Equal BST Metagame

[zyrefredric]

Skyshade, know that I appreciate all the effort and help trying to put up a server for this. However, I tried many times but I've never been able to log in into the server. Could I be doing something wrong? Maybe you could give detailed instructions what to do after downloading the Equal BST.zip?

 

[Skyshayde]

Skyshade, know that I appreciate all the effort and help trying to put up a server for this. However, I tried many times but I've never been able to log in into the server. Could I be doing something wrong? Maybe you could give detailed instructions what to do after downloading the Equal BST.zip?

Mkay,

It's different for diff routers

Pull up a cmd promt, use windows run and type cmd
Type ipconfig into the cmd prompt
find you're connection, should be the only/top one
Find the default gateway e.g. 192.168.2.1
visit it in you're browser
Find Port Forwarding settings
Forward ports 5080 for everything to you're internal IP, which should be you're router IP with a different end number
Run the server
Connect
????
PROFIT

Finding you're port forwarding setting

Visit
http://portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/default.htm
Find you're router, and model no
model no and router manufacturer can be found on the router config page
follow the guide there, it has PICTUREZ

If you have any problems ask me and I'll try to help

 

[Acritter]

Look at the OP.

Ah, okay. However, point stands. Blaziken was never intended to be trying to REVENGE Krabby. Better Pokemon for that would be Pikachu. It was intended to be impossible to revenge WITH Krabby. And after the usual 2 Speed Boosts, Krabby is left in the dust. Krabby's HP is low enough that attacks on the Physical spectrum should do serious damage, and at the very least set Krabby up to be OHKO'd by most non-resisted Special attacks and all SE Special attacks. Krabby, if it intends to be a useful Scarfer, will not be investing much into its defenses. So it's going to have some trouble dealing with anything Blaziken is going to do. The only Pokemon standing out right now as something that can possibly deal with Blaziken is Wynaut/Wobbuffet. In all seriousness, I don't think there's anything that those two CAN'T deal with, and we ought to be seeing them get banned soon. Wynaut+Wobbuffet+Smeargle with a set of Spore, SR, Spikes, and Healing Wish seems to be an unbelievably solid defensive core. Add on a cleric like Chansey and some kind of fast heavy hitter like Pikachu and I think it might be unbeatable.

 

[bluemon]

....what?

first of all, krbby can come in as soon as he sees blaziken on the field as a scarf krabby outspeeds blaziken. also, even if blaziken gets another protect off, none of blazkiens physical attack will ko krabby (and blaziken wont go mixed with those awful stats).

and wobbuffet and wynaut being broken? NO. just no.

for one, carvanha shits on them (especially the mixed variants) and their stats leave them mehh at best.

but smeargle is going to be pretty darn good.

 

[zyrefredric]

Well, provided Blaziken gets two speed boosts, it outspeeds Scarf Krabby (unless Krabby predicts the Protect and use Agility instead). With Life Orb and 252 Atk+, Blaziken's Hi Jump Kick deals 93.0% ~ 109.7% to Krabby with no defense investments. If Krabby switches into a HJK, worse. With SR or a layer of Spikes, it's a guaranteed OHKO.

Also, with 104/95/69 offensive stats and Speed Boost, Blaziken is more than capable of going mixed. So what can handle Blaziken?

Blaziken @ Life Orb
Speed Boost
Adamant; 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
~ Swords Dance
~ Hi Jump Kick
~ Protect
~ Flare Blitz
Setting up a Swords Dance after scaring away a Pokemon, then using Protect, nets Blaziken +2 ATk and +2 Spe, ready for a sweep. So what can reliably take this on?

each calc assumin 252 EV's in HP and Def, with +Def nature

Hi Jump Kick vs. Slowpoke: 41.4% ~ 48.9%

And that's it. A grand total of one true counter for this Pokemon. The only other way of handling this Pokemon is by switching-in an Aqua Jet user on the Swords Dance, or letting something die and switching in a revenge killer. For revenge killers, these are some of the better options:

• Those that resists both HJK and Flare Blitz, such as Slowbro, Gyarados (Intimidate), Qwilfish, Giratina-Altered, Jellicent, etc.
• Bulky Pokemon (not weak to either of the two moves) that can avoid the OHKO. Wynaut and Wobbuffet will do, but all others are OHKO'd if SR is active.

