Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)

[Nebula27]

Your idea is nice in theory, but in practice, it will not suffice to keep Mandibuzz in check.

Unfortunately, Mandibuzz can extremely easily deal with Choice Specs Strategem...
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8customgame-1543593928

And it leaves the 1v1 against Meteor Beam Strategem with low health at the cost of insanely boosted stats...
And this relies on Meteor Beam landing, which, due to Mandibuzz's agile and cunning nature, is extremely unlikely to hit since Mandibuzz can simply fly over the Meteor Beam. As proven by the history of banned mons and abilities in the OU tier, extremely unreliable checks are not considered checks and hence do not justify broken Pokemon staying in the tier.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8customgame-1543598246

As this replay displays, not even the greatest of fan creations can hold the monster buzzard at bay. Clearly we need the super creation of Gamefreak to pen this menace in. So naturally I went to the mega evolutions. And yet even they were a failure. After doing some damage calcs we can see why it can never work.
252+ Atk Choice Band Mandibuzz Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Garchomp-Mega: 1431- 1501 (401 - 420.69%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Garchomp-Mega Stone-Edge vs. Mandibuzz: 0-0 (0 - 0%) -- possibly the worst move ever
So if some of the most powerful megas cant break the buzz with their super effective coverage who can??? Something with an even greater, perhaps primeval, power?
And here we are. The one check (and a shaky one at that, certainly not a counter as that would be impossible)

Primal
Groudon @ Life Orb
Ability: Drought
EVs: 180 HP / 252 Atk / 76 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Precipice Blades
- Stone Edge
- Rock Polish
- Swords Dance
So here's the calculation
Groudon-Primal Precipice Blades vs. Mandibuzz: 0-0 (0 - 0%) -- possibly the worst move ever

Oh. Well then. Lets say a quick prayer to the OU dictator for a quickban.

 

[Empress Mobile]

Mandibuzz is outclassed by Eviolite Murkrow. Murkrow has access to Prankster Feather Dance which Mandibuzz can only dream of. If the Flying type isn't needed then it's strictly outclassed by Umbreon as an offensive Dark type.

 

[Martin]

View attachment 416135

 

[Smashburn]

Mandibuzz is truly a metagame menace. Not only does its overwhelming presence in the tier and variety of sets reduce its healthy counterplay, but also the sanity of its playerbase. Those brave few who have gone against the will of Mandibuzz in an attempt to check it include Corviknight, Tapu Lele, and opposing Mandibuzz. However, we have been swindled and bamboozled, to have missed one more knight in shining armor... Dugtrio-Alola. On paper it is completely helpless against the winged death, possessing measly bulk and offensive stats that leave something to be desired. But it does have one trick up its sleeve, its hair. This buzzard brunette is jealous of Dugtrio-Alola's natural, luscious golden locks, so much so that-- in similar affect to Corviknight-- all its stats completely drop and Mandibuzz is filled with emo-like angst (barring a lowered Def stat if Mandibuzz has Big pecks). This allows Dugtrio-Alola to exploit Mandibuzz, forcing a switch or removing it from the game. Moves such as Assurance stall turns because Mandibuzz is receiving the positive affirmation its father never gave it, while alternatives such as Flash Cannon, Steel Beam, and Hyper Beam do not activate Weak Armor. This is of course not a fool-proof strategy, as some Mandibuzz sets with White Herb and Eject Pack have been used as a way to counteract these stat debuffs while ignoring its daddy issues, or go right for the kill by using Adrenaline Orb and Choice Scarf sets to offset its speed issue.

What do you think of the Doom Bird and its counterparts, will the metagame ever recover from its presence?
(Finchinator please make this a real format lmao)​

 

[AquaVanilla]

big pecks mandibuzz prevents my leer weavile to do stuff what the fuck man

 

[Cuddly]

Honestly, we should unban Zacian-Crowned so it can deal with Mandibuzz.

 

[Ian_Yo]

Controversial opinion Mandibuzz should be banned now as much as we all know its a necessity to the metagame as a whole conversely Mandibuzz kidnapped my family and stole my kidneys. Now while this may seem to be a l2p moment I feel its way too easy for this relatable scenario to happen and so it should be banned.

 

[chimp]

Guys i know this is a hot take but i think mandibuzz actually sucks. It doesn’t even get Whirlpool. If it got the move Whirlpool then maybe I’d think it would be better.

 

[scorbunnys]

I'm not sure why are y'all using Toxapex as Mandibuzz counterplay, since this is what happens:
+2 252+ SpA Mandibuzz Thunder vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Toxapex: 226-266 (74.3 - 87.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
y'all forgot about Thunder Mandibuzz, but this mon CAN tear apart fat defensive teams with the invaluable Vullaby's help:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8customgame-1544198490-j46xnv2v0p31lx7pf3y3cevio0aics6pw
Happy April fools! it's still April Fools 4 me

 

[ausma]

Bad news gang
happy april fools day, thanks for making this year's fun! we will be deleting one-liners from this post forward.

 

[ArcticBreeze]

My thoughts on what tiering action should take place in SSOU:

I believe SSOU has the potential to be a great metagame; unfortunately a lack of tiering action has lead to the metagame being mu fishy than I’d like (when calling it a mu fish I am referring to the lack of ability to cover all of the top threats not playstyles like screens or rain).


Further Testing of Bootsless SSOU

Less than a month ago I thought banning bootsless was a baseless cry from people sad that they didn’t get their 12.5% for double switching, but after playing the metagame a bit more and listening to the arguments from those who want boots banned I’ve realized how enabling boots is to a plethora of threads in the metagame. Knowing that the switchins of Weavile, Tapu Koko, Victini, Zapdos, Volcarona, Volcanion, Tornadus-T and many other Pokemon are limited and actually come at a cost goes a long way in the builder and will (likely) increase the consistency of teams.

