Discussion Revisiting ADV NU

Amity

Amity

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In recency, multiple ADV players have expressed a disinterest in the current state of ADV NU. I want to raise discussion on the tier's status for increased visibility across Smogon, as most of discussion regarding ADV NU happens on Discord (which sparked the creation of this PR thread), to see the general consensus in the ADV NU playerbase on if the tier needs change and how to accomplish it. Here are some problems people have addressed about the tier so far:

:glalie: One of the main issues regarding ADV NU is how Glalie warps the tier around itself. In a tier with very limited hazard removal, Glalie manages to attain one Spike minimum in every game to enable powerful breakers like Hitmonchan Flareon and Haunter with ease, and limiting Glalies opportunities to set Spikes or removing them once they've been set is a tall task considering its good Speed tier, Light Screen to gain more ups against would-be answers like Flareon and Torkoal, and Explosion to check any Spikes response. Glalie is so effective at its job that ADV NU is heavily centralized around trying to prevent Glalie from rummaging through teams while letting your own Glalie gain a Spikes advantage. This dynamic of the tier being nothing but Glalie Spikes offense is not perceived as healthy, with multiple players calling out for action to be taken regarding the snowball. If anything were to be the main focal point for taking action regarding ADV NU, it should be Glalie.

:haunter: Haunter dropped into NU with the NFE unban, although technically UU by viability as demonstrated in recent ADV UU tours when UU's NFE unban was introduced far after, meaning Haunter might not have been tiered quite correctly. Haunter's power level is on par with the rest of the NU metagame if not slightly above, having an excelling Speed tier and an immunity to all priority helping it commonly trade 2 for 1, being a great beneficiary of Glalie's Spikes to help its breaking while spinblocking Hitmonchan, further enabling Glalie's dominance in hazard stacking.

Multiple other attributes of the tier have been mentioned, such as Hitmonchan, Flareon, Baton Pass, and Arena Trap, but the two points that I have mentioned are the focal points, as they highlight what direction we can take the tier if change were to happen. Either we focus solely on the tier at hand and look at the more broken elements (Glalie) or we change NU to be more in accordance with other ADV tiers (Haunter, maybe also Glalie).

Tagging other ADV NU players for visibility: Rabia etern SEA Heysup ima Stockings Bughouse Beraldo Real FV13 Parpar goldmason Xrn Triangles plznostep Glue LpZ
 
Been a big proponent of axing Glalie for years. Ever since the eq and ls sets were discovered, it’s been way too good at both spiking and trading favorably.

I think Haunter is fine but I don’t feel strongly either way. To tack on an edit, I also think a mon like Haunter might be less of a threat with the removal of the free spiking Glalie provides, so I would prefer to see how the metagame shakes out post glalie ban before touching anything else.
 
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I think personally I'm not against trying what the tier would be like without Glalie. It's obvious Glalie leaving would see a lot of major changes in the metagame and I'm not sure what it would look like since Glalie is basically on 99% of every team imaginable.

In my opinion, we could definitely benefit from a tournament with Glalie banned to see if the metagame is more appealing and then perhaps if there is enough support after then a Glalie ban can voted on? At least, there's no harm in trying it out since personally I think we should always look at ways we can potentially improve our old gens.

I don't have a strong opinion on Haunter. I don't think it's broken or unhealthy but I would want to see what other people think with the whole "being in accordance with other ADV tiers" point.
 
Honestly I wouldn't mind seeing Glalie gone cuz not only its too good at everything it can do between softchecking literally anything that doesnt hit it SE, spiking, supporting and trading and I feel like each tour I play in the tier it gets less enjoyable mostly due to its existence. I feel like it also discourages diversity because giving it free turns is really bad so you wanna pressure it as much as you can which options are not as varied, so I could only imagine a better tier without it, but since that is no guarantee I'd personally suggest some long term testing the tier with and without it if enough support is met.

Haunter is totally fine and it greatly helps the tier imo, it wouldn't even be much better in a Glalieless meta either.
 
As much as I have historically enjoyed ADV NU I do not find it to be a competitive metagame and think it's far too janky to be considered settled. I don't think it has been settled since the NFE drops.

I do not think it is controversial to say that Glalie is broken, the question is only if there is a desire to change the old metagame. In this case, NU has had a history of change more than any other adv tier with unbanning of NFEs, I don't think the player base would have any reason to gripe about this ban. I don't think any testing is needed really.

