OU RBY OU Discussion Thread

[Believer of GXE]

"If you get a KO with Rhydon I get to deal 15% to your Exeggutor and then switch out" is not the argument for Golem's viability you think it is

If you swap exeggutor is met with a range, it swaps into either body slam, rock slide or earthquake or is out swapped to either my jynx or starmie, or is vs my Chansey.

The difference is if it was golem instead of Rhydon being the main difference in calculus. Golem should cause enough calculatory differences in the opponents ability to understand if that if I didn't use explosion and they thought I could of, is the difference between the offset of why if it that it was a Rhydon instead that it would be easier to estimate what move that the Rhydon player would of made without being more wrong for the difference...despite the damage or 7% defensive buff.

 

[Amaranth]

it's also not just those two ranges. more examples:


Golem Earthquake vs. Tauros: 119-141 (33.7 - 39.9%)
Rhydon Earthquake vs. Tauros: 133-157 (37.6 - 44.4%)
for a common example line where this matters,
2 Tauros Body Slams is 53.8 - 63.4%
so if you do the classic bull war Slam Slam and now you're in a hyperbeam mindgame, and you catch the hyperbeam with your Rock:
Golem's odds to kill the Tauros with EQ are abysmal (total roll 87.5-103.3), Rhydon's are nearly 50% (91.4-107.8)

Golem Rock Slide vs. Exeggutor: 97-114 (24.6 - 29%)
Rhydon Rock Slide vs. Exeggutor: 108-127 (27.4 - 32.3%)
chipping golem down takes a while longer - you're also gonna be mixing in bodyslams and earthquakes realistically over several entries, but golem very realistically will need 1 more entry to break it a lot of the time. of course there are infinitely many ways this can play out and it's virtually impossible to come up with a concise example of this damage difference mattering, but just because you can't calculate those scenarios a priori doesn't mean that they won't happen in game.

also the way the numbers line up against Snorlax is comical:
Golem Earthquake vs. Snorlax: 150-177 (28.6 - 33.8%) -- 0.5% chance to 3HKO
Rhydon Earthquake vs. Snorlax: 169-199 (32.3 - 38%) -- 97.1% chance to 3HKO


The point is not missing any one specific roll, the point is all of these rolls combined, and infinitely many more practical game situations where you will need that extra 5% for one reason or another. It's not going to be a single calc to demonstrate the difference, but rather it's the incalculable number of scenarios that you're not going to be able to draw up while theorymonning, but will very practically happen to you in games. Rhydon is just meaningfully much more efficient at trading in these ways; Golem wants to explode because it's really not good at doing Rhydon's job of EQing things over and over. It CAN try, when the situation is good enough for it, but otherwise just wants to peace out and 1 for 1.

Stats matter a lot, it's not just moves and types. And there's no clear and easy way to explain why and how much each stat matters on each Pokemon, cuz the reason is like 30 different calcs each time. So it's moreso a feel you build from playing and running into all of these scenarios and noticing "wow, I only barely hit that roll, lesser stats would've killed me there". or "wow, I was 1% off, if this mon was stronger I'd have hit it". Over and over and over until you really fine tune yourself to be perceptive to all this stuff.

With Rhydon/Golem specifically, because one of the desired duties is precisely getting to click like 8+ of your EQ PP over a long stretch of turns, punching and punching and punching, the stat differences are amplified. A Rhydon that only clicks 1 EQ before dying probably wishes it were a Golem who clicked Explosion instead. But most Rhydons have ambitions for much more than that, and when that works out as desired, Rhydon is miles better and it's not close

 

[Believer of GXE]

The question is whether golems 1% Spd + explosion offsets +20atk and +7% defense of Rhydon...I think it does IMO, although I do regard them as very similar, I don't think they are often regarded to how close they are in actual competitive value, it shouldn't be the difference between A tier and C tier....or whatever they are, whichever one of them is the other should be always within one half letter grade of the other. How do you regard them as more than one half letter grade of each other? Because Rhydon can get some KO's that golem can't should be often offset by the chip damage incurred during the course of most games, because golem and Rhydon should most often be facing things with slight chip damage, and that chip damage isn't calculated when looking at calculator stats .

