Gen 4 Latias

[BKC]

i've been thinking about this for a while. was latias really that much of an issue in dpp? i will admit to a small bias as the latias platinum metagame was my first and is my favorite to this day; however, from what i remember of the metagame 3 years ago and the occasional latimence game i play nowadays, latias really does not strike me as broken. i believe the "dragons-and-steels" mentality of the latimence meta was more due to salamence (who really was broken) than to latias. i've spoken to many respected dppers about this and they agree that latias would not be broken in today's dpp metagame.

what are your thoughts? is latias broken? would a metagame with it be better than current dpp?

i personally believe that latias is not broken. she also counters/checks a ton of threats and discourages the dumb fwg cores that plague today's metagame. the meta would be a lot better with latias, and it wouldn't be nearly as dragon/steel-oriented as it once was due to the lack of salamence.

 

[Mulligan]

IIRC Latias was fine...until people started spamming the Choice Specs set. Choice Band Scizor was the main switch-in for Latias back then, but even Scizor is 2HKO'd by Timid Draco Meteor after prior damage(two SR switch-ins, I think). So people just spammed Draco Meteor basically because anything that came in was going to take a good chunk of damage.

I'm honestly stuck on whether Latias is broken or not, so this is probably gonna end up being a bunch of random thoughts. I definitely agree that Salamence was the more broken of the two due to the combination of power, speed and unpredictability it had. I always hear the cry of "we need more Dragons in DPP OU". I don't think adding Latias would "give us" another Dragon-type to be used in OU, but rather there'd be a trade-off: I can't see Kingdra being used at all except as a DDer or a sweeper on Rain teams. IMO Latias would spice up the meta at first, but in the long run the meta would shift back to "Dragon/Steel/(Water)", which even now is still a better core than FWG so people should stop using those ;/ .

So I guess I'm still leaning more towards leaving the meta alone...but I wouldn't mind if there was a ladder set up where people could test out Latias in the current meta.

 

[Jorgen]

With Tyranitar's, Heatran's, and Jirachi's insane popularity even without Latias around it probably wouldn't be too hard to check. Personally, though, I kinda like the limited Dragon presence in DPP as it stands now, although I suppose that has less to do with their OU power and more because it makes things more reminiscent of older generations when Dragon moves sucked.

 

[Conflict]

ola

Ill prolly make a better post outlining my thoughts on this but for now ill just leave this short paragraph here that i wrote up some time ago: http://pokemon-online.eu/forums/showthread.php?13351-Salamence-Retest&p=183206&viewfull=1#post183206

Lol half the people writing here didnt even play back when Latias/Mence where allowed (i.e. i know tomahawk9 only really got the hang of dpp ou after both these behemoths were banned around ~2010).

Let me make a few things clear: Latias and Mence were NOT broken in DPP OU, people were just tired of having to pack a counter for them.
Literally noone used SDef-Tran, SDef-Jirachi, SDef-CBTar (who was VERY good and underrated) - essentially many people ignored a good amount of Checks.
Latias was banned after like 5 Tests in whom it was voted OU 4 times and Uber 1(!!!!) time. The DPP OU bansystem highly encouraged one to ban something because Pokemon received several tests until voted uber even when they were voted with a huge majority OU in the previous round.

Specslatias wasnt even the best Latias-set because it depended heavily on perfect/proper prediction. And 'prediction' is basically 'guessing'. Not to mention that simple cores of 2 Mons could easily outmaneuver Specslatias (SDef-Skarm + phys. def. vaporeon for example). The best Latias-Set was probably the LO/EBelt-Set with Roost.

Mence had no good 100%-counters but Mence had to live through SR/LO-DMG/SS-DMG and damage he received when switching in. You beat Mence with clever switching, outspeeding or using of of his Checks coupled with SR (Swampert, SDef-Skarm, Gyarados).
In the same vein Infernape has no 100%-counters for every one of his sets (Gyarados comes close but SD+SE or HP[Ele] destroy him still).
You could prepare for both of these Dragons like you can prapare for other dangerous sweepers in todays metagame like Lucario, Infernape, Starmie (LO-Starmie 2hkoed btw the whole metagame besides Blissey, Snorlax and stuff like SDef-Jirachi/Celebi/Gastrodon which noone used for some reason).

