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Just from personal experience, I feel like Golem should just be OU, I personally always play much more careful around Golems just because the explosion factor can be so much more dangerous than a Rhydon spamming EQ in some situations, while Golem trades some firepower for its explosions, it's more than capable of being a pretty consistent Pokemon as long as you know how to play it right.
As for the legendary birds, Articuno OU, Moltres UU, Articuno is absolutely nuclear to everything but a Chansey, however for Moltres's case, fire is very poor typing offensively and defensively.
Persian should remain UU, while it is more than usable, it most certainly isnt a top tier consistent use Pokemon.
How is 1 bird better then the next? Moltres & Articuno are both equally viable. One gets BRN + Fire Spin one gets FRZ chance. Both are walled about equally. Idk how people can argue one over the other. Imo both are too niche & need to be completely built around to be on a team in OU.
Tbh I see merit in keeping Golem OU, just as Lusch mentioned in his 1st post, Golem's boom sets it apart from Rhydon, while still serving similar roles.
I would just move Vic to OU & call it a day tbh. Let's lock the OU/UU line & play some rby uu :)
Dugtrio wasn't even remotely broken in Pokemon Perfect's RU equivalent. Bulky waters, Grass-types (including Venusaur), Clefable, Aerodactyl, Fearow, and Pinsir off the top of my head all checked it pretty well, so Dugtrio needed some work done before it had a chance to sweep. And that was in a tier with reduced power level compared to UU.
Dugtrio wasn't even remotely broken in Pokemon Perfect's RU equivalent. Bulky waters, Grass-types (including Venusaur), Clefable, Aerodactyl, Fearow, and Pinsir off the top of my head all checked it pretty well, so Dugtrio needed some work done before it had a chance to sweep. And that was in a tier with reduced power level compared to UU.
That doesn't mean a pokemon can't be much better in a higher tier than it is in a lower tier. A good example is Victreebel, who is much better in OU than in the reduced power level meta (UU). UU is currently not that bulky and with, for example, hypno's rest being fairly exploitive, dugtrio can do a lot of damage. It is not broken by any means just a good overall pokemon. UU also lacks a lot of good ground resists other than dnite and gyara, which makes duggy a lot better than it is in RU where the mons you mentioned (and the god Tangela) were probably much better than they are now in UU.
Anyway, I agree with dropping all C-tiered mons down and victreebel up. It seems the most objective way to do it, but I can get behind golem staying although its usage (and viability) has been dropping significantly.
Why would Victreebel be moved up if it's viable in UU? Isn't the point of an OU tier to provide bans for UU? The likes of Slowbro and Chansey aren't considered Uber after all.
Why would Victreebel be moved up if it's viable in UU? Isn't the point of an OU tier to provide bans for UU? The likes of Slowbro and Chansey aren't considered Uber after all.
The point of OU is more of what is considered standard in the current metagame when it comes to RBY through ADV. If they wanted to provide bans then they could just add something to UUBL again (even though it's been empty ever since the last shift) Victreebel is considered a pretty good mon in OU atm and it's starting to get fairly common so it makes sense that it's being considered for a rise. And while victreebel is considered viable in UU, it's actually less viable in UU than in OU with stuff like Tenta and Dnite being so good, probably among other things like articuno, so it doesnt actually effect UU all that much.
Why would Victreebel be moved up if it's viable in UU? Isn't the point of an OU tier to provide bans for UU? The likes of Slowbro and Chansey aren't considered Uber after all.
Because Ubers is considered, in RBY at least, not a real tier but just a banlist. OU is a real tier (it is even the main tier), so its use is not just to be a banlist for UU. The first tiering of UU was made in 2016, which was just year after the groundbreaking discovery of Crystal_, which really changed the meta. This tiering was made on the basis of their viability rankings, which have changed significantly in recent years due to interest in reflect users and wrappers. Currently, the meta has been stable, so why do we still have outdated banlist for UU?