The grade letter difference between the two should be closer in grade quality.

Such as of one of them is currently B tier, the other should be either B+ thru B- but not more than that...

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

Stats matter a lot, it's not just moves and types. And there's no clear and easy way to explain why and how much each stat matters on each Pokemon, cuz the reason is like 30 different calcs each time. So it's moreso a feel you build from playing and running into all of these scenarios and noticing "wow, I only barely hit that roll, lesser stats would've killed me there". or "wow, I was 1% off, if this mon was stronger I'd have hit it". Over and over and over until you really fine tune yourself to be perceptive to all this stuff.

This. So few people talk about this when theorymonning, and so many people theorymonning don't even understand that this is where it all starts. This should always be the foundation of your theorymonning. You acquire an embodied understanding of all these scenarios in game, and then you can flesh out this acquired understanding in words and numbers on forums or else where. Attempting to do this process backwards always leads to erroneous thinking.

 

[Noglastica]

If I went with stats I would use all the legendary birds.

Maybe you should, they all outspeed Golem which is pretty useful

 

[Botfly123]

The question is whether golems 1% Spd + explosion offsets +20atk and +7% defense of Rhydon...I think it does IMO, although I do regard them as very similar, I don't think they are often regarded to how close they are in actual competitive value, it shouldn't be the difference between A tier and C tier....or whatever they are, whichever one of them is the other should be always within one half letter grade of the other. How do you regard them as more than one half letter grade of each other? Because Rhydon can get some KO's that golem can't should be often offset by the chip damage incurred during the course of most games, because golem and Rhydon should most often be facing things with slight chip damage, and that chip damage isn't calculated when looking at calculator stats .

The grade letter difference between the two should be closer in grade quality.

Such as of one of them is currently B tier, the other should be either B+ thru B- but not more than that...

Dude is explosion like the best move in the game for you? You don't NEED a mon with explosion to win in RBY. Even if you did there are other mons that can put the pressure of explosion on mons without having to give up half the reason they are on the team to begin with. Rhydon can just sit there and do damage and live just long enough to put in work while still being a zapdos counter. To get ANY use out of golem that would do more than don you have to

A. Kill zapdos
B. Win another 1v1
C. Explode on a mon

And tbh all that work is just not worth it with this kind of meta, maybe if zapdos wasn't as oppressive as it is now golem could see more use. As of late, however, I just don't see how golem is better than don.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

I took a break from playing this game for a few months, but I've played a little on the ladder recently, and saw a player (most likely Cholaski himself) using a variation of the Cholaski team that had all the ice pokemon on it besides Dewong and it dawned on me, "Holy shit, that's how he made the team." He most likely just wanted to make a team that had all the ice pokemon, and thought, "Wow, this actually kinda works," and then just fine tuned from there. The number one thing you realize of course is that Zapdos wrecks your team, so of course you then put a rock on it. Then why not have Tauros. And Chansey is an obvious special wall. Whoa.

Like many, I feel like my skills in actually playing the game have more or less peaked, so the only thing left to really improve for me are my team building skills, so stuff like this is very interesting to me. I want to make new teams that raise the ceiling of this game and give me a new edge, yet it is always so difficult in knowing where to start. I guess the kernel of any new team is simply what interests you, what pulls you in, what concept do you really feel like exploring? And then just fine tuning from there with logical reasoning.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

I've said this elsewhere before, but my favorite player, for a long time, has always been Beelzemon 2003. He has been playing many different gens for a very long time, and he is so good. He refuses to use anything standard. He is easily good enough to be number 1 on the gen 1 ladder at any given time with a high gxe next to his name, but you'll never see him there, because he prioritizes experimenting with different teams that no one else uses over consistent wins. And like I said, that is what I'm focused on the most now, and team building, in my opinion, is a much harder skill to cultivate than learning to play optimally and consistently with the standard given teams.

