It also has powerful walls, like Articuno and Regice. I'm not fully against the creation of a 'bl' metagame, but then it would need its own ban tier, which would just be too many tiers. A full on UU-reset I think would be the best thing. It's easy enough to push things back to BL after a few weeks.
-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
DP Tier Discussion - BL and UU (mark 2)
- Thread starter Phuquoph
- Start date
All the BLs moved down become UU, and the ones banned would be BL again, no new tiers are being created.
Actually if we implement this proposal at all UU will remain as it is, BL will become a relatively stable metagame and the pokemon too strong for the BL tier would just be OU.
If we make a BL ladder, note that we cannot move the Pokemon deemed to be "too strong" for this tier up.
Meaning we could do two things, either create another faux tier, or move weak Pokemon down to a lower tier.
I like the second idea, though this is admittedly a weird way to go about it.
I guess instead of using all our statistics, experience and whatever to determine what is too strong...we're going to determine what is too weak?
We already state that for ubers, the Pokemon's performance in that tier has no bearing on whether or not it should be OU, so obviously we won't be remaining consistent with that philosophy for this tier, though consistency isn't necessarily required.
Meaning we could do two things, either create another faux tier, or move weak Pokemon down to a lower tier.
I like the second idea, though this is admittedly a weird way to go about it.
I guess instead of using all our statistics, experience and whatever to determine what is too strong...we're going to determine what is too weak?
We already state that for ubers, the Pokemon's performance in that tier has no bearing on whether or not it should be OU, so obviously we won't be remaining consistent with that philosophy for this tier, though consistency isn't necessarily required.
A second faux tier, where all this strong BLs will be until we get a balanced "BL" game.
There are a lot of BLs which will never be UU, like Alakazam, Raikou, Moltres, Regice or Porygon-Z, because they are too strong to UU, so I think that we could start banning those from the new BL metagame. Without Blissey, Porygon-Z, Raikou and Alakazam would wreak havoc.
There are a lot of BLs which will never be UU, like Alakazam, Raikou, Moltres, Regice or Porygon-Z, because they are too strong to UU, so I think that we could start banning those from the new BL metagame. Without Blissey, Porygon-Z, Raikou and Alakazam would wreak havoc.
You can't just assume that without testing. I will admit that Porygon-Z and possibly Alakazam may turn out to be too strong, but not the others.
Raikou is still easy to counter. Steelix, Camerupt, Regice, Registeel and others like Venusaur, Flygon, Gastrodon, Quagsire etc depending on the Hidden Power or coverage move, take your pick. Moltres has a rather limited attacking movepool, needs Agility or Scarf to outrun many threats and has an obvious crippling weakness that everyone is aware of. Regice is just a tank with several drawbacks, more a necessary defensive threat than anything else.
While I generally support Obi's proposition, I do have some worries with it, mainly that the game will stabilize too quickly and become very centralized. This can best be explained with an example.
Say that there are 50 BL Pokemon, 50 UU Pokemon, and 50 NU-level Pokemon that are classified as UU because NU doesn't exist yet. Combining all of them makes 150, and let's say that 25 of the BLs and 5 of the UUs are banned to BL following testing. The remaining 25 BLs together with 5 of the original UUs form a stable metagame, but they basically squeeze out everything else, so we're left with 30 BLs, 30 UUs, and 90 NU-levels.
There's a variety of solutions to this, such as establishing a quota of BL Pokemon, but how would we agree on what such a number is?
Say that there are 50 BL Pokemon, 50 UU Pokemon, and 50 NU-level Pokemon that are classified as UU because NU doesn't exist yet. Combining all of them makes 150, and let's say that 25 of the BLs and 5 of the UUs are banned to BL following testing. The remaining 25 BLs together with 5 of the original UUs form a stable metagame, but they basically squeeze out everything else, so we're left with 30 BLs, 30 UUs, and 90 NU-levels.
There's a variety of solutions to this, such as establishing a quota of BL Pokemon, but how would we agree on what such a number is?
I agree with this. Some things in BL don't even deserve testing in UU, because they'd just destroy or wall it completely. I'm talking about things like Shaymin, Alakazam, Registeel, Porygon-Z, Abomasnow, Moltres, Medicham, and possibly Azumarill.
