Other Tiers RBY 7U Hub

[Sabelette]

I actually was hoping for more Tentacool lead teams to be added so if you’d like to share some please do! Not many people offered any when I was looking for teams.

The reason for calling it “big 4” in this case is less a commentary on Bat’s viability (easy #2 imo) and more on Meowth + FWG being the easiest and most standard setup for most players and therefore how I named the samples. It’s a tad misleading but certainly not bad for sample teams imo. Also happy to substitute in some other Shellder team if you have one.

 

[The Faz]

Decided to make a comic to celebrate the upcoming tournament.

While we wait for the post to go live I think we prob should discuss the stuff that changed since last time, right? Most of the stuff said is a combination between what I've personally seen in my games and the general concensus in the discord channel.

• Clefairy seems to exist now; that's pretty cool. Twave, Counter, Psychic, Sing, Blizzard, lots of utility and good moves, on top of respecable bulk and no real weakness other than low speed makes it a pretty cool and viable mon. It could even take the role of sleeper too.
• Talking about sleeper seems people are trying out Ivyless? If that's the case anyone tell me how that might be going; I'm not sure how that will play out but it's a neat idea.
• Rhydon seems to have been falling a little but I'm sure it'll be back eventually, specially since people are trying Voltorb more than ever now. Dude just got lost using google maps he'll be back in a few minutes don't worry.
• Hitmonchan still seems to be good and I still don't see people running it what's up with that
• Golbat is a menace and has been fucking shit up. That mf deserves jail time, Confuse Ray is a criminal move actual spiteful gameplay.

That's my general thoughts on this pre-tournament meta, where more of the meta will be crystalized as the tournaments go on. What y'all think, of both the comic and the thoughts?

 

[The Faz]

I think Rhyhorn is a pretty bad mon when it's not facing Voltorb. 7U doesn't have enough support to let slow freight train mons succeed much. It feels like you load it ONLY because of Voltorb, not because it's a good mon you can do damage with. I put Clef and Voltorb way above Rhyhorn. Hitmonchan, Fetch'd, and Rhyhorn can fight for order. Everything below those is pretty questionable in the meta in general imo, Beedrill is for sure not good and Kabuto definitely has more advantages over Shellder.

I do think Horn's advantage over Charm is undertalked about, imo.

Horn vs Charm calcs and reasoning (sane)

Charmeleon Fire Blast vs. Rhyhorn: 93-110 (25.6 - 30.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
Rhyhorn Earthquake vs. Charmeleon: 275-324 (86.2 - 101.5%) -- 10.3% chance to OHKO
burned Rhyhorn Earthquake vs. Charmeleon: 137-162 (42.9 - 50.7%) -- 2.2% chance to 2HKO

On the worst case scenario - you switch into the FBlast and get burned - you still deal a very significant amount of damage to Charm. And this only happens if:

1. Charm clicks FBlast over Slash or Counter
2. Charm hits FBlast (85% chance)
3. FBlast burns (30% chance)

It's a pretty long list of ifs - and the end result is the matchup becoming even between the two. Even if you're not hard switching Rhyhorn in you can revenge bring in Rhyhorn when Charmeleon kills something for free high damage as it switches out; that's notable.

In addition:

Rhyhorn vs Meowth calcs (sane)

Meowth Bubble Beam vs. Rhyhorn: 214-252 (58.9 - 69.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Rhyhorn Earthquake vs. Meowth: 173-204 (61.1 - 72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

You can pretty safely switch Rhyhorn into Meowth's Slash and trade your Horn for half of the Meowth's HP; this means late game your Meowth will win the ditto later on, a very good trait to have in the late game. Furthermore Golbat lead is becoming more and more prevalent - this means more and more often Golbat dies early, meaning Horn has to guess between Rock Slide and EQ much less now.

And of course, with Voltorb and Farfetch rizing the scenarios where Rhyhorn excels at is becoming more and more common.

Also: Here's some cool calcs with Rhyhorn being wiht 75% HP, ie after using Substitute.

Rhyhorn Sub calcs (sane)

Clefairy Blizzard vs. Rhyhorn: 239-282 (65.8 - 77.6%) -- 25.6% chance to OHKO
Meowth Bubble Beam vs. Rhyhorn: 214-252 (58.9 - 69.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Golbat Mega Drain vs. Rhyhorn: 183-216 (50.4 - 59.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

These calcs mean that if you bring Rhyhorn in right as Charmeleon killed something else and you read a switch you can safely put up a Substitute to see if they're going for Golbat or not; this way you don't EQ a Golbat switch in or Rock Slide something else. Doing this doesn't compromise your ability to damage Meowth for half its health late in the game (altho it does open up the possibility for Clefairy to OHKO you).