 

[Lillilee]

i'd be curious to hear a further elaboration on why you feel teambuilding is a more delicate and challenging skill to cultivate than mastering optimal plays using the standard teams, leader of the rockets.

 

[Believer of GXE]

i'd be curious to hear a further elaboration on why you feel teambuilding is a more delicate and challenging skill to cultivate than mastering optimal plays using the standard teams, leader of the rockets.

Teambuilding often leads to standard teams to counter other teams with though, I use Snorlax because you use Chansey, I use exeggutor, because you use Snorlax, Chansey or Tauros, I use Chansey because you use Chansey, Alakazam, starmie....I use Tauros because it's the best thing....teambuilding 101 is based off what I perceive that my opp will use, and what my opp will use is based off of usage rates ... Both sides end up using similar teams because of thoughts like these, and they aren't wrong, but in order to use sub optimal material, I would then have to play better more frequently to make up for the material difference in value....I.E. a queen in chess is 8 points and a rook is 5...I would really have to play a rook far more often than my opp to make up for the material difference in ability.

 

[Ortheore]

Teambuilding often leads to standard teams to counter other teams with though, I use Snorlax because you use Chansey, I use exeggutor, because you use Snorlax, Chansey or Tauros, I use Chansey because you use Chansey, Alakazam, starmie....I use Tauros because it's the best thing....teambuilding 101 is based off what I perceive that my opp will use, and what my opp will use is based off of usage rates ... Both sides end up using similar teams because of thoughts like these, and they aren't wrong, but in order to use sub optimal material, I would then have to play better more frequently to make up for the material difference in value....I.E. a queen in chess is 8 points and a rook is 5...I would really have to play a rook far more often than my opp to make up for the material difference in ability.

Hmm, this is an interesting approach, and though I don't dispute that understanding a meta and how to counter top threats is a huge component of teambuilding, I read this post as implying that this is the primary goal of teambuilding which doesn't sit right with me.

As I see it, at the core of every team is a strategy progressing towards a win condition, and your primary goal when teambuilding is to facilitate that strategy. Countering top threats is a core part of that approach, but it's not everything. I think if you only prioritise countering top threats you risk creating teams that lack a cohesive direction, and are less than the sum of their parts.

The other thing I'll point out is that "sub-optimal" pokemon and/or team structures aren't nearly as far behind "optimal" ones as you might think, in large part due to the fact that deviating from perceived optimal play has its own advantages. If you're using a less used strategy, you're basically always going to have a superior understanding of what it takes for you to win than your opponent, because you've thought it through and tested it, whereas they seldom see it or they might flat out not know what to do (in extreme cases). This is especially compounded by being able to manage information. And lastly, if you only stick to what's "optimal", it's very difficult to truly innovate and challenge the meta

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

i'd be curious to hear a further elaboration on why you feel teambuilding is a more delicate and challenging skill to cultivate than mastering optimal plays using the standard teams, leader of the rockets.

Well, on one hand, it's true in a statistical sense. There are far many more people in the game's history that learned to played optimally, and far fewer people who actually made a team that actually mattered to the meta or was even just good. On the other hand, it's true, because it necessarily has to be. As Amaranth was saying earlier, the knowledge we have of the game obviously comes from our experience playing it (that's where it starts anyway), and the experience only matters to the extent that you know what is happening and why it is happening. If you don't, then you gain only frustration as opposed to knowledge from the experience. So, you have to be good at the game before you can gain the knowledge you need to make any meaningful contribution in the team builder. So, competent team building, by definition, is a higher order operation.

