• Smogon Premier League is here and the team collection is now available. Support your team!

So, what exactly do the tiers mean?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Scrap Brain

We all know the tiers are supposed to draw boundaries between different levels of Pokemon to create different, more varied metagames so all Pokemon can see some use, but how do we draw the lines between tiers? This is actually an important question for the D/P metagame. Stats have always been a big factor, but it seems like most people are all for allowing, at least at first, T-tar to compete in OU, despite its Sp.Def. boost from Sandstream. On the other hand, very few people support letting Darkrai in. It seems important that we know where to draw the line between Ubers and OU, because the Uber tier will be easier to change earlier in the metagame. With people questioning about such Pokemon as T-tar, Darkrai, Wobbuffet and others, there should be some way to know how 'broken' something is before D/P starts.

My other question about the tiers relates to the existence of the BL tier. It exists solely to ban Pokemon too weak for OU from UU, and it is very rarely played as its own metagame. What I don't get is, if these Pokemon are too weak for standard, why aren't they they focus of their own metagame? Many Pokemon, such as Registeel, Kingdra, and Scizor are rarely seen because they are not strong enough for OU because of bad stat allocation and movepool, but are banned from UU because of high stats. If we have tiers to create more varied metagames, why have a BL tier to relegate Pokemon to near-uselessness?

Anyway, what is everybdy else's opinion on these matters?
 
BL Pokemon can be used in OU effectively, but they obviously aren't that easy to use, but if they were allowed in UU they could be kinda broken, so they are doomed to be alwaya in the medium :S
 
Tiers on smogon mean the following:

Uber - Too powerful for OU.
OU - Overused. Defined by use. Use is often correlated with power.
BL - Too powerful for UU, meaning it overcentralizes said metagame. This can't really be determined early; in the beginning you really just have OU and UU and maybe Uber. BL becomes formed later.
UU - Underused. Defined by use.

There's also some "neverused" tier which is made up of stuff that sucks.
 
Yeah I think it's important to remember that the tiers are about use and not power. The best example of this is how Magneton is OU in ADV, and this is solely because of its capacity to take out Skarmory. If Skarmory didn't exist, Magneton would undoubtedly be UU.

I do think you have a good point about BL, and in D/P especially I would really like to see it become a tier used entirely on its own for some tournament. I think BL competition would be really fun even in ADV (there are also plenty of things from the UU tier that could perform quite well in borderline, I think.)
 
Surgo said:
There's also some "neverused" tier which is made up of stuff that sucks.
Click to expand...
Luvdisc is not amused by your comment.

Aside from that it's pretty much summed up by Surgo =/ Although I hope this Gen around we get a real "BL Metagame" instead of "This is my UU/BL team". BL seems like a fun realm, Pokemon that don't suck without the ones who clearly rule.
 
Even though use is correlated with power, there are several OU Pokemon that are listed as such, despite seeing very little use.
 
OU does correlate with power, so I think that as the metagame progresses, some pokemon see less use on teams because due to shifts, they can't do their job as effectively and they then become rather easy ot predict. I noticed the same change as well-Milotic saw less use,
 
Surgo said:
Tiers on smogon mean the following:

Uber - Too powerful for OU.
OU - Overused. Defined by use. Use is often correlated with power.
BL - Too powerful for UU, meaning it overcentralizes said metagame. This can't really be determined early; in the beginning you really just have OU and UU and maybe Uber. BL becomes formed later.
UU - Underused. Defined by use.

There's also some "neverused" tier which is made up of stuff that sucks.
Click to expand...

After fully understanding this system, I have come to believe that it's completely broken and needs totally thrown away and redone. Tiers should be simple indications of power broken at each point where there's a new balanced metagame. The total number of said tiers is fairly irrelevant and could vary drastically. Uber, at the top, is the stuff that can't ever fit into a balanced metagame and is thus banned from all serious play, and standard is the highest balanced metagame regardless of what Pokemon end up as a part of it (even if they would be uber in another generation). Of course, that's a fairly controversial opinion of how things should be done, but doing it that way makes the game centered around how the game is and not around how people play it which is important, at least in my view of the matter.
 
Ok. Well that just plain sucks. Being a newcomer to competitive battling this generation, I was looking forward to BL competition. If BL is just a group of inbetweens people seem to ignore, then why not just use them in a team? They'd be used too often in UU, but they'd be used next to never on OU. It only seems right to create a usable and popular beteen median to enjoy.

Arcanine, my most favorite Pokemon in the world since the first season has a great potential stat-wise, can't be moved up to OU because of limited movepool. Yeah, it has the standard Flamethrower, Solarbeam, Flare Drive, Crunch, etc. but that really isn't anything to scoff at. So many Pokemon get the job done better to not even consider using him. I mean it is the only non legendary Pokemon to be classified as a 'Legendary Pokemon' in the PokeDex. It was the only Non-Legendary to be able to use ExtremeSpeed until this generation. He has some uniqueness that just about no other Pokemon had, sans legendaries. Notably he was the only Pokemon to have a unique move only known to him (Extreme Speed) until ADV generation (Rayquaza + Speed Deoxys stole his ExtremeSpeed.) He's also just a plain kick-ass looking Liger (He has the Lion's mane and the Tiger's coloring and stripes). He just doesn't cut it in his movepool. I REALLY wanted to use him on a BL team along with Venusaur, my favorite original starter.

