It's an in-joke. Old tradition we're all fond of. Learn to live with it, choose to ignore it, or go elsewhere.
-
Smogon Premier League is here and the team collection is now available. Support your team!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Smogon Simple Questions Thread
- Thread starter Quite Quiet
- Start date
It's an in-joke. Old tradition we're all fond of. Learn to live with it, choose to ignore it, or go elsewhere.
Would you mind describing the joke? I'm actually generally curious as to where that came from.
No idea myself either! It's from way before I came on here.
Can someone explain to me this whole "forums" thing and what the purpose is?
Welcome to Smogon! The purpose of these forums is to share our amazing talent in, not just in playing Pokemon, but in other aspects of life as well. Smogon has their own usage-based meta games, which you can find plenty of information on if you ask around (I'm here to give basic information.) Before posting, I'd recommend lurking so you get to know how to really get along with people on this website. http://play.pokemonshowdown.com/ is where you go if you want to play Smogon's meta games with other people. If you have any other questions, don't be afraid to ask!
It's really up to you. Pick a tier that seems interesting to you (because of a mon or whatever) and then just start practicing, watching high-quality battles in that tier, and reading that tier's sub-forum. I like Doubles, so I might be a bit biased when I say to start with DOU :)
OU is the smogon central metagame, and is the only good tier. Pick that. Not biased 100% facts.
"the only good tier" is a very subjective claim, so no it's not 100% facts. All official tiers (OU, UU, RU, NU, PU, LC, Ubers, DOU, VGC, Battle Spot, etc) are fine for someone new to try and pick up. Yes you can definitely argue Smogon focuses on OU, but Smogon is just a creation of the Internet (not the best description, but you get the point). They create their own clauses and bans apart from what Game Freak/Nintendo decides, so OU is not necessarily the tier for a newbie to jump into.
Last edited:
i'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic
sar·casm
ˈsärˌkazəm/
noun
- the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.
əbˈjektiv/
adjective
- 1.
(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
it's when a new generation comes/new mons are introduced and they're stronger than the mons that were in a meta before, so the relative power level increases
as an example, take infernape in gen 4 ou, one of the most prominent threats: base 108 speed, a usually useless ability and around base 100 attacking stats
now take tapu koko in gen 7 ou: base 125 speed, attack and special attack on the level of infernape, and electric surge, which effectively gives it a free choice band/specs for electric type moves.
because of this no one uses infernape in ou anymore except for its niche scarf set. there are simply better options
hope that cleared some things up
"Power Creep" is acutually most used in Draft Leagues which is the act of creating an EV spread that just barely kills a certain Pokémon to make room for other stats to have EVs.
That's not true at all. Power Creep is when the available units or items (in our case, Pokemon) get stronger with new releases to encourage their use over the old. You might be thinking of speed creep, which has a similar wording to what's in use here but describes a process more akin to yours, but they are very much not the same.
This is why almost no gen1 pokémon is used anymore.
Anyone remember when tauros was so fucking strong?
And to add more confusion to the issue, power creep can happen for statistical reasons as well.
Imagine you are creating a simplified Pokémon game, where all Pokémon have a single stat, which is based on the throw of six dice. You take a Pokémon, throw the dice, and program the resulting stats into the game. Your Pokémon will have stats ranging from 6 to 36, with an average of 21. Using this method, you create 100 Pokémon.
Then Smogon makes a metagame out of your game, where the ten best Pokémon make it to the OU tier. Let's say those ten best have stats of 31, 31, 31, 31, 32, 32, 33, 33, 34, and 36 (disclaimer: This is in no way representative of the actual number distribution you'd get out of dice throws, I'm just making them up).
Your game becomes a success, so you decide to make another generation of 100 more Pokémon using the same method. The range of Pokémon stats is the same, from 6 to 36, with an average of 21. But now there are twice as many Pokémon. And the ten best out of 200 are, on average, better than the ten best out of 100. So now, the top 10 best stats are 32, 32, 32, 32, 33, 33, 33, 34, 35, and 36. Stats of 31 don't cut it any more, there are more Pokémon to use in the 32-36 range.
Of course the second generation becomes a huge hit, so you keep going. 100 more Pokémon for Gen 3. The ten best Pokémon (out of 300) now have stats of 32, 32, 33, 33, 33, 33, 34, 35, 36, and 36.
Gen 4: 33, 33, 33, 34, 34, 34, 35, 35, 36, and 36.
Gen 5: 33, 34, 34, 34, 34, 35, 35, 36, 36, and 36.
Gen 6: 34, 34, 35, 35, 35, 35, 36, 36, 36, and 36.
Gen 7: 35, 35, 35, 35, 36, 36, 36, 36, 36, and 36.
In Gen 7, only Pokémon with stats of 35 and 36 make it to OU. Maybe UU comprises the next 20 Pokémon on the list, all with base stats in the 32-34 range - stronger than Gen I OU on average. Nothing changed in terms of stats, but there are simply more Pokémon to pick the top 10 out from, and on average they will have higher and higher stats the bigger the total pool becomes.
Of course, the real Pokémon games have introduced a number of other factors contributing to the overall power creep as well (for instance, giving boosts even to old and weaker Pokémon, raising the bottom power level as well as the top level, which invariably affects the average), but the same principle is at work there too. As the number of Pokémon grows, even within the same design parameters, there will be more Pokémon in the upper echelons of power, and the tiers' size stays relatively constant - meaning that each tier will get stronger Pokémon for every passing generation.
Last edited:
A combination of several factors. One, Power creep has made it generally less powerful. In particular, Z-Moves allow Pokemon it used to reliably answer, such as Landorus-T, to beat it - in that case with +2 tectonic rage. Two, introduction of Pokemon like Tapu Koko and Tapu Bulu has forced down other Electric and Grass types, who are also great for their tiers and see more usage there and give Slowbro a hard time. That, plus a couple of factors liek new toy syndrom and generally unfavorable metagames has put it down there, and its much harder to go back up than it is to never fall. Slwobro is still usable in ou (and is, in fact, c+ rank), but it doesnt have the usage to stay within the tier itself.
Last edited:
Metagame shifts. The metagame isnt good for him anymore. Tapu Koko, Zapdos, Tapu Bulu, Scizor, Pinsir-Mega, mimikyu, kartana and others can easly destroy him with their stabs. Yea, I know, 95 hp and 110 defense is a good bulk, but not when you is checked by half of the metagame. And he is outclassed by Toxapex, having more bulky (50/152/1420, the same ability (regenerator), Baneful Bunker, and a poison typing, able to hit the fairys of the meta. If you can use toxapex, why to use slowbro? Time wasnt good with slowbro, power creep atacks again. Almost no gen 1 pokémon survives in the actual meta.
Well that's not entirely true, Gengar, Chansey, Zapdos and Mew are all examples of pokemon that have been meta relevant for ages and are currently quite effective in SM OU. (Pex doesn't really use Baneful Bunker as well). His Mega Form has some niche use in certain teams, but regular Slowbro does suffer from the current metagame being extremely unkind to it, which caused a huge drop. Certain pokemon like Rotom-W and Azumarill have also fallen off to some degree.
Not major, but http://www.smogon.com/forums/forums/sm-other-teams.410/ should probably be chanegd to include Nu/PU/Mono. It seems really odd to list 8 different categories and then leave three out.