Your statement makes sense, when the previous and the new banlist would be decided by usage tiering alone because then viability is not counted. However, like last time using viability as a measure is the best option, because the ladders are not active/high level enough to produce meaningful results for usage based tiering. What we are now trying to see is which mons are viable enough to be called OU and which mons do not have enough viability to remain OU.
Also, viability in a lower tier is never counted in any tiering method because lower tiers are produced from the higher tier not the other way around. The higher tiers decide which mons are good and should be OU, not the lower tiers. You can have bans for sure, if mons are broken in lower tiers, but that is not what we are arguing for Victreebel. We are arguing that its viability in OU makes it an OU mon, meaning that it should be consider OU from here on out (which is very similar to an usage based system, where a mon has enough usage to be called OU it will be OU regardless of its viability/usage in UU).
Okay. This thread has been open for 2 weeks now. Poeple had enough opportunity to give their thoughts (and they still can) but there has not been anything in a few days. I'll draw a first conclusion from this now:
I'll talk to the people who can change tier lists etc. and let them make Victreebel OU (meaning it's gonna be classified as such in the smogdex and the Showdown teambuilder, as well as not being allowed to be used in UU. It does not need firther explanation, alsomost everyone agreed.
I have collected the opinions of the people here in the thread and Articuno, Moltres and Persian look clear UU from that, and I think it's justified. They should not be classified as OU (nothing changes here).
It gets a bit dicey around Golem and Dragonite. From what I counted in this thread of people who voiced their opinion is the following:
Golem: 7 people see it in OU, 6 people in UU, 1 person did not mention Golem in his post.
Dragonite: 5 people see it in OU, 5 people in UU, 4 people did not mention Dragonite.
It's not easy to make something of those results, so discussion on those 2 is still welcome in this thread. Treating all of C-rank is still a possible option, which means all to UU at this point (the all OU options is out now).
The question remains, if it is feasable to put Dragonite in OU while putting the birds in UU, since in the mutually voted on Viability rankings the bird came out in front, which makes putting Dragonite "above" them manually a bit inconsistent.
tl, dr:
I see 3 options atm:
All C-ranked Pokemon to UU.
Golem to stay OU, everything else in C-rank to be UU.
Golem and Dragonite to OU, everything else in C-rank to be UU.
Would appreciate discussion on those options going forward.
I think given we've seen a metagame shift to the extent that Victreebel has justified a rise into OU it's reasonable to act with a little bit more fluidity in the OU line and let Golem and Dragonite fall to UU for now. One imagines that in a regular tiering system they're the equivalent of right beside the tiering borderline, and that if the metagame shifts in the future it would be similarly reasonable to raise them back up, if warranted. But for now, to suggest that their current performance doesn't justify their position in OU
Golem Explosion vs. Alakazam: 418-492 (133.5 - 157.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Golem Explosion vs. Starmie: 291-343 (90 - 106.1%) -- 38.5% chance to OHKO
Golem Explosion vs. Jynx: 458-539 (137.5 - 161.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Golem Explosion vs. Cloyster: 169-199 (55.7 - 65.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Golem Explosion vs. Lapras: 301-354 (65 - 76.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Golem Explosion vs. Slowbro: 247-291 (62.8 - 74%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Golem Explosion vs. Victreebel: 343-404 (94.4 - 111.2%) -- 66.7% chance to OHKO
Golem Explosion vs. Dragonite: 268-315 (69.6 - 81.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Golem Earthquake vs. Chansey: 314-370 (44.6 - 52.6%) -- 22.7% chance to 2HKO
Rhydon Earthquake vs. Chansey: 354-417 (50.3 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
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
Golem Earthquake vs. Slowbro: 109-129 (27.7 - 32.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
Rhydon Earthquake vs. Slowbro: 122-144 (31 - 36.6%) -- 69.4% chance to 3HKO
Golem Rock Slide vs. Articuno: 350-412 (91.3 - 107.5%) -- 46.2% chance to OHKO
Rhydon Rock Slide vs. Articuno: 391-460 (102 - 120.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Conclusion, Golem's boom is powerful enough to have a trade for any mon with a Tauros coming in to clean up. I don't know why Golem + Rhydon's usage is so vastly different. Both of their damage output's are similar aside from those that stood out the most, mentioned above. Both can sub 4x (edit: although takes 1 stoss to break golem's sub, vs 2 for rhydon***). Golem has 8.79% to Rhydon's 7.81% critical chance rate. The key thing being Golem Recieves boom, Rhydon does not. I believe these two are about equal, so why they would be in different tiers is beyond me, but I remain 50/50 on Golem to OU or UU based on Usage/Viability, respectively.
