[ORAS] ORAS OU Metagame Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Past Gens Discussion' started by Finchinator, Nov 2, 2014.

  1. Edna

    Edna Chasing the Dragon Forum Moderator Forum Moderator

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    You can remove them from all side tiers alongside Quick Claw, I don't think anyone would miss these. @sulcata @gengar17 feel free to object
     
  2. Celestial Phantom

    Celestial Phantom YAHA

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    Really? Are you people actually so (BEEPING) dumb to actually go through with this, especially without a shred of actual discussion from any part of the community? By this logic we should ban all moves capable of causing paralysis. It's a 25% chance of not being able to move at all, that's enough to influence a game, and everyone's fine with that being something allowed. Add in the tactical advantage that it cuts speed down to 25% of the original speed, and hell no one likes getting paralyzed, but it's just a factor of the game. As another logic we should continue banning the Sand Veil/Snow Cloak ability, get 8 turns of a weather up, send something insanely annoying out with the ability to see what kinds of damage it can do with a free evasion boost still lingering around. We should also ban Focus Band, has some odd ass % of letting a Pokemon live a hit that could/would kill it, and can be activated in succession.

    I mean we are already playing an RNG based game, and everything is going to be decided by luck and learned knowledge of what something can do to a certain extent, so I can agree with Devo whatever we do is arbitrary, but I'm not going to overlook blatant bias, and agree with just banning moves just to ban them. I can agree with the ban to Swagger as it actually caused you to do more damage to yourself the higher your attack stat went, but you might as well just start throwing out all moves that cause some kind of effect immediately like Thunder Wave, or Sleep Moves, hey no one likes Scald, it has god burn %, we might as well ban that, everyone will be happier. Geez, what the hell is this place actually coming to that you're just making choices like this willy nilly.
     
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  3. Edna

    Edna Chasing the Dragon Forum Moderator Forum Moderator

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    Then we might as well run suspects, which I'm thinking we will :)
     
  4. Xdevo

    Xdevo Phrasing Super Moderator Tour Director Super Moderator Tour Director

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    Or I mean you could just insult a bunch of people for no other reason than you disagree with us. But apparently I'm too ... dumb to understand that.

    If you're going to try to use the slippery slope falacy, you should at least check to make sure all of the thing you list actually fall under the very simple criteria that's been repeated ad infinitum. If the sole use of a move/item/whatever is to throw the game to the RNG, then it has no place in a competitive environment. Paralysis (and all the moves that induce para as either the sole or secondary effect) has the slowing factor (something that's been useful for literally 20 years) as an effect, therefore does not fall under the same logic. Sand Veil and Snow Cloak were both already banned last generation, the only reason they've not been discussed is that they've not been brought up. They would fall under this same logic. Focus Band is arguable, but if feel free to argue to ban it.

    Scald has an effect of damage and lowing attack (neutering physical attackers), Sleep moves have the effect of long-term incapacitation, para moves have the effect of slowing mons. None of these follow the very simple logic of "sole effect is to throw the game to the RNG." They all have something that makes them useful to a metagame, even if they cause hax. Confusion and Infatuation do not add any of the effects that sleep, Para, or Scald have.

    You should definitely consider at least taking 5 mins to think what the criteria were for this ban; then think "does this other thing make said criteria." Kneejerk rambling reactions, slippery slopes, and ad hominems do absolutely nothing to further the discussion.
     
  5. Jethalal

    Jethalal (~o.o)~ So Spooky ~(o.o~)

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    just my opinion the ban was not fair as there are some moves which cause confusion what about that, also if the game is becoming much of RNG free then some people are asking since forever for no crit tiers what about that, para turns scald burns are also a thing. Confusion moves dont have any strategy + it also takes up a moveslot so its upto a user to choose it or not. According to me it was not right to ban but its upto the TLs to keep it or not i just gave my view on it.
     
  6. Celestial Phantom

    Celestial Phantom YAHA

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    Actually they just can't up and ban stuff, unless it's quick ban for something that is an immediate harmful impact to a tier.