All of that being said, Boots are such a massive part of the metagame and affect every aspect of the metagame drastically. Removing boots on a whim is absolutely not a tiering decision that should be made without adequate testing of the post-ban metagame beforehand. Bootsless OU is not unexplored territory however community experience of the format has been limited to the “Bootsless Tour'' and presumably OU Room Tours. I see no reason to not further testing of Bootsless OU while encouraging top tour players to participate and give their opinion (I understand this isn’t the easiest thing to do but if BWZU can do it OU can find a way).

A Massive Ban Wave

If banning boots is not enough to save the metagame the only other way I see this metagame not sucking is banning 3+ Pokemon. I don’t think any individual Pokemon is broken, but there are so many massive threats that make the metagame unstable. Other than Pokemon alone I would also consider banning the move Future Sight because it similarly puts too much pressure in the builder disallowing players to cover all metagame staples. I understand that matchup is always a thing in Pokemon, but it never should be this extreme. The Pokemon banned with this option should be those that you have to go the furthest out of your way to cover. I am unsure what exactly I would ban. A preliminary pool of Pokemon I would consider consists of: Tapu Lele, Volcanion, Melmetal, Weavile, and Future Sight (perhaps Pokemon such as Volcarona, Arctozolt, Zapdos, and Blacephalon should be included in this list too. I don’t believe any of these are broken however as I said before, you can't properly cover all of these A tier Pokemon on one team which massively hurts the competitiveness of the format.

Effort needs to be put into improving this metagame before gen 9 strips the format of its spotlight.

"This metagame has been awful, is currently awful, and has the potential to not be awful."
- Some Important Historical Figure

 

[Finchinator]

I’m happy people have strong stances on the tier and care a lot about the progression of the metagame, but claiming a lack of council action has lead to a suboptimal metagame state is quite unfair given everything that has been done.

I also think you have a blurred line between really good and broken. Things like Melmetal, Volcanion, and Zapdos are strong options for sure, but they absolutely have ample counterplay present in the metagame and do not distort teambuilding much at all. I have not heard many people complain about any of these Pokemon recently.

Regarding tiering action as a whole, we have had surveys externally and discussions internally on a regular basis for a while now; right now the tier is regarded as very balanced and competitive according to each of the last few surveys, which have all been documented publicly, and the council itself. Nothing has been close to hitting the threshold for suspectability among experienced players or the council really.

Personally I’m happy to look into Weavile as a future suspect and even open to a discussion on boots (although I find action to be unlikely unless there’s a major shift in public perception). We are actually going to have a survey in the coming weeks to discuss these topics before WCOP and ST Playoffs, too, so keep your eyes open to that. If there is support, I will gladly act quickly.

 

[Pinkacross]

My thoughts on what tiering action should take place in SSOU:

I believe SSOU has the potential to be a great metagame; unfortunately a lack of tiering action has lead to the metagame being mu fishy than I’d like (when calling it a mu fish I am referring to the lack of ability to cover all of the top threats not playstyles like screens or rain).


Further Testing of Bootsless SSOU

Less than a month ago I thought banning bootsless was a baseless cry from people sad that they didn’t get their 12.5% for double switching, but after playing the metagame a bit more and listening to the arguments from those who want boots banned I’ve realized how enabling boots is to a plethora of threads in the metagame. Knowing that the switchins of Weavile, Tapu Koko, Victini, Zapdos, Volcarona, Volcanion, Tornadus-T and many other Pokemon are limited and actually come at a cost goes a long way in the builder and will (likely) increase the consistency of teams.

All of that being said, Boots are such a massive part of the metagame and affect every aspect of the metagame drastically. Removing boots on a whim is absolutely not a tiering decision that should be made without adequate testing of the post-ban metagame beforehand. Bootsless OU is not unexplored territory however community experience of the format has been limited to the “Bootsless Tour'' and presumably OU Room Tours. I see no reason to not further testing of Bootsless OU while encouraging top tour players to participate and give their opinion (I understand this isn’t the easiest thing to do but if BWZU can do it OU can find a way).

A Massive Ban Wave

If banning boots is not enough to save the metagame the only other way I see this metagame not sucking is banning 3+ Pokemon. I don’t think any individual Pokemon is broken, but there are so many massive threats that make the metagame unstable. Other than Pokemon alone I would also consider banning the move Future Sight because it similarly puts too much pressure in the builder disallowing players to cover all metagame staples. I understand that matchup is always a thing in Pokemon, but it never should be this extreme. The Pokemon banned with this option should be those that you have to go the furthest out of your way to cover. I am unsure what exactly I would ban. A preliminary pool of Pokemon I would consider consists of: Tapu Lele, Volcanion, Melmetal, Weavile, and Future Sight (perhaps Pokemon such as Volcarona, Arctozolt, Zapdos, and Blacephalon should be included in this list too. I don’t believe any of these are broken however as I said before, you can't properly cover all of these A tier Pokemon on one team which massively hurts the competitiveness of the format.

Effort needs to be put into improving this metagame before gen 9 strips the format of its spotlight.

