I was talking about situation 2 when I have a Scizor and the opponent has a Rotom-W. There obviously going to Volt Switch first. Then you U-turn probably switching to Heatran to check and end up eating Dugtrio. Dugtrio is also immune to Volt Switch. I was never talking about VoltTurn teams "idiot". I was talking about the moves in general.
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U-turn Discussion and Poll
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I was talking about situation 2 when I have a Scizor and the opponent has a Rotom-W. There obviously going to Volt Switch first. Then you U-turn probably switching to Heatran to check and end up eating Dugtrio. Dugtrio is also immune to Volt Switch. I was never talking about VoltTurn teams "idiot". I was talking about the moves in general.
Er, 252 SpA Rotom-W Hydro Pump vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Scizor in rain: 303-357 (88.33 - 104.08%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
I don't think switching to Heatran or staying in is a good idea against Rotom-W. I don't get what you're arguing here.
I don't think switching to Heatran or staying in is a good idea against Rotom-W. I don't get what you're arguing here.
Im only a newb here, but personally, U-turn isnt particularly broken because you have to pick your pokemon before they do if u ko, gives them the opportunity to switch in a pokemon that ur mon is weak too,
also the damage from uturn is often insignificant and is easily countered by rocks, spikes etc making re-entry pretty intense for new mons.
i think the only thing that seperates uturn from vault switch is possibly type and amount of mon able to use it, volt switch could be considered OP too considering you can 1 hit most mon weak to it with an electricity gem then switch out...
just my opinions tho, im pretty inexperienced so im probably wrong haha
also the damage from uturn is often insignificant and is easily countered by rocks, spikes etc making re-entry pretty intense for new mons.
i think the only thing that seperates uturn from vault switch is possibly type and amount of mon able to use it, volt switch could be considered OP too considering you can 1 hit most mon weak to it with an electricity gem then switch out...
just my opinions tho, im pretty inexperienced so im probably wrong haha
Well, if you ko something with U-Turn, you need to switch something in first and they can get their counter to that pokemon in safely and gain momentum, that's true. However if you KO something with any other move, you're forced to stay in as they can safely get their counter in and gain momentum, it's the exact same scenario..
It's often too risky to stay in, and U-turn does respectable damage to anything if it's combined with hazards. Volt switch would be comparibly broken if it wasn't for pokemon being immune to it, most notably Gastrodon.
It's often too risky to stay in, and U-turn does respectable damage to anything if it's combined with hazards. Volt switch would be comparibly broken if it wasn't for pokemon being immune to it, most notably Gastrodon.
Its not too much at all, 50% of what made genesect uber were his powerful U-turns.
I'm pretty sure most people would agree that Genesect would have been broken even without U-turn. Same with Tornadus-T
Ok, why do you want to ban everything now.
Stealth rocks is a defining thing of competitive pokemon, and if stealth rocks does get banned people will just use spikes and toxic spikes.
U-Turn is a defining thing of competitive pokemon, and if U-turn does get banned people will just use Volt Switch.
With this ban you are talking about getting rid of a play-style, a whole meta-game has built around gaining momentum with U-turn and Volt Switch, but now that people realize just how great the VolTurn strategy is it is immediately broken? No, it's not. Maybe it is a move that you can use mindlessly to scout - it is also a move that you can use thoughtfully to get a switch advantage. You could say the same thing about... let's say Jirachi. Put a choice scarf on him, paralyze his pokemon with body slam one turn and later in the battle spam iron head. If your opponent has a slower team, you can just use iron head straight away. Another pokemon that needs no thought process to use is Riolu. Set up hazards with team mates, use substitute, use roar, use copycat and you win.
Pokemon will have things that you might not have to overly think through, if you use either other things or the same things in pokemon in a better way you can win easier.
Pokemon who commonly use U-turn:
Infernape
Scizor
Lando.
You can't counter Infernape? You need to think about readjusting your team. Scizor is obviously the most famous user of this, but it makes Scizor a great scout if you need one - note: Not a mindless team member that only uses Scizor, a viable attacker who happens to be able to tank hits and use U-turn, using this move to its fully potential. Lando is one of the more annoying users of this move, but that doesn't mean broken, it means good. Honestly this is a thread I would expect to see on the showdown forums along with "should Sawk be banned from NU", because U-turn would completely break the meta-game if it were to leave and U-turn is hilariously far from being broken as it is.
Stealth rocks is a defining thing of competitive pokemon, and if stealth rocks does get banned people will just use spikes and toxic spikes.
