np: Latias - Don't Do the Dew! (NOTE: explanation of Skymin's fate within)

[Super]

But once Reflect is up, it'll be doing 75% once Latias DOES switch. And Latias gets access to a fast recover.

Everyone uses CM Latias, but Reflect/TWave Latias is where it's at. After you TWave it, you can Recover in it's face. Reflect also makes asplosions and Pursuit not kill you.

Reflect on the switch, lol at counters as you switch out. Works like a charm.

 

[Lakers]

CM Latias isnt as good as advertised. Its basically the same as CM cress, just with another 2x weakness, same things that counter it, weaker defensive stats, but better sp. attack and speed. If you give it HP fight for ttar/weavile, scizor and metagross come in and destroy it. If It has HP fire for scizor and metagross, weavile/ttar destroy it...

 

[Legacy Raider]

Thats untrue on so many levels. Latias is many times a better CMer than Cresselia: it is faster, has a reliable recovery move with lots of PP, has a much higher initial SpA, has a much better STAB attacking type, can 2HKO Blissey at +6, and can sweep teams with a single move. Cresselia is a terrible CMer compared to Latias. If you manage to eliminate the three things that stop a Latias sweep - Scizor, Tyranitar and Weavile, your opponent is almost guaranteed to lose 2-3 pokemon to Latias.

LR.

 

[Farmer]

CM Latias isnt as good as advertised. Its basically the same as CM cress, just with another 2x weakness, same things that counter it, weaker defensive stats, but better sp. attack and speed. If you give it HP fight for ttar/weavile, scizor and metagross come in and destroy it. If It has HP fire for scizor and metagross, weavile/ttar destroy it...

I wouldnt compare it to cress as dragon is a much better stab.Cresslia doesnt have the problems latias has though with seting up cms as it not as defensive but it hits a lot harder.

 

[Woj]

I wouldnt compare it to cress as dragon is a much better satb.Cresslia doesnt have the problems latias has though with seting up cms as it not as defensive but it hits a lot harder.

Also the speed of Latias is a great advantage it has over cress as well as the resisances that Dragon typing has. Also reliable recovery in recover vs moonlight is also a another large advantage.

I really wouldn't compare cm cress to cm latias at all rofl.

 

[Darkmalice]

CM Cresselia is a tank stat booster, similar to Curse Snorlax and CM Jirachi. It is meant to CM a lot, taking hits in the meanwhile, healing off with Rest when needed. It only works when the threats that can stop it have been eliminated, and this is very late game. When this occurs, the tank stat uppers almost always win the game, as it is impossible for the opponent to stop them without hax.

Latias is not a tank stat upper, nor a pure offensive stat upper like Lucario or Porygon-Z. It is a mix of the two, like SD Scizor with Roost. It stats up and heals itself when needed. It generally can do its job earlier than the tank stat uppers, and usually more efficiently, because they can have ideal circumstances to cause havoc more easily, but they can't get a checkmate position as easily as the tank stat uppers.

Unfortunately, both CM Cresselia and CM Latias have threats that stop them and are very common - namely Tyranitar, Scizor and Weavile. CM Cresselia only needs Rest to beat Blissey, whilst Latias needs Recover (obviously) and Refresh/Safeguard. Refresh may fail against Thunderwave Blissey, depending on the paralysis hax. Of course, if Blissey has an attacking move other than Seimsic Toss, both Latias and Cress have an easy time against Blissey.

This is what I feel from my own personal experience. I have had more problems from CMCress or Curselax, as when my counters for those pokemon are gone, they sweep and its harder for me to stop them than a CM Latias when her counters are gone. However, Latias has put me in more threatening situations more often.

 

[Jumpman16]

Hey, by the way will there be accountability in this? I mean, will we be able to see exactly what votes you accepted and rejected here and why? Just for the record?

I think that would be "only fair" to critique, criticize, and fix the system if broken (and applaud if it works!). Transparency never killed anyone.

probably not, since we'll tell people what personally was right and wrong with their respective votes.

and yeah right—not that i particularly care, but none of you people have ever really "applauded" anything we've done with the suspect test process. even if i adopted the method you outlined, there would be people besides myself just itching to voice their disapproval with it

Let's try something like this.

