np: Stage 3-4 - Wait why is this so familiar didn't I just go through this what did I

[Jumpman16]

"This Fortress is the first of three castles that requires Mario to go through the castle on a certain path because it is a maze. If the wrong path is taken, you will have to repeat the area you just attempted."
—GameFAQs' first SMB FAQ

Ok fine that's technically Stage 4-4 in Super Mario Bros., but I couldn't resist. Basically, we must retest Latias and Manaphy on the Suspect Ladder because neither reached a supermajority in Stage 3-3. The ladder ratings are reset now and open for play.

A good idea for things to talk about would be to expand upon Stage 3-3's experience. "Why wasn't Manaphy a runaway uber?" "Why did Latias get 40% for uber votes, did I miss something?" "I know I didn't use it or face it much, but is WacanManaphy really that broken?" This thread therefore can start off on a note of concrete practice that the others haven't been able to, and that's worth something when we need to ensure you all have fresh ideas to test and reasons to play.

edit: test will be done March 4 not March 3

 

[PK Gaming]

Clever titles.


Anyway, Shoddy doesn`t seem to have a suspect ladder at the moment, am I missing somethinh here?


PS: Its been agesm but people seemed to be adjusting to Manaphy. Don't know about things as of now.

 

[capefeather]

Personally, I constantly felt like there was something really big that I was missing when I played Round 3. Early on in the test, I couldn't remember a Manaphy fainting even a single member of my team, and I wasn't sweeping very often with it, either. Eventually, though, Manaphy did sweep me a few times, but never an alarming amount of times.

But then I started to find out that "everybody important" was going to vote Manaphy Uber. I remember going onto #stark and complaining about how much the damage calcs and my experiences were disagreeing. I was met with rather emotional responses from at least one individual trying to discourage me from voting on Manaphy, while reachzero asked whether I had faced Wacan Manaphy. Honestly, though, I didn't pay too much attention to Manaphy's item most of the time because I didn't think that Wacan Berry would be that popular, mostly due to a few posts on the 3-3 thread (I would assume Life Orb, I guess). Combined with the fact that many of my Manaphy containment methods didn't actually use a powerful Electric move, I really can't say with certainty how many Wacan Manaphy I actually faced.

The Manaphy problem has been puzzling me quite a lot. It turns out that most of the viable Pokémon that can OHKO Manaphy outright are checkmated by Choice Band Tyranitar. Yet Tyranitar was more common in Round 2, with Garchomp running around. Garchomp himself was also a pretty great partner for Manaphy in terms of defensive typing. I've realized now that, if Wacan Manaphy is supposed to be the "broken" set, then Round 3's voting result actually makes sense.

I think that part of the reason for the voting result is the lack of voters compared to Round 2. I noticed that a few pretty prominent Round 2 voters were missing from the Round 3 voter list. Perhaps when the Suspect ladder got deserted, we were left with the people who cared a whole lot about whether Latias and/or Manaphy got banned, and considering Round 2's result, said people were perhaps not exactly concerned with *saving* the suspects... But it's not like this is avoidable, and it's ultimately just wild conjecture on my part. I'm just going by what I saw that one time on #stark. It will be interesting to see who bothers to participate in Round 4 this time.

I really feel like I'm missing something here. Sometimes I come on #stark, but the people there rarely talk about anything that might interest me, or they don't talk at all.

I don't think I'm even going to try to explain the Latias result.

 

[StarWizard]

I never understood why Latias is OU and Manaphy is Uber, but maybe that's just me?

 

[shrang]

I've faced quite a few Wacan Manaphys when I was playing Stage 3-3, and it wasn't broken at all in my experience. All Wacan Manaphys I were pretty much all swatted aside. Even 2 HP Electrics were enough to kill it from my own Manaphy without any boosts, while the opponent set up on me. Yes, I won a few speed ties, but it's not like I had something else with Thunderbolt that was fast enough anyway (And Thunderbolt is pretty much on every special attacker that can learn it). Leftovers Manaphy was generally the better option, as Manaphy's sweeping often is tied in with its bulk as well as Tail Glow. Saying Wacan Manaphy is broken is like saying Occa CM Jirachi is broken, or Occa CM Celebi is broken, when it isn't really at all.