Interestingly enough having used Substitute earlier in the game actually IMPROVES your matchup against Golbat:

Golbat vs Chipped Rhyhorn (the beginning of the end)

100% HP Golbat vs 100% HP Rhyhorn:
Golbat Mega Drains for 50.4 - 59.5%, recovers nothing since it's at 100%
Rhyhorn Rock Slides for 52.4 - 61.7% (Golbat is now at 48-39%)
Golbat Mega Drains for ~50%, healing 26%.
Golbat leaves the trade with ~74-65% HP.

100% HP Golbat vs 75% HP Rhyhorn:
Golbat Mega Drains for 50.4 - 59.5%, recovers nothing since it's at 100%
Rhyhorn Rock Slides for 52.4 - 61.7% (Golbat is now at 48-39%)
Golbat Mega Drains for ~25%, healing 13%.
Golbat leaves the trade with ~61-52% HP.

Here's why this is significant (send help)

This difference in healing of 13% is significant; it means in the worst case scenario it goes from Meowth having a 25% chance to 2HKO Golbat at 74% HP to always 2HKO'ing Golbat at 61%.
Meowth Slash vs. Golbat on a critical hit: 117-138 (33.1 - 39%) -- 25.6% chance to 2HKO
Meowth Slash vs. Golbat on a critical hit: 117-138 (33.1 - 39%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

On the worst case scenario, 52% vs 65%, they're both equal:
Meowth Slash vs. Golbat on a critical hit: 117-138 (33.1 - 39%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Meowth Slash vs. Golbat on a critical hit: 117-138 (33.1 - 39%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Also, before you comment Golbat's Double-Edge does 7.7 - 9.2% recoil damage. Here are the calcs for Golbat at 67% (74 - 7) and 54% (61 - 7):
Meowth Slash vs. Golbat on a critical hit: 117-138 (33.1 - 39%) -- 98.9% chance to 2HKO
Meowth Slash vs. Golbat on a critical hit: 117-138 (33.1 - 39%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This means that, if Rhyhorn's Rock Slide did the minimun amount of damage possible vs Golbat and Golbat's first Double-Edge did minimun damage vs your Meowth AND your Meowth won the speed tie on the second turn you'd avoid a 1.1% chance of your Meowth taking a second Double-Edge!

Incredible!

Here I truly lose it (arguably more relevant)

Okay, but this is all very hypothetical except OF COURSE we were forgetting the Meowth Thunderbolt on Golbat Tech! Of course! The classic Meowth Thunderbolt on Golbat Tech. A classic 7U manouver don't say you didn't study this on the curriculum.
Jokes aside the Meowth's Tbolt against Golbat does marginally less damage vs Golbat:

Meowth Slash vs. Golbat on a critical hit: 117-138 (33.1 - 39%) -- 100% chance to 3HKO
Meowth Thunderbolt vs. Golbat: 100-118 (28.3 - 33.4%) -- 0% chance to 3HKO

However Thunderbolt has a 10% chance to paralyze and can critical hit. Sadly, Tbolt into Slash Slash isnt always guaranteed to 3HKO so it's not very used but on some 2HKO lines like if the Golbat is at 50% HP for example going Tbolt into Slash is a guaranteed 2HKO on top of having the chance for Tbolt to crit OHKO or Tbolt to para, guaranteeing the outspeed turn 2.

Now, let's go back to our Golbat's health:
~74-65% HP on a full HP Rhyhorn and ~61-52% HP on a 75% HP Rhyhorn. Post 1 Double-Edge the numbers become 67%-58% and 54%-45%. The minimun damage of Tbolt into Slash is 61.4. This means that, if you used Substitute with Rhyhorn before, Tbolt into Slash always kills a Golbat that has been chipped via Rhyhorn's Rock Slide.

Cool

I have willingly decided to not do calcs about Rhyhorn-Chipped Golbat vs Golbat because
A: That implies even more Double-Edge Recoil Calcs
B: That implies fucking around with Confuse Ray self-damage calcs
C: That implies Hyper Beam calcs should also come into the picture
For the sake of my sanity I will not do this but if anyone does decide to go that route happy calculating.

So, with all that said, is this all worth trading a 2HKO from Clef's Blizz into a 25% OHKO? Probably not. But hey, if you scout no Clef or if it's already down then there's really no reason for your Horn not to click Substitute! You don't have to predict between EQ and RSlide and you get a marginaly small theoretically better endgame against Golbat so hooray

What y'all think btw

 

[Sabelette]

7U resource document is now officially 100% complete (we were only missing a Venonat analysis by the time this tournament started anyway but still a nice milestone!)

 

[The Faz]

Hooray! All analysis are now done! Heck yeah, very nice! ^-^

On other news I also started doing a little project of mine: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U2FxrrD_pSWkF0C6qML6T2dJ2osCReIsrJzSk3e_YbY/edit?usp=sharing A sheet!

I've made these sheets to learn how to mess with Google Sheets so they're not the most refined thing but they're pretty cool, I think.
The idea is to plop down how many hits each pokemon needs to kill another - ie, Meowth just needs 2 hits to KO Tentacool, so 2 there. I then did some averages and some interesting data came up.