Either way, I don't care who starts BL or if it ever becomes an actual tier. I'm MAKING a BL team, no matter what. Some Pokemon need some use.
 
BL pokes can compete in OU. Most BL pokes have the capability to fight in the teir, just that there are better options, or their niche isn't as needed in OU. With the right stratagy, most BLs are definetly viable for OU.

Arcanine is definetly high BL now(not OU though, but quite close, IMO) thanks to the special/physical split, and flare dive.

He's definetly got the raw power, it's just that there are options that are usually more sound for most teams. I plan on using him too, I just gotta use him right.
 
There are som OU's, such as Dragonite, who are great but get outclassed by some other pokemon, like Salamence. It might be the same way with Flygon.

Slaking is OU in terms of power, it is deadly hard to counter effectively, and the best people can do is stop it from sweeping by taking advantage of Truant.
 
Now BL is a nice tier and all, but heres my two cents on why it can't be very viable.

So, when you look at any poke, it is often considered a "Special Sweeper" or "Physical Wall" or "Wish Support" or "Spinner", and I believe that is that certain poke's niche. The problem with the BL Metagame in ADV is that it lacks in a certain niche, the Wall/Tank niche. Regirock, Articuno, Registeel, Rhydon, Chansey(Meh), Cloyster, Fortresses, Gardevoir, PorygonZ(No Intimidators) and I think that none of these pokes can stop a CM Entei from sweeping with HP Grass(Chansey comes close, but its so similiar to Blissey, I don't know). Breloom hits almost everything SE with Focus Punch/Sky Uppercut, so there is a huge lack of efficient walling here. And bringing a UU wall might not work, considering that they were moved up to BL because of they could sweep easily.

Although with the addition of Tangrowth, Erlade, and other potential BL's, I think that defensively BL might be viable in D/P, but Scheme Houndoom might still be BL, and Regirock and Registeel have no business tring to wall it. So yeah, it might be a good medium, but it really can't be all that viable, its missing essential parts of a good game. We don't want a Revenge KIll focused metagame, well at least I don;t.
 
I don't think Houndoom might be BL, I haven't seen it in most of the posted RMTs but it makes a decent counter to Azelf, the only reason why it isn't being used is because Weavile does the job better. Erlade might settle for OU with good statusing moves, and Tangrowth with Double-Powder and good defense might be effective. We will see later on
 
Micky Onimusha said:
I agree with him sort of. I rarely saw Dragonite, Sceptile, Blaziken and Slaking when I NBed, aside from those though I'd say the list is fairly accurate.
Click to expand...

I see all of these quite frequently, especially Sceptile. It probably does go in waves somewhat. Popularity always fluxuates. But in general I think everything there is common enough to deserve the position.
 
BL <-> UU isn't determined by use, it's determined by power. If a Pokemon is too powerful for UU yet not used as often as OU, it is BL. There's no reason to try and balance a BL metagame, because you'll be screwing up the whole point of the system.

So, when you look at any poke, it is often considered a "Special Sweeper" or "Physical Wall" or "Wish Support" or "Spinner", and I believe that is that certain poke's niche.
Click to expand...

Common misconception. I don't consider my Kangaskhan a "Wish support" or "physical sweeper" at all. He's Kangaskhan and he does what he does, and counters certain opponents. If you're ever playing a BL based metagame you'll probably want to play by typings anyway rather than stats. And if you're looking for a viable Entei counter, I suppose you could look into Haze Mantine.

I see all of these quite frequently, especially Sceptile. It probably does go in waves somewhat. Popularity always fluxuates. But in general I think everything there is common enough to deserve the position.
Click to expand...

"I see all of these all the time" and similiar comments don't help a lot, really. This is why Competitor should (and will) have a database function to keep track of it. If I battle Sarenji 10 times in a row and he uses Sceptile in each battle, can I say "hey I see Sceptile a lot, it is OU"? If he is using Luvdisc, can I say Luvdisc is OU? No, of course not. You could call this an extreme case, but let's say I decide to randomly refuse every 5th challenge (so I accept #1, #2, #3, #4, refuse #5, accept #6, #7, etc). And it so happens that every 5th challenger has a Skarmory, a Blissey and a Swampert, while the others all have different Pokemon. If I continue up to say, 100 battles, I will see Skarmory, Blissey and Swampert a lot less than I see the others, yet they will be used more often. I won't see them in battles though.

This is why "I see them a lot" is simply not a good argument.
 