Haunter's existence in NU has always annoyed me because it's introduction made no sense. The only reason that Haunter was tiered NU is because NFEs were banned (until semi-recently) in UU, and NFEs were unilaterally unbanned by NU's leaders first. If you look at the VRs and usage stats, ever since Haunter's release in UU it has been getting usage on par with Misdreavus. It should have never been NU in the first place. I do also think Haunter's blistering speed, immense SPA, incredible immunities and amazing move pool are way too much for NU. If you watch tour replays, way too many games do come down to endure/salac guessing games.

I think the "in accordance with other ADV tiers" on a larger scale would be hard to achieve without cooperation from all the adv tiers and is frankly a pipe dream. However, I am not opposed to a more fulsome revamp of NU and giving RU an official stamp if there is movement to do so. That being said, I do not think we need to commit to anything by banning Glalie and/or Haunter, so let's not let that derail the main focus.
 
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As others have said, down to let Glalie go. I feel like seeing how the meta plays in a Glalie-less world (harder to get spikes up = Haunter value goes down since it can't abuse its checks as hard) would be beneficial before ruling on Haunter (maybe a suspect in a few months? Something to that effect?).

I'm also just not convinced Haunter needs to go because of the technicality of the NFE ruling (and again, Haunter in a Glalie-less world is at least worth experimenting with, in my opinion). I think banning Haunter also makes Chan a bit harder to deal with in an offense matchup, especially in a world where Rapid Spin is more droppable.

Excited to see ADV NU changes proposed though, love this tier and I'm very excited to see the direction the tier will go!
 
ADV NU as it stands is a very unserious format, and Glalie is ridiculously broken. Please remove this thing.

I don’t think Haunter is really broken, but it’s a fantastic abuser of the spikes that Glalie so easily lays for it (and opens for it with boom lol). Get rid of the stupid ice ball first as he’s what makes this thing remotely stupid, then look at the ghost after.
 
I don't think Glalie itself is an issue I just think boom as a move is super clickable. I've played many tour games where boom > boom > boom > boom is a viable line to take. I like Glalie. I like Spikes I like its bulk I like its coverage I like its speed tier. Haunter is dumb and shouldn't be NU anyway, we can ban him
 
I agree with suspect testing Glalie, but I don't think Haunter is broken and likely wouldn't be broken in a Glalie-less meta. I'd also like to see a Glalie-less tournament hosted so that we can see what the meta would be like without it before we move forward with any tiering action.
Edit: I think the tier is mostly fine as it is now and don't really support banning Glalie, but it's only fair for it to be suspected if so many people want to see it go.
 
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My opinion is pretty much the same.
I would like to see the tier without Glalie, should be more healthy. Many reasons have already been mentioned above like the multiple capabilities of glalie and it facility to set spikes. I believe that now is the time, taking advantage of the creation of ADV RU where Glalie gonna be very relevant as well.
About Haunter, I dont think its broken at all, even less in a supposed non-presence of Glalie if actions are taken (the Glalie free spikes enhances Haunter a lot in my opinion). So I would test the meta without Glalie first before any mention for Haunter and see how it develops in the future.
 
spikes are cool, glalie coverage is cool, glalie bulk not so much.

I would prefer to ban haunter first (is not a NU mon) and then see how easy is to deal with spikes without him , if it is not enought, then deal with glalie later. But haunter must go
 
ADV NU is my personal favourite tier that I have played competitively from my 10 years I have been on Smogon.
I love how good every playstyle is from offense, ho, balance and stall.
The Roster of mons is great as well, I would say there is about 20 mons you have to be prepared for and about 15+ more mons that have really cool niches in the metagame.
If it was up to me, I would not touch anything about the tier other than baton pass chains.

I am also heavily against the idea of straight up banning Glalie. The special defense set is a great asset to a lot of teams thanks to Glalie's ability to cover Plusle, Wailord, Dewgong, Chimecho, Bellossom and Haunter. Banning the best Spiker would drastically change metagame which is why I think we should avoid a straight up ban for Glalie.

With that said however, I do think we should try Glalieless tours to see how the tier plays. At the end of the day, Glalie is still by far the best mon in the metagame thanks to the combination of Good Bulk + Boom + Spikes.
Even if we end up banning Glalie, we still have viable spikers being Cacturne & Roselia. Pineco could also potentially be an option with no Glalie in the metagame as well.

Haunter I don't find a problem for the current ADV NU landscape. It should remain unbanned as long Glalie is in the tier.
 
I think glalie is clearly an overcentralizing and broken force in the tier, absolutely think it should be axed. As for Haunter whether or not it's broken reasonable minds will differ but since a lot of its value is tied to spikes I don't think it should be banned before glalie.
 