As a disclaimer this is my first time really making a spreadsheet like this so there'll probably be a few errors around, be it on the calcs or on the sheets themselves. If any please let me know so I can fix it asap. It also doesn't consider misses or crits so a few things are a bit biased, and I didn't put the calcs for Rhyhorn and Ivy facing against Voltorb.

It's VERY flawed, doesn't account for speed tiers or anything, being very primitive but I thought it was cool enough to share; what y'all think? The first page is just the relevant mons while on the second page there's a few more mons. Also, the beedrill section is a bit of a mess since I'm not super good with HBeam calcs but it does show a noticeable increase of firepower if you drop Swords Dance for Double-Edge; could 4 attacks bee be viable?

Eitherway, what y'all think'?

 

[Sabelette]

A second tour has just concluded but we haven't collected the stats yet, so there will be lots to look at! Quick thoughts after the tour:

1. Shellder and Beedrill suck ass, 8U time.
2. Doduo is actually kind of sick, I think it has potential.
3. Jigglypuff wasn't as ass as I expected.
4. Kabuto is... not great and Counter lines have gotten more and more optimized to the point both this and Hitmonchan are suffering.
5. Ivysaur is still near mandatory and not at all bad.
6. Rhyhorn sucks ass but you have to play it once in a while to help with Orb fishing.
7. Lead Orb going Tbolt -> Boom into Ivy is actually not bad. I started doing this back before the first tour and people told me they thought it was bad, but no, I think this is actually a very valid line.
8. Lead Hitmonchan is continuing to bear out results, very cool development.
9. Ban Confuse Ray this shit sucks.

 

[The Faz]

Second place in the tour so I suppose I gotta post my thoughts on the meta.

1: You do need Horn: Horn is exceptionally mid on most matchups: It can trade for half a Meowth's HP if it didn't crit, it can switch kinda OK vs Charm and deal some damage, and that's kinda it. Depending on the HPs you could Rock Slide the Golbat but Drain makes it very awkward and you might not even make progress. However, Orb is really, really good - you really do need to run Horn from time to time in order to not be orbspammed, which is very scary. Orb is an exceedingly scary mon if it can get in so minimizing the amount of games it's brought vs you, even if it means sometimes you have to run Horn, is a net positive in winrate I feel.

2: No, you do need Ivy: Cutting Ivy is bad. Period. Ivy on itself is a really strong mon: Sleep is death in this format so it's at least trading 1-for-1. Body Slam could para something on the switch-in, which in this format is essentially being marked for death. Razor Leaf also does great damage to very important targets like Meowth or Clef. Not only is Ivy an amazing mon in on itself but also - it makes your Orb matchup so unbelievably better. Seriously it's worth it to run Horn just to make the Orb matchup better, you do NOT want to be caught Ivyless vs Orb. If you don't have Ivy then Orb becomes the strongest mon in the tier and there's literally nothing you can do to trade well vs it.

3: Ivy is worth booming on: It's turn 2 and your Voltorb is facing an Ivy that was damaged by Tbolt. You boom here. 100% of the time you boom here. You CANNOT switch here. Here's the thing: If you switch the Voltorb out, whatever you switch in has a 75% chance of being put to sleep. And if that does hit what are you going to do? They have a healthy Ivy at 100% and one of your mons is asleep - it already traded 1-for-1. They can then retreat their Ivy to 1v1 Meowth, going 2-for-1 on mon economy.

And you still have Voltorb!!
You have a team of six. One of them is asleep, one is Voltorb and the third is Meowth. Half of your team either already died to Ivy (the mon asleep) or has very small chances of trading evenly vs the Ivy (Meowth and especially Voltorb). Switching the Orb out to Charm or Tent 75% of the time leads to an almost unwinnable game for the Orb player, on turn 3. That is exceedingly early to lose the game. If you boom with Orb you don't kill the Ivy outright except for a crit - however both Charm and Tenta have ways to kill it froma minroll Explosion so that Ivy is as good as dead.

4: Flamethrower Charmeleon is legit: I've ran Flamethrower on my Charm for the vast majority of the tour and I can say it works. Fire Spin is a really, really bad move; let's assume optimal Fire Spin usage here: IE, you only clicking it when you would lose the game on literally every other line. That's a really rare scenario that doesn't come up very often; I didn't come across it during my games, at the very least, and if I did it required multile fire spins to connect in a row. Also, clicking Fire Spin midgame or earlygame is suicide and you may have a gambling problem.

Back to Flamethrower, it's a really nice option; I've found several instances in my game where both Fire Blast and Flamethrower are guarantee'd KO's but Slash isn't. Most notably a Voltorb's Explosion never puts Ivy in Slash's range but it always puts it in Flamethrower's (and FBlast's) range. Clicking FBlast there, missing and getting put to sleep is game-losing so avoiding this 15% of the time nightmare scenario is very, very nice. Voltorb lead teams in particular would like Flamethrower on Charm I feel.