I've been thinking about Golem for a while, and I think I've finally convinced myself that it should be OU. The main argument against it is that it's outclassed by Rhydon, but it really isn't. Rhydon and Golem fulfill the same niche, and in general both perform it equally well, but there are a few things one does better than the other.
As shown in EB0LA's post, Rhydon's greater attack is mostly relevant against Chansey, Snorlax, Slowbro, and Articuno. These KOs are nice to have, but how relevant are they really? Chansey and Snorlax often carry Reflect, and if either is the Ice Beam variant, Rhydon's not going to want to stay in. That's not to say Golem does any better against them, but if these KOs are supposed to be Rhydon's big advantage, there are plenty of games in which it just won't matter. Moving on to Slowbro, Rhydon has to walk on eggshells to beat it in a clean 1v1, especially if it's the Surf variant. Golem, meanwhile, can just Explode to deal some good damage and gain momentum by bringing something in for free. Finally, Rhydon does have a pretty clear advantage against Articuno, but most Articuno would probably respect Golem's potential OHKO enough to switch out anyway.
At the same time, Golem's advantage over Rhydon - Explosion - shouldn't be overstated either. Golem can do several neat things with Explosion, like punishing Tauros's Hyper Beam much better than Rhydon can. The problem with Explosion, though, is that you lose your Golem. You lose your main tool to deal with the ever-dangerous Zapdos. If your Golem is revealed before the opponent's Electric-type is, they might be able to trick you into blowing up Golem to clear the field for them to wreak havoc. On the other hand, if the opponent reveals Zapdos or Jolteon first, Explosion no longer becomes a viable play, and you're essentially left with a slightly worse Rhydon.
So, who's the better Rock? I think it all depends on whether or not the opponent actually brings an Electric-type. If they do, Rhydon is slightly better for its higher stats, since Explosion doesn't matter. If they don't, Golem is slightly better for its wallbreaking power, since you don't need it defensively.
TL;DR: Golem is not strictly worse than Rhydon, and in some cases is even better, so it should be OU.
The most relevant calcs for Golem vs Rhydon are the Chansey matchup in my opinion:
Chansey Seismic Toss vs. Rhydon: 100-100 (24.2 - 24.2%) -- guaranteed 5HKO
Rhydon Earthquake vs. Chansey: 354-417 (50.3 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO Rhydon Earthquake vs. Chansey through Reflect: 178-210 (25.3 - 29.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
vs. Chansey Seismic Toss vs. Golem: 100-100 (27.5 - 27.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
Golem Earthquake vs. Chansey: 314-370 (44.6 - 52.6%) -- 22.7% chance to 2HKO Golem Earthquake vs. Chansey through Reflect: 158-186 (22.4 - 26.4%) -- 17.4% chance to 4HKO
Since Rhydon's Substitute doesn't break to Seismic Toss, Rhydon can fish for FPs more easily, and the 4HKO gives Rhydon a shot at KOing Chansey without sacrificing itself. Rhydon is also very likely to win a 1v1 with paralyzed Ice Beam Chansey, whereas Golem is quite shakey with its low 2HKO chance making it very reliant on luck to win without exploding. Having a live Rhydon vs. a KO'd Golem might be the reason for Rhydon's solid winrate over the past couple years vs. Golem's unimpressive winrate, which would indicate that Golem is in fact strictly worse than Rhydon due to a worse matchup.
