing like Lilburr or pokeisfun. Regardless of what we're going to do, there will be some disappointed people.

 

[pokemonisfun]

The point EviGaro made is a fair one:

1. Smogon's policy is that individual tiers can only ban broken Pokemon, not abilities. Abilities must be done through PR.
2. Hogg and Adaam have proposed to ban Torkoal and Ninetales as Pokemon, not banning Drought.
3. Evigaro noted that Torkoal and Ninetales aren't really broken by themselves as a Pokemon.
   • This is essentially saying we can either 1) ban broken Pokemon in our tier or 2) ban broken Abilities in PR. Torkoal and Ninetales are not broken Pokemon so we shouldn't have the power to ban it

So while Evigaro has made a contribution to this discussion, there are three questions that need to be answered in order to satisfy that logic:

1. Are we ACTUALLY circumventing PR? We are doing what they told us we could do - banning a pokemon. Remember UU was the tier that invented the kokoloko method of tiering - our diversity of tiers and policies can be a strength.
2. Nobody has bothered to produce evidence that "darm" or "venusaur" is the purely breaking factor. The only post that tried to touch on this was mine and I tried to provide evidence where heliolisk and leafeon could become exceptionally powerful as well. What evidence do you have that Darmanitan is the only broken aspect of Sun?
3. The logic of PR saying we must ban pokemon is to avoid the rabbit whole of "nerfing" - could one day kyogre be in ou if we nerf its base spa to 80, or something dumb like this. We are merely extending PR's logic. We don't want to "nerf" sun by trying to get rid of 1 or 2 attackers, we are trying to get rid of the concept of auto sun as a whole by getting rid of the clearest root of the probme, ninetales/torkoal. So what's wrong with our method of avoiding nerfing and why is Evigaro's proposal of banning Darm/Venusaur not considered nerfing sun?

 

[Adaam]

Yeah, I'm very confused as to why Darmanitan is being treated as some holy saint of balance and fairness here given sun was, from what I can tell, very fine and not overbearing before it dropped. I think back to NU last generation when Gigalith dropped and sand became an incredibly dominant playstyle; while some people wanted to preserve Gigalith and ban Sand Stream or Sand Rush, the end decision was to get rid of Gigalith because sand was literally nonexistent before it dropped. This case seems very applicable here: sun was not perceived as a problem (by "problem" I mean something that needed to be banned) until Darmanitan dropped. It seems to me that Darmanitan is very clearly what pushes it over the edge and what should be banned.

If anything banning Gigalith is in-line with what we are doing - banning setters. If that was not circumventing PR to avoid banning Sand Stream, why is this?

I don’t think the order in which things drop is relevant. Are you suggesting both if Drought setters dropped after the abusers, we should ban the setters? But if the abusers dropped before the setters, we ban the abusers? Why do the pre-existing Pokémon get priority in being preserved? And as Moutemoute pointed out, we also got Torkoal alongside Darm.

As pokeisfun said and I tried to convey, Sun’s power isn’t confined to Darm. So banning Darm is totally an arbitrary nerf. What happens if, in the future, we get even more Sun abusers? Should we keep banning more and more Pokémon to nerf Sun to irrelevancy, or tackle the root problem and ban the setters?

 

[lydian]

If you'll excuse me I also wanna share my two cents on the matter, if I may.

In theory, neither the setters nor the abusers are inherently banworthy, right? Darmanitan and Venusaur are not banworthy without sun, and if you wanna argue that these two are the ones pushing sun over the edge, then fine, but that's still irrelevant to the discussion, imo, and as Adaam put it in the above post, there's no reason to look at the order in which Pokémon dropped to determine what to ban. On the other hand, Torkoal and Ninetales are what enable the whole playstyle, granted, they're not broken on their own by any stretch of the imagination, but these two are what pushes Venusaur and Darmanitan over the edge, not the other way around. They're just support Pokémon, but too good at supporting, if anything. That's why Deoxys-D and Deoxys-S get banned and not the common faces of HO at the time. The support that Torkoal and Ninetales offer to Venusaur and Darmanitan is too strong, and for me, these supporters aka the setters are the ones that should get axed, when the abusers are clearly not banworthy on their own merit.

Whether to ban Torkoal and Ninetales or to ban Drought as a whole that's a different topic, but I strongly believe that action should be taken against the setters, not the abusers, peace, lyd out.

 

[Rabia]

If anything banning Gigalith is in-line with what we are doing - banning setters. If that was not circumventing PR to avoid banning Sand Stream, why is this?

I don’t think the order in which things drop is relevant. Are you suggesting both if Drought setters dropped after the abusers, we should ban the setters? But if the abusers dropped before the setters, we ban the abusers? Why do the pre-existing Pokémon get priority in being preserved? And as Moutemoute pointed out, we also got Torkoal alongside Darm.