"This metagame has been awful, is currently awful, and has the potential to not be awful."
- Some Important Historical Figure

I take no issue with you personally, but from a metagame perspective I wholeheartedly disagree with this post. The metagame is optimized to the extent it can be. Heavy Duty Boots are a great item but it by no means dominates the metagame. Heavy Duty Boots give benefits mostly to pokemon that were previously weak and/or inconsistent, such as Victini, Volcarona, Mandibuzz, and more. The meta "sucking" is subjective, and your desire to be able to "cover all pokemon" isn't really a healthy wish. If you can "cover" everything, Stall is absolutely broken. All of the changes you propose are just removing breakers from the tier. Teambuilding isn't about covering everything, it's about covering what you can while having enough offense to beat the opponent before they beat you, or having Speed control to at least revenge if the opponent has a breaker that can get a KO vs your team. At the moment I don't support any tiering action, but particularly the idea of removing every breaker in the tier to make absolutely everything able to be "covered" is horrifying.

 

[Endrism]

My thoughts on what tiering action should take place in SSOU:

I believe SSOU has the potential to be a great metagame; unfortunately a lack of tiering action has lead to the metagame being mu fishy than I’d like (when calling it a mu fish I am referring to the lack of ability to cover all of the top threats not playstyles like screens or rain).


Further Testing of Bootsless SSOU

Less than a month ago I thought banning bootsless was a baseless cry from people sad that they didn’t get their 12.5% for double switching, but after playing the metagame a bit more and listening to the arguments from those who want boots banned I’ve realized how enabling boots is to a plethora of threads in the metagame. Knowing that the switchins of Weavile, Tapu Koko, Victini, Zapdos, Volcarona, Volcanion, Tornadus-T and many other Pokemon are limited and actually come at a cost goes a long way in the builder and will (likely) increase the consistency of teams.

All of that being said, Boots are such a massive part of the metagame and affect every aspect of the metagame drastically. Removing boots on a whim is absolutely not a tiering decision that should be made without adequate testing of the post-ban metagame beforehand. Bootsless OU is not unexplored territory however community experience of the format has been limited to the “Bootsless Tour'' and presumably OU Room Tours. I see no reason to not further testing of Bootsless OU while encouraging top tour players to participate and give their opinion (I understand this isn’t the easiest thing to do but if BWZU can do it OU can find a way).

A Massive Ban Wave

If banning boots is not enough to save the metagame the only other way I see this metagame not sucking is banning 3+ Pokemon. I don’t think any individual Pokemon is broken, but there are so many massive threats that make the metagame unstable. Other than Pokemon alone I would also consider banning the move Future Sight because it similarly puts too much pressure in the builder disallowing players to cover all metagame staples. I understand that matchup is always a thing in Pokemon, but it never should be this extreme. The Pokemon banned with this option should be those that you have to go the furthest out of your way to cover. I am unsure what exactly I would ban. A preliminary pool of Pokemon I would consider consists of: Tapu Lele, Volcanion, Melmetal, Weavile, and Future Sight (perhaps Pokemon such as Volcarona, Arctozolt, Zapdos, and Blacephalon should be included in this list too. I don’t believe any of these are broken however as I said before, you can't properly cover all of these A tier Pokemon on one team which massively hurts the competitiveness of the format.

Effort needs to be put into improving this metagame before gen 9 strips the format of its spotlight.

"This metagame has been awful, is currently awful, and has the potential to not be awful."
- Some Important Historical Figure

Boots is perfectly fine and isn't even my biggest worry with the metagame tbh. Previously I may have agreed with you, but over time I've adjusted. Volcarona even with boots still just loses to Heatran as it always has, it's easier to get in for sure, but still has the same checks as it always has.
Tapu Koko loses to anything with the ground typing. Victini definitely improved but can still be stopped with good prediction or just outspeeding and killing. Zapdos is a good offensive threat now but can still be stopped and is honestly in a really healthy place rn. Volcanion is the same way with its low speed tier but high damage allowing it to be an extremely effective wallbreaker, but can be fought back against by so many faster threats. Torn-T is really good, but more as a utility than anything threatening. NP Sets are okay, but suffer because Focus Blast and Hurricane have terrible accuracy, and Torn-T is a lot of the time not even running boots because AV is just good.

You also bring up the biggest point of why not to remove boots. It would require an immediate suspect test of a few massive threats, with Dragapult probably going first as constant hazard damage + Endless super quick shadow ball spam would probably end up being too much. As for your list of possible bans.

Lele I can agree with, without boots Lele would just be that much worse to deal with.
Volcanion, Weavile, Volcarona, and Zapdos would all suffer from Boots getting banned because they all have a weakness to it and would require solid hazard control to use.
Melmetal could definitely get banned in that scenario as a lot of fire types who could take it on would now be hit hard and not be able to check Melm as efficiently, but Buzz and Bro would still annoy Melm.

People who want boots banned needs to come to the conclusion that this is a very offense heavy meta compared to previous generations, and that isn't a bad thing. A lot of offensive threats with high damage that yes, some of them can't be dealt with defensively very well, but they can be easy to check offensively. Tapu Lele CAN 2HKO a Melmetal, but Melmetal OHKOs back. Melmetal can 2HKO Urshifu-Rapid, but Urshifu OHKOs back. Offensive Trans are responding to each other with Balloons and extra coverage to break said balloons. Volcanion is being to used to punish people who are playing too slowly. This isn't the same meta as, "hehe I can easily stop this Ash-Gren or this Tapu Lele with my AV Magearna." Now it's "Well if I sack Lando to Lele because they lost their electric, I can get a completely free kill with Melmetal."

Currently I'm way more worried about Beat Up Weavile and Specs Pult as they are incredible aggravating to fight and have to be immediately counterplayed in teambuilding unless you want to get swept on the spot.