And what some posters here implied that all teams back then were 3Drags+3Steels is simply WRONG.
That wasnt the case. Definitely not. Thats just overexxagerating things. There were like 2 Mons that werent used much back then that now see some play. Shaymin and Zapdos. And both were still used to some extent (Twash used Shaymin realy succesfully in Latias/Mence era and won Kind-of-bigger-Deal tournament - an Elite-tournament - on Smogon with it, Zapdos was still Top 30 Mon).
A often used formula was for example: bulky water, dragon (mence/latias), rotom-w/h, steel, leadmon+filler

Latias and Mence werent that sought after due to their offensive capabilities but due to their defensive typing and their ability to check various big threats of the metagame. Yes they could act as a sweeper/cleaner etc but you picked them mostly for their amazing resistances coupled with their utility (able to 'break' stall aka Mence). Not to mention that Salamence almost never could break Stall on its own.

One of the reasons for banning Latias/Mence was that they centralized the Metagame and forced one to use Mons like Scizor and Ttar to check them. Funny thing is Ttar peaked at like 19% Usage or something like that when these two were allowed. After both were banned we see Heatran getting up to 30-40% usage which indicates that the Metagame NOW is even MORE centralized than back then. But funnily enough usage only speaks FOR bans but can never be used to argue AGAINST them.

With what credibility do i speak? Well ive talked with several top DPP players that generally agree with my thoughts (Latias/Mence not broken, just annoying and people were tired to have to prepare for them). Ive also made Smogon Tour finals in Season 9 (top 8) when both mence and Latias were allowed.

Thats a short overview why Latias/Mence are not broken just really dangerous and maybe the top two DPP pokes (see: Snorlax in GSC; Tauros in RBY; Ttar in ADV) - there will always be one 'top' poke no matter what.

 

[Joim]

I think allowing Latias would add diversity to the metagame. As the post above states, basing your game on prediction is gambling your way to victory, which may or may not happen. Is not as if Latias has the power of Specs Latios, so I don't really see the problem with it. It'd be probably be overhyped if unbanned, but there's Jirachi, Heatran, Metagross...

 

[BKC]

unlike latias, i think salamence actually is broken, and it's the mon that was mostly responsible for the "4 dragons 2 steels needed on every team!!" (which is false as correctly pointed out by conflict) thing that was going on back then... it was more responsible than latias, in any case. remember, the main thing i'd like looked at or discussed or whatever latias in the metagame without mence. latias on its own does not make the metagame dragon/steel, which is the complaint i see used whenever people mention why lati/mence were broken. aside from the fact that it's not broken, it does a lot of good for the meta as well; it checks a million different things, it cuts down on the popularity of the retarded fwg cores (just because it's a thing in UU does not mean it is good in OU)

with that said, i wouldn't really have a problem with mence if it was unbanned as long as latias came down with it.

 

[M Dragon]

I agree, they should be OU

 

[undisputed]

i agree as well

that is not to say i think there's an issue with the current DPP OU metagame, it's pleasant

there are some really good, legitimate arguments to re-test latias. i haven't seen any dissenters yet, but i can outline some reasons backing my opinion if people want. i'd be down for a little dpp ou shake up. i don't know if it's logistically possible, but i think it'd be fair to bring latias down from ubers if not salamence as well

 

[Joim]

The banlists in PS are easily editable and if we decide to have a suspect test in RoA and it's agreed upon, I will myself set it up.

 

[Sapientia]

I agree on retesting Latias, even though I think that DPP is at the moment the best of the OU metagames. BW is crap and ADV is totally centralized by Tar/Cele/Jira/Duggy.


btw is it possible to still see the old voting threads somewhere?

 

[UltiMario]

Agreeing in the fact that I never really found anything wrong with the Latias metagame. Latias was never too difficult to handle, and most importantly is Pursuit weak. All of its solid checks and counters are common anyways, I don't see how it was ever considered broken. How did this thing get banned to begin with @.@

At minimum Latias needs a test for coming down. Mence really deserves the second chance too if Latias makes it back in, but that's a discussion for another time.

 

[eric the espeon]

btw is it possible to still see the old voting threads somewhere?

Here.

 

[Warped Worlds]

Who cares about discouraging F/W/G cores. They are bad anyway and lose to any competent team. They were always bad, and if someone's team has trouble with them that is a teambuilding flaw rather than a problem with the metagame. The only good F/W/G teams are the hipster ones incorperated with anti metagame qualities.

Azelf/Flygon/Shaymin/Gengar/Heatran/Suicune = bad standard FWG that was popular at the end of DPP.

CB Dragonite/Bold Reflect Starmie/Venusaur/OTR Bronzong/Spec'd Jolteon w HP Ice/Bulky Passho Heatran with HP Grass = good example of a good non standard F/W/G team

I personally don't think Latias is too broken, but I think Latias would be a bit too good not to use in a lot of scenarios. The power creep it has over a lot of common pokemon is very evident. I think the current metagame is great and fine.