As pokeisfun said and I tried to convey, Sun’s power isn’t confined to Darm. So banning Darm is totally an arbitrary nerf. What happens if, in the future, we get even more Sun abusers? Should we keep banning more and more Pokémon to nerf Sun to irrelevancy, or tackle the root problem and ban the setters?

That wasn't "circumventing PR to avoid banning Sand Stream" because Sand Stream wasn't the issue. Sand builds were not an issue with Hippopotas, whereas sand builds were incredibly overbearing with Gigalith. These builds never existed before Gigalith's drop and went away with its ban.

The order in which drops occur matters because it helps provide context for the relative strength of the build over time. If sun was considered healthy pre-Darmanitan---and Torkoal, my bad for forgetting they dropped at the same time---it's evident to me the issue with the build isn't setters as a whole. The issue isn't this black and white of course, and I'm sure you can make the case that both Darmanitan-less sun and Torkoal-less sun exist and work---I know for sure the latter case is true.

I don't really understand this discussion about "nerfing"; if a build is broken because of one component, you get rid of that component. Preservation of Pokemon shouldn't be something striven for in tiering because it needlessly complicates the process.

Whether or not UU later gets new sun abusers is irrelevant to the discussion at hand; tiering isn't done to futureproof. It's done to deal with metagame at a specific point in time. If UU were to later get new sun abusers, then I would expect UU to revisit this argument and decide again if it's a matter of sun itself or specific abusers that push the archetype over the edge. Tiering based on what ifs is poor because it tries to deal with a theoretical metagame; it'd be like voting to not ban x because it would make y broken.

 

[Hogg]

I tried to address this in my earliest post on Drought, but I think the idea that it's solely Darm that's the problem is a bit naive. Yes, Darm is definitely a contributing factor, in that it's one more thing that becomes extremely dangerous with Sun up. But several other things happened at around the same time Darm dropped: Torkoal also dropped, Mamoswine (aka the super-splashable and high-usage 'mon that OHKO'd almost everything on Sun teams and did 75% to Venu with Ice Shard) was banned, and Sun teams started adjusting around prominent meta threats like SDef Incineroar. In addition to pokeisfun's experiments with alternative breakers like Solar Power Heliolisk, you need to look no further than TDK's UUPL game against Accelgor this week to see how deadly Sun is without touching Darmanitan: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-492256

Basically, I don't think banning Darm (the "new" factor) alone would present a significant hurdle for Sun teams. Venusaur is a bit more of a common staple, simply because it's better than every other Chlorophyl sweeper, but I also think Sun would pretty easily adjust around a Venusaur ban as well. Banning both of them would probably make a significant dent in Sun teams, but at that point, why is that any better than banning Torkoal and Ninetales when neither has proved broken outside of Drought teams?

As far as banning Drought vs banning the setters goes, I haven't touched on it much here because it impacts a lot more than just UU policy, but I've tried to make it pretty clear that I think it's a discussion we should have (and intend to post a PR discussion on the matter today). I think that there's a pretty good case for it, considering Drought's impact on lower tiers in general in SwSh, including our own issues, RU's Shiftry ban and the current woes that PU is undergoing in dealing with it. But that's a broader discussion than we can really have in a thread dedicated to the UU metagame.

 

[Master Chief]

Hey so I'd like to pitch in on Evi's side a bit here. I think a lot of her precedent has been taken from RU banning Shiftry and subsequently killing sun as an overbearing playstyle as such. I think Hogg's post above tries to touch on the effectiveness of other abusers but I'd argue that the primary abuser that should be in question is Venusaur rather than sun itself. As lilburr alluded to in her post, venusaur was the primary problem because of the lack of switchins at +2 and the ample opportunities its teammates can open for it to get a growth off and consequently sweep. The primary issue to me with venu is that its speed tier in sun makes it extremely hard to revenge kill properly outside of it taking chip damage to put it in range of pod's first impression or from garde tracing chlorophyll. Venu to me is the overbearing mon that became so with the ban of mamo and ice shard being a nice tool to revenge kill it.

Regarding darm and sun I personally think it's difficult to switch into but nothing that the tier can't adapt to. UU itself isn't alien at all to mons that are difficult to switch into - garde, haxorus (which I personally believe deserves a suspect) and chandelure (less so with incin's recent drop). Speaking of incin, I think the above replay is less to do with sun itself but more to do with how TDK was able to punish a loose turn very well. Incin itself doesn't have many resists to its stab combo and in the right position that set did a number on accel's team regardless. The other sun abusers such as vern getting a new tool in solar beam is cute but nothing that pushes sun over the edge. I haven't seen enough solar power helio but there's solar power zard as well which can be difficult to switch into. However given these mon's speed tier and the redundancy in typing I'd argue that there's also a significant opportunity cost in stacking multiple fire mons on a team. Venu is able to complement a lot of these weaknesses and give much needed speed control but I'd personally argue that the other sun abusers are things the tier is equipped to handle. tl;dr I think it's worth taking a look at venu in isolation as the problematic element rather than sun itself. It also will have the least collateral damage to lower tiers to which the ban will percolate down to.