Another use case for Flamethrower is vs Clefairy. FBlast, Flamethrower and Slash are all 3HKOs - Flamethrower is a 80% chance to 3HKO but you can sprinkle a Slash if you get the lowrolls or FBlast if you get really bad lowrolls. Flamethrower is great here due to both avoiding the 15% miss chance of FBlast but also the Counter punish of Slash, all while not sacrificing too much power on this matchup. I highly encourage swapping Fire Spin for Flamethrower on your sets and on the damage calc, they really do come up from time to time.

5: Confuse Ray has to go: Everyone already knows this, but I want to add another wrinkle to the discussion: The Ivy matchup. With Confuse Ray banned the Bat - Ivy matchup is really solidly in Ivy's favor while with it allowed it's an RNGfest of ungodly proportions. Ivy hitting itself, Sleep Powder misses, it's genuinely unbearable. Ban this thing next tour for the love of god, or if you're feeling merciful Sabelette next week so I don't have to play against it in friendlies either.

6: Clefairy is really good, Hitmon is really good but people run it less than they should me included, Bee is terrible and so is Shellder: Clefairy has basically no bad matchups, other than Ivy and Hitmonchan on top of spreading deadly status and some great super-effective moves. Hitmonchan hits important targets (Clefairy, Meowth, Tentacool) and can spread status via Body Slam; really fast, really nice. Bee is terible - specially setup sets. I could see a future with 3 damaging moves Bee or even 4 damaging moves bee, but it's definitely a 8U mon. Shellder has no business being in 7U; I once was Shellder's strongest soldier but I'm sorry little buddy, but you're just not bulky enough and doesn't do enough damage. You'll forever be in my heart but your Blizzard can't damage Ivy enough.


So if there's one thing to take from this, is

TAKE IVY MORE SERIOUSLY.

Seriously, Ivy is a menace and easily top 5, arguably top 4 and I'd be willing to even call it top 3 - specially if CRay ban goes through. It can extremely easily pay off its team slot going 1-for-1 (something you can't say for a ton of the lower tier mons here), has extra usefulness with Body Slam para's and Razor Leaf can deal with several top threats.

Look over at my post: Almost every paragraph mentions Ivy. It's that important to 7U and the recent developments that have arizen during this second tour - almost all of it is in Ivy's favor. Clef being great? Ivy outspeeds and Razor Leafs or Sleep Powders it. Bee going down? Ivy no longer has to worry about it. Orb everywhere? Ivy's here. Ivy got a bit of a bad rep after the first tour since Golbat Confuse Ray could hax through it and that was the main innovation on the first tour but with Clef and Orb rizing on this second tour you really can't sleep on it.

If your team has Orb in it, specially on the lead spot, failing to respect Ivy can lead to unwinnable games. If you give Ivy too many spaces, too many free turns - heck, I'd even say giving it one free turn already is too much - then you're very much behind. One of your mons got KO'd for free, another is Body Slam Para'd and some of your key generic progress makers - Clef, Orb and Meowth - are all intimidated by Ivy. Even Golbat can be put in a tight spot vs Ivy: They're both really bulky so Ivy gets a lot of oportunities to Body Slam paralyze Golbat, and a para'd Golbat loses a lot of its bite.

Seriously, Ivy is top 5 easily. It is extremely good and has a ton of tools. And no you can't replace it with Gloom, hitting Meowth and Clefairy with Razor Edge is really good. I got 20 bucks out of respecting Ivy and all you got from playing Gloom was clown makeup. We are not the same.

Eitherway thank you and good night.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Is Confuse Ray banned yet? I'll ask again later.

 

[Ggustavo_073]

Sorry for probably asking a dumb question, but charmeleon can't get dig on this format right? His coverage is just so much better with it, it can even harm horn, and I never saw anyone using it.

 

[Ggustavo_073]

Other thing, If I REALLY needed to chose beetwen double-edge or hyper beam for bat which would you guys recommend?

 

[Teh]

Sorry for probably doing a dumb question, but charmeleon can't get dig on this format right? His coverage is just so much better with it, it can even harm rhyhorn, and I never saw anyone using it.

No. Dig is banned because if a Pokémon full paralyzes in the semi-invulnerable state of Dig/Fly, the move cancels and you stay invulnerable. This lets you attack with other moves while completely invincible.

Other thing, If I REALLY needed to chose beetwen double-edge or hyper beam for bat which would you guys recommend?

You always use both. Those are Golbat's main attacking moves and removing either seriously limits its offensive potential.

And for orb, do I go for Tbolt or Thunder?

Thunderbolt should always be used before Thunder. If you want to use Thunder, use it as your fourth move.

Please try not to spam the forum with multiple posts at the same time. Just put every question in the same post. Theres also a 7u channel in the RBY Discord if you're interested =)

 

[Ggustavo_073]

No. Dig is banned because if a Pokémon full paralyzes in the semi-invulnerable state of Dig/Fly, the move cancels and you stay invulnerable. This lets you attack with other moves while completely invincible.