 

[Lucario_Guy]

So what can handle Blaziken?

Blaziken @ Life Orb
Speed Boost
Adamant; 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
~ Swords Dance
~ Hi Jump Kick
~ Protect
~ Flare Blitz

*cough*

*cough*

 

[zyrefredric]

Well, of course, there's that, too. :)

 

[Acritter]

*cough*

*cough*

Amusingly, that same exact argument was used when Blaziken was in OU. What ended up happening was that people would start running moves like Shadow Claw, which obviously tends to give the Chandelure line the teensiest bit of trouble. Hell, towards the end of Blaziken's OU run we even started seeing full-mixed and Special-based sets popping up, because the stats are good enough to make it work anyway. Blaziken is really, really good. Don't underestimate it. Even if you have a perfect counter set up, remember that all it has to do is switch out, find some other way to deal with your counter, and the nightmare begins again. It's not a 1v6. There are five other Pokemon to support Blaziken, and if you can't deal with them all, the game will end.

Oh, and I doubt Carvanha will be a problem. Toxicroak line learns Vacuum Wave, and has solid enough SpA to make it work. Dry Skin both prevents Aqua Jet from even damaging it, and as a bonus can allow for a free switch-in with some prediction. That's not even mentioning the inherent problems against anything with Extremespeed. Dragonite in particular is definitely packing enough of a punch to OHKO with that, and even Extremekiller Arceus might still be viable. It was good in Ubers even though other Pokemon outstripped it in certain stats, and I expect it'll still be at least usable here. On that note, I'd like to bring up Dragonite. It's got a solid set of defenses with an excellent attack, as well as a great typing, ability, and movepool. I think it ought to still be usable.

 

[nyttyn]

Solosis under trick room is going to be a ungodly monster.

166 SpAtk with 72/63/79 bulk means it's not going to care about your priority, and it's going to kill basically every non special wall.

I'm thinking

Solosis @ Life Orb / Expert belt
Quiet Nature
252 Hp 252 SpAtk 4 def
Trick Room / Psychic
Psychic / Psyshock
Hidden Power Fighting
Shadow Ball

Wreck everything ever.


On a side note, I'm already seeing huge issues with this meta. For example, Gastly is strictly inferior to Abra. On the plus side, I am excited at the prospect of four attack scarfed Gardevoir, as its ungodly coverage movepool plus its workable speed plus trace will make it a extremely effective revenger as well as the best answer to rain Arceus has ever blessed us with.

Honestly giving this a second look over this is far more exciting then I initially thought. The only real problem is that some pokemon wind up getting shafted, but them's the breaks.

Also I would like to note that Choice Band Dragonite lead is probably going to wreak absolute havoc due to multiscale.

By the way we might want to ban speed boost Torchic/Combusken/Blazikin as it's basically going to be the best thing ever in a tier where its stats no longer hold it back. YYanma/Yanmega is also going to be frightening as all hell.

 

[Pikapwnd]

Both zorua and zoroak are viable. Illusion shenangains? With HO powerhouses, forcing switches elimating counters, would be fun

*570-Zorua: 56/90/56/111/56/90
*571-Zoroark: 53/95/54/108/54/95

Neither are bulky, but with stuff like pikachu and marowak or sheninja forcing switches it could easily open up for a sweep.

Also priority will be key azumarill is bulky as mad in here will ceratinly have a niche.

 

[Collol]

235-Smeargle: 100/37/64/37/83/138

Oh fuck.

