Lati@s Discussion Thread

[Jetx]

Speaking of Magnezone, has it been brought up yet that Magnezone does a great job at cleaning up a lot of things hoping to take a Latios' Draco Meteor? Between the two of them, every type in the game is resisted, too.

Obviously, the combination has its fair share of flaws, but I'm sure it could be very dangerous with some help from those four other team slots. (Machamp for T-Tar?)

SpecsLatios really scares me, but I think a Life Orb offensive CM set with Calm Mind, Dragon Pulse, Hidden Power Fire and Recover could be really hard to deal with too. It's like a boosting Gengar with better defenses and a recovery move. edit: okay forget this point here, I can see it's brought up already and I know how frustrating it is to have to repeat yourself on one of these threads.

All this said, I'm a bit sceptical, but I do think they deserve a test. (I know everybody here doesn't seem to care about WiFi, but doubtless there will be a lot of people on WiFi secretly putting Soul Dew on their Lati@s, and that will be extremely annoying if they get into OU)

 

[Scimjara]

well before battling ask for trade or even do a trickero on them

 

[Jumpman16]

I think it is absolutely necessary for someone to clarify the whole "Why is Soul Dew-less Lati@s allowed in OU but not Yache Berry-less Garchomp?" issue, as no one has really delivered a crystal clear answer yet.

i posted this in a previous thread weeks ago:

"As far as the Soul Dew vs. Thick Club/Light Ball argument, let me just say this: we are aiming to give every pokemon the chance to enjoy the most use in competitive pokemon without breaking any particular metagame. Banning Soul Dew on Lati@s may allow it to be viable in standard play, which is the metagame every pokemon strives to enjoy use in because it is the most popular. UU is played less than Standard, obviously. Banning Thick Club on Marowak would make it decidedly UU instead of BL, and it would therefore enjoy less use. Banning Light Ball on Pikachu would decidedly make it less viable in UU, and it would therefore enjoy less use. I hope that clears things up about how we regard these special items—I don't think anyone has voiced it in this manner but it is safe to say that this is a fair way of considering competitive pokemon and why we tier things the way we do."

 

[Scimjara]

when are they going the start the tests/

 

[Setrack]

i posted this in a previous thread weeks ago:

"As far as the Soul Dew vs. Thick Club/Light Ball argument, let me just say this: we are aiming to give every pokemon the chance to enjoy the most use in competitive pokemon without breaking any particular metagame. Banning Soul Dew on Lati@s may allow it to be viable in standard play, which is the metagame every pokemon strives to enjoy use in because it is the most popular. UU is played less than Standard, obviously. Banning Thick Club on Marowak would make it decidedly UU instead of BL, and it would therefore enjoy less use. Banning Light Ball on Pikachu would decidedly make it less viable in UU, and it would therefore enjoy less use. I hope that clears things up about how we regard these special items—I don't think anyone has voiced it in this manner but it is safe to say that this is a fair way of considering competitive pokemon and why we tier things the way we do."

but the aim for a competitive environment isnt to have the most pokemon available otherwise things like close combat and ice beam would be banned.

 

[Shinryu]

In my opinion, you'd have to ban all the specific items, otherwise it doesn't work. Anyway, if you want to ban events, why not ban Celebi and Shaymin and Lv.50 Dragonite? You've got more reason to ban them than Soul Dew, which is actually obtainable in PBR (and before you say anything, I know that Celebi is obtainable using that Colosseum bonus disk, but that's beside the point). Surely you can't just ban one of a kind, otherwise you'd have to ban all the OHKO moves seperately.

The thing is though, this whole attitude about "ban one, ban all" attitude is stupid. You have to consider in each case any circumstances or whatnot may have an effect. For Pikachu and Marowak (even Farfetch'd with his Stick and Chansey with its Lucky Punch and others), either the items themselves suck, or the Pokemon using them aren't great to begin with, and their specific items don't overpower them to any point where they completely dominate. Clampearl can't sweep, even with TR out. Pikachu can't take a hit to save its life, and Marowak is wallable, especially if it has no Spe or Atk support.

