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

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).
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Why is it wrong? If you see a flaw in someone's logic or you clearly see something they have missed when making this major desicion, you should at the very least try to inform them and work out the kinks in their argument.

And what's terrible about trying to change other opinions? If I want something and I think I can convince others to vote with me, I should do all in my power to try and get them to do it. Whether this is debating, posting on the forums, or just dominating the ladder, I would want to make a point.

I hope everyone shunning everyone is a joke, which I am sure it is. As for using status as influence, that sounds unlikely. If you are easily persuaded by a badge or status of others, then why are you voting?
 
kd24 said:
Why is it wrong? If you see a flaw in someone's logic or you clearly see something they have missed when making this major desicion, you should at the very least try to inform them and work out the kinks in their argument.

And what's terrible about trying to change other opinions? If I want something and I think I can convince others to vote with me, I should do all in my power to try and get them to do it. Whether this is debating, posting on the forums, or just dominating the ladder, I would want to make a point.

I hope everyone shunning everyone is a joke, which I am sure it is. As for using status as influence, that sounds unlikely. If you are easily persuaded by a badge or status of others, then why are you voting?
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There's a difference between pressuring someone to vote your way and convincing someone to vote your way. Pressuring people to vote your way is basically saying that everything they've observed about the suspect is wrong and if they don't vote your way they're an idiot. Convincing someone to vote your way would include "debating, posting on the forums, or just dominating the ladder."

While the pressuring is unlikely to work, there are some people who will give into it, and people of higher status are easily able to take advantage of this, unfortunately.

You ask "if you are easily persuaded by a badge or status of others, then why are you voting," but the thing is, people don't want to be looked down upon by these people because they're "more important". Therefore they may be easily persuaded by these people, a lot more than if a new member were to tell them the same things in the same way. Also, the reason that they're voting is that if they don't, we'll have too small of a voting pool, and if their paragraph got approved, every vote counts for quite a bit in these things.
 
In my experience, Choice Specs Latias has been the highlight on the Suspect Ladder. Only recently have I decided to participate in Stage 3-4, and SpecsLatias is proving to be a force to be reckoned with.

Entry hazards and a +1 Draco Meteor prevent Tyranitar and Scizor switch-ins from taming your onslaught. Manaphy can be dealt with easily thanks to Latias; it's a relatively safe switch-in and can OHKO with Draco Meteor.

I'm waiting for more players to begin testing on the ladder before it gets more interesting, though. It should be fun!
 
I've played with specs latias on standard, and I pretty much always queue up surf before draco meteor because it 2hkos metagross, scizor, rotom, and tyranitar switch ins unless it has a scarf. A lot of scizors that switch in to lose 60% from surf just pause.. bullet punch faint. I find latias infuriating because I don't want to use scarf tyranitar just for her.

/explodes azelf in her face
 
I've been using a Calm Mind Latias set just because it can take hits better than the scarf set. I haven't faced too many scarf T-Tar, but I have faced plenty that have done about 80% to my Latias without boosts. Maybe its just me, but Latias is not doing as good of job as I had thought it would have. Maybe it could be that this is suspect ladder and players are making teams that specifically counter Latias and Manaphy. If that is the case, it really isn't being tested in a normal type of environment because if they were voted OU, then you wouldn't make a team that is just designed to take out Latias and Manaphy. It would then be vulnerable to other things. I am going to try and come up with a new Latias that will hopefully perform more on par with what I want.
 
Guys, I wasn't even talking about badged members here. Reach asked whether I faced Wacan Manaphy, but that was the full extent of his response to me. I was talking more about a non-badged individual who jumped to conclusions a bit. The whole purpose of what I said was to demonstrate that some people are very, very serious about this. I'm not talking about some sort of upper-echelon corruption conspiracy here.

Also, I always, always, ALWAYS seem to do very badly at the beginning of every Suspect test. Argh.
 
I'm been playing on the Suspect ladder for a while and here are my experiences.

Nothing new but, as Taylor stated Latias, particularly Choice Specs Latias can come in on multiple occasions such as Manaphy's Surf, Hidden Power Electric, Energy Ball; Fire Blast; Thunderbolt; which I am all finding so common and unleash powerful Draco Meteor bypassing Wacan Berry on Manaphy and with residual damage limit the amount of times its most common switch ins can come in.

I've been using a simple offense team to test Wacan Berry Manaphy and the Manaphy I've mostly faced were the simple 3 Attack Manaphy and Choice Scarf Manaphy particularly from one user. I haven't found Manaphy to be overwhelming but its too early to tell.