However, again it is possible that it's lack of success in recent years is due to top level players favoring Rhydon over Golem, and thus deflating Golem's winrate as less skilled Golem players bring it against more skilled Rhydon users and lose games.
To be fair, its not just those pokemon that Rhydon has an advantage against:
* 18% chance to 2hko Starmie vs 0% for Golem
* Guaranteed survival against crit eggy Psychic
* 67% chance to survive crit Zam Psychic vs 47% for Golem
* Guaranteed 4hko vs Eggy with slam, RS, RS, RS
* ~50% chance to kill a Tauros if it has taken two slams in a Tauros war
* No chance to fail to OHKO Jolteon vs 30% for Golem
* No chance to fail to OHKO Gengar vs 13% for Golem
* No chance to fail to OHKO Jynx vs 49% for Golem
* Bodyslam + RS, RS guaranteed KO on Cloyster
* 64% chance to 2HKO Victreebel vs 0 for Golem
These are all reasonably likely events in the course of a battle.
Setting aside Explosion I think Zapdos and other Rhydons might be the only things of rank B or greater that Golem isnt materially worse against.
But explosion is a nice move, especially with more Chanseys using ice beam these days, I kinda feel like there is a reasonably strong case for Golem to be B rank.
But if you paralyze an Ice Beam Chansey (which is probably going to happen), Rhydon beats it without needing to explode. So that's actually something in Rhydon's favor not Golem's, Rhydon wins while Golem trades. Unless it's an IB+Reflect Chansey, which I don't think is a thing especially now that IB+Sing has taken off.
All Golem has in that scenario is some potential to bait and remove an aggressive unstatused Chansey trying to scare Golem out with Ice Beam.
I feel like in practice Golem is usually effective enough against Chansey without Exploding on it. Chan doesnt like taking 45% quakes, even if it has a 2hko. After the first quake you have a two thirds chance that Chansey will be in KO range. While it's only a 22.7% chance to 2hko overall, that Chansey is going to be pretty uncomfortable about hanging around. Especially since its paralysed..
Plus you can just explode turn 1 and ohko it outright, without having to worry about crits or freezes..
In a genuine 1v1 Rhydon is definitely better, but I think overall the bigger difference is for things like the chance of a Rhydon quake + Snorlax Slam KOing chan..
The difference is definitely less pronounced than against a seismic toss Chansey, which Rhydon absolutely murders, whereas Golem does not.
Rhydon's CH Earthquake KOs Snorlax on a Rest cycle, through Reflect.
No matter how different Golem is from Rhydon, RBY OU is all about Reflect Snorlax and Reflect Chansey - two matchups Golem can't claim over Rhydon.
None of Articuno, Moltres, Golem, Persian or Dragonite feel OU. The tier is basically down to 9 pokemon and I wouldn't be surprised to see Victreebel taking a hit at some point in case the tournament scene stays alive.
People have made good points about Golem, mostly towards it belonging in UU. Although I still think it's worthy of OU, I wouldn't be opposed to it dropping if that's what people want.
Unless a majority of people are fundamentally opposed to Victreebel in OU and Golem in UU, I say those changes should be made.
Okay, firstly, thank you to everyone who participated in the discussion! Points have been made and I think, as a representative of the RBY Council, I'll go ahead and announce the following based on that:
In the absence of significant objection by next Sunday Golem will be UU and Victreebel will be OU going forward.
Victreebel is considered B rank by a consensus of the playerbase in the RBY OU Viability rankiings. Pokemon on that level are considered to belong to OU, which is why Victreebel gets moved up to OU. A brief explanation on what makes Victreebel B-rank material can be given by its ability to to run a combination of Sleep Powder, Wrap and Razor Leaf which makes it so that it can Wrap paralyzed Opponents trying to block sleep and not lose momentum as a consequence, while also threatening sleep on unparalyzed opponents that come into Wrap. Razor Leaf does decent damage to alot of common Pokemon in OU and lets Victreebel's Sleep powder not get blocked by paralyzed Starmie.
