DP Tier Discussion Thread - BL and UU

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Remember that Zangoose also learns Flail with STAB, and with 90 base speed, and maybe a Swords Dance under his belt, it's quite dangerous. It can also work with Quick Attack.

Pinsir can Swords Dance, but Ninetales is everywhere, and can OHKO her. The Stealth Rock weakness hurts a lot too. Pinsir is a good Scarf user, the same as Hitmonlee or Primeape are.

Venusaur is quite bulky to be in UU. With a good defensive spread, and good Special Attack and Speed, it could be very nasty in UU.

I think that Torterra could be in UU. This Ice weakness hurts a lot, and something like Altaria or Driflim (no Stone Edge) can counter him. Anyway, it could be a bit overpowered to UU.
 
X-Act said:
Yet Pinsir is UU and Zangoose is BL. How come?
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It has a STAB priority move and STAB Flail and the lack of damaging weather prescence makes that quite something to contend with. It'll often move first thanks to Quick Attack + 90 base speed even if you have a priority move.

Return is an extremely powerful move, most find Kangaskhan's Return devastating enough as it is. Let alone Zangoose whos got higher attack AND Swords Dance.
 
Pinsir has Mold Breaker, and hence, Quakeslide is only resisted by Breloom, Torterra and Gliscor, all of which are OU or BL, so Pinsir doesn't have any coverage problems in UU if you think about it either.

Swords Dance + STAB Flail seems to be the only reason left for banning Zangoose to BL.
 
Trust said:
Remember that Zangoose also learns Flail with STAB, and with 90 base speed, and maybe a Swords Dance under his belt, it's quite dangerous. It can also work with Quick Attack.

Pinsir can Swords Dance, but Ninetales is everywhere, and can OHKO her. The Stealth Rock weakness hurts a lot too. Pinsir is a good Scarf user, the same as Hitmonlee or Primeape are.

Venusaur is quite bulky to be in UU. With a good defensive spread, and good Special Attack and Speed, it could be very nasty in UU.

I think that Torterra could be in UU. This Ice weakness hurts a lot, and something like Altaria or Driflim (no Stone Edge) can counter him. Anyway, it could be a bit overpowered to UU.
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Forsety said:
It has a STAB priority move and STAB Flail and the lack of damaging weather prescence makes that quite something to contend with. It'll often move first thanks to Quick Attack + 90 base speed even if you have a priority move.

Return is an extremely powerful move, most find Kangaskhan's Return devastating enough as it is. Let alone Zangoose whos got higher attack AND Swords Dance.
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I'd hardly say Zangoose's STAB Flail(or Return for that matter) alone makes it too good for UU. A set like that can be beaten by quick attackers (which have been a commonplace in UU since ADV because such strategies were popular because of the fact SS was not in play there).

What pushes Zangoose overline for me is the fact that it learns Shadow Claw and Close Combat which can be powered up even futher to destroy physical walls (Golem, Aggron, Protopass) and ghosts (Driftblim). It's defenses are weak and it does not have many opportunities to switch in but once it does, your going to be hard pressed to stop it.

Regarding your Pinsir and Toterra comment Trust, do you really think Ninetales can come in on Pinsir consistently and counter it given that it learns both Rock and Ground moves which Ninetales is infact weak to? Pinsir my honest opinion has gotten a power boost from the transition from RSE to DP, is it too much for UU to handle? I'm leaning towards yes. Feel free to add more on this.

Toterra is extremely bulky and the counters that you mentioned can hardly take a Stone Edge. Weak to ice it may be but it's hardly that crippling.
 
evolutia said:
What pushes Zangoose overline for me is the fact that it learns Shadow Claw and Close Combat which can be powered up even futher to destroy physical walls (Golem, Aggron, Protopass) and ghosts (Driftblim). It's defenses are weak and it does not have many opportunities to switch in but once it does, your going to be hard pressed to stop it.
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But aren't Pinsir's Earthquake and Stone Edge, together with a Swords Dance, destroying all physical walls in UU as well? As I said already, because of Mold Breaker, the only Pokemon that resist both Earthquake and Stone Edge are all in OU/BL... yet Pinsir is UU.

