All Gens Ask a Simple Question, Get a Simple Answer Mark II (RoA edition)

fanyfan said:
rby and adv both had mechanics discoveries a few years ago and they’ve been settling ever since so not those. Dpp recently introduced Latias so not that one.
imo, the closest metagame to “solved” is gsc OU since that one has stayed pretty much the same for the longest amount of time. Obviously there are still new meta trends that pop up sometimes (Golem for example) but that’ll happen for even the most “solved” metas.
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Some meta shifts in RBY happened independently of the paraslam changes. Years ago the conventional wisdom was that golem was better than rhydon, and was probably the most common 6th. Now it’s apparently UU, which I find hard to believe is purely because of the changes, when you consider that a very similar Pokémon is now considered at least a top 10 Pokémon.

Funny thing is people like me who always thought Rhydon was better than golem even before the changes, think they hurt rhydon more than help him, but apparently he’s a tier better than golem now.

Victrebel going to OU is another example. I’d been saying it was OU for years, but it was only after some players starting experimenting with it and getting results in tournaments that it moved up.
 
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RBY OU imo
The tier is the smallest there is, most of the meta Pokemons are defined, as well as their possible sets & best partners. Not only that, but most game situations have been explored too. It's also the tier with the least elements to take into account when playing/creating gameplans (no spikes, weather, pursuit, etc). No items/EVs to take into account either.

It gives the tier its charm imo, and there is always room for exploration/meta trends changes (some notable & recent examples is the rise of Surf Starmie, the rise of Victreebel in general).
 
McMeghan said:
RBY OU imo
The tier is the smallest there is, most of the meta Pokemons are defined, as well as their possible sets & best partners. Not only that, but most game situations have been explored too. It's also the tier with the least elements to take into account when playing/creating gameplans (no spikes, weather, pursuit, etc). No items/EVs to take into account either.

It gives the tier its charm imo, and there is always room for exploration/meta trends changes (some notable & recent examples is the rise of Surf Starmie, the rise of Victreebel in general).
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Need to remember that the Smogon OU meta is quite different to what a real cartridge OU meta would be like. Things like no freeze clause, people using wrap more, allowing tradebacks, no perfect IV Pokémon makes a big difference because you don’t have calculations, eg. Golem might be more popular because you won’t know if rhydon extra power would make a difference like it does on simulators.

The Smogon meta developed in a lot of arbitrary ways which has shaped our perception of what competitive RBY is. But in reality if a real cartridge meta had persisted all these years it’d be quite more dynamic and less solved than smogon’s simulator meta with modded freeze mechanics.
 
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I'm with your previous post 100%, but I don't agree that a physical cart metagame would be any different than that of the simulators. IV discrepancies here and there mean little other than Speed (which you know everyone is maxing that in preference to all other stats) because the difference in damage values is so minuscule. Even lack of hard Sleep Clause is but a very minor bane to slower sleepers, definitely less meaningful than in future gens where one can attack on the same turn they wake up. Tradebacks isn't even a cartridge difference, it's a long-standing community preference to disallow them. The only question is, is Freeze powerful enough without Freeze Clause to warp the metagame, and I don't believe it is at 10% accumulating odds. Maybe Lapras and Jynx usage go up a bit.
 
Mr.E said:
I'm with your previous post 100%, but I don't agree that a physical cart metagame would be any different than that of the simulators. IV discrepancies here and there mean little other than Speed (which you know everyone is maxing that in preference to all other stats) because the difference in damage values is so minuscule. Even lack of hard Sleep Clause is but a very minor bane to slower sleepers, definitely less meaningful than in future gens where one can attack on the same turn they wake up. Tradebacks isn't even a cartridge difference, it's a long-standing community preference to disallow them. The only question is, is Freeze powerful enough without Freeze Clause to warp the metagame, and I don't believe it is at 10% accumulating odds. Maybe Lapras and Jynx usage go up a bit.
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IVs do make a difference because you have to gauge on the fly how much damage you’re doing and taking. Might not affect meta Pokémon except for rhydon vs golem.

