DP Tier Discussion - BL and UU (mark 2)

[Aldaron]

Umbarsc, I'm sorry, but the only post that was utterly nonsense was yours. Did you even bother reading my post? I said it doesn't make too much sense to arbitrarily unban random BL Pokemon (trust me, I could make "valid" reasoning for any BL to be considered in UU...remember even RAIKOU was made UU in early DP by Smogon); instead, if we are serious about this, we should unban them all for testing.

I never god damned said what was banned should remain banned, you genius of epic proportions.

Of course, this type of a response from you is not surprising considering you've given me shit like this before:

I don't see why theorymon is "needless". It's not like you would have to test Choice Specs Skarmory before calling it worthless. I agree with Blissey, taking extra recoil on a bulky Pokemon is "eh" already, but then you add the possibility of Sandstorm and Stealth Rocks into the mix and you have a Pokemon that eats up a ton of residual damage. It seems a lot like Flame Orb Milotic, in my opinion, and that isn't very successful.

Man...you were so right about that BulkyMence not working with Life Orb!!

 

[kd24]

I am fairly certain moderators usually don't read this thread as i have hardly seen any here but if I am wrong .. well here is what I planned on PMing anyway.

Guys does this look solid enough to PM and try and get a NU Discussion thread?

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Title: Concerning a NU Discussion

Members of the DP Tier Discussion - BL and UU have shown great interest in having a NU Discussion as well. They feel that the DP Tier Discussion - BL and UU are no place to talk about NU, and we should have a thread entirely dedicated to what becomes NU.

Obviously one can not deny that Shoddy is attracting more NU players then ever before. We feel that a NU thread would really be beneficial towards these players, as well as Smogon itself.

People feel that if a Little Cup thread is open, why should a NU discussion thread not be allowed? We feel there is no problem with it, especially as it does not concern which Pokemon are BL or UU.

Obviously Pokemon such as Toxicroak or Clefable would never be brought up in a NU discussion thread, much like how Pokemon such as Mightyena and Plusle are never brought up in the DP Tier Discussion - BL and UU.

I am sending this to all of the Moderators of Stark Mountain, just to get opinions on whether a NU discussion thread can be started. If the majority of Moderators feel that we should resolve OU, BL, and high UU first, we will simply not bother with the thread as they deserve more attention.

---

Should I pm it, or is there anything else we should add? We really need permission on making this thread as the last 2 times it was attempted, it was locked immediately.

 

[Age of Kings]

You should add in more motivations for discussing NU. According to Smogon's own tier statistics, this is what I found in relation to the number of Pokemon in a given tier:

Tier & #of Pokémon
Uber 18
Overused (OU) 49
Borderline (BL) 58
Underused (UU) 150
Neverused (NU) 0
Limbo 0
Not Fully Evolved (NFE) 223

You should put in something about splitting up UU: it's simply too large. Also, NU should be taken more seriously. On Shoddy and Smogon, it's sitting there waiting to be filled. We simply should stop being lazy and fill that gap, and split up the 150 Pokemon in UU.

In relation to LC, I mean that it is simply more important splitting up and defining a tier rather than running off and creating a whole new metagame at lv. 5. Using that reasoning exactly would be more convincing, so insert that in as well.

It would be relatively easy to define definite UUs and NUs, but there are a couple of controversial Pokemon as well. That way, an official NU thread wouldn't be taking up space.

Those are the best additions I can suggest right now. Perhaps waiting for input from other regular UU players would be good before settling on a final draft to send to the mods. And usually I think of good things after awhile, so I might suggest some other changes.

EDIT: In the meantime, pending approval, should I make a definite UU vs. NU list? Granted, it won't have everything on it, just a listing of uncontroversial and uncontested UUs and NUs so nobody will waste time over them when the real discussions start.

 

[kd24]

I'm leaving tommorow. Can you PM all the mods? Just put in that statistic you gave me and try to gain permission.

 

[Cynthia]

I think the best course of action would be to have a preliminary list outlined by the topic creator(each tier should probably have around 75 Pokes). Then people can discuss movements up or down from there. If for whatever reason the mods decide to not allow a thread I guess discussion could be done on Doug's server or something.

 

[Age of Kings]

I'm leaving tommorow. Can you PM all the mods? Just put in that statistic you gave me and try to gain permission.

I will make a better letter to send to all of them, and perhaps have a badged user like Oddish or someone with lots of credibility actually send it. I made a rough draft for an uncontroversial list. Believe it or not, but there are many Pokemon who could go either way, with strong points both for or against remaining in UU.

On that note, Cynthia, in lieu of a UU ladder, there should just be a separate server for only UU/NU play. I'm kind of tired that Doug's server on Shoddy is only used for the "rejects" (LC, CAP) and of course the lack of a UU ladder even though more people are playing it.

