Our results are already in and the verdict is that Gothitelle and Gothorita have not been banned. Feel free to use this thread for thoughts on the metagame and the now finished suspect test, but keep it civil!
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Metagame np: Ubers Stage 1 - Into The Unknown
- Thread starter Nayrz
- Start date
- Status
Well I'm glad that suspect is over. Did this thing really need a suspect in the first place? I'm pretty sure offense, which is really common in Ubers is the way to beat both Gothorita and Gothitelle.
I agree Goth isn’t powerful enough to warrant a ban, but I think it was an important conversation to have
I'm not 100% sure on how we should have done this, but i felt that this suspect was flawed because I know a lot of people who weren't really into ubers and didn't have a ton of competitive experience get reqs, and most of their experience came from the ladder, and the ladder was not an accurate representation of how good stuff is (i ran into deo-s ho or smeargle ho literally 80+% of the time for example, which is like not how it should be, considering deo-s is not that good rn). And continuing from my other post, i would still like to see Solgalium or Dusk Mane looked at in some capacity, as I feel the mon is extremely oppressive atm, and Geomancy is something else we can look at as well, but would love to see one of those in a future suspect.
You call Dusk Mane Necrozma oppressive, why do you say that? And I don't think Geomancy needs to be looked at, there were already checks to it since it was introduced, and this gen introduced more like Magearna and of course, Necrozma-DM.
While the suspect itself served its purpose of increasing players' overall interest in the tier and providing us a chance to give a look at the tier, there are a number of things I'd like to address.
The first thing I want to point out is that while the suspect's premise itself didn't have any issues, I believe some things could have been different. We could have banned both Gothitelle and Gothorita in the suspect ladder to have a temporary opportunity to observe what the tier would look like without them. Just about everyone in np: 0 thread who pointed out about suspecting goth family argued that their very existence in the tier invalidates archetypes, puts massive pressure on teambuilding, or does other things, and I frankly don't understand how allowing goth family in the suspect ladder will effectively give players a chance to acquire proper understanding of the purpose of the suspect itself. A suspect ladder without goth family would have forced all players to prepare for the different shape of metagame and could have given them a chance to build new teams with different Pokemon that wouldn't be so useful / viable with goth family around. Bottom line is that because the suspect ladder and the regular USM Ubers had the same environment, suspect ladder was not so much different from casual ladder games players will play the other day and thus invited virtually anyone who can do decent in ladder to get involved in tiering decision.
I have witnessed various reactions from people after the suspect test concluded. Some say that people who lack knowledge could simply just spend some time playing in suspect ladder just like they would in other day in the regular ladder and have rights to vote without thoroughly understanding how goth family influence the tier itself. While this kind of reaction may rather sound condescending, I too felt that the suspect test's requirement itself somewhat lacked security to appropriately filter out users who were authentically involved in the community to contribute to the tiering decision and others temporarily played Ubers just to expand their collection of suspect votes for Tiering Contributor badge. What I'd like to see from future suspect held from Ubers is the playerbase providing an environment where the knowledgeables will be allowed to determine the fate of the tier, not a place where someone who didn't play Ubers before could just hang around in the ladder for a bit and can get a permission to vote for something that they are not very knowledgeable about.
My proposal to this problem is construction of Ubers council. While I am not fully knowledgeable about the metagame / playerbase enough to nominate the candidates, I feel like it is vitally necessary for a group of people to actively filter out extraneous posts from suspect discussions, publicly state their insightful opinions about the tier or suspect materials, and most importantly, have power to involve themselves into the final decision about tiering.
While I had a lot to criticize about the suspect, this doesn't translate to my overall attitude towards Ubers. I fully trust in Ubers's authorities' senses of judgment, and I believe that they will take any feedbacks in this thread to make better suspect test in the future so that others will not scorn us by calling our suspect test a farce that temporarily invites some users to hang out in the tier for a couple weeks with the teams that others built for them.
With that said, allow me to conclude by thanking everyone for participating or coordinating this suspect test.
The first thing I want to point out is that while the suspect's premise itself didn't have any issues, I believe some things could have been different. We could have banned both Gothitelle and Gothorita in the suspect ladder to have a temporary opportunity to observe what the tier would look like without them. Just about everyone in np: 0 thread who pointed out about suspecting goth family argued that their very existence in the tier invalidates archetypes, puts massive pressure on teambuilding, or does other things, and I frankly don't understand how allowing goth family in the suspect ladder will effectively give players a chance to acquire proper understanding of the purpose of the suspect itself. A suspect ladder without goth family would have forced all players to prepare for the different shape of metagame and could have given them a chance to build new teams with different Pokemon that wouldn't be so useful / viable with goth family around. Bottom line is that because the suspect ladder and the regular USM Ubers had the same environment, suspect ladder was not so much different from casual ladder games players will play the other day and thus invited virtually anyone who can do decent in ladder to get involved in tiering decision.
