The Tiering System

EconBiscuit

It's been a year since D/P was released in America and in this time we have yet to create a generic idea of the Tiering system. With Deoxys-E and Wobbafett in Limbo. Things still needing to be discussed on the shifts between BL/UU, the constant testing of Uber pokemon to test their viability in the Metagame aswell as the indecision that all NFE pokemon should be in UU even if they are not entirely different to their OU counterparts (Gligar)

The thing is, this way is obviously not working, the tournaments are creating biased data, discussions are turning into flamewars or just being ignored, aswell as suggestions for abolishment of the BL tier. I just feel that this tiering system based upon usage is no longer working for us, I would like to see a set metagame tiers with allocation of change when the metagame shifts, aswell as having some basis in usage and common sense.

It is in my belief that tiering should be based upon a combination of Versatility/Threat/Power/Usage. I think instead of the general boards discussing this, in which people will create their own opinions and it would degrade into "omg chomp pwns so much it's Uber". I am sure once this has been hammered out by the policy makers then the tiers will be 95% accurate. It's not like it'd be wholly different from the way it is now as only a select few ever discuss what should be UU/BL but that topic has become sidetracked and no discussion really takes place there.

People all have their own opinions about what they feel should be where, and while based on usage is the most unbiased way of tiering, just because people will have a fad of using a Pokemon so much that it'd become OU instead of UU (Barring that it wasn't particular good in UU in teh first place) what happens when it drops out of favour, does it revert to BL or UU?

So after discussions with a couple of people I believe that we ought to have a shake up of the tiering system as none of the ideas so far seem to be working without disillusioning some people as though tiering might have worked in the ADV generations, the constant change of the D/P metagame makes it harder to define tiers as they are now and I think it's time to re-arrange them.

Thank you
 
When I first started competitive battling, I thought the tier names where stupid. Why base tiers on what is used more then other stuff? Coming from competitive fighting games I thought it was pretty absurd. In fact, I still do. Doesn't seem like people really care though.

For the most part, the tiering system works. I still don't get why we have so many extra separations either, BL and NFE are rather worthless. Even UU isn't all that necessary seeing as most UU things work just fine up in OU (assuming you're actually using Pokemon for things only they can do as opposed to filling generic sweeping/walling roles with weaker Poke).

But then you get into a massive problem trying to figure out how to rate Pokemon properly. You either get "Shut up and test theory monkey!" or "Stop fucking with my Shoddy rankings god damn it!".
 
<+Carl> i don't want to close it because it isn't like a stupid "blissey should be uber" thread or anything
<+Carl> but at the same time tiers have always been formed on basis of usage and usage has often implied power
<+Carl> so asking them to not be formed based on usage is sort of counterintuitive i guess
<+Carl> and he mentions they should be formed based on combination of factors and i believe that's already the way we handle them
<+Carl> so i guess in short i don't really get the point or purpose other than he wants us to act faster on resolving the list?

This is what I was saying on IRC about this topic. Essentially, explain to me YOUR solution to all of this and what your point is. I'm not really sure after rereading your post still. Personally, I think we already do form tiers based on a combination of Threat/Power/Usage and policy makers do hammer out the lists before they get presented. Badged users discuss everything regarding the lists and they are presented to the people of the forum after the fact so the majority of the users can voice their opinion. You even say so yourself that what you're talking about is similar to what already happens. I do agree with you that everyone has their own opinions of what should be where but I've always been of the mind that anything outside of "uber" and "not uber" is nitpicking and not vital to the "success" of competitive battling. So if you're demanding that we act "faster" in providing a complete and set in stone tier list, that's really not top priority because 1) there will always be discrepancies and 2) there's people still arguing about what's uber and what's not which is by far more important than "oh no why isn't X pokemon considered OU it's soooo good." Anyone with a badge is in agreement that this limbo tier needs to be resolved and eliminated ASAP so if that's part of your point, it's being worked on. As I said in the above chat log, usage often goes hand in hand with power and where a pokemon should be placed but it's not the only factor. So to answer, say, your question about what happens if a pokemon falls out of favor.. yes we move it down to say BL or whatever but only if some of the other factors weren't that favorable for being in OU in the first place. For example, a pokemon like Blissey will never drop to BL even if everyone on shoddy stopped using it but maybe a pokemon like Electivire might.

Don't take anything I'm saying as insulting because, as I said, I'm just confused as to the purpose and main point of this thread other than pointing out what almost seems like the obvious.

EDIT: Miao's explanation in the next post is pretty spot on in terms of what the current definitions are IMO.
 