    1. You must take the opinions of the community into consideration when making tiering decisions. Simply discussing it between yourselves and determining the tiering of a Pokémon as a result is not the way to decide the tiering of a Pokémon, especially if the suspect discussion is leaning the opposite direction to your own opinion
    Straight from tier leading guidelines. I don't give a care if Draciel is Tiering Admin, that's no reason to just round up a few tier leaders, and not even get the opinions of the community on this at all. And while it may say Pokemon, Swagger itself got a suspect, and it actually got discussed. This as a whole should be allowed by the community for discussion. But then again, him and Xdevo used Tyrannical power to ban Chatter from NU without even so much of a discussion about the move, just because they don't want to deal with confusion. Also that's another move that should be umbrella banned if you are serious about it with confusion, because I sure as hell am not going to do it for LU. Honestly, from the look of this, they just wish to remove a tactical borderline status because they don't wish to deal with confusion nor discuss the cost effect of running a confusion move or attract on a Pokemon.
     
  7. Aurist

    Aurist I do not jump for joy. I frolic in doubt.

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    Hoomygod if I see one more slippery slope argument I'm gonna lose my shit. Please, people, literally google the words slippery slope because apparently you're just looking at those words and then moving on as if they dont exist lol. There isn't a precedent being set by Confusion Clause, it's doing literally the same thing as Evasion Clause and yall have been fine with that for several years.

    The criteria has been very simple for the Confusion Clause bans, if its sole effect is to add extra RNG to the game, then it doesn't belong in competitive pokemon. It's not about effectiveness, brokenness, centralizing, whatever the hell other word you wanna put out there. It's about pure, extraneous RNG being added to a turn, doing nothing but throwing an extra turn-changing coin flip in there. We can talk for hours and hours about every god damn piece of RNG in the game but the fact of the matter is none of those things fall under that criteria and it's so beyond tiresome to hear the same things drudged up over and over.

    Removing these things isn't removing a "strategy", it's removing something just like Double Team in that it does nothing but throw things to luck, remove the competition from the turn/game and sap the fun totally from playing it in the first place. No non-pure RNG moves are being removed. It's so simple.

    As for discussion, it's something that's been discussed on PO pretty much since its inception and throughout competitive pokemon pretty much since GSC was a thing. We just happened to get near-total unity on banning it from the current TLs this time around.

    Additionally, I find it hilarious that people will bring up things needing extensive discussion when we have about 7 people across the 9 tiers affected by Confusion Clause that even post at all. There's pretty much literally more tiering staff than there are people who take part in the discussions.
     
  8. fitzy

    fitzy Heart of the cards Forum Moderator Forum Moderator

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    Agreed 100% with fuzzy that this should have had a bigger discussion and it's own thread.

    Anyway:

    Doubles/Triples - Smogon doubles doesn't even have swagger banned so I heavily suggest we don't ban confusion here.

    LC - As the sole TL I don't want this clause. No unless Draciel overlords this.

    Past gens - Can we NOT fuck around with the tiers after the fact please? Baton pass bans I can live with in them because they are actually broken so will make POCL / OGT better while confusion is not. I'm also pretty sure RBY people won't like it if you touch confuse ray lapras.

    Balanced Hackmons - This is a tier with moody, lol at confuse ray

    The rest I don't care about.
     
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  9. Draciel

    Draciel ALLEZ! ALLEZ! ALLEZ!

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    Considering the fact that 10/12 TLs agreed instantly to this proposition, I didn't think this would require a separate thread. However I'll concede to the fact that a discussion should've been held in MD before jumping to the conclusion; I absolutely had no idea that people would be arguing to keep moves with zero competitive value, and whose sole purpose is to cause confusion or infatuation.

    Tier leaders are called such for a reason, they should be possessing some sort of authority over the tier they are leading. Discussing with the rest of the community is always welcome, but if they can't even decide on competitively irrelevant stuff like this on their own accord, might as well remove them from the positions and make everything decided by community voting. However if any TL wants to start a suspect discussion on 'Confuse Ray' and 'Attract' and w/e else, feel free to.

    Regarding the tiers, I've already PM'd fuzzy about it, those will include:
    ORAS Ubers/OU/UU/LU/NU
    Sky Battle
    Monotype
    3v3 Singles
    Inverted Battle
    1v1

    If people still want a separate thread for this, me or any of the TLs can do that. But from now on, let's keep this thread true to it's purpose, i.e discussing the OU metagame.
     
