Putting an end to the slippery slope

[chewy]

There has been a recent slew of topics concerning the viability of the 600 level Ubers in the OU metagames. Although I could discuss this in each of those topics separately, individually, they may not be overwhelming threats to OU metagame, but taken together, they constitute a large overcentralizing power that could negate the usability of 'lesser' pokemon in OU.

Yes we have already added Deoxys-S and it has proven to be underwhelming (mostly because there are already good OU counters such as Jirachi, Cresselia and Dusknoir), but Mew, Darkrai, Manaphy and the Lati@s are on a different scale than Deoxys-S.
-They all have better defenses and offense than Deoxys-S.
-They all have better support/healing (Deoxys-S only dreams of getting Dark Void/Hypnosis)
-Good stat-up moves on everything except Darkrai.
-Highly unpredictable movesets (can also be said of Deoxys, but they have stats to use those sets better)
-They can actually switch in to current OU threats safely.

As for testing them, which is what all the other threads boil down to, IMO, they MUST be tested TOGETHER. Why?
1. Let's assume you add Mew first, and it is deemed uber. If we then test Darkrai and it's not. We would then need to test Mew again, since Darkrai would have a huge impact on Mew usage.
2. If you include Darkrai first, why shouldn't you include Manaphy? or Mew? They are all on a similar level and it is hard to arbitrarily test one without seeing how it affects the others.
3. They are all good enough to change whole team dynamics and prioritizing which pokemon are the most important to counter (i.e. expect a Heracross spike if Darkrai is added. Then expect a Gilscor spike in response, etc, etc). They can prove to a balancing force for each other rather than unbalancing the metagame individually.

It all boils down to the title of this thread - a slippery slope - once you include one then, there shouldn't be a reason not to include the others. There are already pokemon that don't have 100% counters (Garchomp, T-tar), so that isn't a reason to stop their inclusion.

Including all 5 of the 600 level Ubers in OU isn't something that can be reduced to theorymon. If you agree with me and feel that looking at the whole forest is more important than trees, then we should test them together before considering each of them separately.

Doesn't really need to be said but discuss.

 

[Pikachu of Doom]

TBH I can't really see what adding all of these ubers to OU brings to the game.

 

[scorchedsky]

What it brings to the game is the addition of more viable pokemon in OU. If they're deemed Uber, then the only thing that happens is we had a testing period. If they're deemed OU, then we have a more diverse and arguably more fun metagame.

 

[Fenikkusu]

Diverse is an arguable descriptor. The top 15-20 pokes in OU haven't significantly deviated in the last month (in fact, the top 5 have been the exact same pokes for the last six with only a slight rearrangement over the entire period, top 8 for the last 3 months), so all you would be doing is kicking a few of them lower and replacing their slots with former ubers (anyone that wishes to tell me Darkrai, Manaphy, Mew et al wouldn't be top OU, I have a bridge to terabithia I'd like to sell you.)

 

[Dragontamer]

What it brings to the game is the addition of more viable pokemon in OU. If they're deemed Uber, then the only thing that happens is we had a testing period. If they're deemed OU, then we have a more diverse and arguably more fun metagame.

On the contrary. Take Mew for example.

Should Mew enter the metagame, then Leafeon, Floatzel, and other anti-phaze /Baton Passers will have their job defunct. In fact, I'd argue that virtually every baton passer in the OU game will no longer be viable should Mew enter the game, with exception of maybe Ninjask. The niche role of these pokemon will be completely taken over by Mew.

In Mew's case, we clearly have far less Pokemon to use. (We added Mew to the OU metagame... but lost every baton-pass Eeveelution (Leafeon especially), Floatzel, Ambipom... maybe even sets like NP Togekiss or Taunt / BP Gliscor)

Adding Ubers into the metagame shifts the lower end OUs out of the metagame. If we want "as large a metagame as possible", we need to keep both sides of the metagame in mind.

----------

Why does this diverge into Theorymon? Simple: because it must. Months of discussion have gone down and no one has even thought of the elephant in the room:

How do we test?