Since we started pursuing this tier we've seen a lot of Pokemon come to the fore as "broken." Huntail, Vigoroth, Diglett, Metang, Wailord, BP, etc have all been noted as ban worthy in the past, and then the metagame shifts and they don't seem quite so problematic. For instance, Plusle went from a top 5 mon at inception, to C rank, back up tot A rank, just based on rediscovery and metagame trends.

Having said that, Glalie has pretty consistently been at the top of the food chain, seeing a small dip a few years ago with the rise of Wail/Rose teams, but it's clearly still a centralizing mon.

I no longer have any stake in the metagame, so I won't be too sad to see Glalie or Haunter banned; I do think, however, that the metagame remains far from solved and I wholeheartedly believe metagame trends will shift again as new players play the tier and opinions will once again change on what is broken given some time. For that reason I am unenthusiastic about actually taking any action outside of desires to fix tiering for usage justifications (which both actually probably fit tbh)
 
In the past 3 ADVPLs this has IMO been the most volatile tier of the tour. Glalie is for sure broken, it has several good sets to get past its answers while chipping the other team severely both directly and indirectly. I'd also say the enormous amount of offensive pressure it generates vastly outweighs the positives it provides defensively, especially when the other spikers have a similar defensive profile vs waters Haunter and electrics (obviously being somewhat worse at it because they aren't broken like Glalie). I don't think we need a suspect to prove this if the playerbase is widely in agreement which seems to be the case, so a vote seems fine. In the future maybe look at BP and Haunter but obv let the tier settle first.
 
This is interesting to me since I basically didn't play ADV NU anymore because I just got bored after feeling like I already had built with everything I wanted in the tier. So this means some change would be nice, right? But at the same time I don't feel like neither Glalie or Haunter are actually broken. They are great mons for sure, I always had a Haunter for no reason in my teams because it could always do something important etc. Still they are not broken by definition in my opinion, just really splashable.

Glalie for sure centralizes the metagame tho, but it's mainly because of Spikes. Yes, I KNOW it can do other stuff, but it is so good because it can do those other stuff AND setup spikes with ease otherwise it would be just a good mon, not broken at all even with old Explosion mechs. What really annoys me is that we're in a tier that has only one reliable Spinner (Shitmonchan) and I would be way more happier if I didn't have to spend a slot of a good mon (compared to the rest of the tier, of course :risitas:) like this just to keep hazards out.

Spikes is also the reason that anything else feels stronger, be it something like Haunter or watermons. Speaking of them, I think Wailord and friends are way more trouble to deal with than Haunter or Glalie, because the water switch ins of the tier are TERRIBLE and the offensive presences are not exactly reliable vs watermons (or are your own Wailord). At least Spikes ALSO helps with chipping those mons right!? (except lol Pelipper). Anyway, it doesn't seem to be annoying other people so I'll stop here and also because the only thing to do to help with this issue would be steal something from RU :risitas: (actually I don't know which mons are in RU tbh, I'm already too old to keep up with new tiers).

About Haunter: I don't think it's a broken mon, but if it's being used in higher tiers, it should move based on...you know...usage. Don't ban it for being broken please, but if it's an important mon in higher tiers it should just move because that's how usage works.

In the end I don't think the tier has something that is ACTUALLY broken and should be banned for this reason, it's fun enough with the resources it has (which are not many since it's a really old gen). I do think Glalie centralizes stuff tho, it was also probably the main factor I always had in mind when building teams: do I deal with Glalie/Spikes well enough? So if I was going to change something in the tier, this is my order of priorities:

0- Drop something from RU;
1- Ban Spikes - the most centralizing factor - I'm more curious about a meta without Spikes than without Glalie tbh;
2- Ban Glalie - the most centralizing mon;
3- Rise Haunter if its usage is high enough in RU/UU. (not my problem to find the metrics for now)

I'm probably not going back into playing ADV NU if it doesn't change and at the same time I don't think the tier NEEDS change, but anything new regarding the Spikes/Glalie scenario would be interesting to me.
 
HANTSUKI said:
This is interesting to me since I basically didn't play ADV NU anymore because I just got bored after feeling like I already had built with everything I wanted in the tier. So this means some change would be nice, right? But at the same time I don't feel like neither Glalie or Haunter are actually broken. They are great mons for sure, I always had a Haunter for no reason in my teams because it could always do something important etc. Still they are not broken by definition in my opinion, just really splashable.