I have a laser appointment in an hour, but by tomorrow morning, I should have a draft to send up. Because I really want to see NU materialize and I have a strong belief in this mission =/ It should be very convincing as you have said that two threads before were locked immediately.

 

[gengod]

Really if there is an issue with a specific Pokemon (like Maniac seems to have with the fighters,) then those Pokemon should be moved up, not move down things to stop them. Things should only be moved down if they wouldn't centralize the current UU around themselves.

I do not have a problem with specifically the fighters in UU they of course are part of it but not what i am aiming at specifically. My problem is with the overal physically offensive bias i see that has developed in UU. Weezing brings something that helps defend against that overbearing sense of physical offense it's not just something I agree with (As i actually didn't suggest it) to help counter pokemon X or pokemon Y.

On the subject of Aerodactyl, I oppose it in UU. The only thing on my mind that can stop it is Scarf Kabutops (yes, not in the rain, shoot me), Gastrodon/Quagsire, Blastoise or Electrode, all of which aren't exactly staples on every single team. Meganium will survive Fangs/STAB Flying moves, but there's nothing much it can do back before being killed or Aero switching out when it does its damage.
But bleh. I'm at least pleased to hear Steelix is UU now and that Pinsir is banned.

If you were following this thread and had read the previous pages before simply posting you would see a list of viable counters, good switchins and reasoning for the allowance of Aerodactly in UU.

On a further note I am against weezing in UU. Aerodactyl as well. Yes they could be countered but when you look at the current UU metagame, Weezing is really going to incapicitate most of it.

How does Weezing incapacitate most of UU, there are an abundace of Clerics, Special Attacking pokemon and even Physical pokemon that can take on Weezing, so your going to need to elaborate on this "incapacitation" a bit more to really try and convince me otherwise.

Aerodactly comepletely overpowers Pokemon such as Manectric and completely shuts down any of UU's walls. Taunt, Stealth Rock, and Pressue Stall with Protect/Sub would pretty much take care of many UU threats. You would pretty much be forced to carry a few Scarfers in hope that Aerodactly doesnt stall you out of PP. Add in Toxic Spikes to the equation and maybe Focus Sash Trapinch to trap posion types who absorb them, Aerodactly becomes way too much of a threat.

Exactly what walls is UU Pressure Stalling Aerodactly stopping? surely not Meganium who can Energy Ball on it's Roosts or Blastoise that will just Surf it to death....surely not Steelix who can hit it with Gyro Ball/Stone Edge or Earthquake on it's Roost or Propobass who generally packs Electric attacks or Quagsire who Waterfalls it to death as well. Seriously what walls are you even talking about aside from the Special walls who have no buisness being in on Aerodactyl in the first place. And for what it's worth it's a lot harder to use Toxic Spikes in UU due to the abundance of grounded poison types in comparison to OU so your already hard pressed to run that stragety in the first place.

Im split on miltank but I think CurseTank would be pretty much unstoppable if it actually was allowed to set up.

So is just about any pokemon if you let it set up.

(trust me, I could make "valid" reasoning for any BL to be considered in UU...remember even RAIKOU was made UU in early DP by Smogon)

Raikou was never UU, it was BL from the start of D/P and i highly doubt you much less anyone can make "valid" reasoning for the allowance of any BL pokemon in UU.

 

[Bologo]

remember even RAIKOU was made UU in early DP by Smogon)

Uhh no, I'm 100% positive it wasn't.

I don't understand why your post has to be so hostile anyways. Honestly, you need to mellow down in your posts, it's just a bloody pokemon discussion. I sort of agree with some of what you said, but the attitude in your post didn't really make me want to agree with you.

This post is utter nonsense. What is the point of saying "sorry, it wasn't this way before, we can't change this now"? Nearly all of BL was banned without a good reason or testing, so now we are just deciding which ones should and shouldn't be UU, like we should have from the start. The default is unbanning Pokemon, not banning them, so it makes no sense to claim that what was banned in the beginning of DP (and by extension, ADV) should always remained so, just so there is no change at all introduced into the UU metagame.

Dude, if the "default" is unbanning pokemon, why not just have them all unbanned in the first place? You just helped Aldaron's point. Also, don't call people's posts nonsense, it's not going to help if your reasoning isn't very good either.

 

[beefdreams]

At first I was against the mass unbanning of all the BL pokemon, but now I think it would be the best thing to do. It would get us a balanced metagame faster, and could greatly reduce the amount of testing needed in the long run.

 

[Kagster123]

I dont really understand how that'd work, wouldn't people just use the BL pokemon in the first place, seeing as how they're stronger? Wouldn't we end up in the same place?