 

[Veedrock]

Call me crazy but wouldn't suspect testing be over if Manaphy received an OU vote during this round of testing? I'm not the only one that was under this impression. Given this circumstance I don't believe Latias should be put up for voting again unless circumstances change drastically (she'll still be present in the test of course). Please correct me if I'm wrong here, I've been trying to get an answer on #stark for awhile to no avail and I know I sound like a broken record by now. I'm aware that the staff may have decided to change this last moment and want two consecutive votes in the same metagame but I really do think this would be over in the case of a swapped Manaphy result.

But then I started to find out that "everybody important" was going to vote Manaphy Uber. I remember going onto #stark and complaining about how much the damage calcs and my experiences were disagreeing. I was met with rather emotional responses from at least one individual trying to discourage me from voting on Manaphy, while reachzero asked whether I had faced Wacan Manaphy.

Please please please everybody avoid this kind peer pressure and develop your own opinions based on your experiences. Asking others for their stances is fine but it really pushes the line when they try to pressure your own opinion (especially if they know their status can serve as an influence). It's extremely bothering that the supposed role models of the community are trying to manipulate the results of the test, especially to that degree. It's even more bothering that a lot are collaborating on the ladder to rock the voting pool in one direction (this extends from most people thinking they've formed their opinions by now). However it's impossible to stop the latter example, they all have their fixed mindset on the suspect's position and really all it takes is effort on their part to get what they want (large community involvement is nice to try and counterbalance this but it's been going on so long that I'm not holding my breath).

I never understood why Latias is OU and Manaphy is Uber, but maybe that's just me?

What do you mean exactly? If you mean why they're both in those respected tiers right now, it's because that's how their Stage 2 Suspect 2 votes turned out (look up the voting/stage 2 threads for more information). If you mean why their votes went where they did last round, ask the voters. If you're looking for stances on those specific positions for each pokemon then you'll have to ask individual players.

 

[StarWizard]

What do you mean exactly? If you mean why they're both in those respected tiers right now, it's because that's how their Stage 2 Suspect 2 votes turned out (look up the voting/stage 2 threads for more information). If you mean why their votes went where they did last round, ask the voters. If you're looking for stances on those specific positions for each pokemon then you'll have to ask individual players.

Yeah I missed the vote thing, but what I meant is that Latias is, to me, a far bigger threat than Manaphy. Personally I find her a lot harder to deal with, specially due to her unpredictability (it can be scarf, specs, life orb, calm mind, etc), and I have lost ~3 pokemon to a single Latias multiple times. Manaphy? Not even close. I really don't get either why Celebi and Jirachi are allowed, and Manaphy isn't. What lead people to vote against Manaphy and in Latias favor? I guess that's what I'd like to know. I'll look into it.

 

[Blue_Tornado]

Ok, it's true that much less people earned "possible" voting rights this time around (95 alts in 3-3 vs 200 alts in 3-2), and I'm actually one of those people that just got lazy and didn't care about 3-3. I'm going to test things this round though, since it'll be a waste to ditch testing Manaphy without a Garchomp around to pick off weakened ones. This, imo, is one of the reasons for increased voting on the "Manaphy for Ubers" "side", since that's just another reason why it's difficult to stop, especially with Wacan Berry. I'll probably post later with opinions so far, as for now I'm testing the ladder with hopes that people are on this afternoon.

EDIT: Wait, no ladder yet?

 

[capefeather]

Please please please everybody avoid this kind peer pressure and develop your own opinions based on your experiences. Asking others for their stances is fine but it really pushes the line when they try to pressure your own opinion (especially if they know their status can serve as an influence).

Well, I know that reachzero's question was an honest one. I have nothing against him. But someone else (who I don't think is very high-profile... I mean technically everybody can join #stark if they're not banned) did jump the gun a bit and apparently thought I had no argument and yet somehow my paragraphs would pass...? Question mark?