I have witnessed various reactions from people after the suspect test concluded. Some say that people who lack knowledge could simply just spend some time playing in suspect ladder just like they would in other day in the regular ladder and have rights to vote without thoroughly understanding how goth family influence the tier itself. While this kind of reaction may rather sound condescending, I too felt that the suspect test's requirement itself somewhat lacked security to appropriately filter out users who were authentically involved in the community to contribute to the tiering decision and others temporarily played Ubers just to expand their collection of suspect votes for Tiering Contributor badge. What I'd like to see from future suspect held from Ubers is the playerbase providing an environment where the knowledgeables will be allowed to determine the fate of the tier, not a place where someone who didn't play Ubers before could just hang around in the ladder for a bit and can get a permission to vote for something that they are not very knowledgeable about.
My proposal to this problem is construction of Ubers council. While I am not fully knowledgeable about the metagame / playerbase enough to nominate the candidates, I feel like it is vitally necessary for a group of people to actively filter out extraneous posts from suspect discussions, publicly state their insightful opinions about the tier or suspect materials, and most importantly, have power to involve themselves into the final decision about tiering.
While I had a lot to criticize about the suspect, this doesn't translate to my overall attitude towards Ubers. I fully trust in Ubers's authorities' senses of judgment, and I believe that they will take any feedbacks in this thread to make better suspect test in the future so that others will not scorn us by calling our suspect test a farce that temporarily invites some users to hang out in the tier for a couple weeks with the teams that others built for them.
With that said, allow me to conclude by thanking everyone for participating or coordinating this suspect test.
Something I noticed during my time getting reqs for this suspect test was the lack of Gohtitelle and Gothorita on the ladder. I think I've faced one of them only once in my entire run. This isn't all too surprising since the ladder has always been quite offensive with stall and bulkier teams being used significantly less. This usually drives people away from the idea of using Gothitelle (doesnt mean its no less broken in my view) on the leader which I think played a significant role in this suspect test and its results. I'm pretty sure a majority would agree that the metagame in this suspect test is no where near the true Ubers metagame we had before this was held. People have already talked about how Gothitelle affects the tier in earlier posts so I won't get into that but my thoughts on the suspect test is fairly negative due to how it was set.
Not even once were we able to see what a metagame without Goths would look like because it certainly would not be offense vs offense almost every game like we have seen in this test. Due of this, many users who got reqs didn't even get to understand why we are suspect testing goths in the first place so it became kinda fruitless (the anti goth arguments relatively didn't have much weight into it either imo).
This definitely isn't as offensively inclined of a metagame as Mega Ray meta was but it's reaching there if this suspect test metagame is what the actual ubers tier and we all know what should have been done in that case.
Anybody reading this can tell I'm quite disappointed by the results of this suspect test but this is the reality so we move on. I don't see a point testing any further if something like Gothitelle that compresses the tier like any other is not deemed banworthy,
Some replays to highlight the ladder here:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uberssuspecttest-770410033
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uberssuspecttest-771585481
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uberssuspecttest-767602936
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uberssuspecttest-769874671
Not even once were we able to see what a metagame without Goths would look like because it certainly would not be offense vs offense almost every game like we have seen in this test. Due of this, many users who got reqs didn't even get to understand why we are suspect testing goths in the first place so it became kinda fruitless (the anti goth arguments relatively didn't have much weight into it either imo).
This definitely isn't as offensively inclined of a metagame as Mega Ray meta was but it's reaching there if this suspect test metagame is what the actual ubers tier and we all know what should have been done in that case.
Anybody reading this can tell I'm quite disappointed by the results of this suspect test but this is the reality so we move on. I don't see a point testing any further if something like Gothitelle that compresses the tier like any other is not deemed banworthy,
Some replays to highlight the ladder here:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uberssuspecttest-770410033
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uberssuspecttest-771585481
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uberssuspecttest-767602936
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uberssuspecttest-769874671
RE: Banning Goths on the ladder
This would have made no difference. Offense is still dominant on the ladder and I'd wager it always will be. There's nothing to see by banning them on the ladder, because the usage rate there is so low it might as well have been banned anyway. People just didn't want to run bulkier teams with a larger margin of error and longer games for reqs is something most avoid. People could have brought Goth weak teams safely, but they did not. The ladder wasn't a potential issue for that reason, but there is no good alternative to it for the purposes of a public suspect test.
