The OU List

X-Act

np: Biffy Clyro - Shock Shock
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The definition of OU is simply the same as the meaning of OU: overused, meaning the Pokemon that are used the most.

Now, according to Shoddybattle's battling ladder statistics, the overused Pokemon are different from Smogon's OU list. Since Shoddybattle is the competitive Pokemon medium right now (whether we like it or not), I think our OU list should, consequently, reflect what is currently overused in Shoddybattle. When Competitor comes out, the OU list can then be created using its battle statistics, which I'd assume will also be present.

The interesting thing is that, unlike BL and UU, the OU tier is actually free of any controversies, since the hard statistics are there for everyone to see, and so people can't claim "hey Blaziken is OU since I use it in every team!"

The only thing that remains, then, is to extract the OU list from the statistics. I have already suggested such a method in this post. I think that method naturally follows what OU really means.

My suggestion, then, is the following:

Every three months (1st January, 1st April, 1st July, and 1st October) of every year, the OU list is updated using the statistics generated by the last three months of Shoddybattle or whatever competitive medium is used at the time.

The only slight problem that remains is whether we use the unweighted statistics or the weighted statistics, but that's a problem which can easily be solved by a bit of discussion or, if all else fails, someone in the higher echelons of Smogon can decide.

If you like, I can also take the responsibility of updating the OU list in the dates I mentioned using my method.

So, what do you think?
 
The problem is, if UU Pokemon like Tentacruel (currently at 28th position) get used a lot, we would have to make them OU. Other UU Pokemon like Walrein and Cradily only see significant use in OU because they have constant weather support. Something they don't have in UU.
 
I don't see any problem whatsoever with making Tentacruel OU if it's used a lot. If it's used a lot, then it's naturally OU, not UU!
 
The problem is, if UU Pokemon like Tentacruel (currently at 28th position) get used a lot, we would have to make them OU. Other UU Pokemon like Walrein and Cradily only see significant use in OU because they have constant weather support. Something they don't have in UU.

I don't know about Walrein/Cradily, but about Tenta, if people used Tenta a lot, then it deserves to be OU.
 
but isent UU for pokemon that are weak eneugh to not to unbalence the UU metagame

True as that may be, OU means Overused. If a Pokemon gets that much usage, its OU according to the very meaning of the tier.

BTW, do you have some problem with typing correctly? Or can you just not spell? If its the former, then since you can't be bothered to be legible, you really shouldn't post.
 
i agree, they should take statistics of battles in shoddy, it will more than likely help any tier list.
if tentacruel is used as much as any OU then he should be OU.
it doesn't matter playwise if the pokemon isnt as good as 7/8th's of the tier, if its used as much he should be on the list, its simple.
 
I'm not understanding what the Tentacruel hate is all about, seriously. Is there anything in the game that states "Tentacruel must be UU whatever you do with the tier list"? Why should Tentacruel be UU if it's used more than, say, Celebi?

I'll just quote chaos himself on what does OU mean:

chaos said:
The tiers don't represent just power, so stop trying to put Venusaur in OU. It isn't OU, nobody uses it in tournaments... 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.

See? People are overusing Tentacruel because it's good enough. Plain and simple. People who want to win games won't use Pokemon that suck.

Also, what if people stop using Tentacruel six months from now, what would happen? It will just go back to UU when the OU list is revised as I said in the OP. What's the big deal with that?

What I thought would be a relatively straightforward thread about OU is turning out to be a debate on an overused Pokemon backed with hard facts, which people are saying that "it doesn't deserve to be OU". I seriously am not understanding what the problem is with Tentacruel, or ANY overused Pokemon for that matter, is with being OU.
 
If Tentacruel is "overused", I have no problem with it being in the "overused" category. It's a pretty simple concept and it's fairly objective to boot. The only problem I have with this method is that I wouldn't consider all of the battles on Shoddy representative of "competitive battling" (lol). I wish there was some method for extracting data only from tournaments or something equiv.
 
The Shoddybattle statistics are drawn only from ladder matches, not just any random game. This ensures that the teams are relatively good. Also, we can use the weighted list instead of the unweighted one. The weighted list gives more importance to highly-ranked players using certain Pokemon than lower-ranked ones, which is nearer to what you want, chaos.
 
If you guys are fine with banning Tentacruel from UU then I'm fine with it as well, just make sure you have consensus that you want it banned from there firsthand.
 
If Tentacruel's statistics say he's OU then he shouldn't be allowed in UU based on that even if he wouldn't cause inbalance.
 
Okay, since that seems to be out of the way, and people seem to be supporting this, I want to suggest where the Pokemon will end up if it was OU three months before and then it's not anymore due to lack of usage:

That Pokemon will go to the tier where it's CURRENTLY in, unless it is currently in OU, in which case it will go to BL. By 'currently' I mean the list that's online in the Smogon site right now.
 
Ok, so if Tentacruel makes it to the cutoff point then it's banned from UU and placed in OU. If at the next turnover it doesn't make the cutoff, does it return to UU or go to BL? Same applies for Froslass, who similarly does not imbalance UU but has moderately high overall usage.
 
It goes to UU, since it's UU in the current tiers. That's what I'm proposing.

I'm aware that the UU/BL list is being updated in another thread. When it's updated (hopefully before the end of the year!), the updated UU/BL list will be used.
 
I fail to see why the opposition to moving Tenta to OU and banning it from UU exists. I guess it's hard to accept for some people that it is possible for Pokemon to move up based on usage....
 
I'm pretty sure we just came to a decision on this. I fail to see why you would waste space in this thread posting that...
 
Assuming this will be done, I have two questions for discussion:

1) Which list will be used, the weighted one or the unweighted one? There seems to be already a few persons who prefer the weighted one (I am one of them).

2) What will the percentage cutoff point be? With 75%, there are 49 OU Pokemon if the weighted list is used, and 52 if the unweighted one is used. This used only November's statistics though, so if the statistics of three consecutive months (October, November, December) are used, they will probably end up to be a bit less, but maybe the percentage is a bit too high. The 75% means the following: If a Pokemon is used, there is a 75% chance that it will be in the OU list.
 
I'd definitely go for the weighted one since players who are looking at the tiers really need to know which pokemon the better players are using, because a lot of the newer players tend to use a lot more gimmicks than the more experienced ones. EG. The amount of pre-evos used in the unweighted one is a lot higher than in the weighted one because of gimmicks.

75% is a great cut-off point so that everyone will actually know how big the OU metagame really is. Plus it seems nice and general so it can be changed easily if a pokemon starts having fluctuating usage. Plus this lets people watch out for even the most subtle of OU threats such as Froslass.
 
I am not a mathematical expert but I'm willing to accept 75% for the reasons stated. I have no reason to doubt X-Act at anything PokeMath related.

And yeah, I would go weighed because it focuses less on LittleTimmy7 with his Charizard/Arcanine/Blastoise team at the bottom than on Obi with his Tentacruel, for example.
 
To be honest, while the method of finding the 75% involves a bit of mathematics, the 75% itself as a number has nothing mathematical in it; it is just an arbitrary cut-off point. This is why I'm trying to receive opinions about it, since it can be changed to a smaller value to restrict the OU list to a fewer number of Pokemon, or to a larger value to allow even more in.

So far, everyone seems to be in favour of leaving it as it is. Also, everyone seems to be in favour of the weighted list.
 
75% is a nice breakpoint for the OU metagame and weighted usages also seems to be preferable.. tough a way larger breakpoint should be applied at the non OU, non BL Pokémon if we ever need to estrapolate NU Pokémon from UU tier.
 
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