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  10. Xdevo

    Xdevo Phrasing Super Moderator Tour Director Super Moderator Tour Director

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    All of these things were banned for being uncompetitive, same as Double Team / Minimize, which never received any form of discussion this generation. Swagger getting a discussion is pretty much irrelevent to this, since that was a singular ban, and this is the adoption of a clause. None of those are covered under that part of the tiering guidelines (or under the guidelines at all).

    If that doesn't satisfy you for some stupid reason; classify it as an emergancy ban done by Ubers or OU, both of their tier leaders agreed with the Tiering Administrator (as per the tiering guidelines) on the ban. Either way, the tiering guidelines are borderline ancient now, are broken constantly (hint remember the mienshao ban you did?), and still list Weavile as the tiering administrator and Wifi OU as the main metagame.


    Oh and hey, putting words in my mouth is cool and all, but maybe you should stop acting like somehow after 8 years of playing competitive Pokemon I've never been capable of playing with confusion. I've dealt with it for longer than nearly everyone on the forums (sup oak) today, I don't see how somehow I'm incapable of dealing with it, but hey insulting people is a whole lot easier than making a coherent logical argument!
     
  11. Hannah

    Hannah Come a little closer

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    Hello thread got completely sidetracked by the spontaneous ban but I do feel like I have to bring up the current state of Baton Pass as a move and how it should be re-evaluated by the tier-leaders. My initial impression is to cut to the entire point and straight up Ban Baton Pass from the ORAS OU tier. Not only has there been numerous restrictions on the move itself, but it still continues to pose as a huge threat throughout the longevity of the metagame. While it was an extremely prominent nuisance then, the restriction on Baton Pass chaining was not enough to keep the move down. Being able to pass speed along with offensive stats through Scolipede, being able to give Pokemons a great safety cushion and pass subs, as well as provide momentum all jammed into one move. I do think that the move itself should be taken as one move that has sparked so much unnecessary work-around and tension within the tiers that it should definitely be considered to be banned outright.

    I highly disagree with restrictions and other complex bans as we are putting in unnecessary resources for something we've already restricted enough. I would like to push for more discussion on this as I feel like it is a step PO should've taken when it had the chance and we're still a step behind in terms of how we addressed it.

    :3
     
  12. Oh So Penspin

    Oh So Penspin Hail RNGesus, our Lord and Saviour!

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    The problem with banning Baton Pass entirely is that you make some mons less viable. Celebi, Specs Sylveon and to a lesser extent Lopunny all like Baton Pass for momentum. Celebi in particular becomes Pursuit bait for Ttar/Scizor/Bisharp, can't use its NastyPass set anymore (which is arguably its best set imo) and will lose a very large part of its current niche.
     
  13. Purpleseamonkey

    Purpleseamonkey PO Alt: y0

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    @Xdevo Cool ive been playing this for 8 years too! that would take us back to shoddy battle days <3

    I think the point that some people are making is that while confusion alone clearly fits the definition of uncompetitive, proving that it is in the meta is an other thing entirely. With all our other bans (even moody) we could point to ways that the uncompetitive element impacted the tier. Because confusion is never used, any speculation on it is theorymon and not in the real meta. Because of this there is no point in having a suspect on something nobody ever uses in the tier. It really is better that it was council banned
    It is arbitrary,
    it's not necessary,
    but the reasoning is solid.

    Agreeing with @Hannah that BP or Scolipede needs to be addressed. The suspect other day sort of missed the point completely
     
  14. Hannah

    Hannah Come a little closer

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    +Hannah: "b-but my celebi needs to bp out of ttar"02:21:06
    NananaBatman: fuk ur celebi 02:21:15

    So you're saying to keep in a move that has been tested and proven to be broken enough in the current metagame to save a few sets for some Pokemons? Why the hell should that matter, exactly? We don't ban to preserve whatever cheap trick you want or whatever Celebi/Mew set you want to derp around with. We ban because its broken. I will not let a discussion regarding Scolipede or Geomancy Smeargle proceed because the underlying factor that makes these sets and Pokemon even worthy of an utter is Baton Pass.