 

[Myzozoa]

I’m happy people have strong stances on the tier and care a lot about the progression of the metagame, but claiming a lack of council action has lead to a suboptimal metagame state is quite unfair given everything that has been done.

I also think you have a blurred line between really good and broken. Things like Melmetal, Volcanion, and Zapdos are strong options for sure, but they absolutely have ample counterplay present in the metagame and do not distort teambuilding much at all. I have not heard many people complain about any of these Pokemon recently.

Regarding tiering action as a whole, we have had surveys externally and discussions internally on a regular basis for a while now; right now the tier is regarded as very balanced and competitive according to each of the last few surveys, which have all been documented publicly, and the council itself. Nothing has been close to hitting the threshold for suspectability among experienced players or the council really.

Personally I’m happy to look into Weavile as a future suspect and even open to a discussion on boots (although I find action to be unlikely unless there’s a major shift in public perception). We are actually going to have a survey in the coming weeks to discuss these topics before WCOP and ST Playoffs, too, so keep your eyes open to that. If there is support, I will gladly act quickly.

I'm not gonna put a ton of thought/time into this, but it really reads like the council want it to be both ways: every suspect decision was actually made by "the community" via survey response, but simultaneously accusations of leadership inaction are not substantive. According to this perspective, 'the community'/'the playerbase' got what 'it' asked for. Apparently what "the community" has asked for repeatedly is to ban some ice-type pokemon that were, iirc, RU in gens that didn't have boots. Before the requests to ban Kyurem and Weavile 'the community' asked for a zamazenta-c test, apparently related to a youtuber's video proposing this, but of course we are told there is not any sort of leadership vacuum in the tiering process, the community's leaders merely reflect its preferences back to it without shaping these preferences through their activities.

So 'the community', 'the playerbase' gets what it wanted, according to the survey and the council that made the survey. And never mind that surveys aren't a good reflection of preferences in many cases, like as when a recent survey of the playerbases' wcop format preferences was rejected due to supposed "built-in biases", we are not in the habit, afaik, of considering biases in the gen 8 ou tiering survey context. These surveys and the council that makes them allegedly have no biases. The surveys in turn are transparent, completely unnecessary to interpret as their meaning is so clear and the course of action they prescribe is so explicit.

Everyone got what they wanted... unless what you wanted was a council that would be more active in shaping community preference and building consensus than just saying "the community says x, therefore I must comply". A council that would be like "the community says it wants to ban heatran, rillabloom and weavile, but those are bad albeit popular ideas, so we aren't going to entertain that." A council that could maybe go a little bit beyond deflections when considering alternative courses not chosen.

As the council tells us all the time they will do whatever we want, thats all they do, whatever we tell them: If you want heatran tested, well I personally am open to exploring it, same with Weavile. Never mind that these pokemon are in fact, uh, not close to being the most forcing things in the meta...

This is all I will say in this matter since to complain at all is certain to be met with "lol kyurem 69nice% survey, sorry no one agrees w u lol".

 

[658Greninja]

My thoughts on what tiering action should take place in SSOU:

I believe SSOU has the potential to be a great metagame; unfortunately a lack of tiering action has lead to the metagame being mu fishy than I’d like (when calling it a mu fish I am referring to the lack of ability to cover all of the top threats not playstyles like screens or rain).


Further Testing of Bootsless SSOU

Less than a month ago I thought banning bootsless was a baseless cry from people sad that they didn’t get their 12.5% for double switching, but after playing the metagame a bit more and listening to the arguments from those who want boots banned I’ve realized how enabling boots is to a plethora of threads in the metagame. Knowing that the switchins of Weavile, Tapu Koko, Victini, Zapdos, Volcarona, Volcanion, Tornadus-T and many other Pokemon are limited and actually come at a cost goes a long way in the builder and will (likely) increase the consistency of teams.

All of that being said, Boots are such a massive part of the metagame and affect every aspect of the metagame drastically. Removing boots on a whim is absolutely not a tiering decision that should be made without adequate testing of the post-ban metagame beforehand. Bootsless OU is not unexplored territory however community experience of the format has been limited to the “Bootsless Tour'' and presumably OU Room Tours. I see no reason to not further testing of Bootsless OU while encouraging top tour players to participate and give their opinion (I understand this isn’t the easiest thing to do but if BWZU can do it OU can find a way).

A Massive Ban Wave

If banning boots is not enough to save the metagame the only other way I see this metagame not sucking is banning 3+ Pokemon. I don’t think any individual Pokemon is broken, but there are so many massive threats that make the metagame unstable. Other than Pokemon alone I would also consider banning the move Future Sight because it similarly puts too much pressure in the builder disallowing players to cover all metagame staples. I understand that matchup is always a thing in Pokemon, but it never should be this extreme. The Pokemon banned with this option should be those that you have to go the furthest out of your way to cover. I am unsure what exactly I would ban. A preliminary pool of Pokemon I would consider consists of: Tapu Lele, Volcanion, Melmetal, Weavile, and Future Sight (perhaps Pokemon such as Volcarona, Arctozolt, Zapdos, and Blacephalon should be included in this list too. I don’t believe any of these are broken however as I said before, you can't properly cover all of these A tier Pokemon on one team which massively hurts the competitiveness of the format.

Effort needs to be put into improving this metagame before gen 9 strips the format of its spotlight.

"This metagame has been awful, is currently awful, and has the potential to not be awful."
- Some Important Historical Figure

I am all in for a bootsless metagame. I could be interesting to show how it effects the meta. I do not see boots as suspect worthy tho. They are not game breaking per say, and it encourages teams to not just resort to brainless “haha hazard stacking go brrr”.