RE: "Non-mains" getting reqs and wrecking the test
This is a ridiculous thing to say if we are trying to improve our image as a community. You can go and look through the voting thread - MANY Ubers tournament players and mains voted no ban. This further has me thinking that usage on the ladder actually made little difference in the scheme of things. Low tournament usage is a prominent one, and despite there being arguments to justify why that was the case, not everyone will consider it with the same weight. Why are you directing your anger at the "non-mains" when a good portion of them voted the same way as you did? I don't agree with the outcome from a personal view, but far be it from me to start going off at other people for their decision regardless of their favorite tier on Smogon. I will leave that post up so that this counterargument stands, but anyone that keeps this line of thought up against "the outsiders" will be getting infractions. Don't be idiots and actually think about it.
RE: Creation of an Ubers Council
A council for tiering purposes doesn't line up with how we are going about things. Our tournament representation was at risk because Ubers did not attempt to deal with issues the community feels they have. A council is elitist by nature because its a minority chosen to make decisions for the majority. I don't feel that it can resolve issues any better than a suspect test - our tournament playerbase can view Ubers (from a policy / overall perspective) differently and my experience as VR Council / QC tells me that someone always gets burned. It wouldn't make any difference, and even if all a council are deciding on is "what to test" it would hinder my ability to make decisions for the tier more than help. Its a bit strange that this ban didn't pass considering the past viewpoints I've heard, but the bottom line is that the community should have the ability to decide on what they want and that is what happened here. A council wouldn't change this.
Remember this: Gothitelle and Gothorita was brought up because of its problematic issues to tournament play. Despite the ladder being used as the medium for requirements, many tournament players from inside and outside of Ubers voted no ban. Frustration at players who are experiencing our tier for the first time will only make YOU look like the idiot. Can we really say the test was a failure? I think it has brought a lot to light which is overall good for the progression of the tier.
This would have made no difference. Offense is still dominant on the ladder and I'd wager it always will be. There's nothing to see by banning them on the ladder, because the usage rate there is so low it might as well have been banned anyway. People just didn't want to run bulkier teams with a larger margin of error and longer games for reqs is something most avoid. People could have brought Goth weak teams safely, but they did not. The ladder wasn't a potential issue for that reason, but there is no good alternative to it for the purposes of a public suspect test.
RE: "Non-mains" getting reqs and wrecking the test
This is a ridiculous thing to say if we are trying to improve our image as a community. You can go and look through the voting thread - MANY Ubers tournament players and mains voted no ban. This further has me thinking that usage on the ladder actually made little difference in the scheme of things. Low tournament usage is a prominent one, and despite there being arguments to justify why that was the case, not everyone will consider it with the same weight. Why are you directing your anger at the "non-mains" when a good portion of them voted the same way as you did? I don't agree with the outcome from a personal view, but far be it from me to start going off at other people for their decision regardless of their favorite tier on Smogon. I will leave that post up so that this counterargument stands, but anyone that keeps this line of thought up against "the outsiders" will be getting infractions. Don't be idiots and actually think about it.
RE: Creation of an Ubers Council
A council for tiering purposes doesn't line up with how we are going about things. Our tournament representation was at risk because Ubers did not attempt to deal with issues the community feels they have. A council is elitist by nature because its a minority chosen to make decisions for the majority. I don't feel that it can resolve issues any better than a suspect test - our tournament playerbase can view Ubers (from a policy / overall perspective) differently and my experience as VR Council / QC tells me that someone always gets burned. It wouldn't make any difference, and even if all a council are deciding on is "what to test" it would hinder my ability to make decisions for the tier more than help. Its a bit strange that this ban didn't pass considering the past viewpoints I've heard, but the bottom line is that the community should have the ability to decide on what they want and that is what happened here. A council wouldn't change this.
Remember this: Gothitelle and Gothorita was brought up because of its problematic issues to tournament play. Despite the ladder being used as the medium for requirements, many tournament players from inside and outside of Ubers voted no ban. Frustration at players who are experiencing our tier for the first time will only make YOU look like the idiot. Can we really say the test was a failure? I think it has brought a lot to light which is overall good for the progression of the tier.
Although my only USM Ubers experience came from the suspect ladder, I enjoyed this metagame much more than ORAS Ubers, I think that the current meta allows for more diversity in teambuilding and no one playstyle seems to be dominant, so that's cool. Offense dominated the ladder because it's easy to use, but the ladder was misleading because the more experienced tournament players will not bring offense most of the time, it'll probably be a lot of balance with some offense / anti-offense thrown in at higher levels of play.
I'm disappointed that the Gothitelle / Gothorita ban failed but not surprised, I think it objectively makes the tier worse because it rewards guessing games with team-match up and not skill - Gothitelle / Gothorita's isn't broken in the traditional sense like a mega-rayquaza but it's combination of shadow tag / decent typing / bulk allows it to be a cancer in the meta, you'll always be at risk of instantly losing an important part of your team because you couldn't switch out in a turn-based game that's... based on your ability to switch out. There is simply no counter-play to this strategy, other than 1.] bring hyper offense, 2.] absurd double predictions that very likely won't work anyway, 3.]shed shell on everything?, or 4.] Hope your opponent doesn't bring Gothitelle / Gothorita. The plus side of this is that Gothitelle's usage is so low that I doubt it will matter that much on ladder, it's a worthwhile risk but it's annoying in the sense that there is nothing realistic you can do about it other than bring hyper-offense or hoping you don't run into it.