But the Latis with Soul Dew? Now you're talking about an item that could potentially let them dominate, as both the Latis have great stats already, and Soul Dew pushes it even further into brokeness.

 

[lilyhollow]

i posted this in a previous thread weeks ago:

"As far as the Soul Dew vs. Thick Club/Light Ball argument, let me just say this: we are aiming to give every pokemon the chance to enjoy the most use in competitive pokemon without breaking any particular metagame. Banning Soul Dew on Lati@s may allow it to be viable in standard play, which is the metagame every pokemon strives to enjoy use in because it is the most popular. UU is played less than Standard, obviously. Banning Thick Club on Marowak would make it decidedly UU instead of BL, and it would therefore enjoy less use. Banning Light Ball on Pikachu would decidedly make it less viable in UU, and it would therefore enjoy less use. I hope that clears things up about how we regard these special items—I don't think anyone has voiced it in this manner but it is safe to say that this is a fair way of considering competitive pokemon and why we tier things the way we do."

I responded to this post back then I believe, and my opinion still stands that we could just make Thick Club an "OU-only item," just like Soul Dew would become an "Ubers-only item." Obviously this wouldn't really matter if Thick Club Marowak became UU anyway though

 

[cim]

but the aim for a competitive environment isnt to have the most pokemon available otherwise things like close combat and ice beam would be banned.

Good point, actually.

Anyhow, another point: "why a soul dew latias ban but no yache garchomp ban" is because banning specific items on certain Pokémon "opens the floodgates" so to speak. Soul Dew we would have to technically ban on any Pokémon to avoid this, not really a problem but whatever.

I guess though that this would be "precedent" to allow a theoretical BL item-specific Pokémon (Marowak) to be allowed in UU without the item, which I would be fine with, as item bans would be tier specific.

I don't like the idea of actively trying to create an ideal metagame, but rather banning when things break the confines of what we define as "broken".

 

[Setrack]

Good point, actually.

Anyhow, another point: "why a soul dew latias ban but no yache garchomp ban" is because banning specific items on certain Pokémon "opens the floodgates" so to speak. Soul Dew we would have to technically ban on any Pokémon to avoid this, not really a problem but whatever.

I guess though that this would be "precedent" to allow a theoretical BL item-specific Pokémon (Marowak) to be allowed in UU without the item, which I would be fine with, as item bans would be tier specific.

I don't like the idea of actively trying to create an ideal metagame, but rather banning when things break the confines of what we define as "broken".

if things are broken they should be banned

 

[cim]

Admittedly the definition is arbitrary, and just saying "broken" doesn't really mean anything, but so far efforts to define broken have not resulted in any supporting definition.

I think it's because people are trying to bend the system around defining what they want to be broken as such, rather than something objective that may make something "non-broken", but I digress.

I'm kind of guilty of that too.

 

[umbarsc]

What justification is there for a blanket Soul Dew ban (outside of legality issues, which is never really mentioned)? Soul Dew doesn't turn Salamence from a great Pokemon into a broken Pokemon. The only Pokemon it affects are Latias and Latios, so keeping Sableye from using it in OU makes no sense other than some stupid semantics argument to make it an "acceptable" ban. It still seems like a rather specific restriction.

"As far as the Soul Dew vs. Thick Club/Light Ball argument, let me just say this: we are aiming to give every pokemon the chance to enjoy the most use in competitive pokemon without breaking any particular metagame. Banning Soul Dew on Lati@s may allow it to be viable in standard play, which is the metagame every pokemon strives to enjoy use in because it is the most popular. UU is played less than Standard, obviously. Banning Thick Club on Marowak would make it decidedly UU instead of BL, and it would therefore enjoy less use. Banning Light Ball on Pikachu would decidedly make it less viable in UU, and it would therefore enjoy less use. I hope that clears things up about how we regard these special items—I don't think anyone has voiced it in this manner but it is safe to say that this is a fair way of considering competitive pokemon and why we tier things the way we do."