    EDIT: I feel like this should be emphasized as well, but by restricting the move to not pass speed or something completely disregards the simulator accuracy we try to achieve as well as wastes valuable resources we have. So if a complex-ban on restricting passing speed or limiting it to one pokemon were to come up kindly refer to this as well.
     
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  15. Purpleseamonkey

    Purpleseamonkey PO Alt: y0

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    Well Pede is a mon, so lets not just group that in with all of the bad "collateral damage" arguments. There are those who do not see baton pass as broken, but rather see a user of the move that has too many things in its favor
     
  16. Oh So Penspin

    Oh So Penspin Hail RNGesus, our Lord and Saviour!

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    Whoa, calm your tits down please. I'm just expressing what I think of a Baton Pass ban and you start acting like I'm threatening you to marry Draciel. We could also ban Scolipede to get rid of the most common abuser of BPass, but apparently you like that mon too much. Surely Ninjask can do similar things (but it doesn't get Iron Defense, which is huge), but it's much less effective at its job than Scolipede. Also, NPass Celebi and Specs Sylveon are not just some sets that I like to 'derp around with'; they're actually the #1 listed sets on Smogon (we have a different meta yada yada) and if the usage statistics weren't messed up, I could show you that they are common here as well.
     
  17. Hannah

    Hannah Come a little closer

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    I do believe that you completely missed the point of my argument and how Baton Pass is just a completely broken move that not only still warrants bans and potential suspects despite restrictions but still finds a lot of flexible usage despite the restrictions.

    Also I'm perfectly calm, though I would suggest you actually read my recent posts so we don't end up going around in circles for the current ban proposal.
     
  18. Funbot28

    Funbot28 Active Member

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    Can we please just start a Baton Pass suspect thread before this thread starts becoming a disastrous....
     
  19. Edna

    Edna Chasing the Dragon Forum Moderator Forum Moderator

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    Can the OU council that cared that much of PO OU actually post in this thread so people are updated of what's going to be done?
     
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  20. Xdevo

    Xdevo Phrasing Super Moderator Tour Director Super Moderator Tour Director

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    (16:32:29) Finchinator: just wanna say that baton pass is being discussed on the forums and on skype now
    (16:32:36) Finchinator: should be a thread up within 24 hours, 48 at the latest
     
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  21. OUAzumarill

    OUAzumarill Active Member

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    Sylveon I can understand, but why the hell does anyone care about BP Celebi outside of a passing set? It already has U-Turn! Am I missing something huge here?
     
  22. Oh So Penspin

    Oh So Penspin Hail RNGesus, our Lord and Saviour!

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    Yes, because you can Pursuit on U-Turn, but it doesn't work on Baton Pass. So you lose your safe escape vs Scizor, Non-Scarf TTar (which can't KO you with Pursuit) and Bisharp.
     
  23. Aurist

    Aurist I do not jump for joy. I frolic in doubt.

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    I truly do not believe that we're so bereft of options in Gen 6 that we have to go out of our way with 1 or 2 complex bans for a simple problem to save an incredibly niche strategy. Celebi/Musharna/etc might miss dry passing in their respective tiers but there's a point at which you say how far are are you willing to go to save a couple tiny details when these mons do have other options, can beat Pursuit users without BP to begin with, and your teams themselves have a plethora of other options to deal with these threats too if that doesn't suffice for you. ORAS is so jam packed full of options that tons of good-ass mons don't end up in higher tiers because of just how much there is for players to remember and deal with.

    Just like we're not saving Blaze Blaziken because it might be legit in LU or whatever, we shouldn't be completely bending the game out of shape to save niche strategies when above all we're trying to make the tier overall fun, competitive, interesting and balanced. If BP is broken, then BP is broken.

    Posting this here cos trying to save my actual "BP is broken" arguments for the suspect thread itself. Just think people need to see why all this complex ban crap is a really bad idea.
     
  24. Spoovo The Pirate

    Spoovo The Pirate Meep! Article Contributor Article Contributor

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    It really worries me that people want to keep the metagame this broken for the sake of dry passing. Barely anything uses it, even less actually needs it, and the game would be much more balanced without it. Scolipede would sink down to LU at best, where it probably belongs as a respectable sweeper, and the likes of Celebi will be mildly inconvenienced. I really don't see what the problem is.
     