Glalie for sure centralizes the metagame tho, but it's mainly because of Spikes. Yes, I KNOW it can do other stuff, but it is so good because it can do those other stuff AND setup spikes with ease otherwise it would be just a good mon, not broken at all even with old Explosion mechs. What really annoys me is that we're in a tier that has only one reliable Spinner (Shitmonchan) and I would be way more happier if I didn't have to spend a slot of a good mon (compared to the rest of the tier, of course :risitas:) like this just to keep hazards out.

Spikes is also the reason that anything else feels stronger, be it something like Haunter or watermons. Speaking of them, I think Wailord and friends are way more trouble to deal with than Haunter or Glalie, because the water switch ins of the tier are TERRIBLE and the offensive presences are not exactly reliable vs watermons (or are your own Wailord). At least Spikes ALSO helps with chipping those mons right!? (except lol Pelipper). Anyway, it doesn't seem to be annoying other people so I'll stop here and also because the only thing to do to help with this issue would be steal something from RU :risitas: (actually I don't know which mons are in RU tbh, I'm already too old to keep up with new tiers).

About Haunter: I don't think it's a broken mon, but if it's being used in higher tiers, it should move based on...you know...usage. Don't ban it for being broken please, but if it's an important mon in higher tiers it should just move because that's how usage works.

In the end I don't think the tier has something that is ACTUALLY broken and should be banned for this reason, it's fun enough with the resources it has (which are not many since it's a really old gen). I do think Glalie centralizes stuff tho, it was also probably the main factor I always had in mind when building teams: do I deal with Glalie/Spikes well enough? So if I was going to change something in the tier, this is my order of priorities:

0- Drop something from RU;
1- Ban Spikes - the most centralizing factor - I'm more curious about a meta without Spikes than without Glalie tbh;
2- Ban Glalie - the most centralizing mon;
3- Rise Haunter if its usage is high enough in RU/UU. (not my problem to find the metrics for now)

I'm probably not going back into playing ADV NU if it doesn't change and at the same time I don't think the tier NEEDS change, but anything new regarding the Spikes/Glalie scenario would be interesting to me.
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Taking a bit of time to throw my own opinion in here regarding banning Spikes, as it's a far different can of worms to talk about than just Glalie or Haunter or resettling ADV lower tiering as a whole.

While banning Spikes is an interesting alternative to the Glalie ban, I dont think this is logical for a couple reasons. Spikes being banned would have to imply if Glalie gets banned Cacturne and Roselia take up the mantle perfectly and they would be problematic. I dont think this is true because the grass Spikers can't keep momentum in the same way that Glalie can, and they get far less opportunities to set Spikes in the first place, solving the limited hazard removal option as it becomes easier to pressure Spikers on offensive teams. Glalie is the root cause of why Spikes is as problematic as it is. Spikes with limited removal is the biggest reason why ADV NU has faults with hazards, but that absolutely isn't to discount Glalie's goals of attaining it; the other spikers dont have Glalies mixed bulk, impressive speed tier for NU, Light Screen, Explosion, good offensive stats/movepool, must I name more? If the goal of banning Spikes is to preserve Glalie's other traits... why? I don't understand what Glalie is meant to accomplish without Spikes that other breakers like Metang and Wailord aren't able to as well. I would argue since Glalie doesn't have merit to the meta without Spikes, why aren't we just removing it in its entirety? If someone is able to enlighten me on this I would like to know, but as it stands I can't see a "ban spikes" route in favor of just banning Glalie. Those are my two cents on the matter.

Thank you so much to everyone who has posted so far, I'm very thankful that this thread has got as much traction as it did. Being able to talk about the state of ADV NU on Smogon forums has been extremely productive and this helps the tier a lot. I would like to second the sentiments regarding a Glalie-less tour, I think it could be very enlightening and fun to people who want to play a different and potentially balanced version of ADV NU.
 
Amity said:
Taking a bit of time to throw my own opinion in here regarding banning Spikes, as it's a far different can of worms to talk about than just Glalie or Haunter or resettling ADV lower tiering as a whole.

While banning Spikes is an interesting alternative to the Glalie ban, I dont think this is logical for a couple reasons. Spikes being banned would have to imply if Glalie gets banned Cacturne and Roselia take up the mantle perfectly and they would be problematic. I dont think this is true because the grass Spikers can't keep momentum in the same way that Glalie can, and they get far less opportunities to set Spikes in the first place, solving the limited hazard removal option as it becomes easier to pressure Spikers on offensive teams. Glalie is the root cause of why Spikes is as problematic as it is. Spikes with limited removal is the biggest reason why ADV NU has faults with hazards, but that absolutely isn't to discount Glalie's goals of attaining it; the other spikers dont have Glalies mixed bulk, impressive speed tier for NU, Light Screen, Explosion, good offensive stats/movepool, must I name more? If the goal of banning Spikes is to preserve Glalie's other traits... why? I don't understand what Glalie is meant to accomplish without Spikes that other breakers like Metang and Wailord aren't able to as well. I would argue since Glalie doesn't have merit to the meta without Spikes, why aren't we just removing it in its entirety? If someone is able to enlighten me on this I would like to know, but as it stands I can't see a "ban spikes" route in favor of just banning Glalie. Those are my two cents on the matter.