EternalSnowman, Cynara, Fireburn, and a few others made some excellent posts on why Gothitelle is problematic in the Ubers Stage 0 - The Journey Thread, unfortunately I haven't been reading any posts strongly in favor of keeping Gothitelle, a few people have posted on why Gothitelle isn't "un-competitive", but what does Gothitelle add to this tier other than cheesing match-ups and frustrating your opponent by clicking charm / confide 20 times in a row? I think it would have been better off banned personally, but again, if people are going to vote in the manner of "nothing gets banned unless it's super-absurd like mega-rayquaza" without any regard for the tier's competitiveness / health / play-ability [whatever the right term is] then the no-ban vote makes more sense to me.
Just want to add that I don't play much Pokemon nowadays [obvious heh], so I'm not too invested into ubers anymore, but I would have liked to see more informative posts from the no-ban voters behind their philosophy regarding the tier overall.
I'm disappointed that the Gothitelle / Gothorita ban failed but not surprised, I think it objectively makes the tier worse because it rewards guessing games with team-match up and not skill - Gothitelle / Gothorita's isn't broken in the traditional sense like a mega-rayquaza but it's combination of shadow tag / decent typing / bulk allows it to be a cancer in the meta, you'll always be at risk of instantly losing an important part of your team because you couldn't switch out in a turn-based game that's... based on your ability to switch out. There is simply no counter-play to this strategy, other than 1.] bring hyper offense, 2.] absurd double predictions that very likely won't work anyway, 3.]shed shell on everything?, or 4.] Hope your opponent doesn't bring Gothitelle / Gothorita. The plus side of this is that Gothitelle's usage is so low that I doubt it will matter that much on ladder, it's a worthwhile risk but it's annoying in the sense that there is nothing realistic you can do about it other than bring hyper-offense or hoping you don't run into it.
EternalSnowman, Cynara, Fireburn, and a few others made some excellent posts on why Gothitelle is problematic in the Ubers Stage 0 - The Journey Thread, unfortunately I haven't been reading any posts strongly in favor of keeping Gothitelle, a few people have posted on why Gothitelle isn't "un-competitive", but what does Gothitelle add to this tier other than cheesing match-ups and frustrating your opponent by clicking charm / confide 20 times in a row? I think it would have been better off banned personally, but again, if people are going to vote in the manner of "nothing gets banned unless it's super-absurd like mega-rayquaza" without any regard for the tier's competitiveness / health / play-ability [whatever the right term is] then the no-ban vote makes more sense to me.
Just want to add that I don't play much Pokemon nowadays [obvious heh], so I'm not too invested into ubers anymore, but I would have liked to see more informative posts from the no-ban voters behind their philosophy regarding the tier overall.
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I don't even play this tier but holy moly have you read ANY pro-ban analysis? Almost every one of them states that the problem lies in the mere existence of goths and teambuild restriction, not in the actual usage, or even winrate.
Still waiting for one good anti-ban argument, didn't get the chance to read a good one yet. Which speaks for itself.
I can't understand the REQs then. Why are they used? Attracting new players? That's the only good reason I can find.
Everything else is completely ludicrous. Players with no knowledge of the meta shouldn't have an active role in its development. Period.
I wouldn't care if the result was the same if the player who were to vote actually proved themselves to have at least a reasonable amount of experience in the metagame. Is this elitism? No, it's meritocracy. Which is the whole point of the REQs, really. You are proving yourself worthy enough. But what do these REQs stand for? Getting a good GXE in at least 40 games? Pure nonsense.
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The honest truth of the matter is that going off the ladder is a terrible idea for Ubers suspects, and in turn made the whole test invalid.
I'm going to be 100% blunt, and I quite frankly don't care if this gets me infracted because deep down you all know it's true: With the exceptions of the highest echelons of the ladder, the standard Ubers ladder is filled to the brim with shit players who use outdated sets and playstyles. The standard example that has been repeated ad nauseum in this thread is the repeated spam of Smeargle and Deoxys-Speed hyper offense despite those playstyles being mediocre at best in the grand scheme of things. And yes, I am aware that every single format has this problem, but Ubers is the epitome of what many call "low ladder memes".