 

[Aldaron]

Uh Bologo...**** **** **** ***!!!

The bottom line is that instead of this arbitrary theorymoning going on for each individual Pokemon, why don't we just unban all the BLs and separate accordingly? There is no more reasoning for banning Tauros than there is for unbanning Steelix, besides of course, circular and decidedly arbitrary theorymon.

Raikou was never UU, it was BL from the start of D/P and i highly doubt you much less anyone can make "valid" reasoning for the allowance of any BL pokemon in UU.

Uhhh, did you phrase yourself incorrectly here? Because I'm slightly confused...Isn't that exactly what we are doing when we unban Leafeon, Steelix and Drapion...making valid reasoning for allowing BL into UU >_>

Also, as for the Raikou in UU thing, I admittedly got that from a secondary source, and not from Smogon itself.

http://www.freewebs.com/pokerants/thenewtierlist.htm

If you can ignore the severe anti-smogon sentiments, user Slowflake is mentioning that Raikou was made UU, so that's what I was basing it on.

 

[Cynthia]

I think to unban all the BL's at once and then seperate it we would need some sort of testing medium, a ladder or specifc server of some sort. We don't currently have that, we can't just tell all UU players "Go play BL and tell us what you see!" because that's just plain silly.

 

[umbarsc]

Dude, if the "default" is unbanning pokemon, why not just have them all unbanned in the first place? You just helped Aldaron's point. Also, don't call people's posts nonsense, it's not going to help if your reasoning isn't very good either.

I never claimed to be against Obi's proposal. But until that gets some serious consideration, there's nothing wrong with individually testing some BL Pokemon in UU.


Also, I am highly amused at your petty attempt to discredit me by bringing up a 2-month old post that is entirely irrelevant to anything that's been discussed in this thread (you could say I... "chuckled softly"). You've also provided no evidence at all that I wasn't right. I'll agree with Bologo that saying your post was utter nonsense was a little much, but the retaliation was too much. Anyways we are getting very off-topic so I'm done.

 

[Phuquoph]

Go ahead and make a NU discussion thread.

 

[rkatzam]

Unbanning all BL pokes is unlikely to help us determine the UU tier... besides, haven't some BL already been tested before and booted out? What is the point in bringing them back after they were clearly shut down..

A current ladder is the only real way to determine the UU tier, and perhaps even NU while we're at it. Exactly like the OU ladder, we can organize the metagame by usage level and then see which pokemon has too much use or little to no use. If, say, Clefable becomes the "Garchomp" of UU by having a notable gap over the 2nd place, we can then discuss whether to ban it or just test UU without it (just an example). I believe the statistics will show us which pokemon should be considered dropping down from BL in order to improve UU.

 

[TVboyCanti]

I support unbanning all BL pokemon from UU, as the BL bracket is larger than even the OU bracket and nearly as large as th UU bracket. UU got screwed over in the transition from ADV to DP, as many UU pokemon became OU/BL(most became BL). UU would be able to get many of it's players back by unbanning BLs.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

Unbanning all BL pokes is unlikely to help us determine the UU tier... besides, haven't some BL already been tested before and booted out? What is the point in bringing them back after they were clearly shut down..

This highlights the major problem with the mindset of most UU players even today. You seem to be under the assumption that the Pokemon that make up UU right now are somehow inherently UU whereas in fact nothing is inherently UU.

People see a UU metagame involving the likes of Empoleon, Raikou, Regice, Arcanine etc as absurd even when there is in fact no evidence for such a claim. Sure, these Pokemon may overpower the current UU when tested individually, but tested altogether there is no reason to assume that the result would be a complete mess.

 

[rkatzam]

What exactly is the point in unbanning BL pokes, whose "counters" are also BL? These BL pokemon, tested separately in UU, were deemed to be "broken".. that is more than enough to suggest they are not fitting into the UU metagame. Claiming that we have to test them altogether is not an excuse for them being overpowered by themselves.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

What exactly is the point in unbanning BL pokes, whose "counters" are also BL?

Because there is no explicit reason for those BL Pokes or their BL counters to have been 'banished' from UU in the first place.

Consider an extreme hypothetical scenario in which the current UU we have now is considered to be the standard metagame, with everything BL and above considered 'Uber'. Now if we were to test out, for example, Mamoswine in 'OU' to see if it is broken or not, the inevitable conclusion would be that it is completely overpowering.

But what if someone were to say that 'if we were to introduce the likes of Bronzong, Cresselia and Uxie at the same time, perhaps Mamoswine would not be all that broken after all'? Your reply would probably be something like 'But that's stupid. Why bother unbanning something if it requires the unbanning of several other Ubers to balance it? Then you'd have the problem of whether OU can handle these new defensive threats, after all they were considered Uber too. It's a slippery slope to madness and a complete waste of time!'