You always use both. Those are Golbat's main attacking moves and removing either seriously limits its offensive potential.


Thunderbolt should always be used before Thunder. If you want to use Thunder, use it as your fourth move.

Please try not to spam the forum with multiple posts at the same time. Just put every question in the same post. Theres also a 7u channel in the RBY Discord if you're interested =)

Thanks for the help <3
I'll not do it anymore, while for the discord, I'm only waiting until this account is 1 week old

No. Dig is banned because if a Pokémon full paralyzes in the semi-invulnerable state of Dig/Fly, the move cancels and you stay invulnerable. This lets you attack with other moves while completely invincible.


You always use both. Those are Golbat's main attacking moves and removing either seriously limits its offensive potential.


Thunderbolt should always be used before Thunder. If you want to use Thunder, use it as your fourth move.

Please try not to spam the forum with multiple posts at the same time. Just put every question in the same post. Theres also a 7u channel in the RBY Discord if you're interested =)

Also, I'm trying to make golbat an more support and "annoying" mon actually so I really need to choose between one of those

 

[Teh]

Also, I'm trying to make golbat an more support and "annoying" mon actually so I really need to choose between one of those

That's fine, but that kind of set is really bad since Golbat is such an amazing mon and is capable of so much more than just spamming Screech and Confuse Ray. You would probably want to use Double Edge since you won't have any attacking moves without drawbacks otherwise.

 

[Ggustavo_073]

That's fine, but that kind of set is really bad since Golbat is such an amazing mon and is capable of so much more than just spamming Screech and Confuse Ray. You would probably want to use Double Edge since you won't have any attacking moves without drawbacks otherwise.

Thanks for the help, and for the advice as well!

 

[Ggustavo_073]

No. Dig is banned because if a Pokémon full paralyzes in the semi-invulnerable state of Dig/Fly, the move cancels and you stay invulnerable. This lets you attack with other moves while completely invincible.


You always use both. Those are Golbat's main attacking moves and removing either seriously limits its offensive potential.


Thunderbolt should always be used before Thunder. If you want to use Thunder, use it as your fourth move.

Please try not to spam the forum with multiple posts at the same time. Just put every question in the same post. Theres also a 7u channel in the RBY Discord if you're interested =)

Is fly banned as well?

 

[Northdakotan]

I've been contemplating on Confuse Ray for a while now. The move itself is certainly not broken in the sense of being too powerful. It is on average less impactful than Wrap in terms of damage done and turns prevented, without the same benefit of a guaranteed safe switch. There are times when it basically deletes a Pokemon, but that's just a bit more likely than a freeze (11% chance) that confusion prevents 3 or 4 turns, allowing Golbat to kill basically anything. Golbat can take more opportunities to use Confuse Ray than anything in the tier gets to use Blizzard, so a Golbat confusion deletion will happen more in 7U than a Tentacool freeze deletion. Also with the omnipresence of Charmeleon, thawing out isn't entirely out of the question (only mostly impossible, not much takes a Blizzard and then a Fire Blast).

The more compelling argument to ban Confuse Ray is that it's uncompetitive. You don't use Blizzard just for the chance of a freeze, you use it for the damage on Grass types and if you get a freeze on something then "cool". You don't use paralysis to get random free turns, you use it to slow things down, and the free turns are another thing that happens. Confuse Ray you use mostly to avoid getting damaged yourself and damage is a bonus. This doesn't seem to be significantly different from accuracy reducing moves. The differences are the lack of chip damage for failed hits, accuracy initially giving you a 1/3 chance to hit instead of 1/2, accuracy doesn't stop the use of personal stat modifying moves like Agility, and confusion ending without having to switch out. Confusion on average costs the afflicted Pokemon 1.25 turns. An accuracy drop costs 1/3 attack per turn, so over the course of 4 turns, or the maximum possible duration of confusion, a single accuracy drop will cost more expected turns than a single Confuse Ray will. There's probably a psychological element that makes it seem like confusion is worse because you may think "I can snap out of this and be fine" whereas with an accuracy drop you may just switch out earlier. The chip is important though, it often allows you to ko in one less turn by switching the last move to a Hyper Beam.

But now I'm talking about Golbat's kit in particular, which is kind of where this is all going. The problem isn't Confuse Ray, at least not anymore than Sand-Attack or freeze or paralysis is a problem. The problem is Confuse Ray being attached to Golbat's speed stat. If Golbat had a speed stat under Hitmonchan's, Hitmonchan, Charmeleon or Meowth could use Substitute to blank Confuse Ray (although Charmeleon would be hard pressed to fit sub). Hitmonchan and Charmeleon are the targets where Confuse Ray makes the most sense because its best use is to avoid being hit by Counter since Golbat has no good moves that aren't normal type (and Charmeleon resists Mega Drain while Hitmonchan takes a good bit from confusion and not a ton from Double-Edge anyway). As is, Golbat's Confuse Ray can be frustrating because it can allow it to win matchups it shouldn't be able to at a higher rate than any other legal move in the tier. It's about a 36% chance that Golbat gets the two free turns it needs to have justified using Confuse Ray by getting to fire off a different move all while not being attacked itself. This is a lower chance than getting off sleep and having it last long enough to mean anything, even if your using Sing. The fact that Golbat doesn't have to get hit before it uses Confuse Ray is the difference maker.