From the perspective of an outsider, I wanna say that this test feels extremely skewed and unfair. Is it fair that, with the exception of a few of the top tier players who play tournaments regularly, everyone else has to base their knowledge off of a ladder this confused that paints a completely warped, distorted picture of what the Ubers meta looks like? I don't think so. Is it fair that tons of people can just swoop in, make an uneducated vote with no knowledge of the meta (what little they do have is influenced by the terrible ladder), and have their decision counteract the voice of those with experience? Nope, not at all.
I honestly think that a forming a council and having them vote would just be the best option for everyone. You say it's too elitist and goes against the community's wishes. But look at a format like 1v1, which has manage to use the council vote system to make the tier healthier and more fun for everyone who plays it. They do this by allowing periods for public comment and discussion, and then the council votes based on these arguments. Shit gets done, any unhealthy elements are dealt with, and the community is still given a voice and has a hand in influencing the vote. Why can't Ubers do something similar? And if enough community members want it, then is it really discriminating against them?
I'm going to be 100% blunt, and I quite frankly don't care if this gets me infracted because deep down you all know it's true: With the exceptions of the highest echelons of the ladder, the standard Ubers ladder is filled to the brim with shit players who use outdated sets and playstyles. The standard example that has been repeated ad nauseum in this thread is the repeated spam of Smeargle and Deoxys-Speed hyper offense despite those playstyles being mediocre at best in the grand scheme of things. And yes, I am aware that every single format has this problem, but Ubers is the epitome of what many call "low ladder memes".
From the perspective of an outsider, I wanna say that this test feels extremely skewed and unfair. Is it fair that, with the exception of a few of the top tier players who play tournaments regularly, everyone else has to base their knowledge off of a ladder this confused that paints a completely warped, distorted picture of what the Ubers meta looks like? I don't think so. Is it fair that tons of people can just swoop in, make an uneducated vote with no knowledge of the meta (what little they do have is influenced by the terrible ladder), and have their decision counteract the voice of those with experience? Nope, not at all.
I honestly think that a forming a council and having them vote would just be the best option for everyone. You say it's too elitist and goes against the community's wishes. But look at a format like 1v1, which has manage to use the council vote system to make the tier healthier and more fun for everyone who plays it. They do this by allowing periods for public comment and discussion, and then the council votes based on these arguments. Shit gets done, any unhealthy elements are dealt with, and the community is still given a voice and has a hand in influencing the vote. Why can't Ubers do something similar? And if enough community members want it, then is it really discriminating against them?
The reason you haven't seen any good arguments for not banning goth is because there aren't any outside of "well we in da ubers sso we shudnt ban angythin!". Or they just wanted to be contrarian. Or, they just have experience laddering and they don't know how absolutely detrimental and restrictive Goth's existence is to teambuilding. We shouldn't fault those people, they just wanted to participate. Perhaps when Ubers auth pulls some shit like suspecting Pdon, they could make it very clear that although they can't force non-tour players to not vote, they would encourage people to only vote if they had a solid understanding of the meta.
As said above, I have yet to see a legitimate pro-Goth argument. Would actually be interested to see some of the voter's reasoning for choosing no ban.
On one hand we don't want ladderers to be making our tiering decisions but the suggestion to allow the ubers auth to run everything is stupid. At least there's some element of control by the playerbase with public voting. Ubers auth (idk who's who and whether or not they're still in charge or not) has shown that they cannot make decisions that reflect the playerbase well, first with the Stag memery in gen 6 and now with not banning goth from ladder (remind me again why?).
As said above, I have yet to see a legitimate pro-Goth argument. Would actually be interested to see some of the voter's reasoning for choosing no ban.
How do you know? No shit balance is going to be less popular if you're allowing the one mon that almost completely invalidates it. Balance is not stall, it's going to give you what, a 20-40 turn match? That's not really a "longer game" and also lmfao how does balance have "a larger margin for error"? HO is the team archetype where one para or miss will usually lose you the whole game.Nayrz said:
On one hand we don't want ladderers to be making our tiering decisions but the suggestion to allow the ubers auth to run everything is stupid. At least there's some element of control by the playerbase with public voting. Ubers auth (idk who's who and whether or not they're still in charge or not) has shown that they cannot make decisions that reflect the playerbase well, first with the Stag memery in gen 6 and now with not banning goth from ladder (remind me again why?).
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You would never be saying this if Goth was banned as a result of this suspect test.
There were experienced players on both sides, and it was a controversial thing. But to say that "the majority of the community" is calling for a council is simply not true - right now the only people calling for a council wanted Goth banned, and clearly there was a majority who didn't want it banned. You also cannot compare it to 1v1, an Other Metagame, which doesn't follow anything even close to the minimalist tiering philosophy that Ubers strives to achieve. Not to mention that the 1v1 Council made its council in the first place to reverse the results of a few suspect tests, but thats another story, and people weren't happy about that.