If you're talking about how I found out about how others were voting, ironically that came out of the keyboard of a Round 2 voter who had voted Manaphy OU, talking about the high-profile Round 3 voters in general. It was something along the lines of "go with your own experiences even if everybody important disagrees".

I don't think that accusing people is the best solution to this situation. It just is the way it is.

I really don't get either why Celebi and Jirachi are allowed, and Manaphy isn't.

Well, Manaphy has a +2 boosting move, sending it to around NP Infernape's level of power, except it can beat Latias but not Blissey.

 

[whistle]

I feel like I should clarify that every instance of "vote uber or I'll shun you" that I've seen on IRC is friendly banter between friends who already have their own opinions on each Pokemon. The purpose of that statement is not to say that capefeather is lying, but to point out that if you hear what seems like peer pressure it is more likely than not just some people messing around with each other. That said, I definitely agree that no one construct his or her vote based on solely others' opinions. However, I think it is more than okay to take ideas from others about what sets to use and to incorporate others' battling theories into my own playstyle, since that seems to be the purpose of the suspect tests. (Also Veedrock what does going on Shoddy and rocking the voting pool mean?)

 

[capefeather]

Eh, it's not really a big deal and it was an isolated even, even if it was serious (and by the way he was ranting it probably was but argh let's move on). I've just been getting a sense that I'm missing something.

 

[Bologo]

Given this circumstance I don't believe Latias should be put up for voting again unless circumstances change drastically (she'll still be present in the test of course).

I agree with this completely. Latias has been voted OU during stage 2, stage 3-1, stage 3-2, stage 3-3, and it's been on the OU ladder for what seems like more than a year. There is absolutely no reason to keep testing this thing, it's been voted OU 4 times, most times being a supermajority, and people are very unlikely to actually change their opinions about it. Can we please just conclude that Latias is OU now, and focus on testing Manaphy? (with Latias on the ladder still, like Veedrock said)

 

[Cyrrona]

I think that part of the reason for the voting result is the lack of voters compared to Round 2. I noticed that a few pretty prominent Round 2 voters were missing from the Round 3 voter list. Perhaps when the Suspect ladder got deserted, we were left with the people who cared a whole lot about whether Latias and/or Manaphy got banned, and considering Round 2's result, said people were perhaps not exactly concerned with *saving* the suspects... But it's not like this is avoidable, and it's ultimately just wild conjecture on my part. I'm just going by what I saw that one time on #stark. It will be interesting to see who bothers to participate in Round 4 this time.

When it comes to explaining the results of this past test, I think capefeather hit it right on the head. The small (relatively speaking) but determined “Latias for Ubers” camp participated in full force this past round, while many of the previous OU-voting testers passed on the opportunity (possibly because they felt Latias was “safe" or possibly because some felt indifferent towards the rest of Stage 3 after the controversial Garchomp case was resolved). I think this 40% Uber statistic is more the result of a change in the voting pool, not a change in the general opinion of the suspect. Bearing that in mind, I’d also like to throw my support behind Veedrock/Bologo’s proposal (though I’ll understand if this is rejected to uphold the integrity of the test or something similar).

Wacan Manaphy was also underwhelming in my experience. From playing against it and even using it briefly on a test account, it was rarely able to switch in and set up without taking a sizeable chunk of damage. Many times, this damage was enough to render the Wacan Berry useless, as powerful things like Jolteon, LO/Specs Latias and Scarf Rotom could just KO through it anyway. I also ran Toxic Spikes and Passho Tran on my team, so most opposing Manaphy were either severely crippled by the entry hazards or blown up while trying to Tail Glow. Maybe the set would pose a problem if you only relied on electric attacks to check Manaphy… Regardless, it certainly didn’t appear to be sweeping teams with “relative ease” in all the battles I remember facing it in.

Looking forward to getting back on the ladder and seeing how this round goes!