This is the question we should be focused on answering. Until we have a proper testing method, every discussion will turn into Theorymon. Take Wobbuffet and Deoxys, during and after their testing period, theorymon discussions started back up again. Whether we like it or not, Theorymon is the best we got right now, unless someone can think of a better way to discuss Pokemon / find a faster way to test these things out. We don't even have a criteria for determining OU -> Uber, only the reverse. ("Not Overcentralizing" turns Ubers into OU, but we have no consensus on what turns an OU pokemon into an Uber, because we have no method to test for "Too Centralizing")

 

[Deco]

How about doing it the other way around - starting with the uber metagame, then banning everything that's overcentralizing there (for example, Kyogre and Dialga)? After that, start a new ladder or use the uber ladder with all Pokemon except Kyogre and Dialga, and systhematically ban the most overused and overcentralizing Pokemon every month. After a while, everything overpowered is gone and you end up with an as large as possible OU metagame. Whether this includes Wobbuffet, Garchomp, Darkrai, Mew or whatever borderline uber? We will see.

 

[Fenikkusu]

You'd just be shifting up the base power level necessary to compete in OU. The metagame may be different, but the overall powerlevel would definitely increase, causing us to redefine BLs (and Obi's proposal to shove all the BLs into UU would have to take place after Ubers are mass shoved into OU so that we know what all the BLs possibly are).

 

[Goodbar]

Just for the records, darkrai has calm mind and swords dance, those are pretty decent stat up moves...

Basically agreeing with the fact that adding these ubers is not going to bring diversity, its just gonna shove a lot more weaker OUs out of the metagame, and BL usage will probably drop as well. So it depends on what people want. Arguably though, you could say Garchomp and possibly Tyranitar are on the same level as pokemon like Mew and Manaphy, but how much of that do we want?

Just a thought, I think it'd be interesting to say, ban Garchomp, and unban persay Manaphy, and see what happens. It's too bad there's really no efficient way to test this though...

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Wouldn't it be better to just allow all those shit (Darkrai, Lati Brothers, Mew and Manaphy (fuck Ho-oh)) and see how big OU becomes after that? The current OU tier list has 47 pokémon (I believe); if we get, say, 70 after adding them, we would be able to conclude that they aren't exactly "over-centralizing"...

 

[Fenikkusu]

On the other hand, we could drop to 30 and that would conclude that yes, we have absurdly powerful pokemon in OU, but it wouldn't start to tell us which ones.

 

[pajama]

For starters I already dislike the metagame the way it is now with garchomp and/or gengar on almost every team you face. It's starting to get boring. (And since there is no real active UU metagame yet OU is pretty much all you get aside from ubers) I think that Including stuff like darkrai will only make these things worse. Most teams would just carry mew/darkrai/manaphy etc. Some may see that as overcentralizing but some wil say it's just playing to win.

That is also the reason I'm against "unbanning" more things at the same time. For example if darkrai happens to be a great mew counter and for that reason will get more usage (although I doubt it will have trouble with that otherwise) that won't show anything about it overcentralizing the current OU metagame. And creating a new metagame where 50% of every team is the same doesn't seem fun either (and for some if not all people fun is a reason why they play) and neither will it show anything about the potential overcentralizing that might be happening.

If we are to test anything I think it should be done one at a time otherwise it's just like you're playing ubers IMO

 

[Pikachu of Doom]

I think the question that defines this all is "Why do we have a tier system?".

The main goal, I feel, is 'to have the largest amount of useable pokemon and tactics avaliable' however with the fourth generation and a whole bunch of new stuff I don't think that this is the best idea for keeping the metagame fun and stimulating. People are complaining about the likes of Garchomp being unpredictable and overpowered, the larger the pool the more likely it encompasses pokemon like this and the more pokemon become redundant so obviously we can't acheive a substantially playable environment by just introducing as many pokemon into the same tier simply because of the uneveness of the poke-pool. Now lets imagine a very small pool of pokemon, you don't really have much choice and very little room for strategy.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

On the other hand, we could drop to 30 and that would conclude that yes, we have absurdly powerful pokemon in OU, but it wouldn't start to tell us which ones.

Well, at least we'll know THEY are the problem, and thus, we can test them one at a time.

Or Lati@s+Darkrai, or Mew+Darkrai, or Manaphy+Darkrai+Mew and after that Lati@s... Well, at first we could test them as a whole; we'd need to see the results of the mass-unbanning to proceed to part #2 of the testing.

 

[Fenikkusu]

I think we still need to conclusively define what we would consider overcentralizing first before making tests and then trying to sort the data after.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

I think we still need to conclusively define what we would consider overcentralizing first before making tests and then trying to sort the data after.