I'm looking forward to the following weeks! I hope it doesn't go down in usage like the last test.
 
pretty much in the same boat as Itsuki, specstias is just everywhere and is really proving its worth, manaphy has been rather underwhelming although when you realize all the precautions people are making just to deal with her it's understandable, also who let all the scarftars free?? it's insane how much its being used
 
I really think that wacan berry Manaphy is overhyped. Other Pokemon can effectively use attack resist berries but that doesn't make them broken by any means. Damage calcs show that wacan Manaphy can survive a stab elctric attack from some of its usual checks, but then it's left with a little amount of HP, exposing it to revenge killing from anything faster or that carries a priority move:

modest scarf Rotom's thunderbolt does 43% - 50.9%, add SR and possibly sandstorm and you have a Manaphy sitting at around 30-35%, meaning that it won't survive a hit from the likes of scarf-TTar or LO Ape or even and extremespeed from Lucario;

timid specs Jolteon's thunderbolt does 60.5% - 71.3%, again with SR and SS you have a pretty much dead Manaphy as even a resisted CB bullet punch from Scizor will eliminate it;

timid offensive Zapdos' thunderbolt does 57.9% - 68.4%, Manaphy can beat it with ice beam, but then again, after SR and SS you have a Manaphy sitting at around 20% of its health;

specs Latias' draco meteor does 97.7% - 115.2%, a sure ohko with SR and a good chance of ohko even without;

naive mixMence's draco meteor does 76.6% - 90.4%, a possible ohko with SR.

All the calculations assume a timid 4 HP \ 252 SpA \ 252 Spe Manaphy. I know that Mence and Zappy needs to win a speed tie, but the point stands. I didn't list other potential checks like Abomasnow or Ludicolo or Celebi, that carry stab grass moves, but they should be considered as well when thinking of Manaphy.

Wacan Manaphy can definitely beat some of its checks, but so can do wacan Gyarados, shuca Heatran, occa Metagross and so on. After it uses its berry it can be revenge killed quite easily, especially considering that, unlike Gyarados, it can't boost its speed.
 
Of the games I've played, I'm struggling to deal with both suspects. I'm pretty much relying on keeping momentum up and simply not letting them set up/come in easily, which is fine in theory but it's not always as simple as that...Latias can still come in on a multitude of attacks and just spam Draco Meteor/Surf like crazy and deal tons of damage to almost everything. And when the few answers do Pursuit (Scizor/Tyranitar, for example), it's ridiculously simple to just get tons of momentum via moves such as U-turn, which as I previously said, is what I am relying on to win games. I am finding it really hard not to take advantage of whatever my Latias does. Manaphy is hard to face because I am finding that it can hit almost everything hard, but perhaps I need to rethink my team on that one.
 
It's amazing how underprepared teams are for monsterous threats like SDLuke and SDScizor. That said, I'm using both, so one of them usually sweeps. Together, along with SpecsLatias, who heavily dents the opponent's team on its own, lures in ever-popular ScarfTar and following Pursuit/Crunch I choose the ideal Swords Dancer that can sweep.
 
This may sound strange and gimmicky, but I think I've just hit something.

Can a SD+Endure+Salac Scizor with BP and Reversal work? It's most likely to KO Latias after +2 and same thing with Manaphy, as a base 200 attack is powerful. After Salac, no common priority user is faster than you (Lucario, Scizor, Infernape) and you can do some serious damage. You can even Endure and KO the rare Heatran, who might interfere with some strategies. Thoughts?

EDIT: So, I ran some calcs for 4/252/252 Jolly Scizor (to outspeed the somewhat common Raikou and Jolly Scarf Tar), and it's a bit underwhelming, but it might work out with residual damage... maybe?

+2 BP vs 128/0 Timid Latias: 64.3% - 76%

needs work...

+2 Reversal vs 240/0 Calm Manaphy: 108.7% - 127.9%

exactly what we're looking for.

+2 Reversal vs 252/0 Impish Skarmory: 88.3% - 104.2%

almost a guaranteed OHKO with SR up.

+2 Reversal vs 252/0 Careful Forretress: 91.5% - 107.9%

guaranteed OHKO with SR up.

Of course, Pokemon like Rotom-A, Zapdos, Gyarados and Salamence screw this set over, but it might have some potential -- maybe as a mid-game threat.
 
Taylor said:
It's amazing how underprepared teams are for monsterous threats like SDLuke and SDScizor. That said, I'm using both, so one of them usually sweeps. Together, along with SpecsLatias, who heavily dents the opponent's team on its own, lures in ever-popular ScarfTar and following Pursuit/Crunch I choose the ideal Swords Dancer that can sweep.
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bring scarftar back in and revenge lucario?
 
Ok, something really odd is that yesterday when I was playing, every team I faced was getting wrecked by SubSeed Breloom. Because of all the ScarfTar around (which seems to be appearing more than Latias and Manaphy IMO :/), teams seem to be skeptical about using Rotom, especially non-scarf ones. I don't think I've seen a single SubRotom, and not very many Celebi either. SubSeed Breloom with a bulky spread easily takes advantage of this provided you don't Spore until you need to.