"Latias is not a beneficial force in the OU metagame. It slants the metagame too much towards Dragon-type offense while simultaneously inhibiting the effectiveness of standard offensive teams and weighing the metagame heavily towards a defensive or stall-based metagame rather than the current one."

Now I don't believe a lick of this, but if this were someone's argument, I would accept it, because it's in terms of the metagame, rather than the personal.

i wouldnt accept this for a reason that should be kind of obvious (and no i'm not telling you why)

 

[umbarsc]

I'm guessing because they didn't argue if it was broken or not, but instead argued if it was beneficial or not?

 

[cim]

That's what I was thinking too.

Sorry that I've been kind of a negative nancy about the whole process, but I really do applaud the use of Bold Voting in some form again with this test. I still think that the upper "you don't need a reason" limit is kind of dumb, but beggars can't really be choosers.

PMing the person with why the vote was rejected is transparent enough for me, honestly. I didn't think you guys were going to do that though and that was the part that worried me. ^_^

Now I should get some battling in, even when swamped with work I can make the test if I stop screwing up every other battle.

 

[Tangerine]

I personally don't think you guys should be telling the user "why their vote isn't going to be counted" because it lets them just word their potential bullshit better the next time. To be honest the biggest reason I dislike "bold voting" to get votes counted is because people can just word things in a certain way until they "get it right" and get their votes counted. It'll make things more difficult in the long run.

Bold Voting in the end can water down to simple semantics and I think by telling the user "why their vote isn't going to be counted" it will promote this in the future. Or else you guys might as well just save some trouble and write a guide or something

 

[cim]

I wouldn't mind just a "yes" or "no" honestly, but one for each person in PM would be ideal.

 

[Jumpman16]

depends on what aeolus and i feel like doing. only tangerine (serene grace) and i know how utterly, utterly tedious it was to tally votes the last time we did something like this, and i am sure as fuck not looking forward to doing it again if people are even going to consider badgering us with "well that's not what i meant" replies. i'm actually now leaning towards just "accepted" and "not accepted" replies for the reasoning tang stated, which is really the same exact reason i'm not just going to say why the latias reasoning above wouldn't fly with me—you guys should really, really have at least a good idea about why a suspect belongs in uber or ou without someone having to spoonfeed you the correct thinking and logic (even though our philosophy kind of does that anyway). the main reason that i personally wouldn't want to keep it at "accepted" and "not accepted" is because one could argue that a "not accepted" vote was based on personal bias that didn't have to be backed up, but whatever

 

[Syberia]

I personally don't think you guys should be telling the user "why their vote isn't going to be counted" because it lets them just word their potential bullshit better the next time. To be honest the biggest reason I dislike "bold voting" to get votes counted is because people can just word things in a certain way until they "get it right" and get their votes counted. It'll make things more difficult in the long run.

On the flip side, without being told what you did wrong you're just stuck "guessing"

 

[Tangerine]

On the flip side, without being told what you did wrong you're just stuck "guessing"

If you have to "guess" the reason why you think Latias is uber maybe your vote shouldn't be counted

 

[Syberia]

Maybe you need to ask yourself just what it is you're planning to test - is it the merits of Latias, or how well Joe Blow Smogon can write and argue. The two are vastly different, and really all you're saying is "see things my way, or your vote doesn't count."

Guessing the reason why Latias is uber or OU, and guessing what will get my vote counted, are two very different things. If you're asking what the Smogon community thinks, then you should be asking what the Smogon community thinks, rather than what the Smogon community thinks that follows someone's arbitrary definition of what is valid.

 

[Tangerine]

Maybe you need to ask yourself just what it is you're planning to test - is it the merits of Latias, or how well Joe Blow Smogon can write and argue. The two are vastly different, and really all you're saying is "see things my way, or your vote doesn't count."

