Lower Tiers RBY Lower Tier Restructuring Proposal and Discussion

Sabelette

from the river to the sea
is a Site Content Manageris a Community Contributoris a Metagame Resource Contributoris a Top Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Hello RBY gamers,

I am once again here with an absolute wall of text for you. This one probably would fit well in Policy Review, but I think as a cross-tier RBY concern it makes sense to discuss here.

I. The Problem(s)
If you've spent any time playing low tiers in the last few years, you have probably complained about the disproportionate prevalence of fast, high-crit offensive staples on every team and the lack of defensive counterplay. I've outlined the issues that I believe cause this below.

a. Centralization
Every low tier suffers from a centralization issue where a core set of 4-6 Pokemon can or should be run on practically every team. If they do not currently suffer from this because of a metagame shakeup, like current NU, they still trend back toward this. This leads to both matchup fishing and static, on-rails gameplay where the lines are always obvious, meaning the only deciding factor remaining is RNG - crits, paralysis, speed ties, etc.

b. Offense Outpaces Defense
The centralizing Pokemon tend to be frail offensive ones, meaning that games can swing excessively by them getting a crit, taking a crit, missing an attack, or full paralyzing. This is because RBY crit mechanics and the centralization caused by OU leave lower tiers with very few reasonable defensive options that can keep pace even if they have to click Rest. OU has monopolized a lot of the strongest defensive picks and the best ones left to UU - Lapras and Hypno - have simply too much offense and defense and utility compared to their peers. This leaves us often using bottom-tier defensive picks to fend off top-tier offensive picks in every tier - Tangela to fend off Dugtrio, Exeggcute to fend off Mr. Mime, Omanyte to hold back Arcanine.

c. Tiering Cutoffs
Defensive Pokemon tend to occupy the lower rungs of a tier but get kept in a tier for an understandable reason - they do have a real niche in checking top threats. However, this deprives tiers below of the option of using these defensive Pokemon to help check their offensive threats without actually providing benefit to the higher tier, which could still use that Pokemon if it dropped. Cutoffs are subjective, yet we keep any defensive mon with a niche in the tier even if it sees 1% use. Why do we do this when Omastar can still check Articuno and Dodrio even if we make it a C rank and let it fall to NU?

d. Ban Reluctance
The playerbases of various low tiers are hesitant to ban Pokemon, once again understandably - these offensive Pokemon do have answers to an extent and there's no guarantee that the banned Pokemon ever gets a fair retest later. This is exacerbated by current voting reqs letting people who played a tier 3 metas ago vote on whether things are broken now, leading to situations like Fearow surviving an obvious ban because it was less broken in a less optimized metagame. However, this is 2024, and RBY low tiers have extremely active leadership, so the worries of something getting exiled for eternity with no though of reevaluating it later shouldn't be a concern.

II. The Evidence

Key
Red, Bold - fast offensive threat in the tier
Blue, Italic - meaningful defensive presence in tier

Centralizing - core Pokemon of a metagame with high usage that would realistically never drop from the tier
Meta - important Pokemon in a metagame that all teams need to account for but not necessary high usage; unlikely to ever drop barring big shakeups
Anti-meta - Pokemon whose place in the metagame is built off of hard countering a centralizing or meta Pokemon; too many of these is likely not healthy
Niche - Pokemon that do a good thing but need highly specific team structures or scouting to be better than centralizing or anti-meta picks

This is just meant as a quick-and-dirty highlight, not a perfect representation of the metagames

RBY UU
Centralizing: Tentacruel, Kadabra, Dugtrio, Articuno, Kangaskhan, Dodrio
Meta: Dragonite, Persian, Gyarados, Clefable
Anti-meta: Electabuzz, Dewgong, Haunter, Golem, Tangela, Electrode, Vaporeon, Omastar, Ninetales
Niche: Raichu