None of the mons you’ve listed besides debatably Weavile (which I don’t think is in need of a suspect) are in need of tiering actions.

All these mons are either just really good breakers or have gotten worse due to meta trends.

Future Sight can be played around. Stall has Shed, Tect Stall and Light Screen Pex. Balance/BO can either switch into something that threatens the Slowtwins before they can setup FS, or switch into something that can threaten whatever mon they wanted to Port into as they teleport out.

Lele has no defensive utility. It doesn’t have true switch ins but you can play around it with steel + fighting resist like SpD Bro, or limit its opportunities in switching in.

Volcanion can be checked by Washtom, SpD Bro or Slowking, or Glowking/Pex + ground immune. AV Torn is also an option to scout it out which also helps with Blacephalon.

Melm can be played around depending on the set. Tox + Protect is the trickiest set since it is usually paired with Zone, making using Ferro/Corv not an option, but it can be played around with PhysD Pex + ground resist or Buzzwole with Misty Terrain up. AV/Pads are more difficult to play around but you can chip it down quicker with hazards since it isn’t carrying lefties.

Zapdos is checked by Koko, specially bulky Clef, Glowking, and Ttar.

Zolt is about 50/50s and can be played around by preserving your steel’s HP or rkilling it with priority and scarfers like Kart and Blace.

Volcarona has gotten much less consistent. If it is defensive then it gets stomped by Fini, Tankchomp, and Ttar. If it is offensive then it becomes much easier to rkill and chip down. No matter the variant, Volcanion lives a hit and OHKOs it. Dnite stonewalls it and Roosts off the dmg. Tox Tran can still be seen. Plus less setup opportunities due to the more offensive metagame of Gen 8.

Weavile is just Gen 5 Latios. A top 2 threat that is hatd to switch into with hazards up but has enough checks to keep it from being banworthy. In Weav’s case its Buzz, Fini, Urshifu, Flame Body Tran, Corv, Colbur Bro, Pex.

It has never been possible to cover every threat at once in any generation. Only six slots to work with and a whole stew of threats and variants to said threats. It is best to build a team that covers as much as possible while building a team that can out offense the opponent.

Crown Tundra Gen 8 isn’t my favorite gen but I love how it encourages more aggressive play, something not seen in the Balance riddled meta of Pre-Dlc and IoA. The meta is in a more creative spot rn, especially after almost three years of existing. Just look at how many sets popped up on Tran. You have classic SpD set, but we also now have PhysD Flame Body, Body Press, Protect, Air Balloon, Heavy Slam. All viable options for whatever your team needs. I think the closest thing to being suspect-able is Weavile who can bypass its checks with Band Beat Up, LO SD, or by simply chipping them down like Fini. However the former two dislike rocks and need more support as a result.

 

[Finchinator]

I'm not gonna put a ton of thought/time into this, but it really reads like the council want it to be both ways: every suspect decision was actually made by "the community" via survey response, but simultaneously accusations of leadership inaction are not substantive. According to this perspective, 'the community'/'the playerbase' got what 'it' asked for. Apparently what "the community" has asked for repeatedly is to ban some ice-type pokemon that were, iirc, RU in gens that didn't have boots. Before the requests to ban Kyurem and Weavile 'the community' asked for a zamazenta-c test, apparently related to a youtuber's video proposing this, but of course we are told there is not any sort of leadership vacuum in the tiering process, the community's leaders merely reflect its preferences back to it without shaping these preferences through their activities.

So 'the community', 'the playerbase' gets what it wanted, according to the survey and the council that made the survey. And never mind that surveys aren't a good reflection of preferences in many cases, like as when a recent survey of the playerbases' wcop format preferences was rejected due to supposed "built-in biases", we are not in the habit, afaik, of considering biases in the gen 8 ou tiering survey context. These surveys and the council that makes them allegedly have no biases. The surveys in turn are transparent, completely unnecessary to interpret as their meaning is so clear and the course of action they prescribe is so explicit.

Everyone got what they wanted... unless what you wanted was a council that would be more active in shaping community preference and building consensus than just saying "the community says x, therefore I must comply". A council that would be like "the community says it wants to ban heatran, rillabloom and weavile, but those are bad albeit popular ideas, so we aren't going to entertain that." A council that could maybe go a little bit beyond deflections when considering alternative courses not chosen.

As the council tells us all the time they will do whatever we want, thats all they do, whatever we tell them: If you want heatran tested, well I personally am open to exploring it, same with Weavile. Never mind that these pokemon are in fact, uh, not close to being the most forcing things in the meta...

This is all I will say in this matter since to complain at all is certain to be met with "lol kyurem 69nice% survey, sorry no one agrees w u lol".

Every single tier is using a survey system. Why? Because it allows for us to get valuable community input. The council still makes the final call and also can orchestrate quickbans and decide on suspects themselves within reason, which we have regularly done. The input of the community is simply valuable data that also makes it so that more people can participate in our growing tiering process. You trying to spin this into a negative and a scapegoat when it’s been working and we have a more inclusive and functional process than ever before is, to put it bluntly, not my concern whatsoever.

In addition, some of your gripes are simply wrong. We focus largely on the people who are “qualified” in responding to the survey — people who have a certain ladder score or certain tournament experience. No YouTube video or stand-alone movement without genuine backing by knowledgeable players will move the needle much at all.

So basically we have a council with the same power as before, but now more of a data driven assist rather than just basing things off of 6-10 people in a private chat’s opinion. I’m sorry if this isn’t to your liking, but in my eyes it’s a really good practice.

