Blissey

[cantab]

Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.

Blissey walls almost anything that lacks a powerful enough physical move to 2HKO her - which is the majority of special sweepers.

Based on the top 20, Blissey walls about 1/3 of the metagame, which isn't quite a significant portion. Not to mention, most of the special sweepers in the top 20 have Trick, and Blissey can be Toxic Spiked.

There is a problem here. For a defensive Pokemon, you would naturally expect it to wall a fairly low proportion of the metagame, because people will choose things NOT walled by it. The presence of Blissey is a major problem for any special sweeper.

Why in the world would you even carry Trick on a choiced sweeper anyway? Basically, people are carrying it primarily to stop Blissey. And frankly it's a shaky answer to Blissey, since if you've used a special attack, you have to switch out and back in in order to trick her - and it's going to be blatantly obvious that's what you're trying to do. If you bring a common Trick user in on Blissey, again, that's very obvious. In both cases, all your opponent has to do is go to something that doesn't mind being tricked - preferably a choice user of their own.

Status doesn't stop her that well either. It forces her out, but she comes straight back healed.

I think it's a lot harder to see if something's Uber based on defense, because the metagame will adapt around it, more readily than it can around an offensive threat.

It's true that Blissey's achilles heel is her physical defense. But even there, her massive HP offsets it and allows her to survive weaker physical hits - meaning you can't just slap a physical move on a special sweeper to win.

I think Blissey is probably not Uber. But she is the current OU most arguable as a suspect on the defensive characteristic. Testing her might help us understand said characteristic better.

EDIT:

Also, blissey would suck in ubers, as it can't wall the majority of the ubers as well in ou. For example, darkrai can continue to use dark void plus bad dreams to eventually kill it, blissey is 2koed by kyogre's water spout with specs, mewtwo has trick, many special pokemon have mixed sets (deoxys-a, diagla), etc.

Actually, Blissey doesn't suck in Ubers. Even there, there is no better special wall. She's actually on proportionately MORE Uber teams than she is on OU teams! (Ranking-wise it's 14th on OU, 15th in Ubers, so the same there too).
I know that it's not hard and fast, but if a Pokemon is performing well in Ubers, then that is a sign it may be too powerful in OU.

 

[ARandomDude]

Scizor: Superpower first, you have to switch into twave/toxic or flamethrower, but ok, that's easy enough. Next, you have to hope blissey doesn't have protect. Or you can use non choiced scizor, but really, that sucks.
Salamence: outrage/brick break again, you have to switch in, just sub ice beam for flamethrower in the last sentence. now, you do realize that brick break only 2hko's blissey? as for outrage, getting prematurely locked into outrage is a major boner.
Rotom: Trick
choiced rotom is pursuit bait
Latias: Trick
choiced latias is pursuit bait
Tyranitar: Superpower
iirc without expert belt superpower from jolly max attack ttar actually misses out on the ko. ttar doesn't like switching into blissey either has twave hurts it more than scizor. this one does pretty well though, although if it's your blissey counter you pretty much can't run ddtar.
Heatran: Explosion
protect?
Gyarados: Taunt/Waterfall
taunt gyarados sucks tbh, and blissey can otherwise twave, also can't switch in.
Metagross: Meteor Mash/Explosion
I suppose this works as well as ttar, but blissey can easily switch out as pursuit doesnt even do that much, with rotom being the #3 pokemon or something and a 100% counter.
Jirachi: Trick/101 Sub
Choiced rachi is magnezone bait. 101 subs (not a good set imo) or wish I guess beats it.
Lucario: Close Combat
can't switch in
Infernape: Close Combat
can't switch in

I think the point was that Blissey can't successfully wall the Top 10 a significant portion of the time.

 

[The SPrinkLer]

I honestly dont think moving blissey to ubers is a good choice. For one, the top players on the ladder use stall teams, and mostly all of them have blissey in them. Also, blissey would suck in ubers, as it can't wall the majority of the ubers as well in ou. For example, darkrai can continue to use dark void plus bad dreams to eventually kill it, blissey is 2koed by kyogre's water spout with specs, mewtwo has trick, many special pokemon have mixed sets (deoxys-a, diagla), etc. Also, the final reason is because I also use one. :0

Again, this is about redefining the charcteristics that make an uber. Secondly, who cares about your opinion? We're seeing if a certain Pokemon is uber or not, not if you like it or not. Hell, a lot of people would like to see Garchomp back in Ou, but does that mean anything?