U-Turn is a defining thing of competitive pokemon, and if U-turn does get banned people will just use Volt Switch.
With this ban you are talking about getting rid of a play-style, a whole meta-game has built around gaining momentum with U-turn and Volt Switch, but now that people realize just how great the VolTurn strategy is it is immediately broken? No, it's not. Maybe it is a move that you can use mindlessly to scout - it is also a move that you can use thoughtfully to get a switch advantage. You could say the same thing about... let's say Jirachi. Put a choice scarf on him, paralyze his pokemon with body slam one turn and later in the battle spam iron head. If your opponent has a slower team, you can just use iron head straight away. Another pokemon that needs no thought process to use is Riolu. Set up hazards with team mates, use substitute, use roar, use copycat and you win.
Pokemon will have things that you might not have to overly think through, if you use either other things or the same things in pokemon in a better way you can win easier.
Pokemon who commonly use U-turn:
Infernape
Scizor
Lando.
You can't counter Infernape? You need to think about readjusting your team. Scizor is obviously the most famous user of this, but it makes Scizor a great scout if you need one - note: Not a mindless team member that only uses Scizor, a viable attacker who happens to be able to tank hits and use U-turn, using this move to its fully potential. Lando is one of the more annoying users of this move, but that doesn't mean broken, it means good. Honestly this is a thread I would expect to see on the showdown forums along with "should Sawk be banned from NU", because U-turn would completely break the meta-game if it were to leave and U-turn is hilariously far from being broken as it is.
Considering gene's best set in ou was his RP set which lacked u-turn, I'm inclined to disagree. If gene didn't get banned the first time, it'd definitely be banned now with access to shift gear/blaze kick/espeed to fuck up pretty much anything.
On topic though, although uturn and volt switch are amazing moves they are beatable with proper prediction and it is possible to punish whatever comes in. Though that argument goes both ways and is heavily in favor of the turning side. Overall I think it's alright in the current metagame since it's not like uturn is the only mindless thing we have. It does help fuck stall though.
because whats wrong with banning things that prove to be deserved of a ban
the problem in this site isnt the ban mentality, its the stupid politics and dumb mindset that banning shit is bad. no. banning things is GOOD. banning many things, if its needed, is GOOD. bans happen in almost every single game because they are needed and if we need to get rid of something that dumbs down the game then we should. its wrong to think banning is bad because of some made up rule that says so.
you said it yourself, the metagame is now around these two moves. thats unhealthy as fuck for the game. theres a reason why those 2 moves are the defining piece of the metagame though, and its because they require no thinking to use. you abuse them and you win a lot. consistently. why? because you dont have to think to use them. i could quote myself on the plethora of scenarios that exist on this move being a cancer but i wont because ill sound like an old record, go read past posts.
you got it half right. its actually a move you can use MINDLESSLY to get a switch advantage and to scout.
this is just fucking retarded lol
you should go back to those forums because clearly you dont have the ability to grasp the game to play it at a competitive level. holy fuck.
the problem in this site isnt the ban mentality, its the stupid politics and dumb mindset that banning shit is bad. no. banning things is GOOD. banning many things, if its needed, is GOOD. bans happen in almost every single game because they are needed and if we need to get rid of something that dumbs down the game then we should. its wrong to think banning is bad because of some made up rule that says so.
you said it yourself, the metagame is now around these two moves. thats unhealthy as fuck for the game. theres a reason why those 2 moves are the defining piece of the metagame though, and its because they require no thinking to use. you abuse them and you win a lot. consistently. why? because you dont have to think to use them. i could quote myself on the plethora of scenarios that exist on this move being a cancer but i wont because ill sound like an old record, go read past posts.
you got it half right. its actually a move you can use MINDLESSLY to get a switch advantage and to scout.
this is just fucking retarded lol
you should go back to those forums because clearly you dont have the ability to grasp the game to play it at a competitive level. holy fuck.
Only problem I have with this post is well, banning something causes a tier shift and causes previously unusable pokemon to be good/broken.