 

[PK Gaming]

Amazing Ampharos tried something similar once. He manually ended up editing every. single. bst so that Pokemon like Pidgeot that got screwed over actually got a second chance. (It was given good attack and speed... like 120 / 120 I think)

To be honest, I'm not a fan of this system tbh, I noticed some irregularities (aside from the obvious stuff like Magikarp having 184 and high defenses, there were some others issues like Ratatta having strictly superior stats to Raticate, which rubs me the wrong way) I think manually editing BSTs would be a better idea. Obviously its much more time consuming, but if you establish a comittee, you could work on giving really bad Pokemon with 0 redeeming qualities a niche.

Regardless, this is an ambitious project. I hope you're up to it!

 

[Acritter]

Solosis suffers from being "slower" than Ferroseed/thorn and Escavalier, all of which remain excellent Pokemon due to stat distribution, typing, and movepool. All three of these Pokemon can switch in on most attacks (not sure about HP Fighting on the Ferros), take a hit, and then threaten an OHKO with a powerful Physical move that nothing will like switching into. Don't get me wrong, it seems like it'll be scary, but I don't think it's going to be anywhere near impossible to deal with. This is completely aside from the issue of bringing in a Sucker Punch user and spamming the move until TR runs out.

@Straw Hat Luffy:
Strictly superior stats means having all your stats be higher than the other Pokemon. This is not true in the case of Raticate, as it has higher bulk than Rattata. The obvious issue with doing this via committee is that you run into the problem of people wanting to make their favorites good. "Hey, I think this bad Pokemon is pretty cool, let's give it 200 base Speed and enough defense to take a nuke!" Only conflict lies in that direction. Much better to create a standardized system that has no room for debate. The fact of the matter is, not every Pokemon can be at the same level of power. If they were, then the game would be horrible, because it would be so difficult to reliably prepare for threats. This meta is just a way to mix things up and find some new Pokemon worth exploring that previously couldn't even be touched.

 

[nyttyn]

I think some pokemon just are going to have to be flatout manually edited statswise. I would be in favor of a committee being established towards this. (Example: Snorunt having no reason to be used over Glaile, although neither of them have any reason to be bothered with in the first place. It is possible to be too balanced.)

Some pokemon will also need to have certain abilities banned (I certainly do not want to be facing Contrary superpower scarfed Spindia with THOSE stats at the relative stat levels. I mean yeah ghost types, but just because something has counters doesn't make it too good.)

Adding to my concern list: Wobbuffet. Hands down, Wobbuffet. Already a ungodly mon, he actually gets buffed by the stat changes, and I don't just mean because of the lower power levels in general. He gains more HP, more def, and more spdef. That could be problematic.

 

[blasphemy1]

I'm not sure I see the point in attempting to edit stats... that's not what the point of this seems to be. Editing stats to give SPECIFIC Pokemon viability is different from balancing the BST so Pokemon neutered by low BST but good type/movepool can be competitive. The latter is more broad and less prone to subjectivity among the player base, and honestly feels more like a competitive goal Smogon could support as it is similar to the research done in CAP. I think it's better to focus on getting this started using the original idea before changing anything or banning things. Eviolite is an exception because it was created with lower BST pre-evolutions in mind.

 

[Acritter]

If you want to edit stats, then it's probably a better idea to just make your own game from the ground up. This is a simple experiment to play around with a few Pokemon and see how much stat totals affect how good a Pokemon is. Anyone can take any Pokemon and force it to be good or bad by manually editing its stats. That's silly. All we'd get from that is a metagame where people's personal favorite Pokemon get to be good and everything else gets to be bad. What this offers is a way to gain more insight into the game, explore a brand new metagame with fresh content, and have fun as well.

I'm almost certain that we'll have some seriously broken Pokemon to deal with. Blaziken was a little bit below the curve in OU in terms of BST, and absolutely trashed the tier. Hell, it's still usable in Ubers. I expect that it'll end up getting banned along with Combusken. But so what if some Pokemon get banned? Things are that way in Standard already. I'm interested to see what gets banned more than anything, because it'll show us clearly what traits make a Pokemon really and truly strong, more than just the sliding scale of BST. Chances are it won't be much we don't already know, but it's always good to find out.

