Lower Tiers GSC Lower Tier Tiering Hub

GSC PU and GSC UU both plan on collecting samples soon, since UUBD and Aurist's GSC PU tournament will be ending relatively soon. I am sending this as a heads-up and an invitation for people to send samples in! Sending them in their respective channels in GSC cord would be best, but you can also send them in a dm or smogon pm. You can also send PU submissions to Aurist.
 
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MrSoup said:
GSC PU has banned Trap + Baton Pass here.

Next Steps

The posts above by Aurist and BeeOrSomething do a good job explaining what some view as issues in the PU metagame. To remain brief, the primary issues of note for PU include:
  • Rest looping being common place due to a lack of consistent 3 hit-KOs
    • A lack of strong breakers to punish rest loops
    • Reliance on critical hits or full paralysis to break a core
    • Offensive threats packing rest because it is currently optimal to do so (e.g. Elekid, Seadra, Cubone) instead of coverage
  • Building constraints caused by Seadra and Elekid
  • A lack of Spikes abusers and strong Spikes builds
It is for these reasons that several tiering options for moving forward post-trap-pass ban have been floated. This is a good summary of the currently proposed option:


As it stands, Discord discussion has reached an impasse on the next course of action. There are three main options that can be taken in any order, and I will try to summarize various users' opinions on them:

1. Test Arbok and Azumarill

This has been the most widely discussed option. Azumarill and Arbok are the only two 'E' rank Pokemon in NU's current VR that are still considered not PU. This is well below the viability level of all other NU Pokemon. Community members have weighed different opinions on the effects these two Pokemon may have. It is clear there is no current consensus; both have community members which believe they will be positive or negative presences in the metagame.

Arbok appears to be the more interesting and polarizing option. It's offensive prowess, STAB Sludge Bomb, great physical coverage, and utility options like Glare and Haze make it an attractive option for breaking cores after a single Curse boost. It is also a Pokemon that is unlikely to run rest due to its fantastic moveset options. However, Arbok may also be too strong, especially as a Hitmontop check and paralysis spreader against Pokemon like Venomoth.

Opinions on Azumarill are less polarizing. It is likely a great Seadra check with HP Electric or Light Screen. It also may provide breaking power with Belly Drum sets. However, Azumarill also may be able to utilize sets that can grow problematic, such as Whirlpool Perish Song or another mono-normal Curse set. As such, some community members believe it may add bulk to an already bulky tier and make issues worse. Others argue it would be a passive piece that makes breaking easier.

If testing these Pokemon is the direction the community decides to take, there has also been heavy discussion about the process for doing so. There is no clear consensus here, as there are many options for moving forward. Questions that would need to be answered here are, but are not limited to:
  • Would both be tested at the same time?
  • Would both drop directly from NU into PU and then be voted on banning to PUBL or not? Or would they drop to PUBL and be voted into PU?
  • How many tournaments would be necessary to test them?
  • Would the influence of Arbok's presence in the tier affect the healthiness of Azumarill and vice versa?
If we go down this route, it would be important to solidly establish a clear game plan on this front. However, I want to stress that it is more important to decide which option the community wants to take before arguing about a game plan. The community may decide that options 2 or 3 are better routes for the health of PU.

2. Suspect Seadra and/or Elekid

Seadra has an amazing combination of immaculate power and coverage combined with high speed and good enough bulk to dodge 3HKOes from crucial targets like Hitmontop and Non-Giga Drain Venomoth. Seadra can sit on the field and fire off attacks without being significantly threatened out by most things due to RestTalk, or it can serve as a wall to opposing progress makers like Seaking and Noctowl with Haze while also expanding its by forgoing RestTalk. It can be argued that Seadra has no actual answers and is too strong and too difficult to kill. However, it can also be argued that while Seadra is strong, it’s not quite strong enough to be deemed broken, and aggressive teams stacking threats like Elekid and their own Seadra can limit its entry and switch around its coverage. Some also find Seadra difficult to fit on a team, as with Haze, it has limited longevity, and with RestTalk, it has limited coverage and cannot Haze.

Elekid meanwhile is pure speed and offense, often barely having enough bulk to survive a 2HKO from most things if it even can at all. Elekid makes up for this by being the second fastest common Pokemon behind Voltorb and the fastest Pokemon that shows up at least every couple games. Elekid can 3HKO a variety of Pokemon with Thunder and Psychic, and it can use Ice Punch to lay more hurt on Grass and Ground types and even potentially freeze them. Elekid is often sighted with Thief too, enabling it and its team’s offenses. Elekid can also instead use its barely-good-enough bulk to run RestTalk, providing a decent secondary switch-in/pivot to Venomoth, Seadra, and more. RestTalk also lets it wall Gastly, and perhaps even more importantly, itself (and Flaaffy). Elekid’s switch-ins are quite limited, with some being less common choices and others being openly flawed in some way. And since every team might not be able to fit one of these, Elekid quite often ends up dueling with itself or Flaaffy in atrocious RestTalk mirrors fishing for crits or Psychic drops. Some argue this pushes Elekid over the line into being at the very least unhealthy for the tier and arguably broken, while others would say Elekid is too fragile and many teams can fit an answer or combination of checks to it.