RBY NU
Centralizing: Aerodactyl, Mr. Mime, Raticate, Venomoth, Moltres
Meta: Blastoise, Charizard, Golduck, Poliwhirl, Poliwrath, Seadra, Arcanine, Fearow, Venusaur
Anti-meta: Gastly, Kabutops, Magneton
Niche: Nidoking, Kingler, Pinsir, Porygon, Rapidash, Wigglytuff

RBY PU
Centralizing: Nidoqueen, Fearow, Arcanine, Seaking, Staryu, Gastly
Meta: Rapidash, Porygon, Drowzee, Scyther
Anti-meta: Graveler, Omanyte, Magneton
Niche: Dragonair, Magmar, Pinsir, Machamp

RBY ZU
Centralizing: Pidgeot, Primeape, Sandslash, Parasect
Meta: Flareon, Tentacool, Weezing, Marowak, Slowpoke
Anti-meta: Onix, Rhyhorn, Butterfree, Poliwag

Notice the pattern - the centralizing, high-usage mons of most tiers are mostly the offensive threats, and the bottom end of the tier tends to be filled out by the few things that can check these threats, many of which only cling to relevance because they fend off some 100% usage threat, and many of them fail at that if they get crit on entry. It's also notable that often these checks are horrifically weak to several other top threats. In other words, the offensive threats are so good they pull up defensive checks from lower tiers that would otherwise not be relevant and still can't really keep up. This is even reflected in changes in role - Porygon went from a defensive wall to an Agility sweeper because it simply cannot keep up with the pace of offense.

III. The Solution
Since offensive Pokemon are pulling up defensive Pokemon that can't handle them, I propose we get things realigned. In short, I'm proposing two things. One, raise the cutoff for each tier about 1-2 subdivisions higher, which knocks 2-5 mons at the bottom of each tier down to the next one. Two, ban 1-2 mons in each of UU/NU/PU/ZU to reduce offense.

The idea here is to realign the offensive and defensive Pokemon by letting defensive Pokemon at the bottom of tiers drop and banning a few key offensive threats in UU, causing a vacuum that pulls up some offensive mons from lower tiers. This simultaneously weakens offense by a bit and introduces new defensive options, and it leaves lower tiers with the option to ban these new drops if they're too strong. In my mind the first offensive targets for this are the birds (Articuno, Dodrio, Moltres, Fearow) - all of which have stupidly powerful STAB moves, high Speed, and Agility - to let them be replaced by weaker counterparts from lower tiers. I'm also looking at Normal-types generally because STAB Hyper Beam is fucking stupid.

My plan is to institute the higher cutoff for all future VRs via collaboration between myself and each tier's council instead of these cutoff votes, which are already arbitrary. I also intend to standardize tiering definitions because it seems people think a C or D rank Pokemon is not genuinely a viable part of the tier - I'd like the lower end of the VR to reflect real options and not theorymons, freeing up space to regard niche Pokemon like Vaporeon or Aerodactyl as C-ranks and still acknowledge their role in the tier while also allowing them to drop. I will have UU and PU do a VR toward the end of this year, do a NU and ZU interim VR late 2024 or early 2025, then a proper NU and ZU VR at the end of 2025.

IV. The Discussion
I'm opening this thread for a few purposes beyond explaining the thought process. I want to take action on this, and I want it now, because this is going to take a long while to fully implement. It's also a multi-part process, which means I need people to be willing to trust the process and not back out when the first ban or drop doesn't improve the metagame. I can do several parts of this with no oversight or community approval, but I also do not want to do that if it's remotely avoidable, because I think it wouldn't work as well and I do think things should be done with community support whenever possible. That said, we've been spinning the wheels in circles for years and it never meaningfully improves, so I'm in favor of making bigger changes, especially because I'm also not against reverting changes if it doesn't work out. Let's make lower tiers more skill-based and less RNG-prone.

Please discuss, and also, here's a survey on RBY UU to help guide some of the opening steps of this. Please respond so I can get a sense of where people are at.