 

[ArcticBreeze]

I also think you have a blurred line between really good and broken. Things like Melmetal, Volcanion, and Zapdos are strong options for sure, but they absolutely have ample counterplay present in the metagame and do not distort teambuilding much at all. I have not heard many people complain about any of these Pokemon recently.

I agree that none of these Pokemon are broken. The issue is that there are too many "really good" Pokemon. It's impossible to cover them all and because of that it is my opinion that some of these "really good" Pokemon need to be banned to balance the metagame.

Regarding tiering action as a whole, we have had surveys externally and discussions internally on a regular basis for a while now; right now the tier is regarded as very balanced and competitive according to each of the last few surveys, which have all been documented publicly, and the council itself. Nothing has been close to hitting the threshold for suspectability among experienced players or the council really.

If the majority of people think the metagame is good and there isn't much that can be done to improve it then I am nobody to deny the majority and say I'm right, but I have a question. When you're picking what team to bring do you not worry about the mu vs one common Pokemon and end up accepting the bad mu because every other team loses to some other common threat? I personally hate choosing what team to use because from my experience having a bad mu is more common here than MOST other formats.

Regarding surveys (not very relevant to the point but I might as well keep it in)

Regarding the OU surveys, they have no metric relevant towards my point.

"I agree that none of these Pokemon are broken. The issue is that there are too many "really good" Pokemon. It's impossible to cover them all and because of that it is my opinion that some of these "really good" Pokemon need to be banned to balance the metagame."

I would give the competitiveness of the current SSOU metagame a 7 because the metagame is more skill than luck however, relative to other Pokemon metagames I'd give it a 3. I don't think the number there means much of anything. Obviously not everyone will approach answering this question like me, but that is part of the problem the question doesn't really mean anything without further context. As for the other questions as I said before I think these Pokemon are balanced the issue is that you can't cover them all (I'd imagine not being able to cover them is generally agreed upon, but I get that it isn't public opinion that you should ban stuff bc u can't cover everything).

"cover all pokemon" isn't really a healthy wish. If you can "cover" everything, Stall is absolutely broken. All of the changes you propose are just removing breakers from the tier. Teambuilding isn't about covering everything, it's about covering what you can while having enough offense to beat the opponent before they beat you, or having Speed control to at least revenge if the opponent has a breaker that can get a KO vs your team. At the moment I don't support any tiering action, but particularly the idea of removing every breaker in the tier to make absolutely everything able to be "covered" is horrifying.

I see your point, a big issue here is this is an argument over a spectrum I can't perfectly state where I think the metagame should end up on, but I'll make a few things clear. I'm not wishing to be able to perfectly cover every Pokemon with a hard counter. I want to have a solid answer to all the common offensive Pokemon to the extent that I am not praying to not run into some A tier threat every time I click accept on a SSOU chall. Breakers can stay, I understand that I listed a lot of mons (because I am unsure which exactly I think should be banned), but I dont want them all banned. I just want 3 (unsure on the number its likely around 3 though) banned so teams aren't always a fish.

Just to make sure my point is more clear than my first post: I think there are too many threats and some of them should be banned so that games are less mu dependent. I DO NOT want every Pokemon I listed banned, just a few of them (the ones that would most optimally fix the metagame).

Regarding Boots, I don't know if banning it would be good for the metagame and I don't really think any of you have a clue either. A bootsless metagame should be further explored.

Edit: idt that one tour is enough and my apologies for how wordy these posts are, they def read like a rant

 

[AM]

Regarding Boots, I don't know if banning it would be good for the metagame and I don't really think any of you have a clue either. A bootsless metagame should be further explored.

They had an entire bootless tour in this forum, with replays required. Not quite sure how much further exploration you need to really examine it. The metagame did not look good at all (imo) and I was a big advocate of it being banned when I actively played this tier outside of the test games I do for people now.

I don't have too much comment on all the other stuff. I don't like Gen 8 OU in large part due to the matchup issues so I simply don't play it/build for it as much as I use to, at least regularly, and just play formats I like. Others obviously feel different or are more passionate/care about this tier but not really my place to speak on their behalf. I do think banning boots isn't a great course of action long term though.

 

[Finchinator]

I cannot respond at length as I am busy today and I am sorry for this, but I don’t think every team needs to have hard counterplay to everything and having a wide variety of very good Pokemon rather than you can check or minimize is just the sign of a more proactive tier, which we are experiencing right now, rather than a tier in need of bans.

Of course, I get that some people think things are broken. Weavile can be a bit silly with Beat Up and Triple Axel, Heatean is very hard to handle with Magma Storm and it’s other tools, many people find Dragapult overbearing, etc. — I am happy to act if appropriate, but I do not think we need to force anything and I don’t think we are there yet

 

[Moyashi]

I agree that none of these Pokemon are broken. The issue is that there are too many "really good" Pokemon. It's impossible to cover them all and because of that it is my opinion that some of these "really good" Pokemon need to be banned to balance the metagame.

Just because a Pokemon is "really good" doesn't mean it is impossible to play around even in a less than desirable match up. You're never going to be able to cover every threat in a metagame.

but I have a question. When you're picking what team to bring do you not worry about the mu vs one common Pokemon and end up accepting the bad mu because every other team loses to some other common threat? I personally hate choosing what team to use because from my experience having a bad mu is more common here than MOST other formats.