As I see it, the tier system is a bit funky, there's really three tiers right now.

Ubers exists purely to ban pokemon from OU, fortunately the pokemon at that power level also were designed with the others at the same tier in mind, so they mostly balance each other out. The ubers meta is "anything goes".

Overused encompasses two tiers, OU, and BL. This is a bit confusing at first, but part of the point of OU is to ban pokemon from UU (through the BL list) and also be the most competitive and diverse metagame of all. The pokemon on the OU list are really part of the OU/BL tier, if a pokemon isn't used so much it DOES NOT go to UU, it goes to BL instead. What happens if a pokemon is perfectly viable in both UU and OU? It's UU, period. It's that simple.

UU is the "I don't want my ass kicked by the high end pokes" variety, it's for the oddball combinations and the ones that you can't use so much. It's the format you use if you want to play with your butterfree and your neglected beloved pokemon, and is a competitive format in its own right. It's the restricted format.

That's about all I've picked up from lurking around smogon for awhile now :)


Now that that's said, I think the D/P metagame is much more hearty than the ADV one, and the physical/special split changed things dramatically. Things that were previously zomg broken are now counterable. Are things like garchomp obscenely powerful? Of course, but you can still stop them. Garchomp is really only nasty as hell on a sandstream team, yache berry makes it more deadly, but not unbeatable. Wobbafet, previously thought to be of godly uber status, is now running amuck and not making a huge shift, it's nasty, but it can be stopped. Yes, it sucks to play against, but it doesn't change the bugger is usually killed in two hits.

As far as lists go, it might help to just combine the OU/BL lists and just call it "OU" and publish what's currently the OU list separately, instead of presenting it as a tier. Having a tier based on usage seems to be confusing for most people, even if its spliced with the previous tier. The usage list is kinda required so that people can see what the main threats are right now, but as previously said calling it a metagame is getting some people's panties in a bunch.

This is also why we're getting weird metagames like "Just BL/UU only plz" such metagames are completely dominated by the pokemon in the BL list, as they were added just to keep them out of the UU pool, they're already known to be broken in that environment.

As far as the NU tier... erm... yeah things arn't at that point yet.
 
@Lord Alchemy: So... you just want OU and uber? The use I see for BL is that it shows a Pokemon's worth at a glance. You see that Arcanine is BL, and you know that it's not popular enough to be OU, but too powerful for UU. Speaking of UU... how can you abolish that? It's another metagame that people actually play in good numbers. NFE is there because everything has to be tiered (and people don't seem to be okay with throwing them into OU).
--

I think that a wrench is thrown into the gears when something from UU is used enough to be OU. What do you do then? Just because it fits into OU well doesn't mean it's too broken for UU (they're different metagames; UU isn't just a weaker version of OU, or so I'm told). Maybe things should be rated for each tier. For example, Shedinja doesn't have a life in OU, but it's used (more than it is in OU, at least) in ubers. There should be a way to represent that in tiers.

I think there should only be four tiers. Something along the lines of uber, OU, UU, and NU, but possibly with name changes, like Lord Alchemy mentioned. I guess it sounds like I'm just anti-BL and anti-NFE, but please read on. Each tier (excluding uber, for obvious reasons explained later) would then be further separated into two parts. A "popular" list (like what OU is to BL currently), and an "unpopular" list (like what BL is to OU currently). Basically, this means that I want to give each tier it's own "BL". Since the tier below's banned list would just be everything above, the only tier that needs a separate "banned" list is OU, justifying an uber tier. The only list that needs a separate tier for banned Pokes would be the top tier (what is now called OU). So I think it would be a good idea to have something like this for a tier list.

Banned- the highest "tier", which is literally a banned list to help create a balanced environment for lower tiers.

Top- what is currently called OU, It would be further separated into Greater and Lessert Top tier, so if you play "OU" now, you could either say you play "Top" tier, or "Greater Top Tier", with some form of abbreviation. Likely the most popular tier, and here for that reason.

Middle- aka UU. Like Top, it would have it's sub-tiers, Greater and Lesser. Here for the reason we have UU now.

Bottom- aka NU. Has Lesser and Greater lists like the tiers before it. Here because lumping so many Pokemon into "Middle-Lesser", or "ML" would mean never giving them a chance to compete, or be tested thoroughly in a competitive environment.

An NFE tier could be here, too, since I think all metagames should be different, rather than weaker/stronger versions of the metagames above/below. But that could be done case by case... If, say, adding Gabite to UU makes it more balanced, add it.