Some people will disagree with this, and say, "But I totally get why someone would arrange a team in such a way, and I'm not that great at the game." And I'd just say we, one, probably have different standards for understanding a team and all its functions, and two, creating something and then understanding it afterward are two very different things and the former is much harder than the latter.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

The other thing I'll point out is that "sub-optimal" pokemon and/or team structures aren't nearly as far behind "optimal" ones as you might think, in large part due to the fact that deviating from perceived optimal play has its own advantages. If you're using a less used strategy, you're basically always going to have a superior understanding of what it takes for you to win than your opponent, because you've thought it through and tested it, whereas they seldom see it or they might flat out not know what to do (in extreme cases). This is especially compounded by being able to manage information. And lastly, if you only stick to what's "optimal", it's very difficult to truly innovate and challenge the meta

I can't be the only one to fantasize about what would happen if someone rich with way too much time on their hands ever offered up a 10 million dollar prize pool in a pokemon gen 1 tournament and marketed the crap out of it to get as many players as possible to enter, and gave everyone like a year to prepare. I've always wondered what strategies would be used, and I came to the conclusion that it'd probably be this. It would probably be trying to exploit the element of surprise as much as possible. Playing the standard teams would, ironically, be too risky.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

If you imagine an average game, it can go something like this: First turn Jynx mirror. You press lk. So do they. 50/50. They get the sleep. You can stay in expecting them to blizzard, you can switch to chansey, etc. Let's say you switch to chansey. They fish for freeze. You press sing. You sleep them. Now what? You have options, but let's say you press thunderwave so you para whatever comes in. They switch in chansey and the chansey is paralyzed. Let's say you think that they'll press ice beam instead of thunderwave to try to fish for freeze, so you throw in snorlax to catch the ice beam, so you now can put pressure on with lax. They throw their lax in to take the body slam. Maybe you press body slam again here, maybe reflect. But regardless, you eventually both end up pressing reflect. As you can see here... nothing interesting is happening. A lot of
stalemate-y moves. There isn't a lot of room for taking a lot of leverage here. You'll have to gradually fight for it unless you get lucky (such as the jynx that gets the sleep first freezing whatever pokemon that comes in afterward. That's two pokes down in a couple of turns). If you try to fight a mirror, throwing a right punch just causes the reflection to throw the same punch. You're not getting very far fighting your reflection. To be clear, the better player is going to make marginally better plays here which, while marginal, will lead to big rewards (the win). But that leverage is gained MARGINALLY, if the other player isn't bad. Stalemate moves gradually become winning or losing moves.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen1ou-2250410097-xvg3ghb391dlafzxa8n49nahry3iygdpw

I've posted this elsewhere, but if you watch this game, it is a fight to the death from the very beginning, though the beginning is a little boring. Our team structures are so different that we can't throw the same punch. Pressure is on from go. This means you are making game winning moves or game losing moves (as opposed to stalemate moves) the majority of the game, and the player who plays the most intelligently is going to win (it goes without say that this goes out the window when rng rears its ugly head.) But hopefully this is slightly clearer in conveying what I mean.

Sorry to be so monotonous about this player, but it isn't too often that we get someone so different from the norm, and I think it is important. In a reply I made months back in this thread on the topic of the benefit of using a viable team structure that varied from the norm (such as cless), I posted a replay between Cholaski and I. Cholaski is famously NOT a rager. What he says at the end of this game is very interesting. He says, "Good game for study." What is so interesting about it is that it reveals to us that he doesn't just play. He obviously rewatches his replays for "study." And why that is interesting is because he does things in game that you would think are sub-optimal. Famously, as I pointed out earlier, he will, with very little exception, always throw out an ice beam as a paralyzed Chansey against normals if his Chansey is at full health. Most top players would never do this. Yet this man (who studies!!!) has come to the conclusion that this strategy is not just worth doing from time to time, but it is worth doing it every time. But it isn't just that. He has other weird quirks. He is the only top player I have ever watched where I literally dk why he did a move, and I'll literally be saying to the screen, "Why in the hell would you do that??? Are you trying to lose???" .... and then he wins! And why allllll this is so interesting is that this man was consistently beating the top players in late 2016 and early 2017 with not just these unorthodox strategies, but with two teams of his own creation that no one had ever seen before. It'd be one thing to think that he simply was a good player with great natural intuition but didn't think too much about the game, and that's why he made the weird plays. But no, HE STUDIES! Everything is done for a conscious reason that he has thought about.