I'm going to be very direct in my opinion - I personally think we should test a ban on Articuno first, because I think covering Articuno + Dugtrio is the most constrictive thing in the builder presently. I think Articuno has the least defensive utility of any top Pokemon in UU, and I think it's the most RNG-prone in both directions thanks to Freeze, Blizzard/Hyper Beam accuracy, Rock Slide accuracy, Blizzard crits OHKOing half the tier, and Rock Slide crits OHKOing Articuno. After that, I'd like to see about banning a Normal-type to reduce the presence of Normal spam, which is already good and would love to see Articuno gone. After that, I think UU is probably significantly more playable and leaves room for the lower-ranked Pokemon to drop while still being useful in UU. You're free to disagree and advocate for different directions, but please consider supporting some kind of change so we can get the wheels turning on weakening offense and improving space for skill expression in the builder and in-game. Thanks for reading.
 
Little note I forgot but I'm not advocating for instantly banning something in NU/PU/ZU right now necessarily, I'm saying we start with UU, let stuff rise/drop, and see what happens, and if there are problematic offensive threats in NU at that point we ban 1 or 2 of them to slow the meta down and pull stuff up from PU. If NU is fine with just defensive drops, then PU can simply ban 1-2 offensive threats like Fearow or Gastly to help it slow down as needed if NU isn't pulling them up into the tier.
 
Thanks Sabelette,

Here's what I voted for UU, and some of my minor thoughts/two cents. I'll keep the score on mons for the survey and some other stuff for the survey since I already completed it. There was some stuff I was pretty neutral on

Skillful: 2/5
Enjoy; 3/5
Constricted: 1/5
Tiering action for improvement: Yes
Few words: "The Kadabra, Tentacruel, Dugtrio trifecta is fixed if you bring back Hypno but nobody wants that except me perhaps."

-

I think the format being skillful is a bit subjective of course. You have some mainstays who put up consistent numbers and not every random person can jump in and get it. It takes a bit of understanding and certain lines while understanding some things you need to keep to not lose to back Cuno or Duggy. The skill points drops down to me because unfortunately RBY is RBY, so you get really stupid interactions like Kadabra critting into Special Drop, guaranteeing you to pick a mon to sack or the brainless Tenta wrap stuff that makes any sort of defensive core unviable. The top mons are largely a symptom of this mechanic via Tenta which is a plague but Dnite can also pull it off too. I think we can all put our list of favorite nonsense but it's all mostly a given.

Enjoyment to me is neutral, the meta is offensive and as mentioned above it's very line, keeping key players focused. Its definitely better than old Tenta v Tenta wars and that slow burn style that can put even the most hyperactive person to sleep.

The format is totally constricted, which depending on who you ask can be a good or bad thing. For me I think this is okay because you'll see two mandatory mons and then some stuff to supplement them or like Dewgong to hold back Cuno. The limited pool of mons and most of their lack of good recovery options is just going to make most of the lower formats offense. I personally don't have an issue with that which is why I was pretty neutral in regards to if the tier is too offensive.

Bring back Hypno you fix the triangle of centralization that UU has which leads into the suggestion I agree with most.

One, raise the cutoff for each tier about 1-2 subdivisions higher, which knocks 2-5 mons at the bottom of each tier down to the next one. Two, ban 1-2 mons in each of UU/NU/PU/ZU to reduce offense.


C1 off the OU VR should be the cutoff, Victreebel is a shitmon and if you dropped the others it would balance out, Lapras and all. Jolteons introduction would reintroduce Golem as a staple thus nerfing the norms. I think this the best proposal out of everything in OP personally.

I am not for multi-suspects (think we did this with Lap/Hyp?), they are always a mess. That's probably the one thing I'm pretty against otherwise if not mentioned either forgot or pretty neutral.