Both of these Pokemon, but moreso Seadra, have gained traction as ban candidates. Suspecting Elekid and/or Seadra before or after options 1 or 3 is a route some players believe is best for the tier.

3. Do Nothing

It is also an option to do nothing, see how the recent trap pass ban affects things, and move forward from there. Players like BigFatMantis believe that the tier is currently fine as it is and does not require further attention. Others point to the fact that the tier could use quality of life improvements, but further change may disrupt the tier in a big way. This option does not mean that options 1 or 2 are not possible, but that we can wait things out.

Opinions on further options not mentioned here are also welcome. While we cannot test things out of order, some have touted the potential benefits of 'D' tier NU drops like Exeggcute as well. Others have floated the idea of banning Baton Pass outright. Please provide opinions and thoughts on which (if any) of these options you believe is best.
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After helping build and test PU in GSCPL I'd like to reiterate my thoughts on this tier's health briefly. I find PU to be in a not great spot, but not terrible to the point that its easy to identify why. My main issue with this tier is still that hardly anything checks the main offensive threats -- mainly Venomoth, Cubone, Seadra -- leading to stuff just Rest looping and praying to not get some unfortunate luck. The tier is full of blanket checks like Hitmontop, Seaking, and Noctowl that don't tend to do their job particularly effectively but are pretty essential to the builder. On the other hand, heavily offense-leaning builds aren't the best either, mainly due to a lack of boosting moves, raw breaking power, and Explosion/Self Destruct.

I don't think banning anything (except for maybe Seadra) is likely to produce positive effects for the tier right now, unless we ban like, 5+ Pokemon, which wouldn't be my desired course of action. I'd like to push for drops, particularly things that have no chance of being NU in the future. My previous post sort of outlined the different ways to go about this. I still think Azumarill and Arbok should be the first to be looked at purely from a tiering philosophy standpoint, but many in Discord are allured by the potential of an Exeggcute drop. I agree an actual boom in this tier (as well as Top check with Psychic STAB) would probably be the biggest possible benefit, but Farfetch'd, Houndour, and Ledian sit between Azu and Eggs on the VR currently.

I'll make my stance clear that I believe this tier should pursue some sort of testing on Arbok and Azumarill. Arbok I believe provides raw breaking power that can enable teams to forgo 5 Restalkers in favor of stronger offense. Azu will be the only thing that checks Seadra and has some nice move set options. I think neither are likely to hurt the tier and both are likely to help it, even if they're not S-tier. I'm also not against banning BP outright if people desire. These are my current thoughts.
 
Hello again. PU Open and PUBD are both finished and VR submissions have opened. I would like to reignite discussion on whether or not we should proceed with changes to the tier or not.

As a reminder, the main 3 options were:
- Test the very bottom of the NU VR (currently Arbok and Azumarill)
- suspect some of the more problematic PU pokemon. May include but is not limited to: Elekid, Seadra, Venomoth
- do nothing

I want to make it very clear that the NU VR will be changing again quite soon, which could possibly shift what we are "allowing" ourselves to consider for a drop to PU.

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Personally, I'm mostly fine with the tier as is. Most pokemon already in the tier do not feel problematic and the metagame is in a fine and enjoyable state. I don't see much of a reason to test out things from NU.

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As an aside, I do think Flaaffy in particular is very problematic. It's extraordinarily difficult to switch into and handle in many games due to its very high power and solid bulk, as opposed to Elekid which is much more fragile and hits less hard. This has resulted in many games recently coming down to electric resttalk stall dittos, which while already present before to a degree with Elekid mirrors, is more of an issue and happens more frequently with Flaaffy. Common switch-ins like Top, Choke, grasses, Cubone, and Rhyhorn are inconsistent due to how hard Flaaffy hits and sleep talk RNG and may often be stopped anyways by one of Flaaffy's teammates.

I understand that my stance may be controversial, but I do not believe Flaaffy has very much to add to the tier that is positive, and it often degrades gamestates and makes building in and playing the tier much less enjoyable and dynamic to me.
 
There's definitely no way to justify any action whatsoever on Flaaffy in PU, that would be absurd on many levels.

As for changes, I thought we were already dropping down the bottom of NU VRs, what's the hold up. Nothing in the tier itself needs to change re: action on anything specific, but I'd welcome some new mons from NU just because that's how VR tiering should be done here.
 
BigFatMantis said:
There's definitely no way to justify any action whatsoever on Flaaffy in PU, that would be absurd on many levels.

As for changes, I thought we were already dropping down the bottom of NU VRs, what's the hold up. Nothing in the tier itself needs to change re: action on anything specific, but I'd welcome some new mons from NU just because that's how VR tiering should be done here.
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It has been many months and two whole team tours + another individual since we last seriously discussed this topic. It's a good idea to ask again first if people still want it rather than going forward regardless.
 
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