So overall I think it makes more sense to ban Golbat than it does to ban Confuse Ray. I know that the only other 2 Pokemon "in the tier" that get Confuse Ray are Vulpix and... Zubat so banning Golbat would have a much bigger impact on the metagame than just banning Confuse Ray, but Confuse Ray isn't broken or especially uncompetitive, it's just Confuse Ray on Golbat that can be declared uncompetitive. On the other hand, Golbat is kind of sick and it would be interesting to see which of its few moves replaces Confuse Ray. Screech and Rest are probably the top contenders, but Substitute can give you a better chance to wake up against Ivysaur (or Gloom) since they can't break the Sub without a crit. I'd also like to see Wing Attack, since it is a little bit better against Ivysaur, meaning a crit on the Wing Attack is more likely to put it in Hyper Beam ko range than a crit Double-Edge, and it removes the remarkably narrow possibility of a crit Hyper Beam follow up not picking up the ko against an Ivysaur that you have if you use Double-Edge. Generally Wing Attacks slight increase in damage against Ivysaur can really matter, and it dodges Counter while still being your best non recharge hit against Hitmonchan and Charmeleon (but don't use it against Charmeleon often, the option being there to keep the Charmeleon honest is all that really matters in that matchup).

TL;DR, I don't know if I would vote to ban Confuse Ray or Golbat itself for that matter. Probably not.

P.S. we should try to reintroduce Diglett first as it is something that can revenge kill (a nearly dead) Golbat without being literally unable to do anything to the switch in. It is worse against Ivysaur by a bit though because you can't revenge it with a Charmeleon's Slash and therefore allow in an opponent Charmeleon or healthy Tentacool easier, but an 18.5% crit on either the Rock slide or Earthquake, a Sleep Powder on a predicted switch or a miss on either the Sleep Powder or the Razor Leaf can help the situation.

 

[Sabelette]

This isn't an official tier and the only thing I care about is that people are having fun with it, I'm perfectly okay with banning Confuse Ray over Golbat regardless of tiering logic for other tiers. Adding Diglett to address the problem of Confuse Ray being an uncompetitive move is backwards. The problem isnt that Golbat is unstoppable, it's that, as you mentioned, the move is uncompetitive. Every element of it is random and a 4 turn confusion steals 2 turns and deals 20% damage on average, but it can as easily last 1 turn and do nothing as last 4 and self-hit 4 times. I don't think that adds any skill expression to the tier at all.

 

[The Faz]

As is, Golbat's Confuse Ray can be frustrating because it can allow it to win matchups it shouldn't be able to at a higher rate than any other legal move in the tier. It's about a 36% chance that Golbat gets the two free turns it needs to have justified using Confuse Ray by getting to fire off a different move all while not being attacked itself.

This isn't really, true?
Golbat doesn't need 2 confusion turns to justify clicking Confuse Ray - it needs 1.
Golbat wastes 1 turn clicking Confuse Ray and the opponent wastes 1 turn hitting itself - you break even, nothing was gained or lost. Add in the confusion chip damage however and it's not favorable for Golbat - both sides lost 1 turn but the opposing side also lost a few %. This means that if the enemy hits itself once the Golbat already was justified and is profiting off the Confuse Ray.

And, on average, the opponent hits itself 1,2 times when you click Confuse Ray. That means that, on average, clicking Confuse Ray means the opponent will hit itself once. And on the times it doesn't happen it's more common for the opponent to hit itself more than once than to not hit itself at all.

This means that if the opponent isn't confused and isn't on 2HKO range then you are mathematically encouraged to click Confuse Ray both for the chip and for the times they hit themselves twice in a row.

If this was just a bad RNG move, it'd be fine; annoying, but fine. But it's a good RNG move, one that you need to abuse if you want to get every advantage possible. As a tour player I don't want to know that the optimal strategy is clicking such a RNG-heavy move like Confuse Ray, and I sure as heck don't wanna play against it either.

 

[Northdakotan]

This isn't really, true?
Golbat doesn't need 2 confusion turns to justify clicking Confuse Ray - it needs 1.