No Tradebacks and the meta being developed without wrap (because wrap was bugged on the original simulators) aren’t simulator issues, but they’re still arbitrary Smogon concepts that have kept the meta more narrow. We call it RBY OU implying it’s competitive first gen battling, but in reality it’s just an RBY mod with Smogon rulings.

Remember Smogon has restricted the amount of viable Pokémon by banning tradebacks and giving a negative image to wrap. If a real cartridge meta had existed all this time that didn’t impose rules like no tradebacks and freeze clause, which don’t actually make the game more competitive, RBY would still be competitive but you’d have a more dynamic meta. It wouldn’t be lead-big 4- Taurus in every battle.

Even the Ohko ban is questionable because Ohko’s are hard countered by being faster. Most Ohko Pokémon are either slow, frail (dugtrio) or get walled (articuno). But the problem is anything that forces you to deviate from the big 4 plus Tauros is consisted anti-competitive. I say questionable because I haven’t tested it myself, just speculating based on the fact it has hard counters (just like freeze)

Its a shame because we could’ve had a meta where different types of teams. Big 4 teams, wrap teams(can still have these), freeze teams, even ohko teams, plus tradebacks making more Pokémon viable.
 
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Dre89 said:
No Tradebacks and the meta being developed without wrap (because wrap was bugged on the original simulators) aren’t simulator issues, but they’re still arbitrary Smogon concepts that have kept the meta more narrow.
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What was the deal with wrap? If the bug was fixed, why is that history still affecting the metagame?
 
Smogon didn't really make RBY metagame rules beyond perpetuating community consensus from the boards of yesteryear. If anything, Smogon (thankfully) tries its best to avoid changing old gen rulesets and no tradebacks is a long-standing community preference. Now, if you'd like to see a shift to tradebacks being allowed that's a different matter. Not sure how much it seriously changes the metagame though. Off the top of my head, Persian probably becomes OU again with Hypnosis and Zam with punches might make it "Big 5" (plus Snorlax actually becomes as good as everyone already thinks it is).

I played in the days of pre-Evasion Clause and pre-OHKO Clause. Historically the only common OHKO user was Dugtrio and they are certainly much more bearable than in new gens where they're much less easy to counter, but they still circumvent basic gameplay to a significant degree especially in older gens where normal damage attacks aren't off the charts powerful. In RBY where you often have to fish for crits and full paralysis and make clever switches to gain incremental advantage, OHKO moves are just a thing you throw out and they either work or they don't. Where outright KOs are difficult to come by (as they are in GSC but increasingly less the more modern gen you go), being able to just auto-KO whatever is also inherently broken. I believe they're overpowered but regardless they fundamentally simplify the game to a degree that is arguably no longer competitive enough to be worth playing because they turn a nuanced sequence of events into a bunch of coin flips (weighted but nonetheless).

sumwun said:
What was the deal with wrap? If the bug was fixed, why is that history still affecting the metagame?
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In the days of yore, Wrap didn't work correctly on the available simulators so people didn't use it. By the time it was fixed, the metagame is firmly established without Wrap being a presence. People start using it and it's weird and different and kinda cheap in a conventional sense, so people don't like it. In a sense, the issue of sim vs. cart might have contributed a bit toward the negativity people have with Wrap. But we don't ban those moves and I think Smogon is rather more friendly toward them than some other niche communities are, so I don't think that's particularly contributing to a stagnant metagame. If anything, Wrap usage has very clearly increased and the metagame of recent has shifted quite a bit, as evidenced by Victreebel being moved to OU and Cloyster growing from a tiny niche to nearly mainstream.
 
I managed to miss all the context for the Arena Trap ban in BW OU last year. What set was Arena Trap Diglett running in OU before it was banned? Was it intended to trap specific Pokémon, and if so, which ones?
 