I decided to give my OU team 'Triple Hit' a try in this ladder, and it works extremely well if I can get enough entry hazards up. It seems that a lot of Latias and Manaphy's checks are grounded pokemon, and they'll lose that 'check' status pretty quickly if they're taking Stealth Rock + Spikes + an attack. While Manaphy obviously isn't on that team since it's an OU team, I can easily take advantage of what everyone seems to be using due to the overpreparation for Manaphy and Latias.

Also, about Wacan Manaphy, I've faced it a couple of times, and honestly, it's too weak without the Life Orb boost, even after a Tail Glow and max Special Attack (with Timid). It couldn't even OHKO my ScarfRotom-C after a Tail Glow, and Rotom-C only had 40 HP EVs, meaning that I just Thunderbolted him as he Surfed, and then Thunderbolted again, breaking through the Wacan, and still surviving with about 3%. Granted, Stealth Rock wasn't up, but Rotom-A isn't very sturdy with only 40 HP EVs.

I'm honestly wondering what's so good about Wacan Manaphy, because after running some calcs, I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't do good against Offense or Stall. Offensive teams generally have a lot of resistances to come in on, and always have at least 1 pokemon with more than 328 Speed (usually more). This means that Manaphy is going to find it hard to get more than one kill against an offensive team, because without any investment in its defenses, it's still going to take a lot more strong neutral attack, easily being revenge-killed, or if something comes in on a Tail Glow or doesn't get OHKOed by Surf, directly killed. Stall teams, on the other hand, carry lots of phazers, entry hazards, Blissey (who completely walls this set unlike the other sets), bulky Waters, etc. In the case of HailStall, there's Abomasnow which wrecks Manaphy. Wacan Manaphy doesn't even have a chance against Stall teams unless all the phazers are gone, Blissey is gone, and it hasn't taken much damage from entry hazards...yeah if that happens, it basically means the Stall team has epically failed and deserves to lose.

It just doesn't seem that Manaphy has the sheer force or double STAB that enabled Garchomp to be so deadly even without Life Orb. Plus, a lot of things do get Energy Ball, Seed Bomb, and Leaf Storm, so it's not as if Manaphy is completely safe.
 
Been playing a few matches here and there, and I cannot find a SINGLE Tyranitar, let alone a Scarf one.

Vaporeon is also incredibly useful in this metagame, taking Surfs from Latias and Manaphy and Toxicing them back. Toxic Spikes is also really useful for taking out Manaphy, although two layers is optimal for taking out Manaphy (normal poison kills Manaphy too slowly).
 
Aside from getting the living daylights haxed out of me every now and then, suspect has been pretty enjoyable so far. It’s fast-paced and usually fun, even if it is a bit predictable. (As pretty much everyone else has confirmed, most lineups seem to have ScarfTar and SpecsLatias, usually accompanied by either Tail Glow Manaphy, CB Scizor or the occasional Skarmory for Spikes support.) It’s refreshing to see some unconventional methods of dealing with suspects surfacing, though. Grass types seem to be getting some more usage—I’ve seen Shaymin, Sceptile and Scarf Roserade so far. Neither Manaphy nor Latias has been a game-breaking force in any of my battles, but like some others have mentioned, that could be because a number of us are overpreparing for them. It’ll be interesting to see how this metagame changes in the coming weeks once the initial hype wears off and things gravitate back towards normalcy.

Also, does anyone know what’s going on with all the 0.0 CRE users? My alt fortunately hasn’t been afflicted by this, but a number of people with this problem don’t seem to be gaining or losing anything at all, and I’m not getting points for defeating them. Is shoddy just having trouble displaying the data?
 
I personally haven't seen many teams carry a Grass-Type mon, and I haven't seen any Water-Types except Manaphy and a Starmie. Salamence isn't being used quite so often now, and Latias is on every team I've fought. Leads are getting more diverse, and every time a change my lead the next lead I fight just so happens to counter mine... -.-

Anyway, team structure (like everyone else is saying) is pretty rigid, and it's something like this:
LATIAS
Scizor
Tyranitar/Manaphy (It's one or the other, in my experience)
[Some other set-up sweeper]
[Lead that sets up rocks (e.g. Aerodactyl, Bronzong)]
[Some priority revenge killer]
 
As most people had said, Specs Latias is one of the bigger highlights in the suspect metagame. Very few can come into this thing without taking massive damage from her powerful Draco Meteors. And those who do survive specs boosted draco meteors with good health (Blissey for example) gets crippled by trick. I haven't really seen much Latias sets other than Specs. The other variants are either a few Scarf Latias here and there, or a Sub Calm Mind Latias. However I'm still undecided regarding its status. Latias is generating controversy in the standard metagame, But i still feel what we have is enough to keep Latias in check but the results are showing that Latias is indeed starting to become over centralizing in my opinion.