Case 1: Gene. Thanks to gene being around spamming uturn every other match, ty-tar, celebi, reun, deo-d and anything else weak to bug was borderline unusable. Thanks to how popular RP/scarfed set was even the likes of torn/lando/keldeo feared gene and weren't anywhere near as good as they are now. With gene's ban however we get
Case 2: Torn-t. Thanks to how fast 121 base speed ontop of passable offense and an amazing offensive movepool in the form of hurricane, super power, uturn, heat wave. It made anything weak to hurricane much harder to utilize, examples of this would be terra, keldeo, celebi, among other things. It made ty-tar incredibly hard to utilize since with proper prediction torn-t will always beat ty-tar with super power/uturn. So with torn-t around it made a ton of things unviable and nowhere near as effective as we have now. Hell torn-t was so good and so overpowering that it made keldeo (who was suspected alongside torn-t) considered not broken. Then with torn-t's ban we get
Case 3: Deo-d. No idea what the big deal about this is to be honest, custap skarm took over. I guess you could argue that deo-d had a better speed + longevity + magic coat but it's a hard argument to make, but deo-d definitely gained usage after gene and torn-t got banned. Moving on though after torn-t's ban we get
Case 4: Landorus + keldeo. They're tested seperately admittedly but I'm sure most can agree that the lando testing helped people get a good feel for how powerful keldeo was as well. Thanks to no more gene/torn-t running around these two stepped up as the face of what is broken in ou. These two along with ty-tar was such a powerful core both offensively and defensively that it brought stuff like gyara and reun back to counter them. These two also fuck with sun and make life hell for sun teams.
Now with more bans it doesn't solve our problem of a more balanced metagame no matter how much theorymonning you might want, it instead makes the problem worse since removing x threat that checked y suddenly makes y powerful again. With Keldeo most likely getting banned we can see yet another tier shift and then this process will continue. So please don't spout some bullshit like banning stuff is good for the metagame and how being ban heavy is a good mentality.
Instead of saying things won't happen, it's better to be expecting them. How is it a slippery slope though? Is Ty-tar a dominating force in the metagame now? You'd have to be naive as hell if you think otherwise. Was it dominating force back before a few mons were banned? No it wasn't. I wasn't using some extreme example like banning sr would make volc/dnite suspectable (this would cause them to be though) I'm using examples of things that have happened. We always find new things and hence why new threats are discovered that weren't viable before. It's not so much of being scared of change, it's more about if the change brought will be beneficial or harmful for the meta.
edit: I'm curious though, if you say banning things is beneficial would you mind listing all the pros and cons of previous bans? Like what became reintroduced as threats and what got toned down. I mean you claim to know more so please show me master scarface!
Haruno, what are you talking about. Deoxys-D was a mainstay of OU ever since the ban on Deoxys-S. The banishment of Tornadus-T and Genesect did nothing to change it's effectiveness. Tornadus-T was also very good since the inception of BW2, so you're also wrong again about Genesect's effect on Torn-T's usage. This is ignoring the fact that your post doesn't add anything to the discussion of the uncompetitiveness of U-turn.
celever, you do realize that U-turn has potentially pushed Landorus, Genesect, and arguably Tornadus-T to ubers right? U-turn is what allowed the "50/50" nonsense, which was the primary characteristic that banned all three, to occur. Without U-turn, the Genesect user would actually have to take risks and have more occasions of losing momentum and going back on his feet. There's no coincidence that three Pokemon were banned with the push of U-turn; it just gives the user a really unfair upper hand with very low cost. If I need to choose between a brainless move like U-turn to three key Pokemon in OU, I'll take the 3 Pokemon.
celever, you do realize that U-turn has potentially pushed Landorus, Genesect, and arguably Tornadus-T to ubers right? U-turn is what allowed the "50/50" nonsense, which was the primary characteristic that banned all three, to occur. Without U-turn, the Genesect user would actually have to take risks and have more occasions of losing momentum and going back on his feet. There's no coincidence that three Pokemon were banned with the push of U-turn; it just gives the user a really unfair upper hand with very low cost. If I need to choose between a brainless move like U-turn to three key Pokemon in OU, I'll take the 3 Pokemon.
The majority of the "mainstream" cores are just excellent rmt's that people copied and/or expanded on and thus increasing the rise in usage. Was torn-t a good pokemon with gene around? Definitely but gene dampened it's dominance. Was keldeo a good mon when torn-t was around? Definitely but again torn-t dampened it's usage. I don't recall deo-d being that popular until a certain rmt was posted, hell its usage was so poor that it almost dropped into UU until people realized that it was godly for HO teams.