 

[Mr.E]

I think that part of the reason for the voting result is the lack of voters compared to Round 2. I noticed that a few pretty prominent Round 2 voters were missing from the Round 3 voter list.

I, for one, don't care about anything except Garchomp. In a metagame where Latias and Salamence are allowed to run rampant, having only Garchomp of the three banned is inexcusable. So long as that remains the status quo, I will not be seriously playing OU. I did my part in 3-1 and 3-2 and that's all I could do.

Manaphy is a top-flight pokémon but it is better than none of those three, though Manaphy is surprisingly similar to Garchomp. (Maybe that's why it continues to be voted Uber, heh.)

*It sweeps by boosting +2 to its (Special) Attack.
*It always uses the same attacks from the same side of the spectrum - Special Water, Ice, Grass attacks (or HP Electric). It's never physical, never changes attack types, and it doesn't have any Tricks up its sleeve. *rimshot*
* It's a bulky mofo in general and can cover its one major weakness, Electric, with a resist berry. Grass is difficult to exploit due to Grass Knot's pathetic BP against Manaphy and Energy Ball being far less common.
*Gains from weather support. Manaphy gains a lot more from rain than Garchomp does sand but also finds it much harder to get that support. (No Drizzle in OU!) Of course, Manaphy can even "support" itself with mono-attacking sets, but then it's not really a pure sweeper.

Granted, Manaphy is a little easier to stop in a pure sweeping role, as you can always chance the Speed tie with other 100-base Speedsters (Salamence...) and he has a couple of very hard counters (Ludicolo, Abomasnow) where Garchomp is merely "well-checked" by the likes of Skarmory and friends. The similarities are still striking.

Manaphy also carries good defensive utilities which, like with Latias, are rarely utilized. It's a beast of a rain supporter for the real rain sweepers (i.e. Kingdra, Kabutops, even Ludicolo) and it gets dual screens. Is Heart Swap fixed on Shoddy yet? I don't think much needs to be said on what that can do for stall teams... It still has its disadvantages compared to Latias and its lite version, Suicune, though. No Roar. :( And no Wish.

As much as Garchomp's presence in the previous suspect metagames directly harmed Manaphy's potential, by outspeeding it ever-so-slightly and allowing it to serve as a powerful and reliable check to a weakened Manaphy, keep in mind that its presence also completely stamped out the usage of Choiced Electric attacks in the metagame (Choice Latias, Scarf Rotom-A). I'm willing to bet that its impact on Manaphy's potential opponents were every bit as significant the threat it posed to Manaphy itself. Capefeather himself touched upon this point when he said, "Garchomp himself was also a pretty great partner for Manaphy in terms of defensive typing."

 

[Lockeness]

I played in the 3-3 test and was quite successful. I didn't vote but in my opinion manaphy just wasn't cracked up to what it was supposed to be. Tail glow is great but I always seemed to lose a turn by "glowing my tail". And while getting some good hits in is nice most of the time manaphy keeled over and died when I brought it in. Also the rain/hydration/rest manaphy was really unbroken. Because manaphy doesn't get a speed boost in the rain and it needs tail glow to become an offensive menace I was able to quickly bring in my strong electric pokemon and kill it. As for wacan berry- I don't care how much you resist electric moves 135 spec. att. coming from magnezone will hurt any day of the week. I am amazed that 40% of the voters thought latias was uber. Sorry, but Latias again suffers majorly from the exsistence of scizor and the insanely annoying scarftar. I would be really sad to see her go. Latias has set aside her own niche in the metagame and helps keep salamence in line.The ladder ratings are reset now and open for play.
Oh I don't get this- the ladder isn't open. Please correct me if I am wrong I really want to play on the ladder.