Does anybody have a good safeguard cm latias set + spread for dpp ou? There's not one on the strategy dex and I searched RoA forum and couldn't find one either. It mostly came about in the latias suspect test but I never found a set/spread. Ty in advance =).
 
callforjudgement said:
I managed to miss all the context for the Arena Trap ban in BW OU last year. What set was Arena Trap Diglett running in OU before it was banned? Was it intended to trap specific Pokémon, and if so, which ones?
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Diglett @ Focus Sash
Ability: Arena Trap
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 HP / 0 Def / 0 SpD
- Earthquake
- Reversal
- Toxic / Memento / Stealth Rock
- Toxic / Memento / Stealth Rock

Diglett had 2 targets in Heatran and Tyranitar and was used on sun teams to enable degenerate strategies like bulky / non-HP [Ground] Volcarona and Cress / Chansey cores. Sun had naturally good matchups against rain (Toed) squads and was extremely hard to break outside of a few specific attackers like Dragon Gem SD SR Garchomp, Shed Shell Tyranitar, and certain Rotom-W sand squads.

252+ Atk Diglett Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Heatran: 396-468 (102.8 - 121.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Diglett Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 194-230 (48 - 56.9%) -- 90.6% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Diglett Reversal (200 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Chople Berry Tyranitar: 258-304 (63.8 - 75.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 
Sakito said:
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DPP Thursday #212
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Finals Replays: DPP Random Battle / DPP OU / DPP Ubers
DPP Random Battle (17):
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PelipperDude
DPP OU (19):
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Sprinkles
DPP Ubers (9):
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Highlord
Next Week Tiers
DPP OU Blitz / DPP Random Battle / DPP OU​
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What do the numbers in parantheses mean
 
I don't forsee the rough schedule changing now: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/old-gen-tournaments-calendar.3641598/

There were some last minute changes about 3 weeks back, just to start things earlier in order to give more space. Clarification on exact dates for the major open tournaments will be given in the past gen championship thread (which should be posted soon). There will also be hub threads duplicating that information and having exact dates for the closed tournaments too.
 
Hi guys. I have a question about combining reflect and substitute in gen1. Does the substitute have boosted defence? Or does the 'reflect' only affect the actual pokemon?
 
As much as I am SO looking forward to the DLC coming way later this year, there's this one concern I have related to the meta-game. It's all about the return of the legendaries or Landorus-T to be precise. After becoming the most-used and dominant Pokemon in S/M/US/SM, I fear it may change everything in a bad way in Sword/Shield also and believe me, I'm not the only one who thinks about this. I feel like Landorus-T is influencing players' minds, making them blind with pride and highly egotistical. I remember reading a GameFAQs post with the title, "If you don't use Landorus-T, you suck".

Since the Pokemon has overstayed its welcome in the previous games, do you think Landorus-T should be classified as an Uber on here OR unban Galarian Darmanitan to take on that threat with a subzero fist? It's just that there are so many great and innovative team-building strategies we all enjoy building now that there are new Pokemon taking the spotlight and I don't want that legendary to take their chances away from them and hog all the glory to itself.
 
Most important question: Why are you asking here instead of asking the current generation OU's council members?
christopher_ 1942 said:
I fear it may change everything in a bad way in Sword/Shield also and believe me, I'm not the only one who thinks about this. I feel like Landorus-T is influencing players' minds, making them blind with pride and highly egotistical...

Since the Pokemon has overstayed its welcome in the previous games,
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Smogon OU is a game, and games are played for fun. If you think Landorus is not fun, then nobody is stopping you from finding other people and agreeing with them to ban Landorus. Smogon Forums will let you host your own Landorus-banning tournament if you want (and if you read the tournament hosting rules). But OU can ban Landorus only if a majority of players think Landorus is not fun. Do you think that majority exists?
"If you don't use Landorus-T, you suck"
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This is wrong. In December, 64% of people who didn't suck also didn't use Landorus.
do you think Landorus-T should be classified as an Uber on here OR unban Galarian Darmanitan to take on that threat with a subzero fist? It's just that there are so many great and innovative team-building strategies we all enjoy building now that there are new Pokemon taking the spotlight and I don't want that legendary to take their chances away from them and hog all the glory to itself.
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I'm not really sure what's the difference between "centralizing" and "broken" or why so many people think Landorus isn't "broken". You can probably answer your questions by asking OU council members, reading the tiering policy, and playing a lot of USUM OU.
 
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