P.S. Partial trapping moves should be banned in lower tiers, can you re-ban Poliwhirl in NU as well? Moltres too if partial trapping is never going to be addressed, I know it's a brick wall with that discussion but maybe one day it'll actually stick :woo:
 
Just to be clear by multi suspects I didn't mean several at once! I was moreso looking for whether people think a single ban solves the issue or if they think extended action is needed. Thank you for your input.
 
I'm still a bit of a new player for RBY lower tiers, I played RBY UU and NU in ladder (the former before it's recent VR changes). Even if my reply might feel a bit unformulated or ignorant, I hope I can add to this discussion in some way. From my experience, is being inherently offensive leaning not only not a problem in itself, but also a possible byproduct of the generation?

After all, with crit mechanics, the ease to spam attacks in general and lack of pretty much any form of good, reliable recovery for pretty much all pokemon (Porygon, Kad and Staryu are the only non-OU pokémon that learn Recover, everything else has to rely on the IMO very crippling Rest), the notion of "defensive play" in this game to me seems like either the somewhat stally Chansey, Zam/Starmie and RefLax dittos that are routine in RBY OU, or a sort of reactionary switch-in of a tank pokémon who takes a hit and can trade it back, like say Blastoise in NU or a rock type on a normal hit, neither of these to me feel like pokémon that can reliably run Rest in their sets as both will then be inviting opponents that can exploit their crippling weaknesses, AND have to find opportunities to burn sleep turns.

I agree firmly with the idea of possible centralization - not sure on the current UU but certain that this is still a big thing in current NU, i'd like to add though, isn't centralization a thing even in actual OU? Yes i'm fully aware this thread is not about changing OU, but I feel OU as a tier in any gen should be seen as a reference for the lower tiers - And my views of it are that regardless of what creative sets you run, at the end of the day you'll 90% of the time be running Zam/Starm + Big 3, isn't that centralization on it's own just like the centralization we see in these lower tiers? With the singular difference being Big 3 mons have some set variety unlike most other centralizing pokémon seem to have in these lower tiers.

I like AM's proposal of raising the UU cutoff to include Victreebel (literal fraud mon stuck in OU LMAO), Slowbro and Jolteon into UU. I'm particularly worried if either of those two will potentially break the tier, but the tier may hopefully be able to figure out ways to deal with them. TobyBro could be a potential balancing factor against Articuno's dominance in the tier as a poke that not only walls it like Dewgong but also threatens a sweep, while Cuno itself can threaten it with a crippling freeze. For Jolteon, I suppose a rise of Golem would be in order to keep it under control, although feel it might be able to be held back a bit by Dugtrio too. Not sure abt bringing Hypno back to the tier but with those 3 in it i feel it might not be that oppressive.

Will get to answer the RBY UU survey ASAP, although i feel i should probably get to it AFTER trying out the current iteration of it
 
Gonna revive this thread to see if anyone supports the idea of a transitive hypnosis/sing ban across lowtiers (uu and below), these stupid moves are fundamentally uncompetitive since you essentially do a glorified coinflip on whether or not you KO a pokemon.

Why not target sleep powder/spore?
The main differences between powder sleepers and hypnosis/sing sleepers are:
  1. Powder sleepers are more likely to land their sleep move both because they're generally bulkier and have a more accurate sleep move, making them more consistent and less coinflippy
  2. Powder sleepers are less threatening outside of sleep than hypnosis/sing sleepers
Mons like venomoth in nu and parasect in zu are primarily good because of their sleep move, while mons like haunter/clef in uu and gastly in pu are great pokemon that have hypnosis/sing as the icing on the cake. Powder sleep is, in my opinion, a healthy part of lowtier metagames, while Hypnosis and Sing are not. Hypnosis and Sing are mainly moves that you click because you need to bail out of a situation, and the reward for hitting hypnosis is so much greater cuz the mons are more threatening. These moves also heavily reward "bad play". Gastly randomly clicking Hypnosis on Fearow on turn 3 of an RBY PU (or NU lol) game is an unplay that still gets rewarded 48.3% of the time. It turns so many games into coinflips and I think getting rid of this stupid element will drastically improve lowtiers. Sleep will still be legal in the form of powder, and the ban also won't really impact the viability of that many mons? Obviously its hard to tell what all the changes will be but I think the only real loser will be Poliwrath. Haunter, Clefable, and Gastly will remain good in their tiers (PU Gastly at least, unsure about NU Gastly), while Drowzee, Wigglytuff, and Poliwhirl are already pretty bad in their respective tiers. This will also let us unban Hypno (and maybe lapras?) from UU without any complex ban attached to it, since we're just universally banning moves.
 