Honestly I'm not precisely sure why I phrased it like that. Matchups where you already 2HKO or have a better chance than not to 2HKO even without a crit like Meowth, Tentacool, or Rhyhorn make it true but it's not true of every matchup, especially the ones where a Confuse Ray is pretty much the best play (apart from possibly switching) like Hitmonchan and Charmeleon. It's obviously helpful to have about 10% damage done to the opponent without them getting a chance to respond with an attack of their own, that's a big part of what makes gen 1 partial trapping moves so good. Exactly once is the most likely outcome of using Confuse Ray at 40.6%. Each time you use Confuse Ray and end up with this outcome it's like you used bad (because the effect can be delayed and because of no partial trapping switch) Wrap/Bind. The 23.4% chance that you get nothing for Confuse Ray is like missing bad Wrap/Bind. The 11% chance that Confuse Ray basically kills something is like getting the freeze chance on a Blizzard. The other 25% is of course hitting it twice.

In most situations Golbat can 1v1 what's in front of it without Confuse Ray, then Hyper Beam whatever comes in to finish it (or switch to something that hard walls Voltorb), and that 1 for 1.5ish near guaranteed trade is generally more worthwhile than 11% chance of turning Golbat into a roughly 1 for 2 trade, a 23.4% chance of turning it into a roughly 1 for 1 trade, a 40.6% chance of turning it still being a 1 for 1.5 trade, and a 25% chance at something like a 1 for 1.75 trade, if only narrowly and only because you get one extra turn for Golbat to try for its 17.6% random crits that can let it 1 for 1.75 or 1 for 2 without having to use Confuse Ray.

Using Golbat's Confuse Ray is at best a wash unless its used in one of 2 situations:
1. To avoid a Counter that Golbat's near mono Normal attacks leave it vulnerable to.
2. If you're in a desperate comeback situation and it makes the win more likely than hoping for multiple 1/256 misses.

There may be an argument that that is too good for an RNG move, but I don't think I'm totally there yet, and most of the possible outcomes of this RNG move end up looking like possible outcomes from a partial trapping move or a Blizzard but in the same move. You made me look at the math of using Confuse Ray vs not in a generalized matchup and it's closer than I thought. If we're going to ignore traditional tiering logic anyway, why not just ban Golbat from using Confuse Ray? I get that that is pretty much identical, but I'd still be far more likely to vote for that as it more accurately acknowledges and targets the problem and preserves Golbat to do things that are more fun.

 

[Medusakk325]

Never played the tier + im doo doo at Pokemon but Paras may have a tiny niche, it can take 2 hits from some mons, just enough to Spore. Made some pessimist calcs (highest damage assumed, not including crits, unless it's critty stuff), i'll share them so no one wastes time on Paras ever again!!1.

It can switch into:
-Meowth (if it didn't use slash)
-Golbat (if it doesn't run Wing Attack, of course u have to deal with C Ray but still)
-Ivysaur (Body slam paralysis is the main risk here)
-Rhyhorn (if no fire blast, which outright ohkos and makes this a no-no, rock blast 2 hit KOs but u could go for the speed tie)
-Clefairy (into tbolt, or anything if it doesnt run Blizzard)
-Voltorb (it can explode but that's a W)
-Hitmonchan (anything but Mega Kick, unless it low rolls)
-Beedrill (only into Mega Drain or Double Edge)
-Shellder (Surf only)
-Gloom (if Gloom has Acid, it can switch only into the grass moves, otherwise it can always switch into it)
-Kabuto (Surf only)
-Pidgeotto (can switch into Quick Attack)
-Geodude (cant switch into R Slide, unless gdude is at 82,6 (Minimun Mega Drain damage) as Paras outspeeds and kills with Mega Drain. Can switch into Body Slam and EQ)
-Cubone (can switch into non Fire Blast cubone's BSlam or EQ)
-Rattata (can switch into BSlam, Tbolt, and BubbleBeam, can't switch into blizzard)
-Goldeen (surf only)
-Venonat
-Nidorino (only Tbolt and Double Kick)
-Jigglypuff (Anything but Blizzard)
-Nidorina (can switch into d kick and tbolt)
It can't switch into:
-Charmeleon
-Tentacool
-Grimer
-Koffing
-Farfetch'd

 

[Northdakotan]

Never played the tier + im doo doo at Pokemon but Paras may have a tiny niche, it can take 2 hits from some mons, just enough to Spore.

I'll have to give it a go at some point because it's always cool to dredge up whatever and see if it can be anything in this tier, but I don't think the additional 25% sleep chance is remotely enough to justify using Paras since it is so much worse in general than Ivysaur and even Gloom. Its bulk and typing are just so much worse that it will do much less after getting the sleep off compared to the other 2.

 

[Medusakk325]

Seems too outclassed by Gloom, 99.6% accurate sleep isn't worth the awful bulk and weaker Mega Drain. Its slash also only crits ~39% of the time. Maybe Leech Life has some kinda use as a move Gloom doesn't get?

it (Leech Life) seems to be good against ivysaur, acidless Gloom and Beedrill, all the other poisons ohko or 2hko Paras (Beedrill 2hkos but the healing can save it). i think it's better with reflect and body slam, but it's just a sleep and dip machine.