Honestly it's hard to say whether uturn is bad for the metagame or not but it does help immensely in putting the autopilot feature on the ladder.
so you just said youre full of shit. those mons didnt start being used more becauseshit got banned, but because people started to bandwagon regardless of their current power, cool
While I don't agree that U-turn is broken (you can read my previous posts on the first page of this thread if you'd like to see my reasoning), this post hasn't got much to do with U-turn, but rather with how the way I look at banning something. We shouldn't keep something that's broken (U-turn) to keep other things in check. I've heard the same argument about banning Drizzle in OU, and that people don't want to ban it because people believe that Sun would become OP. Firstly, this is huge theorymon, as no one knows about a Drizzle-less metagame. Secondly, if Sun becomes broken after Rain is, then so be it. We ban it too.
Don't keep broken threats in OU just because they check other broken threats.
while i'm on the fence regarding u-turn / volt switch [leaning more towards the broken side but i'm still not sure], i agree that this fear of banning things is really not good. obviously we're not going to go banning everything that's remotely annoying, but if something is bad for the game / ~broken~ / reducing the emphasis on skill level in battle -- and it's not too hard to tell if something fits these things -- then it definitely should be banned.
shootinstarmie's post also hit the nail on the head.
I think it reduces skill on the players. When you can just u-turn you way out of danger if your faster. And if your slower you can have the type advantage or get KOed then still have the type advantage. While I use it, I use it on Sizor where the two options are get bullet punched if you are faster and weak enough. Or get predicted to switch and I have the advantage because i can switch to a counter or a check to the switched in pokemon ,that is if I did not KO it first.
It's pretty darn hard to call the move itself broken, considering that it is a 70 base power move with a mediocre offensive typing. Not only this, but Scizor is basically the only pokemon who hits notably hard with it against pokes neutral to it, considering most other U-Turn users don't have STAB on it. I can see the reason why one may think that the move is broken, especially since a few of the latest bans have used it to frickin perfection (Scarf Genesect, LO Tornadus-T, 4 Attacks Landorus-I), and the most used pokemon in OU, which is Scizor, most notably a threatening move on the Choice Band and Choice Scarf sets.
The large problem with Choice Scarf Genesect was that you could never just fix your EVs to limit it's "Downloading" capabilities. If it got an Attack boost against your Celebi / Lati@s / anything else weak to Bug, it basically either forces you out of the field, or knocks out your Psychic type. If you do choose to switch out into a resist, your opponent couldn't care less, since he gains a completely free switch into a check or counter of choice.
The large problem with LO Tornadus was the fact that 1) Hurricane hurts, 2) almost nothing could take a Hurricane and a U-Turn comfortably without being a fully specially defensive pokemon who resists Hurricane and 3) being a fast U-Turn user with Regenerator, Torn-T could just U-Turn out for free. Hurricane + U-Turn had almost no risk (back at full HP) and had the massive reward of taking off a good >50% health from the majority of OU.
Landorus is just way too threatening. The way it used U-Turn was to take care of it's biggest problems which where Latias and Celebi. This means that it can use a "free momentum" move whilst gaining critical coverage. The list of pokemon that could comfortably take any 1 (if faster) or 2 (if slower) attack(s) from Landorus are as follows: Gengar, Latias, Latios, Bronzong, Chansey, Blissey. 3 of these pokemon are mediocre in this metagame at best, whilst Lati@s are hit hard by U-Turn on the switch.
But the thing about these threats are; U-Turn really just made life easier for them. A good player can easily outplay the opponent without using U-Turn on them, and U-Turn just made the whole procedure an easy no-brainer. This argument can be used both for and against the banning of U-Turn. On one side, you could say that U-Turn, the move itself isn't broken, just the pokemon that utilize it well where, and on the other, you could say that U-Turn is unhealthy for the quality of the metagame, as it honestly requires no prediction skills, and is basically just a "click me for free momentum" button. I definitely would not classify U-Turn as an "Over-Powered" move, but the whole fact that it just makes the game so easy to play just encourages me to consider it unhealthy for the metagame.
The large problem with Choice Scarf Genesect was that you could never just fix your EVs to limit it's "Downloading" capabilities. If it got an Attack boost against your Celebi / Lati@s / anything else weak to Bug, it basically either forces you out of the field, or knocks out your Psychic type. If you do choose to switch out into a resist, your opponent couldn't care less, since he gains a completely free switch into a check or counter of choice.
The large problem with LO Tornadus was the fact that 1) Hurricane hurts, 2) almost nothing could take a Hurricane and a U-Turn comfortably without being a fully specially defensive pokemon who resists Hurricane and 3) being a fast U-Turn user with Regenerator, Torn-T could just U-Turn out for free. Hurricane + U-Turn had almost no risk (back at full HP) and had the massive reward of taking off a good >50% health from the majority of OU.