Well, I agree with that. But there's a point when only theorymon isn't enough to say how broken would something be in OU, so a mass testing can't be a bad idea.

Of course, no one will ever need a testing period to realize that Mewtwo and Palkia would fuck with the OU metagame, but things like the five "lower" Ubers (Mew, Darkrai, Latias, Latios, Manaphy) have pages and more pages of "they are broken because of this this and that", "what the hell pokémon A B and C do the same thing as they", "so why the fuck do we allow Garchomp" and "CANT YOU SEE THIS THREAD IS TEARING US ALL APART!!". Theorymon really should be our first option to decide the "brokeness" of a certain pokémon, but it can only go so far.

 

[Fenikkusu]

Clearly the answer is to ban garchomp to ubers so that he can't be compared anymore. ;)

 

[xcfrisco]

Clearly the answer is to ban garchomp to ubers so that he can't be compared anymore. ;)

Preach Brother! Preach!


I raised this question in another thread I made not too long ago, what does Smogon even want in a competitive metagame? I've heard allowing the most allowable competitive strategies and pokemon a lot as an answer. This makes sense with the our current definition of OU with allowing the top 75% of used pokemon (its a more complicated formula), but....


I'm starting to think the tiering system is pretty garbage now for the current pokemon metagame. It was cool back in ADV and GSC where OU pokemon had REAL counters like rock paper scissors. This isn't the case in D/P though. You have it so the top 10 or so pokemon pretty much rape everything and have few or no counters. It's kind of pointless trying to have an OU system when everyone just uses the same pokemon anyway.

This is why I think pokemon should NOW be based on power, and not usage. It's startlingly clear that our best pokes have the best movepools/stats/types anyway. Unless a new Uber gets moved down, I'm sure you can expect Garchomp/Gengar/Blissey/Gyarados to constantly be in the top 4 (and those pokemon already form the base of a pretty solid team).

I've heard a lot of people say <insert random BST 600 Uber here> would make the metagame to centralized or whatever. However, is that new metagame anymore centralized than the one we have now? Where the top 4 pokes haven't changes since practically Shoddy's inception?

 

[Fenikkusu]

Unless a new Uber gets moved down, I'm sure you can expect Garchomp/Gengar/Blissey/Gyarados to constantly be in the top 4 (and those pokemon already from the base of a pretty solid team).

You can add Tyrannitar and say top 5. Those 5 have been the top 5 since Shoddy started taking stats.

 

[COalex]

Preach Brother! Preach!


I raised this question in another thread I made not too long ago, what does Smogon even want in a competitive metagame? I've heard allowing the most allowable competitive strategies and pokemon a lot as an answer. This makes sense with the our current definition of OU with allowing the top 75% of used pokemon (its a more complicated formula), but....


I'm starting to think the tiering system is pretty garbage now for the current pokemon metagame. It was cool back in ADV and GSC where OU pokemon had REAL counters like rock paper scissors. This isn't the case in D/P though. You have it so the top 10 or so pokemon pretty much rape everything and have few or no counters. It's kind of pointless trying to have an OU system when everyone just uses the same pokemon anyway.

This is why I think pokemon should NOW be based on power, and not usage. It's startlingly clear that our best pokes have the best movepools/stats/types anyway. Unless a new Uber gets moved down, I'm sure you can expect Garchomp/Gengar/Blissey/Gyarados to constantly be in the top 4 (and those pokemon already form the base of a pretty solid team).

I've heard a lot of people say <insert random BST 600 Uber here> would make the metagame to centralized or whatever. However, is that new metagame anymore centralized than the one we have now? Where the top 4 pokes haven't changes since practically Shoddy's inception?

I agree about how overpowering those guys are, but changing the tier system to power would still leave them in OU . . . a better option would be to just ban them.

 

[Cathy]

It all boils down to the title of this thread - a slippery slope - once you include one then, there shouldn't be a reason not to include the others.

This is a logical fallacy.

This is why I think pokemon should NOW be based on power, and not usage.

You are confused about the theoretical basis of the tier system. Fortunately, Obi gave you a thorough reply in your original topic, which you can refer to.

 

[TheSpinner]

I'm going to say this. If anyone wants to ban the base 600 legends, Garchomp must also be banned.

If Garchomp was a legendary, he would have already been banned to ubers. He overcentralizes the metagame more then any of the base 600 legends currently in OU.