 

[Jespoke]

I'm hesitant to support removing the setters one way or another. Banning the setters effectively means getting rid of the whole archetype. Which i get is the whole point of targeting them, but i feel that's a very drastic measure to take for what may boil down to only two broken abusers. Getting rid of sun entirely also means hitting all the other abusers that are totally fine, right now and in the future, in both UU itself and the tiers below it.

Getting rid of Torkoal and Ninetales but not Vulpix would indeed weaken sun, but i don't know if it fixes the actual problem. If anything it would probably make sun's matchups even more lopsided than they already tend to be.

 

[Robot7620]

I'm hesitant to support removing the setters one way or another. Banning the setters effectively means getting rid of the whole archetype. Which i get is the whole point of targeting them, but i feel that's a very drastic measure to take for what may boil down to only two broken abusers. Getting rid of sun entirely also means hitting all the other abusers that are totally fine, right now and in the future, in both UU itself and the tiers below it.

Getting rid of Torkoal and Ninetales but not Vulpix would indeed weaken sun, but i don't know if it fixes the actual problem. If anything it would probably make sun's matchups even more lopsided than they already tend to be.

Given that manual setters exist such as Whimsicott which has priority or Vulpix still existing, even if it is inferior, getting rid of the whole archetype is not something necessarily to worry about, and besides getting rid of the abusers accomplishes essentially the same thing.

 

[smirtmirk]

I do have to say, it has been kind of funny to watch all of this unfold. When Darmanitan first dropped, most people seemed to think that it was going to be overpowered in UU. Then, all of the sudden, the blame is shifted and poor Ninetales and Torkoal were mercilessly thrown under the bus for simply being too reliable at setting up sun. How Cruel!

On a more serious note, I do think it's kind of ridiculous to see Ninetales, who isn't even in UU, is being considered for a ban. Like, it wasn't even good enough to rise to UU this month, yet now suddenly its all Ninetales fault that the most powerful team archetype is so dominant? I'm not so sure about that.

Still, I suppose I understand the arguments that the sun abusers aren't as abusive without the setters, and the argument that the setters aren't as important without the abusers to abuse sun. Both play somewhat equal parts in it. While I'm more inclined to think that the ones that are actually abusing the sun are worse, that doesn't mean that it can't be the support's fault that their support is so abusable in the first place!

This all led me to think: What if the problem isn't that there are two strong abusers of sun? What if the problem isn't that there are two ridiculously reliable sun setters? What if the problem is actually that there are two reliable sun setters and two massive abusers? What I mean by that is that just a single good setter and a single great beneficiary shouldn't be an issue, it just that both roles have such good options. What I propose is that we ban one of each type instead of both of one type. For the sun setter, I believe Torkoal should be targeted since it has such great utility in addition of setting for sun teams. For the abuser, it depends on which people feel more unhealthy between Venesaur and Darm.

Overall, if we approached the issue in this way, it would be a perfect compromise since it wouldn't eliminate all of the setters or all of the abusers. Also, it probably wouldn't totally kill sun teams either.

 

[Chandell]

I'm now leaning towards a Darmanitan ban. Unless we ban drought and sunny day these shenanigans will continue. Prankster users such as Sableye and Whimsiscott, and you can even use Meowstic if you want Sun+Screens. Darmanitan is what truly makes sun broken as band Darmanitan which has few switchins already now has 0 under sun. Something will die when band Darm comes in under sun. Venusaur is strong but not nearly as much, Goodra is a well known check, Chandelure is a decent one given heavy duty boots makes it easier to keep Chandy healthy, and there are unconventional counters and checks out there such as Heatproof Bronzong, Assault Vest Drapion, assault vest Duralodon, Hakomo-o and Drakloak, but given these are so unconventional and many of them are unviable (the difference between Venu and Darm being that at least Venu has checks and counters under sun), perhaps Venu could get suspected as well. But overall I feel Darm should go if we are to preserve sun as a playstyle since banning sun would be very difficult and perhaps impossible.

 

[nomadderwhat]

I'd really hate to see sun itself and any of the mons needlessly go if they don't have to. Banning heat rock could be a solid solution. As pointed out in the VR thread, golisopod has been getting a bit of poop for how many protect pokemon there are. If sun was 5 turns you have to get your sun setter in, then you have to safely switch to venusaur, then venusaur (generally) would like to set up, leaving 2 turns to play with. 1 can be burned with a protect, and if sun generally got 0 turns to play with its a garbage style anyways. This is best case scenario for them if venu is safe on what is in currently, so they might get no set up or only one turn to attack otherwise (or none).

I think venu is a cool mon and has some uses if sun wasn't a thing, and darm is definitely useful without the sun. Nerfing how long they can switch between teammates before getting in safely for a sweep would keep the style alive yet making it less easy.

(this is all assuming we are rioting for something to be banned, im fine with letting it be as is, i love this tier)