I don't think what tier is played more should be a factor in how we tier Pokemon. In fact, Marowak sees such little use in OU that it may possibly have more of an impact in UU than in OU, which should be more of a factor than the raw number of usages each month. In addition, banning Thick Club opens it up to more potential playing fields than it would have if Thick Club is allowed, and that is arguably more important than how many uses it has.

 

[cim]

Because banning specific items on specific Pokémon opens floodgates to attempt to create a balanced metagame by modifying the game to check specific roles for specific Pokémon, an ultimately fruitless task. Basically, a stone's throw from individual move banning.

Also you could totally have a team of 5 Trickers with Soul Dew and a Latias with Trick and then woo ridiculous stretch just to get a free Calm Mind.

 

[lilyhollow]

What justification is there for a blanket Soul Dew ban (outside of legality issues, which is never really mentioned)? Soul Dew doesn't turn Salamence from a great Pokemon into a broken Pokemon. The only Pokemon it affects are Latias and Latios, so keeping Sableye from using it in OU makes no sense other than some stupid semantics argument to make it an "acceptable" ban. It still seems like a rather specific restriction.

because Sableye and Salamence already "can't use" Soul Dew. There is literally no reason for any pokemon to hold it except for Latios and Latias- even if you somehow really want that 30 BP (or whatever) Fling, there are 30 other completely identical hold items from that perspective.

So at the absolute worst we're banning something that is always going to be either completely broken or completely outclassed; the crazy "5 trickers with Soul Dew and Trick Latias" idea is completely unrealistic, but it still outweighs "but what if I want my Tangrowth to have a one-time 30 base power attack, and I hate all of those items besides Soul Dew!!!"

 

[Jumpman16]

but the aim for a competitive environment isnt to have the most pokemon available otherwise things like close combat and ice beam would be banned.

this is like the fourth time ive had to link directly to our philosophy to clear up a misconception:

Smogon attempts to avoid bans as much as possible—only when it becomes very apparent that a Pokémon is far too powerful to be in line with a balanced metagame is it banished permanently from the standard arena.

"balanced metagame" here refers to "the standard arena", if that isn't clear. UU isn't the standard arena, which is why we dont care about banning light ball/thick club because they dont make standard unbalanced (and item can obviously be substituted for Pokémon)

edit: i will say that if we were considering testing soul dew we should do it after testing without soul dew because from a logical standpoint if either lati is banned then it stands to reason that they'd be banned with soul dew but if not then maybe they aren't even uber with soul dew. and spare me your "what of course they would be!" "arguments" that are steeped entirely in theorymon, nobody knows how they will deal with scizor mamoswine and tyranitar yet

 

[Aldaron]

I haven't read this thread (honestly, I wish we had like a "good points summary post every like 30 posts lol), so I'm sorry if I say something that upsets you / has been gone over already.

I just want to give my pure theorymon thoughts behind Latios / Latias, thoughts that are obviously backed with a substantial amount of DPP experience (though a bit less in the past month or so). I've always had issues with baseless theorymon determining policy, but I have no problem with experience based theorymon setting the table for discussion.

I need to establish one important concept first, however. While I am adamant against "pokemon X outclasses pokemon Y," I do firmly believe that Pokemon can be compared to existing Pokemon (existing as in legal in the metagame), and their effects on that metagame can be compared accordingly.

If you agree with this, read. If not, there is no point. You'll just disagree with what I am saying.

I'll talk about the typing of the Latis twins first. Dragon / Psychic with Levitate give the twins one exceedingly significant advantage over the rest of the metagame: resistance / immunity to Fighting / Fire / Ground / Electric attacks. Anyone who is proficient in the metagame will tell you how significant that is. Adding this entirely new resistance-happy variable will certainly alter the composition of many teams, and neither I nor you can make any definitive claims regarding the Latis twins' effect from this perspective. So typing / defensively? Unknown.