How are you going to say that a bad ladder invalidates a suspect test with "uneducated votes with no knowledge of the meta counteracting the voice of the experienced" when you have players who are objectively good and experienced voting no ban as well? Mysterious M, Gunner Rohan, Pohjis, Leru, Exiline, Holy Break, and various members of STAG all voted no ban, but because they disagree with the outcome you wanted, they have a "warped, distorted picture of what the Ubers meta looks like"? I personally didn't care about the result of the suspect and if anything leaned towards a Goth ban, but its really sad to see somebody attempt to discredit a community decision out the window just because it is not what you agreed with. Not to mention that these players are infinitely more experienced than either you or me. On top of the fact that many "non-mains" voted in a way you did - or, you didn't, since you didn't get reqs despite your adamant opinions.
People saying that "randoms who don't know things are coming in and ruining the vote" just because they disagree with the outcome of this test are really the ones who clearly don't know how things are. There are obviously some problems with suspect tests, but insulting those who disagree with you based on an unfavorable outcome shows narrow-mindedness among other things.
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How are you going to call a majority party outliers? This is ridiculous, lol.
Why should somebody have to prove why something isn't broken? Isn't the burden on the person wanting something removed to provide enough reasoning to suggest a ban? If somebody doesn't think something is broken, they don't think it is broken. They think it has enough counterplay, I don't understand how its hard to understand that its a lot easier to spell out a ban argument in words than a no-ban one.
and again, by your saying "you're probably familiar with Goth and how stupid broken it is", you're just attempting to block any other opinion, showing how you can't think from both sides, and are just spewing out things because you're unhappy with a result.
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The reason people are assuming the people who voted no ban aren't as experienced with the meta is because there hasn't really been an anti-ban argument spelled out yet, and if you play tours you're probably familiar with Goth and how stupid broken it is. Obviously there are many who are experienced and still voted no ban but those are outliers
Dude are you serious. A lot of people argued about pro-ban, you can still read all the posts. No one who thought that goth is not broken, or doesn’t warrant a ban responded to those arguments in a decent way. Actually i don’t even think anyone counterargued to begin with.
So yea, if you think goth is not broken by saying “i don’t need to explain myself burden of the proof amirite?” you are just proving how there are in fact no anti-ban arguments, which is not very good given the result of the suspect. Or at least, it speaks volumes about the quality of the suspect itself.
Edit: he didn’t call the majority a bunch of outliners, he said that those who have knowledge of the meta and still voted for no-ban are outliners, which is completely different.
Edit 2: HOW IS “it has counterplay” AN ARGUMENT? it’s a single sentence. Jesus.
So yea, if you think goth is not broken by saying “i don’t need to explain myself burden of the proof amirite?” you are just proving how there are in fact no anti-ban arguments, which is not very good given the result of the suspect. Or at least, it speaks volumes about the quality of the suspect itself.
Edit: he didn’t call the majority a bunch of outliners, he said that those who have knowledge of the meta and still voted for no-ban are outliners, which is completely different.
Edit 2: HOW IS “it has counterplay” AN ARGUMENT? it’s a single sentence. Jesus.
I think you guys just aren't considering the downsides of using gothitelle and are just too focused on its strong point.
Also, i think, a lot of players still have the snake games in mind while thinking about goth which is obviously wrong because the meta has changed a TON since the snake meta and has became wayyy less goth-friendly.
well obviously goth can trap arceus (and some other shits), but running goth means you also runs a mon with nearly 0 defensive ability while ubers attained some really high powercreep and also comports an insane number of threat (necrozma DM,necrozma-ultra, lunala, offensive groudon, yveltal, marshadow, xerneas, gengar, offensive zygarde, kyogre, ho-oh, z moves in general....), you can remark that all these offensive threats can also hold a huge defensive role thanks to their natural great bulks, advantageous typing or their revenge killing ability.
what i want to say is that you sacrifice a huge part of your "checking threats potential" for the opportunity to trap some mons (which isn't even as annoying as it was in regular SM because we got a lot of new defog users and a new good geoxern check in dusk mane, making most supportceus SR setter instead of defogger, making the meta more aggressive).
I believe that even if running goth was worth at some point in SM, it isnt the case anymore because it exposes your team to a (too much) great number of threats.
also as i said earlier, it's really easy to kill supportceus nowadays with the insane powercreep jump we got with usm, making gothitelle a bad mon and by definition not ban-worthy.
also goth presence is far from killing stall (could explain this later if needed).