Landorus is just way too threatening. The way it used U-Turn was to take care of it's biggest problems which where Latias and Celebi. This means that it can use a "free momentum" move whilst gaining critical coverage. The list of pokemon that could comfortably take any 1 (if faster) or 2 (if slower) attack(s) from Landorus are as follows: Gengar, Latias, Latios, Bronzong, Chansey, Blissey. 3 of these pokemon are mediocre in this metagame at best, whilst Lati@s are hit hard by U-Turn on the switch.
But the thing about these threats are; U-Turn really just made life easier for them. A good player can easily outplay the opponent without using U-Turn on them, and U-Turn just made the whole procedure an easy no-brainer. This argument can be used both for and against the banning of U-Turn. On one side, you could say that U-Turn, the move itself isn't broken, just the pokemon that utilize it well where, and on the other, you could say that U-Turn is unhealthy for the quality of the metagame, as it honestly requires no prediction skills, and is basically just a "click me for free momentum" button. I definitely would not classify U-Turn as an "Over-Powered" move, but the whole fact that it just makes the game so easy to play just encourages me to consider it unhealthy for the metagame.
I'd just like to interject that I don't really think that U-Turn is what "broke" Tornadus-T. I tried U-Turn on my Specs set, but eventually removed it because I found that I almost always benefitted from just spamming Hurricane. If my opponent dared to switch in Jirachi to sponge the attack, I'd just use him as set-up fodder for my Ferrothorn.
Air Slash put in more work on that set because it really lay the hurt on sun teams and I didn't have to worry about reduced accuracy.
Air Slash put in more work on that set because it really lay the hurt on sun teams and I didn't have to worry about reduced accuracy.
I disagree. I think it is wrong to compare Genesect's use of u-turn to Landorus and Tornadus. Genesects u-turn could actually do something because it had STAB and it was extremely powerful after an attack boost. Tornadus-t was sent to Uber because it had Regenerator... Which means it could never die from rocks if the player was good enough... I didn't agree with that banning but I guarantee if it had an ability like Sniper or something like that it wouldn't have got banned... Take a look at tornadus-i...it is UU for fucks sake..... It does the same thing and has an even stronger hurricane but what is the difference? Regenerator. Tornadus-t's U-turns were pitiful and its best move was only effective in rain... It was U-turn + Regenerator that got it banned not u-turn itself... With the speed that Tornadus-t had that combination was good in rain. Now landorus I think is in the same boat as tornadus but alot worse.... I just believe that the players never got to adapt to it... I never had a problem with u-turn landorus because I always had the information of my opponents team so I always had specific calculations in mind depending on what he u-turns to if he does u-turn. Besides the momentum and occasional celebi kill (i don't even consider special defensive celebi a lando counter) Lando's u-turns really weren't doing anything besides taking away health. I know user like rey made a big deal about it but I think it wasn't as good as he made it out to be... Lando was banned because of its big earth powers and coverage to basically hit everything slower than it very hard... Not u-turn.
Super Mario Bro said:
U-Turn isn't what broke Specs Tornadus. In fact, I think it's the biggest reason that the Specs set was considered inferior to the Life Orb one. As someone said farther up (I believe it was ginganinja) the worst part about Torn-T was it made your check/counter eat a Hurricane, then it U-turned on to a counter for your counter of it , meaning Tornadus took a chunk out of your counter/check then threatened it again with another pokemon. Thats why the Life Orb set was the broken one; you can find Pokemon to tank Specs Hurricanes from a decent, but not spectacular, 110 Special Attack, but Tornadus could also threaten with coverage and if all else failed, U-Turn and keep momentum. It would be much harder to fit Tornadus onto a team without U-Turn, as it was a huge part in weakening his checks. The move certainly contributed to the ban
Curtains, many people regarded U-turn to be the move that pushed Landorus-I over the edge. It's Rock Polish set was deadly, but it could be stopped. What made U-turn on Landorus so good is that it made the Lando-I user always come out on top, and the few Pokemon that could switch into it (Latias, Celebi, etc) were then usually eliminated next turn. U_turn just grabbed so much momentum for the Landorus-I user, often leaving the opponent with a weakened Landorus-I counter, or no counter at all, leaving Landorus to come in freely and spam powerful Earth Powers.
U-turn was it's best set, what are you talking about?
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