Offensively is kind of easy though. I like to compare Latios to Salamence, and unfortunately, Latios falls significantly in comparison to it. Latios has higher speed, which allow its dragon dance sets to outspeed a few tricky scarfers, and its normal sets to outspeed threats like Gengar and Infernape, something Salamence cannot do. However, Salamence's major threat comes from a lack of knowledge of what it might be when it first comes out. Do I switch in my Suicune to handle its Dragon Dance set, or do I switch in my Blissey to handle its SpecsMence set? I don't know, and that is what makes Salamence so dangerous. With Latios, you know (well, I can make an educated guess from my limited knowledge from Warthog's and Maniac's tourneys that allowed them) that its only truly consistently dangerous sets are its special ones and (more with Latias here) its Substitute Calm Mind set. With knowledge of what Latios / Latias will run, stopping / beating them becomes that much more efficient. Latios / Latias have a wee bit more speed and a wee bit more special attack, and I think due to their utter lack (Latios cannot run Dragon Dance efficiently...trust me lol it works as a surprise sometimes but it is nothing more than a Thunder Wave Gyarados compared to Dragon Dance Gyarados) of variability, they fall offensively compared to Salamence. So offense wise? Sure, a bit more efficient SpecsMence...but significantly less significant due to no perceived threat from the other spectrum.

If I were viewing this solely from an offensive perspective, my first question would be "why the hell has it taken this long to test them, lol?"

However, due to that resistances variable, I have no idea if a "more efficient SpecsMence with no perceived physical threat" actually becomes "an unstoppable SpecsMence who doesn't care about the opponent knowing what it does."

That's why I 100% support its testing, and hope that for these two we will get a lot more acitivity from you guys, so that our data collection can hold a data pool much larger than normal!

As for the Soul Dew bit, well...I agree with Jumpman16. Let's test them without, and then let's decide afterwards if we should test them with.

Again, if you want my theorymon opinion...let's not bother lol. Soul Dew is such a broken item.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

Offensively is kind of easy though. I like to compare Latios to Salamence, and unfortunately, Latios falls significantly in comparison to it. Latios has higher speed, which allow its dragon dance sets to outspeed a few tricky scarfers, and its normal sets to outspeed threats like Gengar and Infernape, something Salamence cannot do. However, Salamence's major threat comes from a lack of knowledge of what it might be when it first comes out. Do I switch in my Suicune to handle its Dragon Dance set, or do I switch in my Blissey to handle its SpecsMence set? I don't know, and that is what makes Salamence so dangerous. With Latios, you know (well, I can make an educated guess from my limited knowledge from Warthog's and Maniac's tourneys that allowed them) that its only truly consistently dangerous sets are its special ones and (more with Latias here) its Substitute Calm Mind set. With knowledge of what Latios / Latias will run, stopping / beating them becomes that much more efficient. Latios / Latias have a wee bit more speed and a wee bit more special attack, and I think due to their utter lack (Latios cannot run Dragon Dance efficiently...trust me lol it works as a surprise sometimes but it is nothing more than a Thunder Wave Gyarados compared to Dragon Dance Gyarados) of variability, they fall offensively compared to Salamence. So offense wise? Sure, a bit more efficient SpecsMence...but significantly less significant due to no perceived threat from the other spectrum.

Is it just me, or does that sound a lot like Garchomp?

 

[zarator]

Is it just me, or does that sound a lot like Garchomp?

Definitely no. Blissey stop almost anyone of the Lati cold, unless they specifically prepare for it (therefore losing threat coverage). Garchomp, on the other hand, needed only SD/Dragon Claw or Outrage/Earthquake to wreak havoc, and so it could easily pack a Fire Fang to 2HKO Skarm and Bronzong, leaving no effective way to deal with him apart from revenge killing.
Moreover, things like Tyranitar, Scizor and Metagross are much more consistent revenge killers (even counters, if the eon lacks the right move) than Mamoswine and Weavile used to be for Garchomp.