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  25. pokemonnerd

    pokemonnerd Only uso listens to pnerd. Devo too. Article Contributor Article Contributor

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    Silly spoovo, we have to keep as many options open to be used in the metagame as possible. Even if they're utterly useless and some pokemon who would use it are already LU like celebi. We can use baton pass on them, so we have to keep it!

    And I don't understand why we'd need a discussion on confusion; random crits, full paralysis and scald burns are enough fun as is.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2016
  26. Hannah

    Hannah Come a little closer

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    Can we update OP to reflect recent tier changes?
     
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  27. Purpleseamonkey

    Purpleseamonkey PO Alt: y0

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    @DarkDiglett i wish you would have been active to respond when the suspect was going on but here is the answer I have for you:

    This is a competitive game and as such we try to limit RNG just for the sake of RNG. The best coin flipper is not what we want the game to become; so we ban things that have no competitive value but add unnecessary RNG. Examples of this have been Moody, Swagger, Evaision, and now confusion. While this is the first instance where it wasn't something that was seen in the tier, the argument still tracks that these moves have no competitive value and that any viability they could have would be uncompetitive

    To change the conversation to forward things, I think the tier is awful right now. It nasty offensive revenge killer mess with some overcentralized stall teams at the top. Slower teams basically guess which overcentralizing things to cover and hope they match up right. Offensive teams just better hope they never lose momentum or get double switch on bc then it's over. The only thing that could make it worse would be a Hoopa retest
    I really think this is broken checking broken and we need to revaluate our opinions of top tier mons
     
  28. DarkDiglett

    DarkDiglett free pridy

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    @Purpleseamonkey So splash/Metronome/Teleport/False swipe/Happy hour/Hold hands and to an extent weaker versions of common moves (Tackle, Water gun, Ember etc) banned too because they add no competitive value?
     
  29. Lameflame

    Lameflame Active Member

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    While I think that's a little oversimplified, I understand the sentiments behind what you're saying and many of them are valid. Where we might differ lies in determining in what or in whom do we place the blame for the current state of the OU tier. To illustrate with one particularly salient example, during the Mega Sableye suspect test, when stall teams lost one of their most potent utility members and blanket check to many powerful wall/stallbreakers, what I observed was totally contrary to the mass hysteria that stall would become obsolete. Rather, the creativity in stall teams peaked, at least in the ~200 games I played over a couple different alts after achieving requirements to vote. Pokemon such as Mega Slowbro and Mega Scizor again became centerpieces for stall teams, and other pokemon like SpDef Zapdos, Mew, even Ditto (albeit rarely and by one particular user), began to see some additional usage. In short, I never thought I'd see a day, in ORAS, where I'd play three different stall teams in three consecutive games, all three with completely different team structures and approaches to winning the battle.

    Sure, that tier did include Gothitelle and Shadow Tag, but that doesn't detract from the point I'm trying to illustrate -- that players are ultimately responsible for choosing the best pokemon to give themselves the highest chance to win. Whether or not they choose to be creative and innovate, to make the tier "healthy" or to choose pokemon that warp the tier and restrict teambuilding isn't the concern of top-level tournament players who are trying to win for their team, or for competitive ladder players who want to achieve a high ranking on the ladder. Ultimately, what this leads to are a number of negative assumptions about ORAS OU that might seem true on face -- match-up issues, over abundance of offensive threats, over-centralizing stall teams --, that I feel can be resolved with mindful consideration of current player choices and how these choices are currently impacting the tier.

    As for re-evaluating our top-tier pokmeon, I'm not sure what you mean. If we're strictly speaking about PO's tiering, out of the four S-ranked pokemon, two are primarily defensive utility or set-up sweepers (Clefable, Mega Sableye), one is a versatile pivot and blanket check to many current threats (Tornadus-T), and Charizard X, while still packing the same offensive firepower it has since early XY, I would argue fares far worse given current metagame trends regarding Sand's increasing usage, fairy spam and Rocky Helmet Landorus-T/Chomp being so ubiquitous. Furthermore, there are many very threatening pokemon in the A/A+ ranks, but aside from the fact that many of these have continuously risen and fallen from prominence based on popular monthly trends (Manaphy and Mega Altaria as two examples), many of them just seem silly to ban.