 

[Stylish Interval]

If I remember correctly, Smogon strives towards the most competitive metagame or something like that. To my knowledge, a more enjoyable metagame doesn't equal a more competitive metagame. More enjoyable means taking out the challenge of the game to increase the fun factor to me.

Also, this completely ties in with the Salamence thread. A lot of people want it banned and think of how many more Pokemon/strategies would become viable if there wasn't a giant Dragon to come in on them and possibly set up and sweep. Think of how much more fun players would have if there wasn't a giant Dragon to come and rain on their fun parade with their favorite Pokemon.

I don't understand why you would want to ban a Pokemon just because it would make the metagame more fun, but I suppose I'll wait until tomorrow for your response.

 

[Jonathan]

This would definitely be interesting as a little side-project, if only to see how much Blissey impacts the metagame, as its removal would arguably have a greater effect on the OU metagame than the removal of any other Pokemon.

But say we conclude the metagame is more fun and diverse without Blissey (fun-ness being very subjective in the first place). Fine. What if I then suggest we test OU without say Skarmory, Infernape, and Jirachi (random selection of Pokemon, I'm not implying anything here). I could make a case that removing those Pokemon would do the same thing that you propose removing Blissey would do. And ask 10 other people and they could give you 10 different sets of Pokemon (or a single Pokemon too I guess).

The problem with this idea is that it's not an objective way to form a metagame, not only because "fun-ness" is a fishy critera, but because it would be unfair not to test everyone else's suggestions, to see if someone's particular metagame would be more fun and diverse than yours. And thus you have a never-ending process of testing, which is horrible for competitive battling.

I would however support something like this on a separate ladder as an "experiment" of sorts, as I think it would be pretty interesting, and like I said I agree that Blissey's absence would have the biggest effect on the OU metagame as it currently exists.

 

[ultimifier]

agreeing with scofield's picking apart of boredombliss's list.

The thing is once blissey switches in there are actually very few safe switch ins to it. None of the pokemon in the top 10 like switching in on blissey as one of flamethrower, toxic, thunder wave will hurt each of them drastically.

Of course paralyzing someone isn't as bad as lets say hitting a scizor with a mence's fire blast, but bliss is a DEFENSIVE pokemon. All she is going to do all game is status things, heal teamates, scout choice moves, and just annoy the fuck out of your opponent.

Also, maybe theres a reason that the top 10 all have a way to deal with blissey. Maybe its because every pokemon that doesnt have a reliable way to deal with blissey isn't used as much!

 

[ARandomDude]

Blissey doesn't run sets of Seismic Toss/Flamethrower/Ice Beam/Toxic/Thunder Wave/Wish/Protect. In fact, it will probably run maybe two things max (A status move and an attack move). There are soooooooooo many ways to work around this, makes it easy to abuse.

 

[Scofield]

I consider keeping a pokemon from switching in and being able to majorly cripple a dangerous switch in walling, so I do think blissey can wall a good chunk of the top 10.

Blissey doesn't run sets of Seismic Toss/Flamethrower/Ice Beam/Toxic/Thunder Wave/Wish/Protect. In fact, it will probably run maybe two things max (A status move and an attack move). There are soooooooooo many ways to work around this, makes it easy to abuse.

No, a set of protect/wish/twave/flamethrower is good enough to support everything I just said. Doesn't mean that I still don't fear all 8 of those moves when I think about switching into blissey, does it?

 

[boredomisbliss]

umm, yea. usually it only takes 1 turn to figure out what blissey is running. the first thing that a blissey is going to throw is whatever its status is, and unless this blissey is running flamethrower/ice beam/thunder wave/toxic/protect/wish then something is going to be able to switch into it. if its got seismic toss, then a bunch of things can switch into it, and be able to KO it. if its got toxic, steels have a field day. if its paralysis, slower sweepers have a field day. point is there WILL be safe switchins for any blissey threat, and it doesnt take long to scout out the set.


and also, who cares if blissey is influencing the top 10? if the top 10 all have ways of dealing with blissey, then that is the status of the metagame, a metagame that blissey cannot wall

 

[cantab]

I think the point was that Blissey can't successfully wall the Top 10 a significant portion of the time.