Forgive me if I've missed any obvious ones, but the BL tier really should not start off empty, but should at least include things that are obviously too good for UU. You wouldn't be able to play a single match without seeing any of these guys in an UU team, or possibly an entire UU team of them.
I agree with most of what you have there Trust, except a few:
Houndoom: Nasty Plot, decent speed, strong double STAB, Will-O-Wissp the physical switch-ins - Keep him out of UU, please.
Ludicolo: Aren't Rain teams broken enough already?
Pinsir: Not just a mini Heracross, but also a pseudo Kabutops with Earthquake that hits everyone and Swords Dance; bulky too.
Tangrowth, Torterra, Weezing, Donphan: More walls? Seriously, though, these guys are a bit too tough for the physical attackers of UU. Steelix is bad enough, and he has those crippling weaknesses.
There are probably others, but I don't have time right now...
Houndoom: Nasty Plot, decent speed, strong double STAB, Will-O-Wissp the physical switch-ins - Keep him out of UU, please.
Ludicolo: Aren't Rain teams broken enough already?
Pinsir: Not just a mini Heracross, but also a pseudo Kabutops with Earthquake that hits everyone and Swords Dance; bulky too.
Tangrowth, Torterra, Weezing, Donphan: More walls? Seriously, though, these guys are a bit too tough for the physical attackers of UU. Steelix is bad enough, and he has those crippling weaknesses.
There are probably others, but I don't have time right now...
Well I don't want to get to far ahead of myself with adding my opinion on that list until we have a general agreement on what were going to do.
Is Obi's proposal going to be rejected(altered) in favor of the independent testing of BL's to form a balanced metagame within that tier?
EDIT:
I know I said I wouldn't give my opinion on that list but many of those pokemon have be discussed within the lifespan of this and the previous thread. Of course I'm not saying that certain pokemon shouldn't be up for another review.
Is Obi's proposal going to be rejected(altered) in favor of the independent testing of BL's to form a balanced metagame within that tier?
EDIT:
I know I said I wouldn't give my opinion on that list but many of those pokemon have be discussed within the lifespan of this and the previous thread. Of course I'm not saying that certain pokemon shouldn't be up for another review.
@ Trust and Bologo, if you had read carefully what is being discussed you would see that we are not talking about implementing Obi's proposal for UU, but instead for BL, in an effort to create a viable BL metagame.
UU will most likely not going through any major revamp like Obi suggestion.
UU will most likely not going through any major revamp like Obi suggestion.
I've been saying we should do this for OU since before DP came out. People ignored me with "Wait for it to settle, then we can determine what needs to not be uber.". I called it out as being completely dumb, but that was just brushed aside. Now people say "Quit trying to shake things up. You should have said this before. Now it's too stabilized.".
So I think "OK, there hasn't been as much UU play as OU, maybe I could expend my efforts trying to make the ban list for that tier make sense.".
"No no no wait for it to settle, then we can worry about what ought to be BL." "Things have stabilized, quit trying to shake things up. You should have said this before."
You say I'm trying to get rid of everyone else's hard work? You think I haven't done anything? I've been doing this for months now (nearly a year). What about what I've done? Your argument of "people put so much work into... UU" rings hollow to me.
This kind of "oh well it's too late now" thinking is what got us into this in the first place. It's never too late. The only way that it can be too late is if people become too recalcitrant and refuse to deal with something new because it's new.
A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding the tiers, so I think that issue warrants its own thread (again...).
However, nothing I am doing will have any effect on "the BL metagame". No amount of shifting of the tiers below BL will have any effect on it whatsoever. The only way to "balance" BL would be to ban Pokemon to OU or ubers. If this is what you think I am proposing, then you'll need to reread what I've written. If you are still confused, then you'll have to wait until tomorrow when I make a post once again explaining how the tiers work.
I'm opposed to any system that creates a distinction between what is currently BL and what is currently UU. There is no basis for much of the the current distinction (I mean, seriously, Shedinja as BL?).
"You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was "but we've always done it this way." A million dead people can't have been wrong, can they?"
- Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant
Obi said:
Wanted to repeat this because I'm somewhat confused as to why this even got off on the tangent it did...
The point of BL is to keep Pokemon thare are too powerful for UU out of UU so that we can get a metagame that is as stable and balanced as possible. It's not even really the same thing as Uber, OU's equivalent of BL, since Uber battles allow you to use everything in the game, whereas BL really just lets you use a handful of Pokemon that don't fit in too well anywhere(although almost all of them work fine in OU).
With that said, the issue here is basically whether it would be more work to start over with most of the BL tier included and remove things as they appear not to fit or to keep the current UU tier and add BL and then re-remove them if they seem not to fit.
The current BL tier is 61 Pokemon. Of those 61 the only one I think that is not feasible to include in a UU type metagame is probably Abomasnow, if for no other reason than it(at least at times) has been boarderline OU anyway and becomes a lot more powerful in UU/BL where it's the only Pokemon with an automatic weather trait.
I think basically the issue that we need to come to terms with here is that it's entirely possible there's two ways we can have balanced metagames here - a game consisting of a lot of Pokemon currently in BL, and a game consisting of a lot of Pokemon currently in UU. I honestly wouldn't be surprised at all if we did Obi's suggestion and ended up with a pretty balanced new UU that ended up using about half the BL tier, or if we used the current system and ended up using only five or six BL Pokemon, but still ended up with a balanced metagame that had a similar amount of 'standards. I think with a game based more off the current UU system there'll end up being more usable Pokemon simply by virtue of the gap in power between the strongest available Pokemon and the weaker ones being smaller, but that's theorymon.
I think that given the option I would prefer a game based closer to the current one simply because it's the one most likely to use the greatest amount of Pokemon that aren't feasibly usable in OU, but I think this is probably the first gen we could very easily get both UU and NU games(which won't require another fake tier assuming we move things that are too strong for NU up) that are pretty balanced going in a similar vein to what's been suggested with BL/UU previously in the thread. We don't necessarily need to go one way or the other, but if we do want to go with a two metagame approach it really make much more sense to use Obi's system because tiering this in reverse would be a nightmare.
Of course in doing so the NU(which would likely have several of the current UUs) would be a weaker tier than what the current UU would become without radical changes since there are a lot of Pokemon(Swellow, Kabutops, Steelix, Clefable, the Hitmons, etc.) that would be able to hack it in the BL infested UU metagame and thus be unavailable to play in NU/UU.
This post ended up being a lot more confusing to read than I'd intended, feel free to ask questions if my wording confused anyone! I think the general idea of the post is just to keep in mind that we have options for what the UU metagame can eventually become.
When did I say you haven't done anything? The only point of yours that I wasn't entirely sure of was when was when you brought up the idea of a "full metagame test".
One of my points for my argument was that people put alot of work into this UU; if anything I would think someone who also put work into something (You) could respect that. Not call it "hollow".
Do you really think saying something like that is going to help you cause at all? One of the reasons your plan did not go overwell with the majority could be because of the lack of support. What have you done to garner the support of the majority so you idea could of gone forth? It doesn't seem like much because people haven't changed there minds.
I have almost no idea what your talking about at all in your first paragraph. It's pretty obvious that is not what you were proposing. I don't know how you could think I was confused? You bring up a point the "the only way to balance BL would be to ban Pokemon into OU or ubers. That is not true. A faux tier could be created (It would be marginally smaller than the current).
I don't know if saying anything to you will do much. It does not seem your willing to change your mind (or even compromise).
All right, I've been playing UU for almost half a year now. I'm going to mention those I think are too strong for UU at the moment, and need to go up to BL.
- Clefable
- Ninetales
- Steelix
- Possibly Nidoking
- Possibly Persian
- Possibly Purugly
Anyone who has played UU for over 10 games will know why, so I don't think the reasons are necessary, but I'll give one anyway. Steelix - Ninetales is just stupid, for example, anyone can see this. Steelix absorbs ground moves short of those from special attacks, even though they're super effective, due to his insane Defense and good HP. Nothing can OHKO him, making Stealth Rock and Roar amazingly effective. In the event that a fire pokemon should get switched in, swap to Ninetales who proceeds to use Hypnosis, Nasty Plot, possibly NP again and then sweep. Add a Clefable and Persian/Purugly as a lead into this team and it just makes a joke out of UU, I think we can all agree on that.