 

[cim]

Not really like at all. Garchomp was definitely not a threat because of defensive prowess, it was because it lacked effective checks, and it seems Latios may have them.

 

[umbarsc]

Because banning specific items on specific Pokémon opens floodgates to attempt to create a balanced metagame by modifying the game to check specific roles for specific Pokémon, an ultimately fruitless task. Basically, a stone's throw from individual move banning.

That's exactly my point. There is absolutely no reason to ban Soul Dew on X Pokemon because it does absolutely nothing for that Pokemon, therefore making it unworthy of banning on every non-Lati Pokemon. It (might) make the Latis broken, so it only makes sense to ban Soul Dew on Latias and Latios, in which case we are implementing specific bans. Saying "no one will use it anyways" means that you are removing players' options, which should only be done if it can be justified, and in this case it can't. So the only logical conclusion is that you're banning it solely for Lat@s, which is no different from banning Yache from Garchomp.

If you respond with "you're not removing a viable option from players", you're wrong, because it can be argued that holding Soul Dew rather than, say, Leftovers will mean that if you're item is Tricked away you won't be helping the opponent. Not that it's viable in the competitive sense, but it's at the very least beneficial, if situationally.

By the way, I'm not trying to imply that players will or should use Soul Dew on random Pokemon.

 

[never_again]

Having both witnessed what they can do in Ubers, as well as considered how they would perform in OU w/o Soul Dew, I can say:

Soul Dew is what makes them Uber, but it doesnt make them OU without it.

Soul Dew makes their special stats respectable enough to trade blows with the Ubers, but in OU terms, 130/110 SpAtk and 110 Speed is no joke either.

Thinking about it, Latios has the same offensive stats as Gengar! Plus it has great SpDef, and it can CM! One CM is all it takes to account for no Soul Dew, seeing how most Latios/Latias run CM anyway.

Latias is basically a less specialized version of Blissey, less annoying, and able to dish out damage as well.

The point about them being physically frail doesnt really apply. They can beat almost all of their physical switch ins with prediction, like: HP Fire for Scizor/Metagross, Surf/Grass Knot for Tyranitar, and Weavile will never be able to switch in on any of Lati@s' attacks directly.

As someone previously stated in a Skymin discussion, there are checks to almost every Pokemon, but sometimes a threat can still beat its check. Heatran thinks it can switch in on Skymin, but with prediction, all it takes an Earth Power and Heatran is toast.

While we're at it, we might as well include Darkrai in OU, just ban Dark Void. I mean, after all, Scizor can take it on pretty well for an OU Pokemon.

 

[Jibaku]

Just because Latias tends to run Calm Mind in ubers doesn't necessarily mean that they'll mostly run Calm Mind in OU.

Remember the things that Soul Dew gave them-free 1.5x power without adherence, the ability to switch into 400+ Special Attack Ice Beams (and Latias takes <50%), etc. It's not all that simple when their items are removed-it's not like they can switch in and use Calm Mind at the same time before the opponent makes a move. Plus Soul Dew works separately from Calm Mind. A Calm Mind boosted Soul Dew Lati@s has 2.25x their original Special Attack and Special Defense.

I really dislike how people compare Latios to Gengar. Okay, they have the same offensive stats, and Latios has higher stats everywhere else. But they're very different. Gengar's immunities differ greatly from Latios, for instance, and it has access to Focus Blast, Explosion, Hypnosis, Counter and even Destiny Bond, in comparison to Latios' slightly more specially focused offensive movepool.

Sure they may be able to beat down their switch ins, but doesn't that apply to other things as well? For instance, Lucario can smack Zapdos down with Ice Punch, yet Zapdos can still be considered a counter to it because it's faster, SDed Life Orb ExtremeSpeed doesn't OHKO even after Stealth Rock damage, and Heat Wave OHKOes.