Golem is considered C rank by a consensus of the playerbase in the RBY OU Viability rankiings. It is thus classified together with Pokemon that are usually considered not to belong to OU. Thus a good reason is necessary for Golem to be considered OU, which can be made by pointing out how similar it is to Rhydon (an OU staple) on paper. While being similar to Rhydon on paper might be considered Golem's saving grace, it is also the nail in its coffin as far as its affiliation to OU is concerned. Comparing the two in the context of the RBY OU metagame we see that Golem's Explosion cannot outweigh Rhydon's greater Attack (reaching very important KOs Golem does not), slighlty better bulk and >100 HP Substitutes. Golem's Explosion allows a trade on some Pokemon (usually not the ones you typically want to remove via Explosion like Chansey, which does not turn Golem into as great of an Explosion user as for example Exeggutor), which can come in handy sometimes, but ultimately is not what the Rock/Ground type of a team is usually meant to represent: A wallbreaker that does "hard-to-recover damage" in earlier stages of the game and stays around late enough in the game to wall a potential opposing Electric type Pokemon. Rhydon's ability to pressure paralyzed opponents and potentially generate free turns with Substitute without having to sacrifice anything on its moveset or itself make it surperior in that role and can make the difference between winning and losing games. Simply put, reasons to use Golem over Rhydon on any given RBY OU team are sparse, which is also represented in the development of every existing tournament usage statistic of pre-Crystal RBY. That is why Golem gets moved down to UU.
Edit: Made another post about Golem, just gonna quote it in here as well:
On Rhydon vs Golem:
Let's just be objective here. Yes they are very similar (same typing, similar stats and movepools). Let's look at the factual differences (without taking the metagame into account first):
Rhydon is slightly more bulky on both sides (does not matter by how much, bulkier is bulkier), hits harder on the physical side (more significant in terms of XHKOs, but even if that was not the case, hitting harder means hitting harder) and gets >100 HP Substitutes. Those are objectively the advantages of Rhydon.
Golem hits harder on the special side, has 5 more base speed and Explosion. Those are objectively the advantages of Golem.
Now, this is a viability rankings thread. I know it seems confusing at first why two very similar Pokemon are that far apart from each other in a ranking. That is because we are not looking at an on-paper power ranking (in which they'd be closer) but rather ask ourselves for every individual Pokemon the question: "How usable is this Pokemon in general in the RBY OU metagame?" (And in the case of Rhydon and Golem also "What reasons are there to use Rhydon/Golem over the other?")
So let us look at the differences described in the first paragraph in the context of the metagame:
The reasons to use Rhydon over Golem are very apparent: Hitting harder and being more bulky, it's clear on paper and a look at the metagame confirms that it actually makes a differnce, not only on paper. I know this has been done a million times, but once more the most important calculations on Rhydon's advantages:
Offensive:
~guaranteed 2HKO on Chansey*
~(pratically) guaranteed 3HKO on Snorlax*
*will talk about these match-ups further below, especially against varaints carrying Reflect, which Snorlax and Chansey commonly do.
~70% chance to 3HKO Slowbro
~2HKO on Lapras with RS, 3HKO on lapras with EQ
~more damage against Exeggutor: Golem needs to RS x4 to safely KO, Rhydon safely KOs with BS x2 + RS x2
~guaranteed OHKO on Jynx (vs Golem's 50% chance)
~45% chance to KO Tauros with EQ after two Tauros Bodyslams
~18% chance to 2HKO Starmie
~65% chance to 2HKO Victreebel
Defensive:
~48% chance to be 2HKOed by Alakazam Psychic (vs Golem's 78%)
~4% chance to be 2HKOed by Exeggutor Psychic (vs Golem's 26%)
We'll have a look at Substitute's advantages further below.
Let's try to figure out reasons to use Golem over Rhydon:
The special attack is irrelevant. The speed only matters against opposing GolDon, which is not nothing but hardly a reason to really give up the power. The only thing that remains is in fact Explosion.