Primeape also has got STAB Reversal with 95 base Speed and yet it's UU as well. It can't Swords Dance though, admittedly.
 
X-Act said:
But aren't Pinsir's Earthquake and Stone Edge, together with a Swords Dance, destroying all physical walls in UU as well? As I said already, because of Mold Breaker, the only Pokemon that resist both Earthquake and Stone Edge are all in OU/BL... yet Pinsir is UU.

Primeape also has got STAB Reversal with 95 base Speed and yet it's UU as well. It can't Swords Dance though, admittedly.
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You comment about Pinsir is indeed correct which is why I said:

Regarding your Pinsir and Toterra comment Trust, do you really think Ninetales can come in on Pinsir consistently and counter it given that it learns both Rock and Ground moves which Ninetales is infact weak to? Pinsir my honest opinion has gotten a power boost from the transition from RSE to DP, is it too much for UU to handle? I'm leaning towards yes. Feel free to add more on this.
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I'm merely waiting to see if one has a convincing argument as to why Pinsir should stay in UU.
 
I certainly wouldn't miss it. It's basically Diet Heracross (no calories XD ) because it plays exactly the same.

Standard Pinsir has Choice Band or Scarf. It has X-Scissor, EQ, SE, CC. Only one move differs from Heracross, and that's EQ > Pursuit, because of Mold Breaker. If you ask me, having three of four moves the same and the same item is just too similar.

The only real counters are Gligar and Drifblim. Drifblim can't take Stone Edge, and Gligar is an NFE, and may not be allowed. Give him the boot! I do feel sad, because if it becomes BL, there is no reason to use it T_T

Maybe we should try and make a balanced third tier <_< >_> <_< UU ubers lol
 
skiddle said:
I certainly wouldn't miss it. It's basically Diet Heracross (no calories XD ) because it plays exactly the same.

Standard Pinsir has Choice Band or Scarf. It has X-Scissor, EQ, SE, CC. Only one move differs from Heracross, and that's EQ > Pursuit, because of Mold Breaker. If you ask me, having three of four moves the same and the same item is just too similar.

Pinsir and Heracross are two different pokemon (They have a different typing and stat distribution), so please don't say something like "If you ask me, having three of four moves the same and the same item is just too similar" because if we would apply that notion to other metagames, the ubers alone render many pokemon redundant.

The only real counters are Gligar and Drifblim. Drifblim can't take Stone Edge, and Gligar is an NFE, and may not be allowed. Give him the boot! I do feel sad, because if it becomes BL, there is no reason to use it T_T

Alright so Pinsir has 1 counter if Gligar would be allowed

 Maybe we should try and make a balanced third tier <_< >_> <_< UU ubers lol
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Aka BL.
 
Well part of the problem might be that people make teams out of solely the BL pokes and having two teams of Staraptor/Kingdra/Mismagius/Tangrowth/Gallade/Aerodactyl (tried to choose most powerful BL's here) face each other does little to allow their inclusion in UU. Also the lack of testers might be an issue as well.
 
-Cynthia- said:
Well part of the problem might be that people make teams out of solely the BL pokes and having two teams of Staraptor/Kingdra/Mismagius/Tangrowth/Gallade/Aerodactyl (tried to choose most powerful BL's here) face each other does little to allow their inclusion in UU. Also the lack of testers might be an issue as well.
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Many of the BL pokemon would gain alot of strength due to the fact that their OU counters are banned from the Metagame, creating an imbalance in the new tier that this idea is trying to create.

Then there is another problem of new BL's being introduced because they fell out of the OU range. Something like this needs to be carried out extremely carefully if it is to work effectively.
 
Many of the BL pokemon would gain alot of strength due to the fact that their OU counters are banned from the Metagame, creating an imbalance in the new tier that this idea is trying to create.
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Evolutia has pretty much summarised my biggest concern about this proposal ... I can see most of the genuinely UU pokemon simply becoming "new NU" whilst "new UU" is pretty much "old BL (+ few token old UU)".
 