 

[MegaBuddha]

hmm not sure.. I read the policy review but still not too sure

So if Lati@s is to be OU.. When do we try it with Skymin [if banned]. And with Deoxys, and with Garchomp. Because theres a large combination of X banned X allowed X banned, all creating a different game. Are we going to keep cycling through till we find one we want or is it just cut and dry Garchomp and Deoxys gone, regardless of future tests.

Because theres obviousley errors there. Because for example, with the latis we have more checks against Garchomp and Manaphy. And with deoxys back we have a good supporter of Manaphy. And with Manaphy we have another Garchomp check.

It's really complicated so I'd like some clerification on exactly what we're doing..
And for the record I loved the MDWL or whatever tournament. Latis were fun. I don't find them overwhelming in this game too much.

 

[Veedrock]

Because theres obviousley errors there. Because for example, with the latis we have more checks against Garchomp and Manaphy. And with deoxys back we have a good supporter of Manaphy. And with Manaphy we have another Garchomp check.

Something that really irks me is that people are afraid of Latios, yet they believe Manaphy will be great for OU (without breaking it). I just don't get it. Manaphy is beyond Garchomp's levels of overcentralization. And when coupled with Support (from say, Deoxys), it can set up no problem and sweep your ass 6-0. If and when Manaphy is allowed, I seriously think I could get to number 1 on the ladder within the trial period. That's how pumped it is.

But this isn't about Manaphy, it's about Lati@s. Back on topic.

 

[RaikouLover]

Well Veedrock, I couldn't disagree with you more about Manaphy! I agree with the support from Deoxys shit though... I remember seeing someone abuse Dual Screen Deoxys-E with Yache Garchomp. Again, like I said with Manaphy, its speed is too slow to sweep an entire team and the same applied for that little DS--> Garchomp chain, but it did get about 3 kills a match and was ridiculous, lol.

Originally Posted by xxflyingsolo07xx

The point about them being physically frail doesnt really apply. They can beat almost all of their physical switch ins with prediction, like: HP Fire for Scizor/Metagross, Surf/Grass Knot for Tyranitar, and Weavile will never be able to switch in on any of Lati@s' attacks directly.

I didn't know they are so physically frail. I just showed how Latias can make a good Gyarados counter. Waterfall + Ice Fang won't 2HKO even with a Life Orb, and a +1 DD Life Orbed Ice Fang doesn't OHKO, hence making it a counter to one of the most threatening physical sweepers in the metagame. Latias has base 80 / 90 physical defense. Zapdos has 90 / 85. However, Zapdos commonly takes 36 EVs out of defense an puts them into speed to hit 245. Latias doesn't need to do that. So statistically, a Max HP / Def Latias takes physical hits approximately 1.8% better than a Max HP / 220 Def Bold Zapdos. Then, remember Latias is keeping the same valuable fighting resist and ground immunity. So, how is that frail again?

 

[Darkerkrai]

I didn't know they are so physically frail. I just showed how Latias can make a good Gyarados counter. Waterfall + Ice Fang won't 2HKO even with a Life Orb, and a +1 DD Life Orbed Ice Fang doesn't OHKO, hence making it a counter to one of the most threatening physical sweepers in the metagame. Latias has base 80 / 90 physical defense. Zapdos has 90 / 85. However, Zapdos commonly takes 36 EVs out of defense an puts them into speed to hit 245. Latias doesn't need to do that. So statistically, a Max HP / Def Latias takes physical hits approximately 1.8% better than a Max HP / 220 Def Bold Zapdos. Then, remember Latias is keeping the same valuable fighting resist and ground immunity. So, how is that frail again?

After running more damage calcs, I can actually agree with this O_O. The fact is what Latias will never lose Levitate to Roost, or, Recover while Zapdos is defying its own fate by Roosting, hoping to take neutral damage from that SE attack and pray that your opponent doesn't outpredict you and use Earthquake :(. Also, Latias gets Reflect to lighten up on that Pursuit damage >_>.