This is interesting to think about. Because maybe what we think of as "optimal" is in and of itself a block to our creativity.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

By the way, here is part of an interview with GGFan and Sceptross just to give you an idea of how competitive the ladder was in 2017 and just how much audacity and confidence you had to have to make an account called 90 Plus GXE and then top the ladder with 90 Plus GXE.

 

[Sabelette]

The fact that GXE is lower now is an indicator the ladder is more skilled because people can no longer maintain GXEs of 95% or whatever by stomping all the scrubs on ladder. GXE is your win chance against any random ladder player, if the top players no longer have expected winrates of 95% without the tier gaining more RNG or losing development (such as a tier with shifts might), then lower GXE means the ladder has improved skill-wise relative to the people at the top. One could argue this means there's fewer skilled players at the top but if RBY Ladder Tournament is an indicator this seems to hold even when all the top players are laddering.

 

[Believer of GXE]

The fact that GXE is lower now is an indicator the ladder is more skilled because people can no longer maintain GXEs of 95% or whatever by stomping all the scrubs on ladder. GXE is your win chance against any random ladder player, if the top players no longer have expected winrates of 95% without the tier gaining more RNG or losing development (such as a tier with shifts might), then lower GXE means the ladder has improved skill-wise relative to the people at the top. One could argue this means there's fewer skilled players at the top but if RBY Ladder Tournament is an indicator this seems to hold even when all the top players are laddering.

Correct, relative skill will always raise over time, and that goes for any game. The bottom denominator, will always raise, I don't mean that in a bad way, it's just over time people learn facts.

Edit ..to further elaborate though, to reach top elite level play it will take more and more time played to understand. Such as to make GM in chess is usually over 10,000+ hours of play, but in chess, chess has a much larger player base dedicating time to it. To make top on the ladder in Gen1 probably still takes a few hundred hours of play to be capable of...these numbers rise over time, meaning it will take longer and longer for a player to achieve top rankings. Larger playerbases means it will take higher ELO scores to be on top, such as demonstrated in New gens, where current gen ladders have a larger player pool, so it thus in turn has more ELO to spread around, think of ELO as like a currency. Gen 1 has less currency(amount of people losing ELO points) than the latest gen, therefore players can't get 2000 ELO because of how the algorithm allocates a cap on ELO points, as well as the volume of people to take ELO from, or give to. But then in the current gen it's possible to get 2000 because of the amount of people losing points. GXE over time will be harder to get to 95%....Although both ELO and GXE can be manipulated easier in Gens without many people playing because of how the algorithm takes and gives points relative to ELO scores. Thus players with 95% GXE frequently use tactics like playing only if their perceived range of winning is high. To prevent this more people who are high rated should click the Do Not Allow to watch button. If more people click that button the top GXE rates will go down, because in order to get 95% GXE it nearly requires only playing during only low volume hours and selectively choosing if it's worth it to risk their ELO for the range of their opponents who are currently laddering. 95%GXE is damn near impossible even for the best players because that ELO is reserved only for top rated players who use selective play to only play during low volume hours, and then additionally scouting games, and correctly using that scouting information to determine if they should play or not. Always click the do not allow watchers button, and you can lower the top top rated GXE players.

If there is anyway to get more people to play Gen1 I would encourage it though, advertise that this exists! it's to ask people outside of the community with competitive mindsets if they played RBY when they were young, and then show them how to play Gen1.

If more tournaments had cash prizes or if cash prizes were pooled for charity, it's possible to grow interest in it fast.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

Just one more thing: look at these teams

Jynx/Chansey/Cloyster/Tauros/Golem/Starmie

Gengar/Chansey/Cloyster/Tuaros/Alakazam/Zapdos

Cloyster over lax is what people would see as the obvious innovation. It is. But that is looking at it superficially. The real innovation here is avoiding paralyzing any of the opposing pokemon that you don't want paralyzed in order to make room for sleep and freeze, and then being more liberal with paralysis. In some sense, keeping that in mind, the Golem team is the more "pure" team, and the second team, it seems to me, was obviously made afterward as an evolution of the first team, in order to try to plug a few of the weaknesses of the first team, but it becoming a little less pure as a result. That's what it feels like anyway after playing both a lot. Keep in mind these were made in 2016, yet the strategies that they are made for are extremely modern. We've all caught up to him now though.