    How many pokemon can reliably check all of the viable variants of Talonflame with a common set of its own? Throw Keldeo and Clefable into that same category. How many really good, reliable, "splashable" checks are there to Bisharp's Sucker Punch? How many teams have (or have ever had) reliable checks to something like Mega Medicham or Gardevoir? I could continue on this point for a while, but truthfully, the tier's distribution of checks and counters for centralizing offensive pokemon poses only one part of the issue. Personally, I think it's become abundantly clear, especially for players that prefer to play offensively, that "overloading" is the most efficient way to go about winning a battle in the current state of the tier, whether that be Dark-spam, Fairy-spam, Bird-spam, Zard X + Sand, Medicham + Bisharp (+Hoopa?), etc. Players are relying on the same useful but predictable blanket checks for everything, and it's starting to become very exploitable.

    Put simply: the ability for offensive teams to overwhelm their offensive wallbreakers' and sweepers' checks and counters exceeds the capacity for most balance and stall teams to prevent them from doing so. What occurs in reaction to this phenomenon is very much akin to what you described, where players simply concede to losing to certain pokemon in exchange for bringing hard checks/counters to what they think they are statistically most-likely to encounter. I'm hesitant to call this "match-up" because that's a controversial, loaded term that I feel has been used improperly, but what I can say is that banning any arbitrary number of pokemon from the tier, from any tier in the viability rankings, will not truly solve the problem. The approach works only if you intend to ban all or many of the prominent offensive threats that have shaped and defined the ORAS OU metagame. I think that'd be a really turbulent and irrational thing to do.

    I would instead suggest that conversation be centered around more broad questions. Do we think offensive teams are a problem? If so, what steps can be taken that might help shift the metagame towards more balanced, defensive builds (if that's what you want)? If certain stall archetypes restrict teambuilding and/or can be viewed as unhealthy, do we think it's worth it to neuter these teams? Those are just a couple of general questions but the point is, just saying "let's ban Sableye" or "let's ban Thundurus" or "let's ban Charizard" won't affect the metagame in the way I think many would like it to. Assuming the tier isn't very disrupted or destabilized by whatever was banned, it would only serve to bring about the rise of a different powerful offensive threat in response to the previously banned one's defensive threats rising in prominence. Just my perspective.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2016
  30. Oh So Penspin

    Oh So Penspin Hail RNGesus, our Lord and Saviour!

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    Kudos to @Lameflame for explaining the problem so well.

    To me, I don't feel the tier is 'bad' or 'broken checks broken' in a too restrictive way. Most highly-used Pokemon can be dealt with by any archetype. Some deal better with some than other playstyles obviously, but that's in the nature of competitive Pokemon, as Stall/balance teams will obviously have a harder time dealing with Manaphy than offensive teams. The metagame favours offense/bulky offense, sure, but this changes over time, as new strategies are found vs the current viable strategies.

    The problem arises when threatening, lowly-used mons are used in teams, as teams usually don't prepare for them. Pokemon like Mega Heracross, Volcarona, Nidoking, Terrakion etc are extremely threatening if played correctly, because teams don't prepare for them because they don't see as much usage. Again, this is to be expected compare to earlier gens, as there are many more viable, albeit niche, options in OU compared to HGSS OU for example. In the current meta, it's just impossible to prepare for every possible threat. This is where offensive teams shine, as they check threats by means of revenge killing and priority, which is much more of a blanket check than the defensive synergy balance teams offer.

    How to fix this? Limit OU to OU Pokemon and not OU and anything below, but this would destroy a lot of creativity and ruin the tier system, so it's a bad solution.
     