Also, i think, a lot of players still have the snake games in mind while thinking about goth which is obviously wrong because the meta has changed a TON since the snake meta and has became wayyy less goth-friendly.
well obviously goth can trap arceus (and some other shits), but running goth means you also runs a mon with nearly 0 defensive ability while ubers attained some really high powercreep and also comports an insane number of threat (necrozma DM,necrozma-ultra, lunala, offensive groudon, yveltal, marshadow, xerneas, gengar, offensive zygarde, kyogre, ho-oh, z moves in general....), you can remark that all these offensive threats can also hold a huge defensive role thanks to their natural great bulks, advantageous typing or their revenge killing ability.
what i want to say is that you sacrifice a huge part of your "checking threats potential" for the opportunity to trap some mons (which isn't even as annoying as it was in regular SM because we got a lot of new defog users and a new good geoxern check in dusk mane, making most supportceus SR setter instead of defogger, making the meta more aggressive).
I believe that even if running goth was worth at some point in SM, it isnt the case anymore because it exposes your team to a (too much) great number of threats.
also as i said earlier, it's really easy to kill supportceus nowadays with the insane powercreep jump we got with usm, making gothitelle a bad mon and by definition not ban-worthy.
also goth presence is far from killing stall (could explain this later if needed).
I didn't say that. All I meant was that just because nobody responded to the posts doesn't mean its broken in any way. Burden of proof is indeed upon the person trying to say something is broken, as its in the metagame right now and you can't really prove that something is "healthy", rather only counterarguments weighing its effect on the tier. Again, I wasn't listing arguments for no-ban or attempting to in any way, I was saying that they think it has counterplay. "those who have knowledge of the meta and still voted no-ban" are not even outliers by any means, so whatever he meant, hes just wrong. The purpose of my post was to respond to people saying that "randoms infiltrated the tier and decided the vote", which is blatantly false no matter how you look at it. Especially when the people saying it are often less proved in the tier than many of the no-ban voters (not that that actually matters, but by their logic it should).
Seems that Exiline has said something now as well.
Hi, not an Ubers main and didn't vote in this test but as someone who has pretty significant experience with Smogon tiering and suspect tests in general, a ladder without Goth would likely have made the issues you're having worse, not better.
There are two main reasons why suspect ladders tend to include the element being suspected, rather than showing what the meta might look like if said element was banned:
1. It guarantees that anyone voting in the thread has at least some familiarity with the element being suspected. If the Goths had been banned, the exact same people who voted in this suspect test would have still have voted... but instead of encountering Goth one or two times in the course of the suspect, as people have reported, they wouldn't have encountered it at all. Those same outsiders you seem to be complaining about would still be participating and voting, except that in a proposed Goth-less meta, you're 100% guaranteeing that they will be voting without ever having experienced it. How does that make the suspect process better? How does that improve things?
2. It doesn't actually tell you if something is broken or not. Smogon's tiering philosophy is based around the idea of banning things that are uncompetitive or broken. All that removing the potentially broken element tells you is whether or not you like the new meta better; it doesn't actually tell you if that element was broken in the first place.
The only people it helps are the people who, for the most part, have already made their minds up about Goth. If you are someone who has been feeling like fat balance was mostly invalidated by Goth and were looking forward to getting to try out some cool bulky builds in a Goth-less ladder while getting reqs, yeah, sorry, you're out of luck. But chances are, if you're that person, you already knew how you were voting on Goth before you ever started this suspect. After all, if the suspect had been run the way you proposed, and the ladder ended up remaining more or less the same, would you have changed your vote to no ban?
(For the record, I'm not pro-Goth or anything, and Goth may very well meet the textbook definition of uncompetitive as defined by our tiering policy. But I am pro-running suspect tests properly, and I think it would have been a mistake to ban the Goths from the suspect ladder.)
As one of these "randoms with a completely warped, distorted picture of what the Ubers meta looks like" (even tho I followed upl, but disregard that because I'm a "ladder noob") who actually got reqs I can tell you the argument why I voted no ban, which is quite simple: Goth is not broken, you can go on all day about "uncompetitive" or other terms like that to make goth sound worse than it actually is, but it's just not broken by the end of the day. It doesn't trap a lot of things consistently anymore in the current metagame, and even the things that are trapped consistently aren't that important to a team that you suddenly lose 6-0 (or your team is badly structured). It can even get crit by said things it traps "consistently" and then your mon you put on the team specifically for that niche is useless, and when you sit there 50 turns pp stalling something, one or two crits are likely to happen. On top of that in a lot of other matchups where these mons goth is supposed to trap aren't present goth is basically a wasted teamslot, something like spdef necrozma, which main role is to hard counter xern, is not useless in matchups where xerneas is not present, while goth is sack fodder half the time.
Pretty much everyone who's pro-ban is well aware that Goth sucks against offense. That's not the point. Goth is stupid broken against balance, forcing you to run stupid shit like Bugceus that aren't viable against anything else. A mon that makes you run specific shit that sucks against everything else is one of the definitions of overcentralizing.
The "strong point" of Goth is that it's stupid good against an entire popular team archetype. That's pretty significant. If you're running balance without some meme shit to counter Goth, you're absolutely screwed. It forces every balance team to drastically change how they operate.