 

[Dusk209]

No offense to zyrefredric, but this is a terrible way to go about making an "everything is viable" metagame. just look at this 74/77/77/77/77/77 <- No strong points at all, overall terrible
Trapinch: 72/158/71/71/71/16 <- Massive attack, works amazing in trick room

The proposal claims that "all 665 Pokemon (including all formes) are useable, simply because they have the same BST" when the reality is that you get a metagame that is even more centralized than the current one. Please put some more thought into this instead of throwing everything into the BST-o-matic and calling it a day. The concept of a metagame where every existing pokemon is balanced deserves much better than this.

 

[Byrne]

Am I the only one not incredibly disturbed by Bonsly's 127 attack and 150 defense?

 

[Jimera0]

Am I the only one not incredibly disturbed by Bonsly's 127 attack and 150 defense?

Meh, Gigalith has 140 Def and 140 Attack in the current meta and no one uses it, I don't see Bonsly being particularly terrifying. It has pretty low Special Defense so it'll be taken out easily by super-effective special attacks, and I don't think it has a terrifying movepool to back it up or anything.

@Dusk209
The OP hasn't been updated in a while but by now I don't think any of us are looking for a perfectly balanced metagame, which is kind of impossible. Saying that normalizing the BST autmatically makes everything viable is false of course; it just makes some new things viable that never were before while making some old things not so viable. I for one find this a really fun idea, as it'd be cool to see what really makes a good Pokemon outside of BST, and just to be able to cause untold terror with something like Abra :D

 

[zyrefredric]

No offense to zyrefredric, but this is a terrible way to go about making an "everything is viable" metagame. just look at this 74/77/77/77/77/77 <- No strong points at all, overall terrible
Trapinch: 72/158/71/71/71/16 <- Massive attack, works amazing in trick room

The proposal claims that "all 665 Pokemon (including all formes) are useable, simply because they have the same BST" when the reality is that you get a metagame that is even more centralized than the current one. Please put some more thought into this instead of throwing everything into the BST-o-matic and calling it a day. The concept of a metagame where every existing pokemon is balanced deserves much better than this.

Even with an absurd 158 base attack stat, Trapinch's Choice Banded 252 EV Atk+ Earthquake won't even OHKO Castform, even with Stealth Rock taken into account. Because Castform is naturally faster (outside Trick Room), it could KO Trapinch first (specially with a rain-boosted STAB Weatherball, perhaps). Consider also Arceus, who has the same 74/77/77/77/77/77 stats. Give him a Meadow Plate and Trapinch can't even 2HKO, dealing only 37.5% ~ 44.3% damage.

Really, when I "claimed" that "all 665 Pokemon (including all formes) are useable, simply because they have the same BST", I really meant useable, not viable. There's a difference. I'd even claim that "a metagame where every existing pokemon is balanced" could very well be impossible (good luck making Caterpie viable without changing a lot in it). In this meta, yes it's true that some Pokemon would still be better than some, but you have to admit that merely because of giving them equal BST's, virtually all Pokemon could be used to some effect. (But then, even I can't imagine what to make use of Magikarp with its sonic speed and great defense. Then there's also SLaking, Regigigas and Archeops with their debilitating abilities.) Compare this to the current standard meta, where more or less half of all Pokemon will only be used in Little Cup or Middle Cup.

PS. Don't worry, no offense taken. ^^

Also,

I'm not sure I see the point in attempting to edit stats... that's not what the point of this seems to be. Editing stats to give SPECIFIC Pokemon viability is different from balancing the BST so Pokemon neutered by low BST but good type/movepool can be competitive. The latter is more broad and less prone to subjectivity among the player base, and honestly feels more like a competitive goal Smogon could support as it is similar to the research done in CAP. I think it's better to focus on getting this started using the original idea before changing anything or banning things. Eviolite is an exception because it was created with lower BST pre-evolutions in mind.

This post summarizes well my response for the many concerns on this proposal. However, please do know that I would take note of all your suggestions.