I'm not wishing to be able to perfectly cover every Pokemon with a hard counter. I want to have a solid answer to all the common offensive Pokemon to the extent that I am not praying to not run into some A tier threat every time I click accept on a SSOU chall

Even in a bad match up vs a Pokemon, aggressive/smart play and planning can help assist. You need to identify what is most important to do at team preview. Do they have a Mon that threatens many Pokemon on your team? Figure out a game plan to deal with it. There is rarely a case where you will flat out be unable to do so and that's why I vehemently disagree that SwSh OU has a match up problem.

Just to make sure my point is more clear than my first post: I think there are too many threats and some of them should be banned so that games are less mu dependent. I DO NOT want every Pokemon I listed banned, just a few of them (the ones that would most optimally fix the metagame).

The tier right now is in a very comfy spot in terms of balance. So much is viable and so many things are possible. We've seen all sorts of innovations and metagame developments across SPL and in general these past few months. Even with potent threats like Dragapult, Zapdos, Lele, Melmetal and defining mons like Heatran and Weavile it is absolutely possible to handle it. It's a matter of being more proactive and aggressive, and planning ahead during team preview and the battle itself. There is a great deal of consistency in team building that can be seen from how many unique team structures have been built and been able to perform well at high ladder. Even with unusual Pokemon.

Finally as for the topic of Boots you brought up

Edit: idt that one tour is enough and my apologies for how wordy these posts are, they def read like a rant

What is there to be explored more? What would we learn from a second four that we didn't know from the first bootsless tour?

 

[Empress Mobile]

My thoughts on what tiering action should take place in SSOU:

I believe SSOU has the potential to be a great metagame; unfortunately a lack of tiering action has lead to the metagame being mu fishy than I’d like (when calling it a mu fish I am referring to the lack of ability to cover all of the top threats not playstyles like screens or rain).


Further Testing of Bootsless SSOU

Less than a month ago I thought banning bootsless was a baseless cry from people sad that they didn’t get their 12.5% for double switching, but after playing the metagame a bit more and listening to the arguments from those who want boots banned I’ve realized how enabling boots is to a plethora of threads in the metagame. Knowing that the switchins of Weavile, Tapu Koko, Victini, Zapdos, Volcarona, Volcanion, Tornadus-T and many other Pokemon are limited and actually come at a cost goes a long way in the builder and will (likely) increase the consistency of teams.

All of that being said, Boots are such a massive part of the metagame and affect every aspect of the metagame drastically. Removing boots on a whim is absolutely not a tiering decision that should be made without adequate testing of the post-ban metagame beforehand. Bootsless OU is not unexplored territory however community experience of the format has been limited to the “Bootsless Tour'' and presumably OU Room Tours. I see no reason to not further testing of Bootsless OU while encouraging top tour players to participate and give their opinion (I understand this isn’t the easiest thing to do but if BWZU can do it OU can find a way).

A Massive Ban Wave

If banning boots is not enough to save the metagame the only other way I see this metagame not sucking is banning 3+ Pokemon. I don’t think any individual Pokemon is broken, but there are so many massive threats that make the metagame unstable. Other than Pokemon alone I would also consider banning the move Future Sight because it similarly puts too much pressure in the builder disallowing players to cover all metagame staples. I understand that matchup is always a thing in Pokemon, but it never should be this extreme. The Pokemon banned with this option should be those that you have to go the furthest out of your way to cover. I am unsure what exactly I would ban. A preliminary pool of Pokemon I would consider consists of: Tapu Lele, Volcanion, Melmetal, Weavile, and Future Sight (perhaps Pokemon such as Volcarona, Arctozolt, Zapdos, and Blacephalon should be included in this list too. I don’t believe any of these are broken however as I said before, you can't properly cover all of these A tier Pokemon on one team which massively hurts the competitiveness of the format.

Effort needs to be put into improving this metagame before gen 9 strips the format of its spotlight.

"This metagame has been awful, is currently awful, and has the potential to not be awful."
- Some Important Historical Figure

I think we have enough info about how a bootsless metagame would be: bad. Boots are frankly a huge boon for many team archetypes which now don't have to forgo certain options due to their rock weakness. Excessive pressure on players to play to the hazard game both in teambuilder and in battle may make boots seem over centralizing, but there is actually a nice balance created here. Not to mention there is significant counterplay to the item along with substantial opportunity cost in running the item. There is nothing new to add here that hasn't been said literally thousands of times. Banning the item now would be detrimental given the amount of time left till the next gen. I hope it isn't considered for a ban in future gens either, though that is a discussion for another day.

The Pokemon you listed aren't broken. I don't even know how to respond to some of the inclusions here. Arctozolt? Definitely a solid Pokemon but far from unstoppable, not to mention how much it sacrifices by running boots. I could see Weavile being a bit cheesy at times but I think it's a stretch. And that's the only one on this list that I think there could be a legitimate suspect for.

 

[Mimikyu Stardust]

Hey i was wondering, is there any possibility of Dry passing being unbanned?

I know baton pass is super good so passing any stats or even minor things like aqua ring should prob stay banned but, seeing a rise in eject button pokemon like pex, lando and others kinda wish we had a "cheap" alternative where we can pivot out without being messed up.

the main users of drypass by seeing the list would be Shedinja, Clefable Victini, Zapdos, Pult and maybe hatterene.

Shed uses drypass to of course, pivot around in stall teams and get the slower switch out and would be the main beneficiary of its unbanning, for example: you switch into lele to hard wall it and you can baton pass to get a slower switch and see what they go out to and go into the mon that walls them. It can be anoyying but i wouldnt think it would be too bad and would make stall better in a way.