Like lets be real, offensive Latias is better than LO Starmie and Gengar. It also has more versatility in its sets and it can be defensive, which is something Gengar can't do. If you compare its power level to the current DPP metagame, it is considerably better than a lot of good pokemon. Such as Shaymin, Kingdra, Zapdos, LO Aerodactyl and many more.

It would drive a lot of those lesser pokemon out of some usage which is a fear of mine. The best stall would be Latias stall. Why would you not use Latias stall when the option is available to you? That itself would limit the diversity on an already less diverse playstyle. I wouldn't be so hard pressed to say Latias would be the best pokemon in the whole DPP tier. If not that, easily top 3.

It being Pursuited by Tyranitar isn't that much of a nail in the coffin. A lot of pokemon get shut down by Tyranitar and continue to be very good. Just run a set-up sweeper to set up on Tyranitar, or use Latias to lure Tyranitar for Dugtrio. Latias would be gay on those trapper teams.

Latias not being too hard to handle isn't an argument for it not being uber. I personally was able to deal with Salamence with relative ease, but other qualities made it uber. You can use steel types to beat Latias, but Latias would just switch out to its numerous steel counter teammates.

 

[UltiMario]

Gengar and Starmie still offer niches that Latias can't, mainly in the form of a spinner and spinblocker respectively. Gengar also sports immunities that Latias can't boast (A resistance to DPunch is worlds different than being immune to it, both get raped by Payback if you want to say that).

And on top of that:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66718

Gengar was STILL #9 back then, and Starmie was #14. Still useful for sure.

 

[Aerodactyl Legend]

I don't know. While people play differently now than back then (so we could probably handle Latias better in general), I'm having bad memories of just how versatile it was. The Specs set was ridiculously powerful backed by the 110 Speed. Even your checks got 2HKO'd. And it's so bulky.

Tyranitar would be on even more teams than it is on now, and Scizor would definitely rise a bit. It would start to look like the old DPP game again, with cool stuff like offensive Suicune or Zapdos sitting backseat to their old defensive sets.

I'm split quite honestly. I think the metagame is pretty solid (Salamence-less, but solid, haha, you know my position on him then) and balanced right now. Plenty of room for experimentation too. Would hate to see that change. But a shake-up or retest (whether official or not) with some old suspects sounds fun. Probably new ways to deal with Latias we've never tried before.

 

[Warped Worlds]

Gengar and Starmie still offer niches that Latias can't, mainly in the form of a spinner and spinblocker respectively. Gengar also sports immunities that Latias can't boast (A resistance to DPunch is worlds different than being immune to it, both get raped by Payback if you want to say that).

And on top of that:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66718

Gengar was STILL #9 back then, and Starmie was #14. Still useful for sure.

The point is Latias is better. Im pretty sure nobody would dispute that. Of course their usage would be high, its Gengar and Starmie. If grass pokemon decrease in usage, Gengar and Starmie usage would be high because they aren't negatively affected by dragons. They also revenge killed Salamence as well, assuming it does not have a DD.

Gengar isn't that great of a spinblocker. It doesn't function optimally vs Payback SpDef Forry, especially since Focus Blast misses and it doesn't OHKO. Then Starmie outruns you. Gengar also has some trouble fitting on the more defensive teams, where Rotom-h is usually seen.

On another note, did we ever test the metagame with Mence banned, but Latias unbanned? I totally forgot. Since we never had an actual metagame with Latias free and Mence banned. So we can never be too sure how that metagame would be like.

 

[Pocket]

My view of Latias is the same as Sand in BW2 UU - they're both NOT broken and dealt by the metagame comfortably, and it ultimately boils down to preference: which metagame do you like better? It's a bad precedence, no doubt, for the reason that Dre89 puts it so well in the GSC Snorlax thread:

The game is definitely still competitive with lax legal, so even if it more balanced and fun with him gone I'm not really sure that's the route we should be going down. That gets quite arbitrary, and honestly you could ban a lot of things to make the game more fun and balanced.

I think that the simplest and least arbitrary ban-philosophy is to try and keep as many default things legal as possible, and only ban something if it makes the game completely uncompetitive.

For the reason stated in bold, I support re-testing Latias. She may end up OP in DPP, in which case we'll ban it, but with Scizor, Metagross, Tyranitar, Jirachi, etc available I find that hard to believe.

 

[Mulligan]

On another note, did we ever test the metagame with Mence banned, but Latias unbanned? I totally forgot. Since we never had an actual metagame with Latias free and Mence banned. So we can never be too sure how that metagame would be like.