I'm not saying the tiers have to be, or should be set up like this, I'm just proposing an idea. Tiers should be thought of as individual metagames of their own, UU isn't just a tier for barely used OU-ers, it's it's own environment. Not a weaker version of OU. There should be as many "tiers" like the "top-mid-low" "tiers" above as there are played and balanced metagames.

Edit: Using that "tiers as individual metagames" thing, we could rate all Pokemon in every tier. So, Tentacruel (assuming it isn't broken in UU) could be rated in both UU, and OU.
 
Miao said:
This is also why we're getting weird metagames like "Just BL/UU only plz" such metagames are completely dominated by the pokemon in the BL list, as they were added just to keep them out of the UU pool, they're already known to be broken in that environment.

As far as the NU tier... erm... yeah things arn't at that point yet.
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How are they known to be broken in that environment when there isn't even a UU ladder? Very few people play UU at all from my own personal experience on shoddy, so the metagame seems arbitrary at this point.

People are afraid that combining BL and UU will send their favorites to NU, while the BL list is huge. The Pokemon stuck in BL are favorites too, and it's the worst tier to be stuck in and see competitive play. At least NU can and will be its own metagame eventually, BL never will be anything.
 
The tiering system is fine. The only problem that exists is how one defines an uber and no revision to tiering is going to solve that problem. (unless we knock out all tiers and make ubers standard, but i highly doubt anyone wants that)
 
Raikou said:
How are they known to be broken in that environment when there isn't even a UU ladder? Very few people play UU at all from my own personal experience on shoddy, so the metagame seems arbitrary at this point.

People are afraid that combining BL and UU will send their favorites to NU, while the BL list is huge. The Pokemon stuck in BL are favorites too, and it's the worst tier to be stuck in and see competitive play. At least NU can and will be its own metagame eventually, BL never will be anything.
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I think it's a mix.... people still play UU, there are UU tourneys and that sort of thing, despite their not being an UU ladder (there really should be... I agree with you on that) By looking over at the policy review forum people are discussing just that, it makes an interesting read. ^^

As far as renaming the tiers goes... every single pokemon site I've seen uses the terms Uber/OU/UU/NU, to deviate from that just causes a mess. You get oddball things like Little Cup, but those have their own rules.
 
Raikou said:
People are afraid that combining BL and UU will send their favorites to NU, while the BL list is huge. The Pokemon stuck in BL are favorites too, and it's the worst tier to be stuck in and see competitive play. At least NU can and will be its own metagame eventually, BL never will be anything.
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Sorry but I have to completely disagree. The greater majority of the pokemon "stuck in BL" actually see far more competitively play than most UU/NU pokemon, they simply lack a metagame of their own.

NU might eventually be awarded it own metagame, but who is actually going to play it? Unless current attitudes toward the lower tiers shift considerably over the next few months, the answer is very few.

You seem to see "BL" as some sort of stigma, when the reality of the situation is people are far less judgemental of BL pokemon than they are UU or NU. If use UU/NU pokemon in the OU environment a good many people automatically assume that you are less competitive battler, players using BL pokemon rarely suffer the same comparisons.
 
That depends on the BL in question. For example my Flygon, low BL, tends to get his ass kicked in OU while only the top BLs see a decent amount of play. BL is huge so even taking out the ones straddling BL/OU, there's still a lot of Pokemon who don't cut it against things like Garchomp or are just outclassed by their OU counterparts (Blaziken), thus stuck in a banned tier.

I also think a big reason people avoid UU is because there's no ladder for it yet. A ladder would encourage more players and thus accurate metagame testing can be done.
 
Well, I always thought BL was stupid, as they are all "powerful" enough for OU. Usually when I recruit a BL pokemon up, they do fine, provided they play the right role. Everyone forgets Mamoswine, Gallade, Kingdra, Snorlax, and Milotic were all BL at the beginning of the Metagame. And Weezing, and Rhyperior have fallen off...
 
Saying something is in a lower tier is in no way a statement that they cannot compete in a higher tier.
 
Obi said:
Saying something is in a lower tier is in no way a statement that they cannot compete in a higher tier.
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This is the essence of the usage-based Tier List. It ensures that even though certain pokemon are more than viable in OU play in terms of power, their lesser usage means a lesser placing.
The system has prevailed exactly because of the fact that it does not limit or prohibit - it simply classifies. Weezing will always be OU in terms of power, he is an absolute top-notch wall - and even though he has seen less usage as of late and consequently fallen to BL, I don't really care, because I can use him just the same. And if one doesn't care, one doesn't complain.