 

[MegaKick]

ladders up
(quickly throws team together to get quickly to leaderboard with so few players)
surprisingly, after about 7 or 8 battles, have not seen any rain. Only 3 latias and 2 manaphy
I do enjoy using snorlax, manphy think they can set up on him like bliss. base 110 attack says different

 

[zorbees]

I don't know if it's just me, the people I'm playing, my team, etc, but I find it hard to set up Wacan Manaphy. Sometimes, I have to use it as a last resort to take an electric attack and KO back. Other times though, there aren't really many opportunities to set up. CB Scizor is pretty much the only Pokemon I've seen that uses a choice attack that Manaphy resists. Scarf Heatran could be there, haven't seen many, but if it is Fire Blasting it can do a decent amount of damage, for Manaphy to be revenged, especially if it had a Flash Fire boost. Plus, 100 base speed isn't all that great. These are just my thoughts very early into testing.

 

[dragonexpert]

Well I particpated for quite a while during 3-3, but after a while the ladder was empty whenever I tried to use it. Unfortunatley, I didn't notice where the thread was that listed the potential voters so I didn't get to vote this time. Next time I guess I have to pay more attention. I really don't feel Wacan Manaphy is too overwhelming either. There are some Pokemon that check it very well if neither Pokemon is boosted. Metagross has quite a bit of power with EQ unless you choose to use ThunderPunch. Every set has its advantages and disadvantages. Latias is still able to check it being that it resists Surf and often Latias will carry Thunderbolt. It should still be a 2hko anyway. Nonboosted Ice Beams from Manaphy can't break through Latias' Special Defense. As was also stated, Rotom is a great way to deal with Manaphy. It has the defenses to survive attacks and can inflict large damage on it.

Manaphy is more easy for me to deal with than Latias because Latias has such a high number of sets that work very well. The defensive Calm Mind set is very hard to deal with if you already lost a physical sweeper such as Tyranitar. Between Recover and Calm Mind, Latias becomes impossible for special sweepers to ko unless they either get a crit, or they themselves are running Calm Mind or Nasty Plot. Latias also has higher Speed than Manaphy making it harder to move first with a Pokemon that can hit it hard. To me it just seems that if either of them should be uber, it should be Latias. Manaphy is only really Uber if it has access to infinite rain from Kyogre. One could run a Salac Berry set and just start tearing through Pokemon one by one.

 

[malomyotismon]

I feel like I should clarify that every instance of "vote uber or I'll shun you" that I've seen on IRC is friendly banter between friends who already have their own opinions on each Pokemon. The purpose of that statement is not to say that capefeather is lying, but to point out that if you hear what seems like peer pressure it is more likely than not just some people messing around with each other. That said, I definitely agree that no one construct his or her vote based on solely others' opinions. However, I think it is more than okay to take ideas from others about what sets to use and to incorporate others' battling theories into my own playstyle, since that seems to be the purpose of the suspect tests. (Also Veedrock what does going on Shoddy and rocking the voting pool mean?)

A simple solution to this whole shun thing could be to keep the votes unviewble permently.

 

[Blue_Tornado]

I've already been seeing some RD teams runnig about, and I must say Kabutops is a threat, and a big one. It's able to nail both Latias and Manaphy after a SD at worst, and is able to rip apart teams with +2 LO RD boosted Aqua Jet quite easily. A lot of teams seem a tad unprepared for them at this stage, which is a bit worrying.

 

[jumpluff]

A simple solution to this whole shun thing could be to keep the votes unviewble permently.

People would reveal their votes anyway, while s-mods+ can view the votes. Furthermore, most people's stances are obvious from talking to them =/ While it sort of bothers me too because I feel it's the kind of banter that has 'a grain of truth', I know it isn't serious, I don't think that would be a necessary or effective step.

 

[Erazor]

Is it really worth testing Latias now? It's been declared OU so many times already, it's been in standard for a while... I agree with Bologo, let's focus on Manaphy.

 

[RBG]

Some people's opinions on Latias have changed during 3-3, so clearly it is not useless to test it again.

A simple solution to this whole shun thing could be to keep the votes unviewble permently.

People were not being serious when they said this as it was mostly between friends, so I'm sure no friendships were actually broken in the making of this suspect test.