Do people really carry counters for Jirachi/Celebi/Shaymin/etc or worry about them?

How many times has a team been called Garchomp weak? How many threads have been posted lately discussing Garchomp?

If you want to take a look at the base 600 legends currently in OU, please also take a look at the force that is Garchomp.

 

[xcfrisco]

Here's the post Colin is referring to, which i think is excellent:

I can, and I am! However, I don't care to get 'the most variety possible', but rather, just put variety above a certain threshold. For instance, I don't say "Every change must increase the number of Pokemon in the top X% of usage.", but rather, "As long as we get the number of Pokemon in the top X% of usage to be at least N Pokemon, that's good enough. After that, we should concentrate on unbanning as much as possible."

I'm a little bothered about the "good enough" threshold (This is in response to Colin). Arguably, couldn't we make a metagame with most amount of competitively viable pokemon by banning some of the the more OU pokemon? I'm arguing that this "good enough threshold" is in fact not good enough because it allows some very OU pokemon in (see Garchomp) while leaving some other potentially OU pokemon (the BST 600 ubers) out on jaded assumptions and reasonings.

We wouldn't have this problem if we measured our tiers on power. Some pokemon would just be too powerful and banned. Its as clear as daylight (Obviously we need to take the requirements of what power consists of into account, but almost every other competitive metagame does this, its not like pokemon is the first competitive game ever with complex mechanics). What's the argument from the usage point of view? Pokemon X is used too much and therefore needs to be banned?

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Here's what I think "overcentralizing" means. Take Garchomp for example. Garchomp is so stupidly powerful that he is on nearly every team. For this reason, a team that doesn't have a way to handle Garchomp is immediately relegated to the shittiness pile for this lack of countering. If a pokemon is so powerful that not having a counter to it on a team completely invalidates the team, then at that point, that pokemon has forced the entire metagame to be built around it. And hell, Garchomp barely even has a counter anyway because of Sand Veil and the like.

In Ubers, Garchomp would still be powerful, but the existence of things like Kyogre and Groudon nullify Sand Veil, and his offensive power is outclassed by a lot of things, namely Rayquaza, who does everything that Garchomp does but better, though the lack of Thunder Wave immunity hurts it somewhat, but is made up for by the immunity to Ground.

Basically, Garchomp is somewhere in the middle- not exactly Ubers-stomping material, but still ridiculously powerful. STABed Earthquake gives it an edge over Rayquaza, as well as its increased speed, but lack of access to Dragon Dance nullifies the latter.

 

[Janenmori]

I'm going to say this. If anyone wants to ban the base 600 legends, Garchomp must also be banned.

If Garchomp was a legendary, he would have already been banned to ubers. He overcentralizes the metagame more then any of the base 600 legends currently in OU.

Do people really carry counters for Jirachi/Celebi/Shaymin/etc or worry about them?

How many times has a team been called Garchomp weak? How many threads have been posted lately discussing Garchomp?

If you want to take a look at the base 600 legends currently in OU, please also take a look at the force that is Garchomp.

Wow, you seriously need to take into consideration the other base 600's that are in the metagame. Garchomp is taken down by several things in OU, and is raped by almost every single Uber. You cannot say hypothetically that "if it was a legend" because it is not. It is as difficult to obtain as Bagon, Dratini, or Larvitar.

People do carry counters for Jirachi/Celebi/Shaymin/etc. if their team is threatened by them.

 

[xcfrisco]

You are confused about the theoretical basis of the tier system. Fortunately, Obi gave you a thorough reply in your original topic, which you can refer to.

I know what the tier system is for pokemon and I think it no longer serves a proper purpose in trying to create the healthiest metagame. We have pokemon that abuse the system and pokemon that aren't allowed to abuse the system. We ban pokemon into Ubers based of power and we define OU with usage. How does that make any sense? Why not go for all power, Or all usage? If pokemon X is used too much we ban it. If pokemon X is too powerful we ban it. They're conflicting ideals. Our OU is "supposed" to find pokemon that are used too much (ie broken) and then ban them. How can we ever accomplish this if all the pokemon that "might* be used too much are banned before we can even see if they're broken in terms of usage? How can we even justify banning pokemon is they're never given a chance to be used?

It seems to me that the mix of power and usage to construct our tiers is faulting us.

/end rant