As many people described, the ground types are there not only to put pressure on the opposing Team by threatening huge physical damage, but also to wall a potential electric type from the opponent. Explosing your Ground type obviously does not help here. Also let's be completetly real here, we are talking about Explosion. Admittedly a good move, but by nature a "hit or miss" move (let's not pretend Boom won't also kill your own Pokemon). Consistency is usually reached throguh other means than relying on "hit or miss" (example: why usually top players won't rely on Wrap to win games). The scenario in which you can just click Explosion and whatever you hit is a win for you is rare and hard to achieve. Not to mention that Golem is not exactly the best choice in RBY if you want a boomer. That is because Golem's Boom is usually "telegraphed" because it is 2HKOed by so many things and also usually Golem does not draw in targets that desperately need to be boomed on to be taken out, especially if you don't know if there is a Zapdos in the back. Other boomers also carry usually more defensive utility than Golem, which adds to them being the better choice. Regardless, I don't want to make Explosion worse than it is, it can be a cruacial move and give you an out to win games and especially further your lead in a game, but consistency is the main issue here, in my opinion.
Combine that with Rhydon's surperiority mentioned above and reasons to use Golem get sparse.
But we are not done yet: We have not even talked about movesets, especially the substitute option. I wanna state that both can theoretically run the move, but Golem has to give up either Body Slam or Rock Slide to do so, and with less reward than Rhydon, because Rhydon's Substitutes live a Seismic Toss, whereas Golem's do not. As opposed to Golem's Explosion, Rhydon's Substitute also agrees with the role of the Ground types, as they are slow but hard physical hitters, which makes them especially effective against paralyzed Teams. Substitute can generate free turns on FP turns that are simply game deciding in some situations while not sacrificing your Pokemon. Don't wanna say Substitute in general is a better move than Explosion, but in this particular case I'm almost inclined to say it kind of is. Also Rhydon is a bit more flexible with movesets actually, possesing options such as Leer or Rest, which Golem is hard pressed to find room for, as stated above.
Finally I wanna talk about the match-ups of the two against both of the defining Pokemon of this metagame: Snorlax and Chansey, more accurately, Reflect Snorlax and Reflect Chansey.
Rhydon has a very high chance to KO Snorlax with 3 EQs if one of them crits through Reflect, which Golem can not claim, but rather needs a crit at the exact right moment or Explode to achieve the KO. Not saying that Rhydon likes the ReflectLax match-up, but it at least can win and if it does it is usually quite game changing.
Reflect Chansey with Seismic Toss is also in Rhydon's favour. Chansey should be paralyzed for both, but in any case Rhydon is likelier to KO the Chansey with a critical hit, despite having the slightly lower CH rate, because it has more attempts due to Substitute surviving the Seismic Toss and 4HKOing in general through Reflect, which makes Chansey have to Soft Boiled more.
Reflect-Normals are simply important match-ups, and Golem has no chance to claim them over Rhydon.
Combine all this and using Golem over Rhydon becomes tough to justify. There surely may be teams that apprecitae Golem's Explosion more than they would appreciate Rhydon, but those are not the norm. (Important thing to note here: using both on the same team is not a good idea, since they stack too many weaknesses, it is bottomline an "either X or Y" decision.)
At the end of the day, Golem was made UU for those reasons, and it makes sense.
Hey Everyone,
It's been more than a month or so now, that Golem is in UU tier and Victreebel in OU. I've played both of them quite a bit in their new tiers and have watched other ppl using them and I have to say they fit better in their original places with Golem as OU and Victreebel as UU.
In the UU tier, victreebel doesn't throw off the competitive balance of the tier like Golem does when it's plopped into UU. In fact, in UU people are often fine with dropping vic and going with other wrappers like tentecruel or pinser and using venusaur as your sleeper for his speed and bulk. Plus with Articuno, dodrio, hypno, kadabra, pick your favorite fire type, all keep victreebel in check and vic can't do anything against any of them once sleep is burned. In OU, starmie, cloyster, lapras and bulky pokes like snorlax and reflect chansey can zone out ground/rocks like golem and rhydon. While golem and rhydon completely zones out zapdos (and jolteon) who would otherwise be too powerful.