I understand how there are flaws in the argument, but when saying a tier is based on use, why should one prepare a team that fights against Pokemon s/he rarely sees rather than Pokemon that s/he comes into contact with more frequently?

What percentage use is required for a Pokemon to gain OU status is, I suppose, what I'm trying to get at. If Competitor will log the usage of Pokemon, for example, what if... Shiftry never sees use and Cacturne suddenly proves to be very useful in Sandstorm teams, causing 5% of all teams to carry a Cacturne while only 2% use Shiftry. Will Shiftry be pushed to NU since it's rarely used?

Also, If tiers are managed and, for sake of argument, Ninetales proves to see more use in UU battles than Infernape sees in OU battles, how will Competitor log that?
 
The far majority of people will be battling standard most of the time. You can take the top25, remove any ubers or fanboy Pokemon like Charizard, and you will probably have quite an accurate idea of what is used. If that isn't enough, I believe tiers will be supported by scripts, which could help you when keeping track of battles.
 
Again, I'm confused. Doesn't removing Pokemon like that mean that the tiers become subjective? Wouldn't it be better to simply program the win ratios of the Pokemon used in team and see which ones are mostly used that way?
 
Mekkah said:
"I see all of these all the time" and similiar comments don't help a lot, really. This is why Competitor should (and will) have a database function to keep track of it. If I battle Sarenji 10 times in a row and he uses Sceptile in each battle, can I say "hey I see Sceptile a lot, it is OU"? If he is using Luvdisc, can I say Luvdisc is OU? No, of course not. You could call this an extreme case, but let's say I decide to randomly refuse every 5th challenge (so I accept #1, #2, #3, #4, refuse #5, accept #6, #7, etc). And it so happens that every 5th challenger has a Skarmory, a Blissey and a Swampert, while the others all have different Pokemon. If I continue up to say, 100 battles, I will see Skarmory, Blissey and Swampert a lot less than I see the others, yet they will be used more often. I won't see them in battles though.

This is why "I see them a lot" is simply not a good argument.
Click to expand...

Well, since the statement I was replying to was an "I don't see them a lot" one, I thought my reply was perfectly reasonable. =/

I agree with you, that will never be an accurate way to really determine what is OU. It just seems to me like even if the list is not completely accurate, it is generally a pretty decent representation.
 
Also, If tiers are managed and, for sake of argument, Ninetales proves to see more use in UU battles than Infernape sees in OU battles, how will Competitor log that?
Click to expand...
Easily. Don't worry about how Competitor will log it; just know that it will, and correctly at that.
 
This is what chaos had to say about tiers in the Advance forum:

chaos said:
What the tiers are and how they are calculated

The tiers represent how much a Pokemon is used in the base metagame. The base metagame is the metagame with all the Pokemon currently in play. From the base metagame, we split it into OU/Standard and Uber, a faux tier used to ban Pokemon that unbalance the metagame in question. From now on we will use the term "ban tier" to describe these faux tiers.

We currently have:

Uber [faux tier, also used as a generic term to reference a metagame with all pokemon included]
OU

From here, we have too many Pokemon lumped in OU and only the best of the best seem to get use. We can split OU into UU, and add a ban tier of "BL" to UU to balance out the Pokemon.

We currently have:

Uber [faux tier, also used as a generic term to reference a metagame with all pokemon included]
OU
BL [faux tier]
UU

Now, only in Advance do we have enough Pokemon to split this further into NU. Because there is not a noticable amount of Pokemon being split, we do not have enough Pokemon to effectively create a faux tier.

We finally have:

Uber [faux tier, also used as a generic term to reference a metagame with all pokemon included]
OU
BL [faux tier]
UU
NU

Now listen up. The tiers don't represent just power, so stop trying to put Venusaur in OU. It isn't OU, nobody uses it in tournaments. Because it is not OU, it is automatically UU. Since it is considered too good for UU, we bump it up to the ban tier of BL.

Since I have made it clear that the tiers represent usage, lets go back to power. People want to know which Pokemon are good. Now lets think about this: "since we are basing standards on which Pokemon are used in a competitive enviroment (namely, what you would use in a tournament), would someone over use a bad Pokemon?" No. People want to win, and since people like to use the best Pokemon, we have a correlation between usage and power. The problem comes around when people group Pokemon obviously meant for the BL tier in the OU tier and it becomes a meaningless list of what people think is strong. When it's subjective like that, arguments occur and nobody is happy and it can't really be consistent.

I tried to explain this in a way that everyone can understand. Stop trying to rename the tiers, and stop going offtopic about why you think Venusaur should be OU because it isn't OU. How should I rearrange this list?
Click to expand...
 
I'm all for destroying the faux tier term though. I myself play with BL teams and have great fun in doing so.

About the Competitor logs - wouldn't it give problems for pokes such as, say, Charizard? It would lose an awful lot not because its bad, but a lot of newbies will use it. No offense to them, but they usually dont know how to use those fan favorites. Which would give too much of a lose ratio to those pokes.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top