Looking back at the suspect test history, I don't think we ever did. It seemed like Latias was banned almost immediately after Manaphy was due to 60% of the people involved voting her Uber during Round 3-4(Manaphy was over 70%). Jumpman and Aeolus wanted to be more efficient going through the Suspect process, so Round 3-5 was basically just Round 3-4's results excluding testing. Someone correct me on this if I'm wrong though.

But, y'know, after looking through the thread that Conflict linked in his post, I remembered that I didn't want either Latias or Salamence to drop to OU for many of the same reasons as shrapn3l. So, yeah, I'm no longer on the fence and I don't support the Latias drop. Would rather leave this metagame alone since it doesn't necessarily need "fixing".

I know that testing it doesn't mean an unban, but...that's kinda the whole point of testing it, isn't it(to try and unban it)? If everyone universally agreed that Latias should stay Uber, then the idea of setting up a "suspect" ladder for testing wouldn't even come up.

It's really not even just the Specs set. Latias is very hard to wear down for the stall player; even harder than Flygon because of Recover/Roost. Every stall team will be forced to carry a Pursuit trapper. Yeah, that happens now because of Starmie and Ghosts, but Starmie is also a spinner. Stall has the flexibility now to pressure Starmie without needing Pursuit. Those same stall teams don't even run a spinblocker. Stall IMO becomes less creative/more rigid and the balance tips back in favor of offense with Latias dropping. I admit the current meta is in favor of stall right now, but only slightly.

A couple of other metagame predictions if you will:

Teams won't be the exaggerated 3 dragon/3 steel that every pro-Uber argued in the Salamence testing thread on PO last year. Rather, I think there will be "a little more Dragon, a LOT more Steel". So, something like Latias + 2-3 Steels would almost be a requirement as opposed to now where you can get away with running 1 Steel.

Heatran would be more versatile, but still drop in usage. It'd go from being the go-to guy for SR back to Choice Scarf/HeaTrap/Life Orb sets since even Specially Defensive sets get 2HKO'd by Specs Surf. But none of those were exactly common during LatiMence IIRC.

Metagross would shoot back up in usage and be the go-to 'mon for SR. Seemed like people were throwing SpD EV's on it before Latias got banned.

Specially Defensive Jirachi will jump up. Scizor will be number one again. Tyranitar gets even more use than it does now.

FWG would cease to exist ofc in favor of (Water)/Dragon/Steel, which again is STILL better than a FWG core even in the current metagame where Dragons are scarce. Infernape would also fall off the face of the earth and be brought down to "only use Ape if he's the best choice for a U-turner(he usually isn't)".

People using standard FWG cores are just lazy teambuilders in my book(see LizardMan example above). But, you will always have lazy teambuilders. There are copycats in every competitive game, so if Latias does indeed drop down, you can't be mad when Dragon/Steel gets spammed everywhere. I'd rather just have this meta where there's more options, even if the lazy players refuse to explore them.

tl;dr I basically agree with Aerodactyl Legend(except on Mence :P), LizardMan and shrapn3l if you decided to bother looking at the Salamence thread that was on PO last year that Conflict linked in his post.

 

[Bad Ass]

i think that salamence was WAY broken and that the circumstances under which latias was banned (eluded to in conflict's snippet) were sketchy at best. i'm not entirely sure that latias would be healthy for the metagame though. there are a decent amount of checks for it (heatran, scizor, tyranitar, blissey, jirachi, bronzong, metagross) but the problem is that they are mostly steel types and without pursuit, latias is bulky enough and has that brilliant typing so it can repeatedly come in and smack you around with draco meteor until you fold. also, if you DON'T run one of the aforementioned pokemon (which, let's be honest, is kind of hard seeing the large number that latias' checks encompass), you will lose something to draco meteor once it comes in. which sucks.

on the other hand, specs doesn't have recovery and life orb gets worn down pretty badly by lo+sand+sr+random attacks. latias has never been known as the most durable pokemon in existance. i'm really torn on whether it should be OU because of the obscene power and great relative defenses but i definitely want to see a test at the least so i can decide for myself how much easier it is to handle without salamence around.