In UU, Golem threatens everything with it's explosion WHILE it's able to zones out too many pokes. It completely stomps all the fire pokes, makes dodrio look like a joke, pretty much zones out electric types. Granted UU electric types all have a special move that can hit golem, but once they are para'd and you switch in golem on their electric move they cant do much but to switch or get killed with that powerful stab earthquake. UU beasts like Articuno can beat golem, but once it's para'd golem's rockslide is pretty much OHKO on cuno. Nothing's fundamentally changed about Golem, he's just as powerful as he was before the tier downgrade, it's not like he has been nerfed or anything. It doesn't make sense that he is now considered a lower tier especially when he really messes up the UU tier.
Victreebel is borderline. Yes i get more and more ppl are using him in certain team comps and as a specialty weapon, but I've hardly ever see him played in the queue matches. I'll face a victreebel maybe once every 30 or so matches if that. I'll see way more golem than i see vic. From my observation, it's used way less than the least use OUs (Gengar, Joteon, Slowbro). I even see more Dragonite in ou than victreebel. I think a big part of this is because eggy is obviously very strong and in order to play victreebel you really have to take out eggy and build a team around vic and its hard to make that commitment when it's one game winner take all. Hence, vic team are almost never the A-team or even the B-team they are usually a specialty or surprise team that you save for game 3 or 4. Having said that vic is still very strong, it's upper edge of UU tier, but it's still UU tier.
Hence, I propose moving Golem back to OU and Victreebel back to UU.
Their movements had nothing to do with their viability in the UU tier, but rather their viability in OU. Victreebel is of course terrible in UU but does fairly well late game in OU against paralyzed teams. In the mid game it can also force out some paralyzed threats which puts its teammates at risk of being paralyzed. Given it's done well in tournaments for a while and the VR reflects this performance I think it'd be bizarre to drop it back into UU.
If you want to make an argument for Golem moving to BL, that's about the only thing I could take from this post. I don't have a strong opinion as I haven't played UU enough to speak on that.
itdrcorp
I don't think you understand the tiering philosophy that lies beneath the decision. In terms of tiering approaches there is hardly a right or wrong, but we went for old generations with tiering based off viability. That means if something is viable in the higher tier, it will belong in the higher tier. "Viable" is obviously subjetcive, but we try to base it on playerbase consensus and the opinions of proven tournament players (note: The ladder is not the measuring stick here!). And Victreebel is clearly OU. Again, not because it is too good for UU (it is definitely not), but because it is definitely potent enough in OU. I made another post the other day about why Golem ultimately failed the "viable enough for OU" status. It obviously has something to do with Rhydon. Please read it here before posting anything else about the topic.
Now to your points about both Victreebel's potency in OU and Golem's potency in UU: No offense, but it really seems like you should play the tiers more because what you say is quite far off from reality. In theory what you write makes sense, but in a practical sense of how the respective metagames look like, it is simply untrue. Golem has not been in UU long and getting games in this tier is hard as it is, so I doubt you blew up the tier with Golem in that short timespan, so please don't call it too string for UU when it is impossible to form that opinion yet. Quite frankly, Golem is not even all that great in UU. Vaporeon, Gyarados, Dragonite, Articuno, Tentacruel, Raichu... there is a lot of stuff Golem struggles with. "But if all of them are paralyzed..." - please - We gotta stay realistic. The reality is that Golem has a hard time coming in safely on a lot of things in this tier. When it gets in it can cause damage, but even then a Gyarados switching into EQ negates all the momentum you had (sure you can predict Rock Slide, but then we are basing arguments based on guessing games). That is just an Example.
That being said, I am happy to play UU with anyone who wants to play. Next month there will be an RBY UU ladder. I hope for people to play on there and not just post theory in these threads. If you want to play some games you can reach out to me. Just shoot me a message. ;]