Guessing the reason why Latias is uber or OU, and guessing what will get my vote counted, are two very different things. If you're asking what the Smogon community thinks, then you should be asking what the Smogon community thinks, rather than what the Smogon community thinks that follows someone's arbitrary definition of what is valid.

Oh please. You act like everyone is immature to the point where it is "my way or doesn't count". People are more than capable of recognizing good arguments whether or not they agree with it or not. The point is this. If you are to have a say in the metagame, then you better know what you are talking about. The best player in the world, if he can't express himself, then he himself has no idea what he is doing exactly and shouldn't have a place in changing the metagame. If you know exactly what you are doing, then you should be able to express your point well.

Finally, if you're guessing what will get your vote counted then the chances are your vote won't be counted! It's the difference between memorizing a textbook and actually learning the material. Memorzing a textbook isn't going to help you when you suddenly have to apply the material.

 

[Syberia]

The best player in the world, if he can't express himself, then he himself has no idea what he is doing exactly and shouldn't have a place in changing the metagame.

This, then, is where we disagree.

"If you know exactly what you're doing," please, the whole point of this process is because we don't know exactly what's going to happen, and if there was an exact, precise means of doing things, it would have been done already, and we wouldn't be taking a vote on it.

You make it sound as if there's a cut-and-dry right and wrong answer, which there clearly isn't if we're going through all this trouble.

 

[Tangerine]

This, then, is where we disagree.

"If you know exactly what you're doing," please, the whole point of this process is because we don't know exactly what's going to happen, and if there was an exact, precise means of doing things, it would have been done already, and we wouldn't be taking a vote on it.

You make it sound as if there's a cut-and-dry right and wrong answer, which there clearly isn't if we're going through all this trouble.

lol, what?

I don't think you understood my post at all, and I'm not going to waste my time explaining it again because I've posted a billion times regarding this already.

 

[cim]

I'm going to attempt to reply to Syberia, and if Serene Grace says anything about me being a parrot for agreeing with him/her, I'll probably flip out.

"If you know exactly what you're doing," please, the whole point of this process is because we don't know exactly what's going to happen, and if there was an exact, precise means of doing things, it would have been done already, and we wouldn't be taking a vote on it.

You make it sound as if there's a cut-and-dry right and wrong answer, which there clearly isn't if we're going through all this trouble.

If you know anything about tiering, if you know what makes something broken, and you understand the metagame and how something affects it, then that's "knowing exactly what you're doing" in this case. This isn't "your answer is exactly like mine, you're right", this is "Your answer actually makes sense, has to do with the metagame, and makes a convincing case for something being broken / not according to smogon philosophy".

In the textbook analogy, being able to articulate your opinion on something's tier status is directly akin to applying the material you've learned. If you can't articulate an idea clearly, you're just regurgitating buzzwords and don't know what they mean.

depends on what aeolus and i feel like doing. only tangerine (serene grace) and i know how utterly, utterly tedious it was to tally votes the last time we did something like this, and i am sure as fuck not looking forward to doing it again if people are even going to consider badgering us with "well that's not what i meant" replies. i'm actually now leaning towards just "accepted" and "not accepted" replies for the reasoning tang stated, which is really the same exact reason i'm not just going to say why the latias reasoning above wouldn't fly with me—you guys should really, really have at least a good idea about why a suspect belongs in uber or ou without someone having to spoonfeed you the correct thinking and logic (even though our philosophy kind of does that anyway). the main reason that i personally wouldn't want to keep it at "accepted" and "not accepted" is because one could argue that a "not accepted" vote was based on personal bias that didn't have to be backed up, but whatever

Not saying anyone on Smogon staff would ever do this, but the main reason one would want "accountability" is so if vote x was extremely similar to vote y and only one of them made it, one could question that judgment if they believe there was personal bias involved. Let me emphasize that I do not believe that this would EVER be the case, but it's always good to "be sure" in case some dude whines and says "Jump didn't like me so he went no".

With just "yay" or "nay" replies one could check that with enough effort if they really wanted to (though they would be wrong, it's nigh impossible for there to be personal bias with two judges), plus then there's the benefit of what Tangerine said.