 

[nyttyn]

Permanant weather inducers might need a ban due to the fact that they now no longer have the downside of sucking statwise.

 

[UltiMario]

Permanant weather inducers might need a ban due to the fact that they now no longer have the downside of sucking statwise.

Every weather starter got their stats reduced by the Balance, in a metagame with stats at different kinds of extremes.

Likely unnecessary.

 

[Deck Knight]

Even with an absurd 158 base attack stat, Trapinch's Choice Banded 252 EV Atk+ Earthquake won't even OHKO Castform, even with Stealth Rock taken into account. Because Castform is naturally faster (outside Trick Room), it could KO Trapinch first (specially with a rain-boosted STAB Weatherball, perhaps). Consider also Arceus, who has the same 74/77/77/77/77/77 stats. Give him a Meadow Plate and Trapinch can't even 2HKO, dealing only 37.5% ~ 44.3% damage.

This is downright magical thinking.

As a matter of fact, 252+ Trapinch CB EQ does 82.7-97.4% Damage to 252/252 Castform, so either this meta is like Balanced Hackmons where you can invest 252 in each stat, or in order to take that attack Castform has no chance to KO Trapinch, which now has relatively the same bulk, it needs the rosiest of conditions to do so. Now it is true that Modest Life Orb Castform's Hydro Pump or Blizzard can OHKO 252/4 Trapinch (Trapinch doesn't need to invest in anything but Attack and HP really, but lets not get sucked into the world of 252/252 Defensive Calcs. Nothing realistically does that while maintaining its KOs, and if this IS a 252 ALL metagame, then Life Orb Hydro Pump/Blizzard doesn't OHKO 252/252 Trapinch unless it's Raining or Hailing.

 

[zyrefredric]

As a matter of fact, 252+ Trapinch CB EQ does 82.7-97.4% Damage to 252/252 Castform, so either this meta is like Balanced Hackmons where you can invest 252 in each stat, or in order to take that attack Castform has no chance to KO Trapinch, which now has relatively the same bulk, it needs the rosiest of conditions to do so. Now it is true that Modest Life Orb Castform's Hydro Pump or Blizzard can OHKO 252/4 Trapinch (Trapinch doesn't need to invest in anything but Attack and HP really, but lets not get sucked into the world of 252/252 Defensive Calcs. Nothing realistically does that while maintaining its KOs, and if this IS a 252 ALL metagame, then Life Orb Hydro Pump/Blizzard doesn't OHKO 252/252 Trapinch unless it's Raining or Hailing.

252+ Trapinch CB EQ VS 252/252+ Castform: 75.3% ~ 88.6%
I assumed 252 EVs for HP and Def, and a +Def nature. I know it's absurd to assume Castform to have such a heavy investment, but I'm simply trying to point out is that if 74/77/77 defenses can handle 158 attacking stats, then surely the rest of the metagame would do well.

0 SpA Castform Weatherball (under rain) vs 252/0 Trapinch: 65.5% ~ 77.6%
Even without SpA investment, Castform could reliably strike back (under rain of course).

 

[Acritter]

No offense to zyrefredric, but this is a terrible way to go about making an "everything is viable" metagame. just look at this 74/77/77/77/77/77 <- No strong points at all, overall terrible
Trapinch: 72/158/71/71/71/16 <- Massive attack, works amazing in trick room

The proposal claims that "all 665 Pokemon (including all formes) are useable, simply because they have the same BST" when the reality is that you get a metagame that is even more centralized than the current one. Please put some more thought into this instead of throwing everything into the BST-o-matic and calling it a day. The concept of a metagame where every existing pokemon is balanced deserves much better than this.

Manaphy was banned from OU before Deoxys-A. Pixie stats are better than most people think. It can be a real strength to have no serious weaknesses. You can outspeed half the Pokemon in the game, soak up blows from half the Pokemon in the game, and do serious damage to half the Pokemon in the game. That means rather a lot.

I'm not saying Castform is necessarily Manaphy-tier. I'm pointing out that there's a lot more to a Pokemon than stat distribution.