  31. Sakuya Izayoi

    Sakuya Izayoi love to hate

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    @Purpleseamonkey

    lol i actually like the ou meta rn, i feel that every playstyle has their pros and cons, and every playstyle is viable in their own right. "nasty offensive revenge killer mess" isnt that what an offense v offense matchup as always been like? "overcentralised stall teams"? stall is still developing after s tag is banned, but there have been many variations of stall popping out, think one of the better stalls ive seen rely on scarf ttar to bridge the gap and trap to eliminate shit like mgarde/cm latios etc. "Offensive teams just better hope they never lose momentum or get double switch on bc then it's over" correct me if im wrong but isnt this exactly the meta we are trying to promote? a meta that is more geared towards playing ability, where you are on your toes every turn until you have such a huge advantage lategame to the point where it is impossible for the opponent to comeback? theres 3 ways for you to win a pokemon game: 1) by luck 2) by team matchup 3) by playing ability. of which the former 2 is completely out of our hands, the latter is ideally the factor should decide a pokemon game? an offense v offense matchup would best describe "offense teams just better hope they never lose momentum", assuming luck is not present in the game, matchup is relatively equal in this aspect, the only way to decide the game is who outplays who.

    i more or less agree with lameflame

    lol the hoopa u suspect was a joke, i dont think its a broken mon at all and can actually be handled by slower paced teams. from what i summed up in the otherwise shithole of the hoopa u suspect thread if ur running a passive as fuck team then you deserved to be steamrolled by hoopa u, and by extension any wallbreaker. people overestimate hoopa u's bulk, overlooking the fact that most otherwise strong satk moves will still 2hko hoopa u nonetheless and hoopa u cant exactly switch in vs offense easily, limiting its use. people should also take note of the speed-centric (think sand offense which is rising in usage) and momentum-based meta (general electrics vswitch/pivots etc) which shit on hoopa u hard. scarf hoopa u is hardly a good set rn, it becomes so much easier for balance to counterplay, offense is a lil more threatened but its considerably weaker compared to lo and pivots such as landt can now handle it to a certain degree.

    @OSP

    huh if u dont prepare for them you deserve to lose unless you do something about it in the game itself. since when was usage a factor lol. and going by ur logic, how do we decide our tiering system, how do we drop or raise certain mons from ou/uu and by extension also other lower tiers. in the current meta (or any meta honestly) yea its impossible to account for every single threat, if not theres gonna be this 1 team which hard counters the entire game and sooner or later every1 is gonna mirror the team. is this how we want the meta to progress (or in your post, degrade). every team has their weak points, but we can mitigate this to a certain extent by how we plan our game, how we aim to subdue and limit its switch ins so that it doesnt have many chances to break the team. if your team flat out gets 6-0d by 1 threat, it doesnt mean that the mon is broken or its "underrated/dark horse w/e", its cuz ur team is utter shit and you played like utter shit. if you agree that your proposal is a bad solution, then why would you even think of posting it in the first place.

    lol lemme just use ur post as an example, say ur balance (which is what mhera is good vs) and ur team is weak to mhera because they are likely 1hkod by a certain move (think ferro loses to cc, tornt to rock blast etc). what do you do about it? do you just sit and cry and make a post on the forums saying this shit shouldnt be in the tier so that my team is more prepared vs other "more relevant threats". u try to limit its switchins. you know ferro is the one inviting mhera to come in for free, then dont let ferro stay in for a number of turns and invite mhera to come in for free lol. maybe try to get up a layer of spikes with ferro first, even if it means letting mhera come in for free, and try to pivot your way around it and force it out. once you have your hazards up, try to make use of double switches, try to chip mhera with hazards and maybe double into tornt to force mhera out, weakening it to the point where maybe even ferro's gyro ball can ko mhera with ease. thats how you fix a problem. a bad worksman blames his tools. if your opp makes the intelligent play and somehow rock blasts ur tornt as you bring it in, it shows that your opp was better than you and read you like an open book and he is rewarded for making the aggressive play.

    think i address ur post well enough but if u still dont understand just lemme kno
     
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  32. Oh So Penspin

    Oh So Penspin Hail RNGesus, our Lord and Saviour!

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    Have you even read my entire post? I clearly state that it's a really bad way to fix it, as it ruins the tiering system and creativity. Of course you can't prepare for every threat and that's completely find, because it promotes intelligent and creative plays to deal with the problem. Not sure where you get that I want to limit the tier to 50 mons to make it more predictable..
     
  33. Sakuya Izayoi

    Sakuya Izayoi love to hate

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    ?

    then whats ur post all about
     
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  34. Oh So Penspin

    Oh So Penspin Hail RNGesus, our Lord and Saviour!