However, some bright spark like Obi then comes along and makes the following suggestion:

'Wait a minute, this is silly. We currently have a ban list of 100+ Pokemon, most of which haven't been given a fair assessment in their own metagame. I suggest we retest everything from stratch, i.e. allowing everything back into OU. There will definitely be some obviously Uber Pokemon from the start, but surely we can achieve a balanced metagame with a much smaller ban list than we have now'.

Now that's a good idea, if only we could get the community as a whole to see the wisdom in it.

The situation with BL/UU right now is similar only less extreme.

 

[Trust]

Lemmiwinks MkII, you have explained it perfectly, but we are still waiting for the ladder with all BL stuff allowed, where we could build a good UU metagame. We are testing each BL pokemon, and we will be able to do the same in less time.

 

[Luphrous]

In my opinion, I don't really see Obi's idea working. Personally I just feel we'd end with basically what we have now. Sure some stuff here and there may get moved around, but basically I feel it'd end up mostly the same. Perhaps I'm just not seeing something though :/

 

[rkatzam]

Because there is no explicit reason for those BL Pokes or their BL counters to have been 'banished' from UU in the first place.

Consider an extreme hypothetical scenario in which the current UU we have now is considered to be the standard metagame, with everything BL and above considered 'Uber'. Now if we were to test out, for example, Mamoswine in 'OU' to see if it is broken or not, the inevitable conclusion would be that it is completely overpowering.

But what if someone were to say that 'if we were to introduce the likes of Bronzong, Cresselia and Uxie at the same time, perhaps Mamoswine would not be all that broken after all'? Your reply would probably be something like 'But that's stupid. Why bother unbanning something if it requires the unbanning of several other Ubers to balance it? Then you'd have the problem of whether OU can handle these new defensive threats, after all they were considered Uber too. It's a slippery slope to madness and a complete waste of time!'

However, some bright spark like Obi then comes along and makes the following suggestion:

'Wait a minute, this is silly. We currently have a ban list of 100+ Pokemon, most of which haven't been given a fair assessment in their own metagame. I suggest we retest everything from stratch, i.e. allowing everything back into OU. There will definitely be some obviously Uber Pokemon from the start, but surely we can achieve a balanced metagame with a much smaller ban list than we have now'.

Now that's a good idea, if only we could get the community as a whole to see the wisdom in it.

The situation with BL/UU right now is similar only less extreme.

It may be a good idea to you, but definitely not in my eyes.

Personally, I think the UU metagame is already quite balanced. Moving down all BL will resolve in mostly these BL pokes being used, over shadowing the true UU's. Instead of unbanning all BL pokes, testing a couple of them every month or so, with a working ladder system, sounds like a much better way to determine what should be UU and what should just stay out. If, for example, we see that Leafon or Steelix are taking over the charts with a notable gap between the rest, they will be considered moving up for BL. I don't see why Pokemon that have already been discussed before, rather lengthily, and deemed too powerful for UU (like Houndoom or Emploleon) should be retested. Dropping everything at once will just cause a total havoc, and the main UU's will be used to counter the threatening BL's, giving us a very limited view on the metagame as a whole.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[ODDish]

Personally, I think the UU metagame is already quite balanced.

Then you're probably in the minority.

I don't see why Pokemon that have already been discussed before, rather lengthily, and deemed too powerful for UU (like Houndoom or Emploleon) should be retested.

How about because the decision to ban them was based on the premise that the current UU metagame is both stable and truly reflective of what UU stands for ... when in reality it is neither.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

Personally, I think the UU metagame is already quite balanced.

That's irrelevant. I think it is fairly well balanced too, and love playing it, but that is no reason to deny all the current BL Pokemon a chance to compete in a new metagame that has the potential to be equally balanced.

Moving down all BL will resolve in mostly these BL pokes being used, over shadowing the true UU's.

Like I have said, there is no such thing as a 'true' UU Pokemon. Those BLs you mention as taking over will be UU. I'm not going to lie to you, I think likewise in that the current BLs will form the vast majority of the new UU, leaving much, but not all, of the current UU to be resigned to 'NU' territory. However I do not agree with you in that this is a bad thing. Once the new UU tier has settled there will be room for a third tier that will accommodate your so-called true UUs, and will be much more representative of the UU we have now. I fail to see how the creation of an additional tier to potentially accommodate 50+ otherwise rarely seen Pokemon is an inherently bad thing.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[rkatzam]

Perhaps I am in the minority... my prediction is that the metagame we will get if going by Obi's idea will remain pretty much the same. I don't mind this, but there are better alternatives imo. I believe getting a fixed ladder is of higher priority for this moment, before dropping down all BL.