Thank you so much to everyone who has posted so far, I'm very thankful that this thread has got as much traction as it did. Being able to talk about the state of ADV NU on Smogon forums has been extremely productive and this helps the tier a lot. I would like to second the sentiments regarding a Glalie-less tour, I think it could be very enlightening and fun to people who want to play a different and potentially balanced version of ADV NU.
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I don't actually expect people to ban Spikes, I'm just way more interested in something actually different from what I've been seeing over the years. The other spikers are TERRIBLE, you don't even have to think about it. I just like the idea of keeping an extra breaker/boom and all other utilities Glalie has than just outright ban it (now imagine a pure ice type being broken without something like Gorilla Tactics smh), also freeing a slot on my boy Shitmonchan.

I'm more interested in a meta that I didn't see yet. Spikes is a huge deal in all other tiers in ADV except for PU (and in all tiers you have a good Spiker), which is viable but the Spikers are ehhhh. If Spikes is not banned it'll be just ADV PU with mons a bit stronger for me. It's really a personal preference. Your logic is what usually we have in tiering decisions (except stuff like banning Sand Rush in BW hurting the poor Stoutland etc),
 
Playing this tier for 2 consecutive NUPL’s, 2 ADVPL’s, 1 NUCL with overall positive record:

it is extremely hard to justify any spiker other than Glalie when you are building for this tier. every other ‘mon just feels outclassed or super niche. imo if you get rid of glalie the tier will offer more free room for the other spikers like roselia/cacturne. ofc they have seen usage in the past PLs but i dont think its deniable that glalie is simply just the better compression mon 90% of the time.

idt anything else is broken. gonna try to keep this short because i only rly wanted to express that a glalie ban would likely be beneficial
 
I’ll elaborate further on why I’d rather not mess with the meta. Glalie being good in so many roles and customizable to a team is most of what keeps offense not just viable but strong. I genuinely fear that a Glalie-less meta will end up just being dominated by very stallish teams with Rose Wail Chan Sab Metang Chime (for example, certainly other 6s are possible). A spikesless meta is likely unplayable without other bans that we can’t see today since that would be such a drastic change. Some mons like Sableye and Kecleon become very hard to kill for sure.
 
I don't want to address the spikes conversation other than to say it's kind of derailing the thread since no one, including the person who suggested it, thinks it's a good idea.

Bughouse said:
I’ll elaborate further on why I’d rather not mess with the meta. Glalie being good in so many roles and customizable to a team is most of what keeps offense not just viable but strong. I genuinely fear that a Glalie-less meta will end up just being dominated by very stallish teams with Rose Wail Chan Sab Metang Chime (for example, certainly other 6s are possible).
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I think Wail Chan Chime are going to be frequently used because they are good however I really don't think stall is that scary when you have so many good wallbreakers and offensive spikers in the tier even w.o glalie. I don't think the fear you have is too different from what the current state is, frankly.
 
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I'll state my positions upfront. I am a long-term member of the NU community, I have played some ADVNU games during NUPL and NUCL, and I have (to the best of my memory) played some ADVNU individual tours. As a member of NUPL and NUCL teams I have additionally helped prep teams and players for ADV slots. I am not a member of the ADV community, and did not pay particular attention to ADVPL. I did pay attention to the past NUPL, and before that other NU team tours.

ADVNU, as it is, is a fine tier. It is a very centralized tier, by virtue of having around 6-8 pokemon that are simply at a higher power-level than the rest of the format, but to an extent that's a consequence of being an early-gen lower tier. While it is not perfectly balanced, and while spikes + boomspam make games go very fast, its a playable tier, and I am not wholly convinced that the tier with Glalie (and also Haunter) banned would be a better played experience, or at least that conclusion is not so obvious to me that a quick-ban would be justified.

I am not against taking some limited tiering action. My personal belief is that despite full-pass being bad, playing against full-pass, and watching full-pass is quite boring, and the tier would benefit from its removal. I suppose this belief is not fully aligned with "canonical tiering policy", but with relatively settled old-gens metas, with limited playerbases, we should aim to keep them enjoyable to play and watch.
 
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