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    I'm just stating what I think of the ORAS OU metagame, indicating where I agree with previous posters and explaining why I think people may get the feel of 'broken checks broken' or 'priority spam check fest'.
     
  35. Purpleseamonkey

    Purpleseamonkey PO Alt: y0

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    this never happened

    When we say clefable is passive, do we mean when it's not trying to 2hko most of the tier with life orb?

    You cant cover everything, but you shouldn't have to handicap your team vs lots of obscure builds that you couldn't cover bc of your double rocky helm metagross checks or Rocks Exca for MEye. Honestly in a tier so heavily over prepared for these threats, its hard to see just how restrictive they are on team building and how efficiently they fill their roles. If something seems automatic in doing its job (checking threats/hazard control/no switchins/team support) then it probably needs to go.
     
  36. Oh So Penspin

    Oh So Penspin Hail RNGesus, our Lord and Saviour!

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    There will always be mons that do their jobs seemingly automatic, no matter what tier you play in, and in what gen. Centralization to a certain extent is actually good for a metagame, because it reduces matchup-based matches a lot.
     
  37. pokemonnerd

    pokemonnerd Only uso listens to pnerd. Devo too. Article Contributor Article Contributor

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    Confusion throws the game to a coin flip, which is why they were banned. They don't halve attack, quarter speed, and have more chance to immobilize you than paralysis while adding on additional damage. They only serve to throw more luck into the game and nothing they do adds to strategic value in singles because you can't predict when your opponent will be confused.

    These moves you listed in the quote are functionally useless so there's no point in banning them. None of them give you a potential free win condition if you use them like the free turns from confusion can give.

    And I'm pretty sure many people agree that coin flipping isn't exactly a competitive sport. Then again, I've been surprised before.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2016
  38. DarkDiglett

    DarkDiglett free pridy

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    @pokemonnerd my post about confusion/attract was removed. The post you quoted was just replying to someone who said they were banned because they "add no competitive value" i'm not sure if that's the actual reason or not, but the moves I listed also add no competitive value either, so by that definition should be banned too.

    You cant predict when Scald will burn, when Iron Head will flinch, or when you will be fully para either :^)

    Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying it's a bad thing these moves were banned, yes they were annoying. But there is absolutely no consistency here when it comes to bans and it's become an absolute joke.
     
  39. OUAzumarill

    OUAzumarill Active Member

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    It's actually really easy to see the consistency. Is Iron Head a useful move outside of the RNG? Does it actually do something that would make it useful to a competitive team assuming the RNG wasn't there? The answer: yes. It's one of the most powerful and consistently useful attacks in a specific type.

    Scald is a bit more of a controversial example because it is worse than Surf without the RNG, but the fact is that it's still a strong-water type attack that does decent damage even if it fails to cause a burn. And there are even some corner cases (Emboar, Stunfisk, Masquerian, and Castform) where Scald is the only good water attack they can learn.

    Confusion on the other hand isn't the same. It is literally just RNG. There isn't a consistent effect like the lowered speed of paralysis or the 80 damage from Scald/Iron Head. The only time it ever benefits you to use it is when you're lucky.

    As for moves like Water Gun, you're making the wrongful assumption that the banning logic is "it has no competitive value" and nothing else. The fact is that the competitive value point is just one part, the other part is that confusion has the power to disrupt competitive play. If you use Water Gun Empoleon on a competitive team, you're gimping yourself. If you use Confuse Ray Sableye on a competitive team, the fact that you're using confusion alone could be the deciding factor in who ends up winning.

    The easy way to look at it is this: PO made a mistake with the Swagger ban. The problem wasn't Swagger itself: it was the mechanics behind it. Swagger just happened to be the most prominent and potent version of the virus that is confusion mechanics. What should have happened in the Swagger ban was a full-on confusion ban. This confusion ban that just happened is the community realizing that and rectifying that past mistake.
     
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  40. DarkDiglett

    DarkDiglett free pridy

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    @OUAzumarill Thanks for clearing it up, I see where I was confused. I read it as if they were only banned because they add no competitive value, not because they also have no mechanical aspects (halving attack, lowering speed etc) Also Masquerain gets hydro pump hello.