Thus, I, the Whiniest Member of Smogon, will not complain if you do yes / no replies. Hope that helps at all.



One other thing: Example Vote is wrong because it doesn't argue that it is broken, but rather that it just _changed_ the metagame. It said it is different than our current one, which doesn't matter if it isn't dominant in the new metagame unless that metagame has, like, 4 pokemon in it. On top of the "not beneficial".

 

[X-Act]

The whole point is: I don't even play, but I can recognise a good argument from a horrible one all the same!

And really, if a player reaches a rating/deviation where he or she is entitled to make an opinion about a Pokemon, then that person must have done _something_ to reach that rating. He or she must have realised (at least approximately) what the good and bad qualities of the suspect Pokemon are, and selected moves/teams accordingly. The next thing that would need to be done is to express those qualities on a keyboard. If that person is incapable of doing this, then tough luck.

 

[Syberia]

And really, if a player reaches a rating/deviation where he or she is entitled to make an opinion about a Pokemon, then that person must have done _something_ to reach that rating. He or she must have realised (at least approximately) what the good and bad qualities of the suspect Pokemon are, and selected moves/teams accordingly. The next thing that would need to be done is to express those qualities on a keyboard. If that person is incapable of doing this, then tough luck.

Why? You contradict yourself when you say "then that person must have done _something_ to reach that rating. He or she must have realised (at least approximately) what the good and bad qualities of the suspect Pokemon are, and selected moves/teams accordingly" and the part I bolded.

You're absolutely correct; the player must have done something to reach rating x. They must have realized what's good and bad about the suspect pokemon, and adjusted themselves accordingly, in your own words. Put another way, they know what they're talking about. Why should that person be penalized because they're bad with arguments, when they clearly have experience? If it makes sense in their minds, that should be good enough.

 

[Tangerine]

Why? You contradict yourself when you say "then that person must have done _something_ to reach that rating. He or she must have realised (at least approximately) what the good and bad qualities of the suspect Pokemon are, and selected moves/teams accordingly" and the part I bolded.

You're absolutely correct; the player must have done something to reach rating x. They must have realized what's good and bad about the suspect pokemon, and adjusted themselves accordingly, in your own words. Put another way, they know what they're talking about. Why should that person be penalized because they're bad with arguments, when they clearly have experience? If it makes sense in their minds, that should be good enough.

because we need to know what that "something" is to justify changing the metagame at all

 

[Syberia]

That's clearly not correct; if the "something" I did to attain the rating was add a bunch of Steels to my team, and I used that as the justification for my vote, Jumpman said himself he would not accept that. If you're going to have a debate or an argument then at least call it what it is, and don't insult everyone's intelligence by pretending to "give us a vote."

What you're really looking for is theory, not experience at all.

 

[Jumpman16]

only you know that's literally wrong, because if we were only looking for theory we'd just go back to bold voting and wouldn't require people to make the lower bound of the requirement in order to get a vote in the first place

and give me a break, how is "add a bunch of Steels to my team" even remotely a compelling argument on its own? the ends do not justify the means there, anyone can tell you that

Not saying anyone on Smogon staff would ever do this, but the main reason one would want "accountability" is so if vote x was extremely similar to vote y and only one of them made it, one could question that judgment if they believe there was personal bias involved. Let me emphasize that I do not believe that this would EVER be the case, but it's always good to "be sure" in case some dude whines and says "Jump didn't like me so he went no".

the only way aeolus and i would differ in our conclusions on vote x and vote y is if we were biased coming in though, and, well, do you really want to go down that path? you yourself said that you don't think this would ever be the case, so why even postulate that you would care if someone else did?

 

[Syberia]

Everyone has bias, whether or not they even realize it. It's a simple fact that it's impossible be 100%, or probably even 90%, objective in anything other than a pure statistical analysis (or in this case, a straight vote) when human analysis is involved. A set of guidelines beforehand (beyond this wishy-washy "good argument-bad argument" stuff) does help, but don't pretend this is going to be objective and foolproof. It cannot be.

Not being disrespectful, just pointing out a fact.