Those are the ones I think should be moved to BL. As for the ones that should go to UU, I don't know; my first priority is to get those out of UU.
- Clefable
- Ninetales
- Steelix
- Possibly Nidoking
- Possibly Persian
- Possibly Purugly
Anyone who has played UU for over 10 games will know why, so I don't think the reasons are necessary, but I'll give one anyway. Steelix - Ninetales is just stupid, for example, anyone can see this. Steelix absorbs ground moves short of those from special attacks, even though they're super effective, due to his insane Defense and good HP. Nothing can OHKO him, making Stealth Rock and Roar amazingly effective. In the event that a fire pokemon should get switched in, swap to Ninetales who proceeds to use Hypnosis, Nasty Plot, possibly NP again and then sweep. Add a Clefable and Persian/Purugly as a lead into this team and it just makes a joke out of UU, I think we can all agree on that.
Those are the ones I think should be moved to BL. As for the ones that should go to UU, I don't know; my first priority is to get those out of UU.
ok some of these suggestions for UU are a bit well...odd
ludicolo? this this is very powerful, and i dont think can be OHKO'ed allowing free rain.
weezing? what exactly IS supposed to kill it? there are hardly any psychic types in UU already, and the most common one (hypno) isn't exactly a powerhouse.
as for steelix... as a person playing UU a lot (50th on ladder currently) and working upwards, i see a lot of this pokemon, and for good reason it walls just about anything, its usually a sleep target, or revenge kill fodder for me personally.
ludicolo? this this is very powerful, and i dont think can be OHKO'ed allowing free rain.
weezing? what exactly IS supposed to kill it? there are hardly any psychic types in UU already, and the most common one (hypno) isn't exactly a powerhouse.
as for steelix... as a person playing UU a lot (50th on ladder currently) and working upwards, i see a lot of this pokemon, and for good reason it walls just about anything, its usually a sleep target, or revenge kill fodder for me personally.
I think people need to understand that BL is NOT it's own tier, at the moment. It is essentially a ban list for UU. It doesn't have a metagame, though it could, with work. Right now, however, the focus should not be on what BLs are UU capable, but on what current UUs are too strong for the tier. Once we eliminate those we find too powerful, we can begin testing a set amount of BLs at a time. Now, we already know that many BLs will overpower UU. Ex. Your best special wall is Clefable, or Lanturn. How many CM boosted Psychics or Focus Blasts from Alakazam can they take? Now I'm sorry if people don't like this kind of theorymoning, but it's the sad truth. Zam, Arcanine, Empoleon, Houndoom, etc. will never be moved down to UU. I guess the point I'm trying to make is: I feel there is too much talk of moving certain pokes down, when there are still too many that need to be moved up.
Salem1: I'm getting rather tired of people thinking Steelix is too strong. For the love of god people, it doesn't even have recovery. It's weak to Fighting, Ground, Fire,and Water, all extremely common types. Okay yes, it takes hits like a champ and is very good at setting up SR, as well as roaring. But that's it. Just keep attacking the thing, it'll go down sooner or later.
I can see Ninetales and Clefable, personally I think they are fine, but opinions on these two differ a lot. But Persian/Purugly? What did they do wrong? A quick hypnosis and U-Turn is nothing game-breaking..The team you had suggested certainly does not make a joke out of UU
I can see Ninetales and Clefable, personally I think they are fine, but opinions on these two differ a lot. But Persian/Purugly? What did they do wrong? A quick hypnosis and U-Turn is nothing game-breaking..The team you had suggested certainly does not make a joke out of UU
Ludicolo was already blocked twice.
Since when do you need to hit a pokemon for super effective damage to kill it? Weezing only has base 65 HP and base 70 SDEF, i'm sure that is easily exploitable and even with its base 120 Def there are some pokemon who can take it down it from the physical side.
Could you list these "many" BL pokemon that "absolutely need" to move up?