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To further support the above post, Clefable absolutely does not need to run Sing to be a very viable UU mon but it is ridiculous how much it can get away with if it lands sing on the first click. After landing the move it can opt to twave the switch in and then deal very real damage with whatever combination of moves it has access to. Venomoth and Tangela both have access to sleep + paralysis but their sleep is more consistent and aren't able to follow up with nearly as good damage as clefable is able to. Even the threat of sleep by the mon alone makes it more dangerous as thunder wave threatens out many pokemon and thus it can opt to sing a bulky paralysis absorber(i.e. kangaskhan) on entry.

I am 100% sure clef's viability will remain almost entirely unchanged since relying on coinflips to go 2-for-1 is not something that most players are opting for regardless but the possibility to decide games with it has been there
 
I agree with Gastlies proposal but not for the reason to unban Hypno/Lapras to UU before addressing PT and or if the cutoff is going to be raised to drop new batch of stuff into UU. That should be its own separate discourse.
 
idk that nu poliwrath gaming is even that healthy tbh, someone takes the bad line (or mispredicts) of switching venomoth into wrath hypnosis but bailed 40% of the time, it also encourages buttons like fire spin on charizard (tho that move may get banned anyway for reasons that have nothing to do with its interaction with the sleep metagame), and in general in a lot of fires vs wrath interactions (and some other interactions like kabu vs wrath) u can get rewarded for a not great click or punished for the correct line etc due to hypnosis variance.
on the other hand wrath is a lovely option to have in the teambuilder, a big part of why many ppl enjoy building in new nu
(i think wrath is the only case where a hypnosis user is ambiguous in this way tho)

ultimately sleep as a whole is kind of a bs and high variance mechanic that we only tolerate bc sleepless is typically even worse, and like we def should acknowledge that venomoth can very much also be a nonsense sleeper in nu where it fails to get sleep in a good position or gets sleep when it didnt rly "deserve" to. and ofc stun spore afterward is rly high variance too.

(also ofc who knows how such a ban would affect tiering, maybe venomoth would end up in uu anyway with the better sleepers no longer legal)
 
I agree with Gastlies proposal but not for the reason to unban Hypno/Lapras to UU before addressing PT and or if the cutoff is going to be raised to drop new batch of stuff into UU. That should be its own separate discourse.
ya just wanna make it clear this isn’t the reason i wanna ban hypnosis/sing, i just think the moves are broken, i just mentioned this cuz it is one additional “upside” of this ban

ultimately sleep as a whole is kind of a bs and high variance mechanic that we only tolerate bc sleepless is typically even worse
agree with this, which is why i think targeting the “unhealthier” higher-variance sleep moves is the way to go.

venomoth can very much also be a nonsense sleeper in nu where it fails to get sleep in a good position or gets sleep when it didnt rly "deserve" to. and ofc stun spore afterward is rly high variance too.
also agree with this but I also feel like every mon has the potential to be nonsense (both good and bad). Fearow can crit through a team, Zard can miss every fire blast, you can FP 3 times in a row after getting twaved, etc. I just feel like the “nonsense” just happens way more often with the hypnosis/sing mons in particular compared to any other mon in the tier (sleep or not)
 
I don't agree with this proposal and I also just don't think it has anything to do with the initial proposal and should be its own thing. All of these annoying hypnosis users can just be banned to higher tiers where their effects aren't nearly as broken - for example, Gastly is clearly not broken in NU, and it's hard to argue that Haunter gets too many entry points even if it's annoying in UU, you can keep it out with plenty of faster Pokemon that are easy to slot on a team. Meanwhile, there are stupid powder users like Venomoth that are absurdly centralizing as well, and honestly Venomoth's consistency is very questionable.