 

[Jumpman16]

I agree with this completely. Latias has been voted OU during stage 2, stage 3-1, stage 3-2, stage 3-3, and it's been on the OU ladder for what seems like more than a year.

It should never have been put on the OU ladder following its Stage 2 vote, I've made that clear before. That wasn't my decision and I certainly don't condone it now, especially since everyone (including myself) has every reason to consider it more OU than Uber since it has been on the Standard Ladder for so long without raising anywhere near the stink that Garchomp ever did.

There is absolutely no reason to keep testing this thing, it's been voted OU 4 times, most times being a supermajority, and people are very unlikely to actually change their opinions about it.

There is no such thing as a supermajority for OU, even though I am inclined to agree with you that majority should swing both ways. More importantly, the Stage 3 environment for Latias changed twice—it has never been evaluated in the same environment two substages in a row. Neither was Garchomp, for that matter, but there would have been a lot of bitching if we had kept it in Stage 3-3 like we technically should have.

Can we please just conclude that Latias is OU now, and focus on testing Manaphy? (with Latias on the ladder still, like Veedrock said)

If we kept Latias on the ladder why would we have do anything different? You're making a pointless argument—I don't care if you're right, guessing Latias's ultimate tiering at any point since her Stage 2 vote wouldn't have anyone mistake you for a fortune-teller. Don't artificially sway public opinion Latias towards OU anymore than it already has been.

 

[Bologo]

@Jump: Very well, I see your point.

--

Anyway, I decided to play on the suspect ladder for an hour or so today under an alt, since I thought I might as well participate in at least 1 suspect test that has the paragraph requirement. Keep in mind that I didn't play stage 3-3, so I'm basing my comparisons for stage 3-4 to stage 3-2.

For my first few matches I was getting ridiculously haxed so I didn't win at all (lol 3 Ice Beams freezing out of 4 used). However, I tried using a team with both Manaphy and Latias for these first few matches.

Honestly, I think Manaphy's gotten even worse since stage 3-2 since it no longer has Garchomp to scare Electrics away. I found Dugtrio to be a good partner for taking care of Electrics like Jolteon and Raikou as well as the annoying ScarfTar which everyone seems to have on their team (and I mean EVERYONE). However, when I tried using the CM/Rest/Rain Dance set, it was too damn hard to set up. It doesn't hit hard enough, and there's plenty of hard counters to this set it's not even funny. I'm talking Kingdra, Vaporeon (anything with Water Absorb), Ludicolo, Shaymin, Trick users, and most bulky phazers (which are everywhere, even moreso than in OU). I haven't tried out any other sets yet, but I'm not going to be using this one anymore, because it has way too much trouble setting up (I guess I don't like Crocune either, so that probably applies here too).

Another thing I don't like about Manaphy is that he's grounded (vulnerable to both Spikes and Stealth Rock + Toxic Spikes) and vulnerable to Sandstorm. And because he's only got 100 base Speed, the Tail Glow sets can be outsped and outstalled by faster Subroost or SubProtect users, and the slower CM sets are easily beaten by Taunt users such as Gyarados, who uses those as setup bait).

I started using a different team shortly after (one of my OU teams), and Manaphy barely fainted a single pokemon. That team by coincidence does carry Scarf Rotom, and LO Rest Shaymin, but Scarf Rotom is incredibly common already and LO Rest Shaymin is very underrated. Manaphy doesn't do very well against either if they can come in successfully (though it may win a Speed tie with Shaymin if it's max Speed). I don't actually know if I've faced the Wacan Manaphy that people thought was hard to beat. I was usually bringing Shaymin out to Seed Flare, so whether there was a Wacan berry or not is irrevelvant.

Latias was doing the same stuff she always does for me, but with all the damn ScarfTar running around, it's very difficult for her to do her job well. It's also hard for her to set up CMs with all of the Special Defensive Skarmory being used, not to mention all of the Special Defensive Forretress, Scizor, and Jirachi out there. I personally haven't seen anyone else using CM Latias, it seems like they've all been Choice Scarf, which is quite easy to stop (I just named 5 checks right there).