Exceptions to this arise when a classification of a pokemon automatically means it's prohibition in a certain tier - such as UU to BL moves, or OU to Uber ones. Pinsir is absolutely devastating in UU, but it has not been moved to BL because it is not used enough - this is also down to the fact the amount of UU players is limited, a small chink in the system.
Wobbuffet and Deoxys-E are turning out to be pokemon who's former prohibition seems rather redundant now - and it took us a year to realize it.

So while no system can be perfect, the one based solely on statistical evidence is the most accepted one because it adapts to the market.
 
hitmontop is strong in UU as well.
there is an arguement here over NFE and other tiers, we have pokemon that in theory are NFE (pikachu and porygon 2 are notable) who come in in UU and BL respectively where does this put them in terms of NFE from how i see it its
Ubers
OU
BL
UU
NU/NFE

meaning porygon-z and pikachu are not NFE pokes. it also means to say that NFE's can move up the tier (clamperl to UU is a good idea)

to me BL is a seperate entity in tier clasification we have Over used under used and never used BL not having the key word USED in it means it should be a dumping ground for broken UU's
i have a team of 6 BL's and they function well agaisnt OU's are these OU strength? no ryperior and tauros are the only 2 there with a sniff at OU in my view with ludicolo not far behind
and we have this limbo thing which is bringing pokemon out of UBERS into OU yet nothing the other way around, we have garchomp strides ahead at number 1 for ages same with gengar and blissey at 2 and 3. which to me says something that people are focusing on the same 3 pokes over and over and not giving anything a chance, we cant prove deoxys and wobb are broken on useage because people cant risk losing the big 3 pokes off thier team.
 
i have a question. Wasn't Tentacruel UU(not sure about this. it was a long time ago) before people found out it could wall Infernape? Suddenly usage of it sprang up and pushed it to OU? isn't the reason of making a pokemon OU/BL because it would unbalance the UU tier?

i didn't read all the posts so i am sorry if this has been said. i am suggesting that make 2 different kinds of tier lists. 1 based on the Strengths of the pokemons a bit like the tier list is right now and the other based on usage to show the people which are the current threats in a certain metagame.

The first one, based on strengths, are much like the tier lists now except of the removal of BL. BL was created to move powerful pokemons that unbalance the UU metagame. doing such will make 3 tiers, God tier (the uber that is now) High tier (or OU and BL combined possibly less of them), Low Tier (the UU and NU combined now with a bit of OU/BL that may not change the current metagame of UU right now like Tentacruel(requires testing though))


The second, based on usage will now be the new OU and UU showing the current threats of the metagame.

why not make it as sub tier you say? Putting sub tiers will make it longer because pokemon like Tentacruel (assuming it is sent back to UU) will have to appear twice on this list but once on the first causing confusion.
 
RiptideFugitive said:
Then why is Tentacruel OU now?
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Because it was actually used enough to become OU.

Here's another way of putting the line you quoted:
A Pokemon can always be used in a higher tier.

However, to keep UU fresh and different from the standard metagame, Pokemon who are not overpowering in it can indeed be moved out of it currently.

I think a lot of this would be easier to grasp if people stopped using OU to mean several things and instead kept it to just mean "the most-used Pokemon in the standard metagame (which is any Pokemon not banned to Ubers, but for the most part is OU+BL)."
 
Aye Carl, I currently understand on what your saying and after reading through my response I see how I have been rambling... I really shouldn't post topical discussions at 3.56am eh?

I'll do a re-write later on it to make it more clear at what I am trying to say, as for now I really don't have the time.
 
The tiering system is fine. I just have a problem with the BL tier. Make it Frequently Used, instead of Borderline, so the tiers would be:

Uber
Over Used
Frequently Used
Under Used
Never Used
 
It should be though. Lets look at the tiers:

Overused

Borderline

Under Used

Surely Borderline, is the borderline of Overused and Underused? Surely it would make sense just to rename it Frequently Used, as the Pokemon in those tiers are not used enough to reach OU, but used frequently enough to be above UU?
 
the Pokemon in those tiers are not used enough to reach OU, but used frequently enough to be above UU?
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BL is not defined by usage, it is a ban list for UU, much like Ubers is a ban list for OU. Sorry if the name "borderline" is confusing but lurk a bit more before making these assumptions.


the reason tenta when from uu to ou was because at first it was not used enough to be considered OU, and not powerful/overcentralizing enough in the uu metagame to be considered BL, and now it is used enough to be considered OU by our definition.
 
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