 

[gastlies]

it (Leech Life) seems to be good against ivysaur, acidless Gloom and Beedrill

Paras Leech Life vs. Ivysaur: 95-112 (29.4 - 34.6%) -- 6.9% chance to 3HKO
Paras Leech Life vs. Gloom: 91-108 (28.1 - 33.4%) -- 0% chance to 3HKO
Paras Leech Life vs. Beedrill: 61-72 (18.3 - 21.6%) -- possible 5HKO

The issue with paras is yeah you might be able to get spore off, but why not just use other sleepers like ivysaur or gloom that can land sleep then actually do something useful?

 

[Medusakk325]

Paras Leech Life vs. Ivysaur: 95-112 (29.4 - 34.6%) -- 6.9% chance to 3HKO
Paras Leech Life vs. Gloom: 91-108 (28.1 - 33.4%) -- 0% chance to 3HKO
Paras Leech Life vs. Beedrill: 61-72 (18.3 - 21.6%) -- possible 5HKO

The issue with paras is yeah you might be able to get spore off, but why not just use other sleepers like ivysaur or gloom that can land sleep then actually do something useful?

yeah of course not saying otherwise, Ivysaur is too valuable to ever use Paras, as i said, just sleep and dip, maybe paralyze with body slam but that's it really

 

[The Faz]

I feel like the sample teams could use some cutting down and updating.
Right now it has 14 teams, which is a lot a lot for a tier like this. It's closer to a team repository than a sample team in some aspects. Tentaless teams are also very underrepresented here compared to how great they are. Furthermore none have been updated for Confuse Ray ban as well.

Thoughts on teams to remove

Char Lead Big 4 + Bee Bat
I think this team has to go. Bee just isn't good enough - it's too frail, too setup-reliant and doesn't hit hard enough as you'd want. I wouldn't call it viable at all, and even if it was barely playable that isn't good enough to feature on a sample team imho.


Chan Lead with Kabuto & SingClef
Same reason for the bee one, but this one with Kabuto. I don't think such a bad mon needs to be on a sample team, specially when you're dropping Ivy for a less reliable singclef. With Cray also now essentially banned this team folds exceedingly hard to ivy - it walls hitmon & golbat, outspeeds and OHKOs Kabuto and can trade with Meowth and Clefairy. It's an awesome team, but very exploitable.


SingClef + BatHorn
SingClef is inherently unreliable and only really should be done for role compression to cut Ivy. Here it's being done for, seemingly no reason tbfh. Horn is a subpar mon that you bring so people don't scout you lacking and bring Voltorb. Horn teams are teams you run 5 solid mons + Horn to compensate for Horn underperforming if it's not vs Voltorb. Pairing it with Singclef means you have a general low quality of mons.

Furthermore, this team really dislikes Ivy, which is a massive problem. After Ivy sleep powders one of your mons it's not uncommon to switch in your own Ivy to put their Ivy to sleep but here you have no good switchins after Ivy sleeps. Ivy trades nicely with Bat or Cat, Tenta really does not wanna take the Body Slam on the switchin and Clef and Horn are both slower than it, further complicating the Ivy.

Both of these issues would be solved by replacing the Clef with Ivy. Regardless - I don't like this team.


Big 4 + Horn Bat

I'm mostly calling for cuts on this one due to redundancy - Bat Lead + Big 4 + Horn is literally the same team except with Bat rather than Tenta on the lead, and the lead doesn't change that much in this scenario. I'm saying to cut the Tenta lead rather than the Bat lead due to Tenta being good at dueling Ivy later on, a job which Horn appreciates, and due to Bat lead having a great job at defusing Tenta lead, again another job that Horn appreciates, making this overall a better team than if Tenta was leading


Big 4 + Bat Fetch’d

Char Lead Gloom Orb Fetch’d

Farfetch'd is a weird mon in the context of 7U. Very underused but there's some compelling arguments to do it and I personally don't really know much about the mon. That being said, I feel weird having two Fetch samples, tbh. I feel 1 is enough. I feel like the obvious cut would be the Gloom Orb team due to how exoteric it is, but I'm tagging Sabelette since she's the Fetch expert on which of these two teams is worse

Team I'd add

Bat Lead + Clef + Orb
This is my current go-to team - it works wonders and fits many of the gaps that the current sample team lacks.
Firstly, it adds a standard no tenta team - the other 2 no tenta teams both drop Ivy, and one of them is the aforementioned Kabuto team.
Secondly, it adds another back orb team. Despite being excellent there's only two (!) back orb teams in the samples - a standard Bat Lead + Big 4 + Voltorb team and the aforementioned Char Lead Gloom Orb Fetch’d team. Speaking from experience I'd call this the best Bat lead team and at the top of the Golbat lead teams.

I feel like a general "Team repository" spoiler could be made to house these nicher teams rather than having them together with the other sample teams, but that's beyond the point. Updating the sample teams and OP to reflect the CRay ban as well would be ideal too I feel