Interesting idea in theory, but I fear it will just end up as a pure BL metagame. I'm sure everyone can accept that if you give average Joe a choice between Staraptor and Fearow it'll be a no contest everytime. Tangrowth or Meganium? Magmortar or Magmar? Empoleon or Quagsire? Medicham or Primeape?

If you give people a choice between a powerful Pokemon and a similar Pokemon that is inferior in more ways than not, they'll pick the strong one. As such, the Pokemon that we now know as UU will see increasingly less use in their own metagame. And to make things worse, you won't be able to ask for a "UU match" to use your Minun, because the rest of Shoddy will interpret "UU match" as "Great, lemme go get my Raikou!"

I like the concept of "at the end of finding balance" but I doubt we'll reach a point where we can see if Alakazam is too powerful to fight against the likes of Ampharos, Beautifly and Chatot because these Pokemon will never be seen again!
 
I think you haven't understood this well. What Obi is proposing is to test all Pokemon from BL downwards in UU to see which of them are overcentralising UU, so that these Pokemon are banned to BL. If Raikou is deemed too overcentralising for UU, it goes to BL.

And if certain Pokemon are not seen again, down to NU they'll go.
 
I just don't see how you can determine what will be centralising to "UU", when UU teams are suddenly made up of six "BL" pokemon, which is the likely consequence if all fifty of the current BL's are unbanned simultaneously.

And if certain Pokemon are not seen again, down to NU they'll go.
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And that's a good thing? It's difficult enough getting people to play UU, nevermind NU ... personally I just can't get excited about the prospect of losing stuff like Seviper, Noctowl and Banette, that are all, perfectly usable in the current UU environment, to make room for the likes of Empoleon, Gallade & Tangrowth.
 
If Raikou is deemed too overcentralising for UU, it goes to BL.
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Raikou won't prove to be too broken for UU because all of a sudden, UU contains Snorlax, Regice and Steelix!

It just seems like the only logical end product is a simple re-branding of the tiers, with our current BL becoming known as UU, and our current UU becoming NU.

I'll refrain from commenting any further until Obi expands on how he plans to execute this, because I must have missed something.
 
It just seems like the only logical end product is a simple re-branding of the tiers, with our current BL becoming known as UU, and our current UU becoming NU.
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Or we could abandon the terms UU, NU altogether and coming up with something new to reflect such a large change.

*Edit*

X-Act if you agree that this would be useful, could you ask Colin it it would be possible to get useage statistics for UU matches?
 
Snorlax and Gallade are amply OU (in the case of Gallade, it will probably be OU come April), although Steelix and Regice aren't. Still, if Pokemon are overcentralising stuff, they won't be in UU.

What people are not understanding is the following. DP introduced around 60 to 70 new fully evolved Pokemon. If the OU list contains around 50 Pokemon, how can we expect UU and NU to have roughly the same Pokemon they had in Advance? The 70 new Pokemon need to go somewhere.

Look at the top 50 February weighted statistics: it contains 21 Pokemon from DP. That's almost half of them. That means that there are a considerable number of Pokemon that were OU in Advance but that aren't OU anymore in DP (hello Raikou, Blaziken, Aerodactyl, Regice, etc.). Where do these Pokemon go? In UU, where some of them then go up to BL.

The same thing happens in UU. Some Pokemon that were good enough for Advance UU are just not good enough to be in DP UU now, as the standards have now increased. And this, in turn, means that DP NU has higher standards of Pokemon than Advance NU as well, which is a blessing, since, as Obi said, NU won't mean fighting with stuff like Delibird and Furret anymore, but becomes an interesting metagame.

That is how I interpret Obi's idea. We need to stop crafting DP UU and DP NU to be roughly the same as their Advance counterparts.

To Shiny Oddish: I've already posted in that thread for us to be able to separate UU from NU in much the same way as we're separating OU from UU now. That means I'd need UU match statistics for us to be able to do that.
 
Just throwing this out there...I can understand the need to empirically determine the basis for the declaration of "Uber" status. OU is the main metagame, and therefore deserves as solid an empirical basis as possible.