As I've said already, she doesn't wall the top 10 because the things she does wall aren't in the top 10 because of Blissey

When it comes to assessing a defensive Pokemon, I reckon we need to at the very least look at how it walls the whole of OU.

EDIT: 'The metagame' is more than just the top 10! The OU metagame encompasses all of OU, and arguably all of UU and NU as well.

 

[Elevator Music]

This topic is (or should be) more about exploring the defensive characteristic than Blissey being Uber. So yeah, please stop with all the "no no no blissey's not broken at all", because KD and everyone supporting testing Blissey (EDIT- and thus the defensive characteristic (sorry should have clarified)) gets that.

In any case, I completely support a test like this if only because the Defensive Charactersistic has never been used in the suspect testing so far, and I would love to make it more clear so we could test stuff like Deoxys-D (though I'd think that'd be broken under Support Characteristic -- but what does that say about the Defensive Characteristic?)

 

[Mike Legend]

and also, who cares if blissey is influencing the top 10? if the top 10 all have ways of dealing with blissey, then that is the status of the metagame, a metagame that blissey cannot wall

Then this is centralization. If Choice Users are forced to carry trick and Heatran is using explosion primarily for Blissey. Superpower on Tar genrally sucks but it gets Blissey outta the way. The status of the metagame threrefore, is having a way to take down Blissey so that your sweep is not stopped cold. Thus leading to centralization.

 

[Quaily]

My personal frustration with blissey comes from thunder wave. Even if you switch in lucario she can paralyze it and make it worthless.

 

[Mike Legend]

Then carry a Lum Berry on your Lucario or get a Blissey on your team who can Aromatherapy it away.

 

[Tint]

First off, to all the people who are saying Blissey can't do anything to the top 10 pokes, don't you think if Blissey DID stop them, they wouldn't be top 10?

I think this also brings up a flaw in our Uber Characteristics, if Blissey walls let's say 60% of all pokemon, regardless of tier, the majority of them will not be used, because they are shut down cold by Blissey. This means that there will rarely be a time when a wall can "wall a significant portion of the metagame", because the metagame will shift almost like clockwork to things that can beat it. No one will use things completely walled by things like Blissey, just because they "get walled", meaning they will never be part of the "metagame", which means the portion of the metagame which Blissey walls is misleading.

I'm not saying these Uber Characteristics are inherently wrong, just maybe worded wrong. I understand how much time and effort multiple people have put into them, and I'm not trying to undermine any of their work.

 

[Tsunami]

1.) Are more Pokemon viable in competitive play, but the metagame is not dominated by Pokemon following Blissey's removal?

One of those things I would see is sub Empoleon. One of the reasons why most people don't opt for a specially based set is because of the pink blob. It would also require less team support making it more viable for different styles of play. This also brings the question how blisseys questionable position would make countering such specially orientated pokemon much more complicated. Surprise boomers such as Gengar and Heatran would no longer need to run those sets, making them a much versatile and play larger roles in the metagame.

 

[RaikouLover]

This is an interesting thread. For starters the reason why the metagame is so physically based is because of Blissey. If Blissey was not available, I personally would never have a need to use another physical sweeper again.. EVER! Tyranitar and Latias cannot possibly hope to stand up to special threats such as Gengar and Alakazam and LO Starmie looks a lot more menacing (hello Lanturn?). Also, if you take this route, I suspect Chansey will have to be banned as well the same way Wynaut and Wob would be..

 

[Quaily]

Needing to run lum on lucario might as well be the same thing as getting paralyzed. On my current team I have a jolteon who is immune to thunder wave, but it doesn't matter because jolteon(and pretty much every ground type) can't beat blissey.

Saying 'use blissey to beat blissey!' is stupid.

 

[Mike Legend]

How is it stupid? Please do elaborate.

 

[Alex_Dino]

Actually, if you predicted a Twave from Blissey with Lucario out you could just set-up while she Twave's you, Lum Berry kicks in, and shit, you've got a +2 whatever Lucario at full health. It's not that difficult of a concept imo. I mean, unless you're running a special Luke w/out Specs(and those are few and far between as it is) you're gonna win.