Right now I'm going ahead with the plan of running a UU tour with the C+ OU mons and UUBLs unbanned and partial trapping banned after RBYPL ends, open the topic of banning partial trapping entirely from lower tiers (which is also choking defensive mons out of UU because they're literally all slower than Tent, and in NU Fire Spin Molt is cheating its way past everything that could feasibly check it), and then see where the chips fall. Ideally, the UU meta will just look better like this and we can institute it so tiers below stop being at the mercy of whatever is going on in UU for their tiering changes and can make some forward progress. We've been stuck on trying to make UU decent for years and NU/PU just kind of waiting in limbo.
 
Yeah, absolutely not. I don't have the time right now to break this down, so I'll keep it short. Maybe I'll edit this or add a new post later.

Banning only the weaker versions of a move is just completely indefensible to me. Either none go or they all go. This is picking Pokemon that you feel like dealing with using an arbitrary rule that genuinely makes negative sense. If something is broken in a tier, ban it. Don't invent some choosy ruleset that just happens to kind of fit some goals. It's shortsighted. Killing Wigglytuff or whatever because Lapras might look too strong is just asinine.

I also just fail to see how this change solves any of the actual challenges facing RBY's Low Tiers.
 
As the undrafted defending RBY UU Cup winner, just want to say that I think RBY UU is still in an exploratory phase and I think Hypnosis/Sing are not really issues with it. And even if they were, echoing what the others said above that this type of weird ban rule is not really consistent with any kind of tiering philosophy nor does it make much sense. RBY UU has come a long way in gaining standing with other communities and getting more inclusion, and enacting these sort of "unorthodox" bans takes away from that legitimacy that it's worked so hard to get and maintain over the past several years. I think getting rid of APT ban in favor of a more clear PT ban is a great step in the right direction and I don't think we need to go backwards.

All that being said, if anyone here believes some sort of test for the upcoming UUFPL in March would help UU gather some data on potential changes, let me know.
 
If something is broken in a tier, ban it. Don't invent some choosy ruleset that just happens to kind of fit some goals. It's shortsighted. Killing Wigglytuff or whatever because Lapras might look too strong is just asinine.
I can draw an analogy by applying this logic to the APT ban. If we don’t want to implement a “choosy ruleset” we should have just banned Dragonite instead of APT, and I could argue that we’re “Killing Moltres off because Dragonite is too strong.”
(I know dragonite was suspected first and the vote failed but the plan was always to suspect APT even if that vote passed

If the response to this is along the lines of “APT is different because it is fundamentally uncompetitive and RNG dependent”… then sorry to break it to you but so is Hypnosis

enacting these sort of "unorthodox" bans takes away from that legitimacy that it's worked so hard to get and maintain over the past several years. I think getting rid of APT ban is a great step in the right direction and I don't think we need to go backwards.

This is actually a huge coincidence cuz this just dropped literally right when I wrote that above response. The post criticizes “unorthodox” bans then immediately calls a complex ban a step in the right direction. How is banning the combination of two moves on the same set more complex than banning a move outright? Banning a move is a precedent that has been done in other generations/tiers.

This is gonna be my last post on this since this ban is not something that will happen in the near future, but if a partial trapping ban or other kind of ban goes through with lowtiers and they still continue to be a coinflip party I think this is a potential tiering action we can look at.
 