As for Manaphy, oh I think you know my opinion for my special little guy( If you haven't noticed yet, OU). But I have to agree it can run many viable sets despite its only average movepool so my opinion isn't really unchanged. More often than not, Every team would need something faster that it to beat Manaphy as from what I can tell, There isn't really much countering Tail glow Manaphy. Calm Mind Raikou is a really good Manaphy check/counter this and last stage as even Wacan Manaphy gets 2HKOed while it can't OHKO Raikou back. Despite this, I'm still leaning for OU manaphy. Strong yes, overpowering and broken, no. Although it would generate controversy and would possibly overcentralize the metagame.

so in short:

Latias-Undecided, leaning to uber status

Manaphy-Undecided, possibly OU
 
But i still feel what we have is enough to keep Latias in check but the results are showing that Latias is indeed starting to become over centralizing in my opinion.
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Remember that "overcentralizing" is a term that means absolutely nothing when talking about uber status. Any pokemon that is used a lot is going to have quite an influence on what's used. Latias is no exception. Also, this is the suspect test, of course Latias is going to be "overcentralizing" considering it's one of the suspects and people are going to use it to gain SEXP.

For instance, look at Scizor in OU. Things that would never carry HP Fire otherwise are carrying it specifically for Scizor. Also, we have something like Magnezone, who's now a top 20 pokemon due to trapping Steels, including Scizor. There are also many frail sweepers who have a really hard time competing in OU simply because Scizor's Bullet Punch destroys them (eg. Mismagius or Weavile) and are therefore not in OU, or have severely dropped in OU. Also, nothing can actually switch into Scizor risk-free because they'll either have a pokemon killed by Pursuit in the process, be killed by Superpower (or severely dented), or they'll be scouted by U-turn, taking a lot of damage in the process and losing their momentum. This would also qualify as "overcentralizing", but Scizor isn't uber at all.

If Latias's checks were completely uncommon, then perhaps the overcentralizing thing would have some merit, but as it stands, we have Tyranitar, Rotom-A (scarf), Jirachi, Metagross, Scizor, Blissey, Empoleon Forretress, and Skarmory (sp defensive) as very good checks to Latias. Those are all top 20 pokemon (excluding Forretress & Empoleon), and they do a lot more than solely checking Latias. Also, the first four in that list don't mind a Trick either and can lay on the pain with a Choice Scarf attached. The first 3 (and Empoleon) don't necessarily mind Specs since they run Special sets too (TTar sometimes).
 
I've noticed that with the frequency of TTar, rain dance is utterly implausible in the metagame. Furthermore, with teams preparing so heavily for the suspects, it's even harder to find the turn to Rest as Manaphy even with it raining. Maybe this is why 3-attack Tail Glow is the most prevalent. Of course, this makes sense, and was probably well understood in the past tests, but this is my first time and that's what I've come up with so far.

Most people also seem to have 2 thunderbolt users on their team in case of a WacanManaphy. I really haven't been able to do all that much with it since teams are so prepared for it, but we'll see after more testing. Maybe taking advantage of the metagame shift to use other Pokemon would work better.
 
I think Latias will probably have a higher usage percentage than Garchomp did in 3-2. However, Latias is not that hard to deal with. Pack maybe 2-3 steels (Metagross, Scizor, Jirachi) or a Scarf/SpD Tar, and you are pretty much good to go.

Manaphy has been 0 problem, mainly because my Latias uses Draco Meteor over Thunderbolt to kill Manaphy and because of a gimmick. I've been testing Quagsire and he does way more than just hold his spot. Given that he pretty much hard-counters Kyogre in Ubers, he can probably do more in OU to deal with Manaphy and other water types, especially since non-boosted Ice Beams don't hurt much and Quagsire gets access to Recover. Quagsire also does a remarkable job at keeping TTar, Metagross, Jirachi, CS Rotom, and the like in check. Still haven't seen any used against me though, or many Swamperts either.
The set I'm testing is similar to the Ubers Support Quagsire:
252HP/4Def/252SpD Careful
EQ/Recover/Yawn/Protect
I might swap out Protect for Ice Punch, to hit Latias and Salamence, or Roar for Rotom.
 
I can't see very much being a problem when you stack 2-3 counters. All three of those steels cannot switch into a specs boosted surf or thunderbolt, by the way.
 
I like the idea of Quagsire, but from my experience most Manaphy are carrying Energy Ball over HP-Electric, which stops Quagsire in its tracks. I've been using a SpD Swampert (same everything as your Quagsire except Avalanche over Recover) in a similar role, but always make sure to Protect before attacking to check if it has Energy Ball. Having Avalanche has really helped against Latias, who attacks thinking they can KO, but doesn't due to the spread and gets hit back hard with a 120BP super-effective hit.
 
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