 

[shrapn3l]

i was pretty against latias getting unbanned in that PO thread it probably seems but that's just for a couple particularly kinda irrelevant reasons:
1) i had sort of had it with those guys just changing or trying to change every remotely controversial rule without saying anything, and then making you actually debate with them to change them back how they are supposed to be. it seemed very much that they were much more concerned with being a "different" and completely "individual" alternative popular competitive pokemon community that didn't care about rules established elsewhere, than they were actually concerned with the quality of the metagames they oversaw or the people that played on their server and were part of their community or what have you, so any suggestion to unban latias just seemed like one more terrible way to keep that up

2) I knew that people wanted to unban latias just as an excuse to keep salamence unbanned since everyone was yammering on about what a good check it was to salamence.

however, though specs draco meteor is pretty fucked up, I do NOT think testing latias would at all be a waste of time, considering it never had a shot on its own without stupid salamence. and as long as this suspect test wouldn't be portentous of a future "unban salamence!" thread (because salamence is dumb as shit, and not just "annoying to prepare for" wtf) it would be kinda cool to give latias a shot again. I'd kinda even would not be surprised if it were unbanned, because I'm not sure it's all that bad.

for the record, i also think "it forces people stop using FWG, which is a core that i think is dumb to use" is a bad reason to test latias. who the hell cares if people use bad teams? why do you want to stop people from using shitty teams? just beat em all down homie. and yeah people will still use poorly built boring teams that you hate after latias is unbanned, so that's silly. but regardless, testing latias would be fine.

 

[BKC]

discouraging fwg isn't reason in itself to test latias, i agree, but it is a very nice benefit!

iirc (and i very well might not remember correctly) latias was banned because specs dm + spikes was too hard to switch into... which i thought was kinda dumb but whatev, it looks like we'll be retesting latias and that makes me happy :)

lizard i think youre exaggerating a little. latias would be one of the best mons, sure, but i don't think it ever was (or will be) at the level of, say, genesect, where it's too good not to use.

also ultimario i've gotta disagree with you on the 'if lati comes back mence should too' sentiment... again, i don't have too much of an issue with sala, i just can't support the unbanning of something that i find broken. i'd prefer we test latias alone first and if she comes back down then maybe we can look at mence.

 

[Joim]

I'm wondering, is this thread valid for a gen 4 OU suspect test? Will it be done in PS that works mostly or in PO, if it's done?

 

[BKC]

i'll talk to some tiering guys and see if we can make this happen. i'd imagine it'd be done on showdown.

 

[sandshrewz]

I've asked Aldaron before whether there's any possibility of retesting past gens bans. iirc it was a no or something along the lines. There hasn't been any precedent for retesting past gen bans and there isn't any tiering philosophy for that as well. Only BL / OU changes (to like ADV?) have been made? Probably the best thing we can do now is to host a 'ladder' challenge except that it's like arranged battles with Latias allowed since we can't really have an actual suspect ladder. A suspect ladder on PS! will have to be official anyways. A forum challenge is probably better suited for now regardless of whether the tiering folks okay a retest. The DPP OU ladder is hardly active enough; and switching the DPP OU ladder out completely for a suspect ladder will definitely be a shock to newer players who are picking up DPP.

On another note, yea I agree Latias and Salamence should be tested separately~ I'm not exactly sure whether Latias will be a good influence to the metagame either, but that's what testing is for. :)

 

[Warped Worlds]

discouraging fwg isn't reason in itself to test latias, i agree, but it is a very nice benefit!

iirc (and i very well might not remember correctly) latias was banned because specs dm + spikes was too hard to switch into... which i thought was kinda dumb but whatev, it looks like we'll be retesting latias and that makes me happy :)

lizard i think youre exaggerating a little. latias would be one of the best mons, sure, but i don't think it ever was (or will be) at the level of, say, genesect, where it's too good not to use.

also ultimario i've gotta disagree with you on the 'if lati comes back mence should too' sentiment... again, i don't have too much of an issue with sala, i just can't support the unbanning of something that i find broken. i'd prefer we test latias alone first and if she comes back down then maybe we can look at mence.

I know Spec'd Latias gets walled by Vaporeon + SpDef Skarmory, but every Spec'd Latias player should have answers to that. Every Latias gets walled by that. This is one of the reasons why Spec'd Latias with Thunderbolt saw play.

I don't think discouraging F/W/G is a nice benefit. I don't see anything wrong with it, and I like to feed on bad players who think its an awesome core. A very small percentage of good DPP players actually use it, and the ones that do usually use a unique good version of it. Such as Forretress/Milotic/Heatran/Rotom-w/Venusaur/Gliscor.

It was never on Genesect level and I did not imply that. Although you would be silly not to use Latias on stall, and the best teams in general would be the ones using Latias. Im pretty sure I would rather blow up teams, or sweep eventually with Latias's dragon moves rather than try to sweep with offensive Suicune any day of the week.

It may not be directly broken, but if its better than everything else it would limit metagame diversity. The DPP metagame right now is very diverse, and it should stay like that.