I don't know why you keep mentioning "powercreep", first off DM is the only new major threat in Ubers I can think of. Second, this "powercreep" clearly hasn't affected Goth at all since people are still using it and teams are still being constrained to deal with it.
So what if there's other options? Defog Yveltal sucks. Scarf Xern is situational and sucks against a lot of shit, other balance included. A bulky Arceus form is still the backbone of a balance team, whether it's defogging or not.
Goth is not a bad mon or unviable by any means. You're not playing a lot of games against it if you think that it is. Maybe you don't have experience teambuilding or in tours but Goth is pretty frequent, it makes playing balance (which is a perfectly fine playstyle otherwise) extremely risky as well as stall.
It consistently traps supportceus, which is the backbone of any good balance team. A balance team that's lost its main answer to Pdon or DM or even its defogger is not going to win.
"You can just get a crit" is NOT a valid reason not to ban something. Crits shouldn't even be mentioned unless you're talking anout something that keeps it in mind like a Sniper mon. And there are none of those in Ubers.
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Gothitelle consistently traps defensive arc fairy/water/ground, lugia, ferrothorn, scarf/specs xern/yvel not locked into specs moonblast or a dark type move respectively, tyranitar, some zygarde sets, celesteela, defensive ho-oh, defensive dusk-mane, excadrill, and additionally, gothorita/gothita traps foul play locked yveltal, chansey, and forces blissey, toxapex and skarmory to run shed shell.
I'm not sure what you would consider "a lot of things", but I'm sure this list qualifies. Regarding team structure, the introduction of breakers like marshadow, dd dusk mane and sd ultra necrozma mean that balance builds are usually hard pressed to cover every option. This means that the removal of a single check or revenge killer for one of these can result in an easy 6-0 for the gothitelle user. I challenge you to show me a balance or stall build that doesn't instalose to several gothitelle + breaker pairings.
I'm not sure if you have ever used or faced gothitelle, but unless a crit occurs within the first few turns where the target hasn't been sufficiently confided/charmed or goth is crit several times in succession, it is quite easy to ensure that a single crit does not ruin your trap.
For example: -6 0 SpA Pixie Plate Arceus-Fairy Judgment vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gothitelle on a critical hit: 153-181 (44.4 - 52.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
This means that the gothitelle user just needs to rest every time gothitelle is expected to sink under 53% hp after the next attack.
Aaaaand this is exactly why people often disregard the opinions of "ladder noobs". Clearly you did not even bother to spend 5 minutes and read the OP of this thread or the ubers tiering philosophy. Suspects in ubers are aimed at preserving the playability of the tier, and thus strategies that have been determined to be uncompetitive must be considered for bans.
mmn, things are getting spicy~
funny how most of the interesting discussion happens before (stage 0) and after the suspect. although I can't say the results were unexpected (lol good luck trying to ban anything with a 66.6% supermajority).
personal opinion (I really didn't want to do this so let's keep it short and painless):
+ goth is pretty much the definition of cancer (more PC term="uncompetitive")
+ has zero counterplay - the only real 'counterplay' exists at teambuilder; running HO or pursuit.
+ removes player agency (being forced to sit there for 50+ turns is no fun, mons become a clicking game...)
+ exacerbates matchup issues
reasons why suspect went wrong:
- misinformed voters - people who think 'no ban' because goth isn't broken lol
- people who realise that goth is uncompetitive but have their own personal agendas (no goth means more fat and more fat = bad)
final thoughts:
imo, the ideal tiering model would be one where the players make the majority of the decisions (via suspects etc.), with the council/higher-ups intervening when necessary to correct metagame failures (OHKO moves, evasion, swagger etc.), where the players cannot be trusted to make decisions.
funny how most of the interesting discussion happens before (stage 0) and after the suspect. although I can't say the results were unexpected (lol good luck trying to ban anything with a 66.6% supermajority).
personal opinion (I really didn't want to do this so let's keep it short and painless):
+ goth is pretty much the definition of cancer (more PC term="uncompetitive")
+ has zero counterplay - the only real 'counterplay' exists at teambuilder; running HO or pursuit.
+ removes player agency (being forced to sit there for 50+ turns is no fun, mons become a clicking game...)
+ exacerbates matchup issues
reasons why suspect went wrong:
- misinformed voters - people who think 'no ban' because goth isn't broken lol
- people who realise that goth is uncompetitive but have their own personal agendas (no goth means more fat and more fat = bad)
final thoughts:
imo, the ideal tiering model would be one where the players make the majority of the decisions (via suspects etc.), with the council/higher-ups intervening when necessary to correct metagame failures (OHKO moves, evasion, swagger etc.), where the players cannot be trusted to make decisions.
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