 

[Gerbungis]

What is the argument here, that Golem and Rhydon should be evaluated in a vacuum and we should pretend Thunder Wave isn't a move other Pokemon click in RBY to support them? I guess Tauros and Snorlax are bad against Chansey because to beat it they need it paralyzed.

but snorlax can paralyse with thorlax !!! (amnesialax +tbolt)

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

The fact that GXE is lower now is an indicator the ladder is more skilled because people can no longer maintain GXEs of 95% or whatever by stomping all the scrubs on ladder. GXE is your win chance against any random ladder player, if the top players no longer have expected winrates of 95% without the tier gaining more RNG or losing development (such as a tier with shifts might), then lower GXE means the ladder has improved skill-wise relative to the people at the top. One could argue this means there's fewer skilled players at the top but if RBY Ladder Tournament is an indicator this seems to hold even when all the top players are laddering.

Obtaining a high elo seemed much harder back then. I remember watching Peasounay hit the 1700s live in 2017 and it seeming very impressive. Now getting 1700 doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

 

[Believer of GXE]

The extreme niche top GXE lowered as a result of the feature implemented allowing players to click the "do not allow watchers button". This wasn't there in 2017, as well as in 2017, the aggressor in a draw scenario if explosion was used as the last move, has the exploding player win if it was 0vs0 at the end....niche I know, but now that's a draw. Also the fact crystal found about not paralyzing normal types with body slam was new back then, thus players who were already good, had to slightly re learn the entire game.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

The extreme niche top GXE lowered as a result of the feature implemented allowing players to click the "do not allow watchers button". This wasn't there in 2017, as well as in 2017, the aggressor in a draw scenario if explosion was used as the last move, has the exploding player win if it was 0vs0 at the end....niche I know, but now that's a draw. Also the fact crystal found about not paralyzing normal types with body slam was new back then, thus players who were already good, had to slightly re learn the entire game.

Taking away the ability to hide ladder matches would be amazing for the ladder scene. Ladder had more of a sense of community when everyone was hanging out in chat watching good matches together.

 

[Believer of GXE]

Taking away the ability to hide ladder matches would be amazing for the ladder scene. Ladder had more of a sense of community when everyone was hanging out in chat watching good matches together.

I agree, but in most games, the option to hide ladder matches is implemented as a feature...It isn't just showdown, this is a common norm.

 

[Leader of the Rockets]

This is interesting to think about. Because maybe what we think of as "optimal" is in and of itself a block to our creativity.

Just a little further elaboration here, because this was a bit vague. The philosopher, Sartre, has a famous line that he is known for that goes, "Existence precedes essence." What he meant by that, basically, is that in his opinion, nothing has a purpose until we give it purpose. We exist first, and then must find purpose. That doesn't really matter for this discussion. I only brought that up, because my point is the opposite. It's that maybe regarding team building, Essence Precedes Existence. Meaning that maybe the right way to think about team building is thinking about strategy first. The essence of the team first before the team even exists! Which might seem obvious at first. As if it, of course, must be so logically... but psychologically, most of us do not think this way. Most of us who have gotten really good at this game let the team we are using dictate how we play. We think of the optimal way to play that specific team.
But the great team builders probably think of how they want to win primarily, and if the team they are using does not comply, then it isn't up to them to learn to play the team the way it wants to be played (which is what most of us do after we lose), it is instead the teams onus to change, not the player. When I use the Cholaski team, I do not play like Cholaski. In fact, when I posted the team in the Rate My Team threads, I urged the reader to not play like Cholaski. I, mathematically, probably play a bit more "optimal" than Cholaski (though take that word with a grain of salt because gxe-wise, we probably don't differ much), yet the reason Cholaski does play the way he plays, is probably because he has an ideal way of winning, and it is this ideal way of winning that birthed those teams. The ideal, as opposed to mathematical rigor, is his driving motivator. And probably the driving motivator of all foundational team builders and meta game changers.