BL is the "Ubers" of the UU metagame, so I can understand the need for some people to want the same empirical basis for it.

However, I ask how necessary that truly is? Dragontamer mentioned that the completely subjective and probably extremely arbitrary variables of "fun" and "community" should be influential in online Pokemon, and I don't see a more perfect place for this than the UU metagame.

Do we truly need to empirically determine what "centralizes" the UU metagame when even if Gallade or Tangrowth didn't, hardly anyone would actually want to see them anyway?

I know I am personally taking the opposite side from my Ubers perspective, but I don't believe that UU needs to be a statistically perfect metagame, unlike OU.

EDIT: I also 100% agree with Obi and X-Act that we need to stray as far as possible from determining Ubers, OU, UU, and NU based on their ADV counterparts. However, I do believe that, in the UU -> BL debate, the anathema the empiricists referred to during the OU -> Ubers debate, "theorymon," is fine.

We shouldn't base the UU tier off of the ADV UU tier, but I have 0% of a problem using "theorymon" and general community consensus to determine what should be BL, whereas I had 100% problem when that was the case for OU -> Ubers. The difference is simply in the theory behind each metagame; I believe OU should be as statistically relevant as possible, and as true a reflection of objective Competitive Battling as possible, so I had to take that stance. However, while UU is still obviously a competitive environment, I wouldn't mind, in fact, I would probably prefer, having "fun" and "community" considered for its establishment.
 
I have to say that I'd think that the BL pokemon would be more likely to create an OU-lite environment than their NFE counterparts, ie Blaziken -> Infernape, Gyarados - > DD feraligatr, I'm sure I'm missing other BL pokes that fill similar jobs but are just outclassed by an OU pokemon. So I'm not really sure why it seems that Colin has decided that NFEs are going to be disallowed save for a few while we've still got the UU-NFE thread going on.

shorthand - , BL pokemon are more likely to create OU-lite than NFEs, so NFEs should be allowed since the majority wouldn't be used, but they might as well be available for the ones that want to use them.
 
NFE's and BL both would create OU-Lite. Snover and Hippotas for NFEs and Blaziken and Feraligatr for BLs are the 2 perfect examples for both.

Hell, sometimes it applies both ways for the same Species. Rhyperior in UU and Rhydon in UU should both be disallowed.
 
Aldaron said:
NFE's and BL both would create OU-Lite. Snover and Hippotas for NFEs and Blaziken and Feraligatr for BLs are the 2 perfect examples for both.

Hell, sometimes it applies both ways for the same Species. Rhyperior in UU and Rhydon in UU should both be disallowed.
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Well autoweather is something pretty unanimously agreed shouldn't be allowed so there goes part of that argument.

I meant more of this mass unbanning in "finding a balance" of sorts, since the overall more powerful ones may not completely centralize the metagame unto themselves, but would create an overall higher base level of power in UU, much like Obi's proposed "let's send <x> ubers into OU and create a new balance".
 
I'm of personal opinion that a move for this mass unbanning would be for the absolute best. Although I go along with it I absolutely despise this 'grey area' thats existed for so long as BL. Its extremely unhealthy for the competition, its we raise the level of UU and let NU become the new UU.

NU and BL are unnecessary tiers. What is even the freakin point of a Neverused tier and a BL tier which doesn't even lend itself to a often played metagame. In both Advance and D/P I've found most good UU players will use UU/BL anyway.

Overall I'm 100% supporting this. The current metagame is so horribly stuck in the traditional roots that its not suitable for the current environment. We should be simplifying things not making them more complicated.

If I understand the proposal correctly. Kill BL and integrate them black and white into OU or UU based on actual statistical power/usuage. Raise the standard of NU by putting low end UU's there so both games can be played. The quality of what we can use in UU has gone up so much former UU's are good as NU's anyway. If something like Drifblim was in Advance he'd surely be BL or OU but hes a solid UU in D/P.

If you truly think UU would become OU-lite than so be it, NU would become the new place for novelty.
 
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