Pult is the mon i first started considering dry passing for. Pult is heavily annoyed by helmet chip from u-turn, and its non-banded u turn doesnt actually do much if any damage, plus it could easily be eject buttoned by things like pex so they could get in scarf lele or banded ice shard weavile or CM clef to get in a free kill/set-up. Dry Passing would help pult a lot especially on its specs set to prevent rocky helmet and eject abusing (hell blissey runs helmet and one of its main target is pult)

Victini is largely the same as pult. Eject Button mons abuses it very hard and rocky helmet sucks for it, tho with its V-Create im not sure about the legality of dry passing there.

Zapdos is one of the main users of drypass in the past, starting from ADV which it is one of its main moves in most sets, zapdos with dry passing can avoid ground types foiling its volt switches and avoid helmet chip if it chose to use U-turn, Zapdos would have to sacrifice one of its moveslot which is crucial as zapdos has quite a severe 4 Move slot syndrome from experience, so it would definetly be balanced with its small pros and quite big cons.

Clefable would appreciate Baton pass heavily, why? because unlike its other pivot move teleport, Baton Pass + Soft Boiled is a legal combination, and with its already poor speed, really, the -6 Priority hardly matters unless youre calm mind (which is illegal with baton pass) and besides, Wish Port sets might WANT baton pass so it still has soft boiled so it doesnt have to rely on protect or moonlight (edited after Martin pointed this out in a later post)

Hatterene without teleport makes it a bit tough to abuse its magic bounce as hard as Xatu for example, but dry passing would help to remedy that, Specs Hatt is something ive tested in the past and it works well, but with the added pivoting possibility of drypassing it would make switching into it much more dificult than before.

theres def more abusers like Umbreon, Jirachi and Mew but those are just examples i wanna put for potential users of dry pass as it does definetly help


So those are some example mons that would benefit with drypassing, it is definetly an intresting discussion and i would like to hear everyone elses opinion on it, i wouldnt think it would be too overpowered and would help with the helmet chips and eject button running around OU right now. i know that this would make baton pass a complex ban again which the council is trying to avoid but it is definetly something that would add to the tier.

 

[Tio Chico]

While I see something interesting in this post, and I imagine that DryPass might add something strategic to the metagame, or at least be allowed as it is healthier than Regenerator+Teleport(+Future Sight), I strongly disaggregate this possibility;
Breaking apart a game element like Baton Pass, banning stat transfers and using only the part that matters (momentum) is not a healthy move for the metagame and avoidable as much as possible.
In addition to adding a non-replicable alternative to the cartridge, it sets a precedent for fomenting nasty discussions of things like G-Darmanitan without Gorilla Tactics and etc.
And yes, I ended up taking advantage of the loophole to comment that Slowtwins are unhealthy (not unplayable or broken). Almost brainless, with a decent variety of items and fourth hit slot. See you in the survey, goofy brothers.

 

[Dirkhann]

Hey i was wondering, is there any possibility of Dry passing being unbanned?

I know baton pass is super good so passing any stats or even minor things like aqua ring should prob stay banned but, seeing a rise in eject button pokemon like pex, lando and others kinda wish we had a "cheap" alternative where we can pivot out without being messed up.

the main users of drypass by seeing the list would be Shedinja, Victini, Zapdos, Pult and maybe hatterene.

Shed uses drypass to of course, pivot around in stall teams and get the slower switch out and would be the main beneficiary of its unbanning, for example: you switch into lele to hard wall it and you can baton pass to get a slower switch and see what they go out to and go into the mon that walls them. It can be anoyying but i wouldnt think it would be too bad and would make stall better in a way.

Pult is the mon i first started considering dry passing for. Pult is heavily annoyed by helmet chip from u-turn, and its non-banded u turn doesnt actually do much if any damage, plus it could easily be eject buttoned by things like pex so they could get in scarf lele or banded ice shard weavile or CM clef to get in a free kill/set-up. Dry Passing would help pult a lot especially on its specs set to prevent rocky helmet and eject abusing (hell blissey runs helmet and one of its main target is pult)

Victini is largely the same as pult. Eject Button mons abuses it very hard and rocky helmet sucks for it, tho with its V-Create im not sure about the legality of dry passing there.

Zapdos is one of the main users of drypass in the past, starting from ADV which it is one of its main moves in most sets, zapdos with dry passing can avoid ground types foiling its volt switches and avoid helmet chip if it chose to use U-turn, Zapdos would have to sacrifice one of its moveslot which is crucial as zapdos has quite a severe 4 Move slot syndrome from experience, so it would definetly be balanced with its small pros and quite big cons.

Hatterene without teleport makes it a bit tough to abuse its magic bounce as hard as Xatu for example, but dry passing would help to remedy that, Specs Hatt is something ive tested in the past and it works well, but with the added pivoting possibility of drypassing it would make switching into it much more dificult than before.

theres def more abusers like Umbreon, Jirachi and Mew but those are just examples i wanna put for potential users of dry pass as it does definetly help


So those are some example mons that would benefit with drypassing, it is definetly an intresting discussion and i would like to hear everyone elses opinion on it, i wouldnt think it would be too overpowered and would helm with the helmet chips and eject button running around OU right now. i know that this would make baton pass a complex ban again which the council is trying to avoid but it is definetly something that would add to the tier.

As interesting as it sounds to have niche stuff like Umbreon fulfill a slow pivot role I don't think mons like Zapdos and especially Pult need any buffs whatsoever. Specifically the latter is already obnoxious enough to deal with so at least forcing it to take chip from its own U-turns is a good way to punish it. Also since i'm a supporter of the War on stall movement I'm obliged to disagree as this would benefit the Shedinja stall greatly :] .