This is actually a huge coincidence cuz this just dropped literally right when I wrote that above response. The post criticizes “unorthodox” bans then immediately calls a complex ban a step in the right direction. How is banning the combination of two moves on the same set more complex than banning a move outright? Banning a move is a precedent that has been done in other generations/tiers.

I think you misunderstood - I said I think the APT ban (complex ban) was wrong and getting rid of it is a good step in the right direction, so I agree with you there
 
You're tired of rng, the gambling aspect of pokemon no longer thrills you, you give your best to fix the infuriating aspects of it one by one, this shit makes you sick! You dream of a more competitive scene but you are stuck with the rationality, the lack of empathy of psychopaths immersed in numbers, probabilities, forgetting that no matter how the dice is loaded, a coinflip is well, a coinflip the outcome is about 0s and 1s in that one scenario you get it or you don't. They are helped by their power-hungry politician friends who will categorically refuse changes because, decades ago, a dozen overworked, time crunching, full of stress people who called themselves game "freaks" have strived to create one of the best licenses in the video game world and leaving this flawed cult would be an insult, the original sin, because tradition. They rather ban half the population of our beloved "tiers" living them in a no-mons-land, thinking racism will fix the issue "forever". Not only it defeats the purpose of tiering by marginalizing individuals out of the (already small) society but the fairby cult knows that it is only a temporary patch until more racism arises, until more ethnic groups get axed and join the limbo state. Say no to racism! a structural change that truly fix the issues is needed!

It is time to take care of your hobby, leave the dark and unfair party game, a world of justice, talent, competitiveness awaits you, a world free from rng-anxiety, a world of gaming! A safe place where rng-madness, excuses, tilt, unjustified complains, salt don't exist anymore. Return to the light by subscribing to the fairby cult, a realm where the so called "normal-guys" only hit the bonus turn when they worked for it, a realm where the yellow magic dosent prevent you from playing the game three turns in a row, a world where 10% OHKOs move comes at the rightful time, a world where games dosent come down to sleep rngs and where the "quality" of said sleep move shapes the entire game in a predictable, fair way. For only 255 pokedollars a month, (trainers fees be expansive) you can take over the rng evils and be the deciding factor you always wanted to be! Join our debate now and regain control over your trainer life!
 
I can draw an analogy by applying this logic to the APT ban.
You can't draw this analogy at all.
First, Hypnosis and Sing are strictly weaker than other sleep-inducing moves, so banning specifically them makes no sense. APT isn't strictly weaker than its component parts. It's often stronger, especially in UU and NU.
Second, APT is significantly more problematic (i.e., dangerous and effective) than Hypnosis and Sing are in Low Tiers. I can say this because I and most others in this thread don't seem to see the issue with Hypnosis or Sing in Low Tiers, at least not specifically those two moves.
Third, partial-trapping at large is on my radar for banning. Such a ban would obviously eliminate the APT ban instantly, which would render this entire analogy incontestable even if it was valid.

If the response to this is along the lines of “APT is different because it is fundamentally uncompetitive and RNG dependent”… then sorry to break it to you but so is Hypnosis
This isn't the response, and if it was, we'd need to ban Sleep Powder too because it's pretty difficult to explain why winning one of two coin flips is totally cool but rolling a 12 or lower on a D20 is complete garbage.
 
I feel as if we are getting sidetracked from the main issues with this tier and instead getting caught up in comparatively minor issues that would not help this tier in the slightest if it went through (not saying it even should even go through at all banning Sing/Hypnosis is absoloutly lol). It might even make things worse, for example as Mel pointed out, Haunter would become completely irrelevant, who is a great defensive force that can keep in check Persian, Gyarados, Dragonite, and even switch into Kangaskhan. We should put our focus on the major issues with UU, which in my opinion are Wrap / Tentacruel, Kangaskhan, Dugtrio, and Dragonite, who are all very bs and way more damaging to the tier than Sing and Hypnosis, which are not even bad for the tier.
 
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