 

[Flamethrowa.]

We are mentioning stuff like Lucario and Infernape who hate being T waved, but think about Restalk Machamp and Restalk Ttar (Actually most physical attackers utilising Restalk will beat Blissey due to her inability to pick up fast KOs.)

The idea of temporarily removing Blissey is an interesting one, I am not for or against it, I wouldn't mind seeing it happen though.

 

[franky]

Simple solution: revisit the Defensive Characteristics

Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.

Let's take a look at the OU list and see what Blissey wall and stall out. Assuming Blissey is using this particular set - WishBliss. The bolded part is a surefire "able to wall and stall", while the red part totally depends on which set they are running. For the most part, they are designed to past by Blissey i.e Explosion, Refresh+Recover, etc. Usually though, some of these methods may not pass Blissey (i.e Explosion from Gengar).

OU
Aerodactyl
Azelf
Blissey
Breloom
Bronzong
Celebi
Cresselia
Dragonite
Dugtrio
Dusknoir
Empoleon
Flygon
Forretress
Gengar
Gliscor
Gyarados
Heatran
Heracross
Hippowdon
Infernape
Jirachi
Jolteon
Kingdra
Latias
Lucario
Machamp
Magnezone
Mamoswine
Metagross
Ninjask
Porygon-Z
Rhyperior
Roserade
Rotom-C
Rotom-F
Rotom-H
Rotom-S
Rotom-W
Salamence
Scizor
Skarmory
Smeargle
Snorlax
Starmie
Suicune
Swampert
Tentacruel
Togekiss
Tyranitar
Vaporeon
Weavile
Zapdos

There are currently 52 OU Pokemon, and it walls approximately 23 Pokemon in the OU tier. That is around 44% of OU. I may have missed a few more, but there are some I didn't bother to highlight since I'm usually leaning this toward standard. (i.e SpecsKingdra, SpecsInfernape, etc.)

Basically if the remainder of your team is something like Vaporeon, Latias, Cresselia, Jolteon you are bound to loose all of them in only a matter of turns with the combination of Toxic + SeismicToss/IceBeam/Flamethrower. The team isn't practical, but it speaks volume of Blissey's ability to wall a portion of the metagame. I'm not really a big fan of sending Blissey for a test, nor am I a fan of not testing it. I feel like we should revisit the characteristic since people rely on it too much. The consensus of the members know its OU material but can't get a legitimate reason since the Defense Characteristic is in the way. Unfortunately with the description - Blissey is under the criteria.

 

[Jonathan]

This is an interesting thread. For starters the reason why the metagame is so physically based is because of Blissey. If Blissey was not available, I personally would never have a need to use another physical sweeper again.. EVER! Tyranitar and Latias cannot possibly hope to stand up to special threats such as Gengar and Alakazam and LO Starmie looks a lot more menacing (hello Lanturn?). Also, if you take this route, I suspect Chansey will have to be banned as well the same way Wynaut and Wob would be..

Lanturn can in fact beat Blissey one on one, check my signature :)

 

[Quaily]

How is it stupid? Please do elaborate.

If the only way to beat a poke is to use it, then you are pretty much confirming that it's way too good.

You're not getting a free switch in on blissey- the lum gets used as she twaves your switch in. You can set up after, but she might just twave you again. Gutsy though, not sure if a +0 close combat will ko her. I'd guess yes.

I highly doubt that blissey will get banned, but I think she is a pretty big turn off to people playing. Pretty much every sweeper in OU is either physical or mixed. I had to go all the way down to empoloen to find a special attacker in ou that actually sets up to attack. Other than that the 4 other special based attackers- gengar, latias, heatran, and starmie- do not set up and are generally not used as sweepers. Latias and heatran are versitile, starmie and gengar tend to be revenge killers or spinners. Stuff like crocune set up, but it's used as a wall.

 

[Lockeness]

Blissey may be a wall but it has dropped out of top 10 usage because it just doesn't work as well in the current metagame. We don't need to remove it and the effect may not be as pronounced as can be imagined because of the lack of big special sweepers. Blissey works fine in the game and it allows stall to be effective. Blissey does not need to be uber. The leadong idea of suspect is to remove over powered threats and not to necessarily make the game more enjoyable though it can be an effect.