Tier Discussion

[NickCrash]

The matter here is not to initiate changes in Reborn's tiers, but to discuss the changes on the metagame based on the usage each month.

That said, Shadow Tag is quite annoying and was limiting playstyles like balance and opposing stall. Dugtrio is the single user of Arena Trap, an ability more limited than Shadow Tag in that it does not get fliers and levitate users, and the pokemon itself is quite frail. It could bring your sweeper down if it was straightforward enough, but apart from that it mostly works as a threat in team-preview than it actually traps and kills something. So it's not that gamebreaking. However, if something much stronger and with diverse movepool gets the ability then the discussion takes place again. Chandelure flirted with the ability back in BW, never got it in smogon, and for good reason as it would tilt the metagame in order to face it, and will not get it back in the future.

The baton pass limitation was well-placed and the top players that used it (like Dennis) were the ones to propose such a ban, since it becomes frustrating and extremely easy to do. I'm not sure whether the multiple status pass like SD+Speed boost or Quiver Pass are breaking the metagame or not. However more than 1 baton pass users simply plays around the switches and can become deadly pretty fast, destroying the better built teams because of the brute force they bring into the game. Especially when the final recipient is a magic bouncer all status moves are ineffective so you'd have to either stop it in its tracks or brute force your way through the baton passed final target. Good luck with the latter option.

That said, PO and Showdown! have differences in their tiers, and everyone is free to follow whichever server they wish. Since this website follows the smogon rules, all discussion here will be based on them. In my opinion, the bans should be simple and reserved for only special cases.

[SJMistery]

You tried with Sacred Sword, Haze, quick set up sweepers, and Prankster Taunt?

Against Deniss Team, all you needed was a strong and decently fast fighting type to smack Smeargle the moment he came in. The best option? the Musketeers with a setup move, to counter Memento. with SubCM Keldeo being the most obvious response. Simply using CM on the Memento works:

-1 252 SpA Keldeo Secret Sword vs. 252 HP / 120 Def Smeargle: 320-378 (101.9 - 120.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Even giving max HP to the stantard sticky web lead does not allow a survivance.

You can also go a little crazy and run Roar Gliscor if you really hate it. Remember, one single dirsuption is all you need against a team with one single BP user. The problem persists somehow? well, one thing is clear, the main problem of this set is Geomancy, that already was considered for a ban in UU...

All the things said to dugtrio (team preview makes it much easier to bait) also apply to shadow tag, plus wobba was also trolled by the ban, and he already was barely viable. Isn't that unfair too? I tought Noobsgon was against banning things that didn't deserve it, and was completely against collateral damage, especially when people commented on banning King's Shield, because clearly Smeargle needs that move to survive in the meta...

Please, they have gone nuts, and we all know it. And as discussed before, this website DIDN'T follow those rules when we were on PO, and nobody was asked on the matter when we got forced to move to Showdown due to the update problem.

In my opinion, the bans should be simple and reserved for only special cases.

We agree on this one. Too bad Noobsgon doesn't.

Edited September 24, 2016 by SJMistery

[pyrromanis]

It's not smogon that bans things. It's the players that vote for bans! Smogon only suggest the suspect tests.

And there is always Anything Goes for those who don't like any clauses smogon community votes...

[NickCrash]

There has been a poll to decide whether to move from PO or not. An increased majority was in favor, so it passed. Beside the irregularities in banlists, the website failed to upgrade normally, and the environment was less user-friendly, thus increasing the likelihood of the change.

I will repeat some parts since they might not have been clear.

Dennis himself proposed the ban. He was fine with where his team was on the ladder, however baton pass teams became too much of an annoyance that everyone had to bring the musceteers in their teams to counter them (and other options ofc but those were everywhere). Forcing the metagame to shift just to counter specific pokemon or moves is unhealthy for the game, as it does not allow other strategies to appear or work properly.

Shadow Tag is much superior to Arena Trap, and as I said, it's not Wobbufett we worry about, since it's in the same league as Duggy. Gothitelle was the mere reason ultimate trapping was stopped, and Wobba was the collateral damage. They could enforce a complex ban of Shadow Tag + Trick but they chose to ban the ability whatsoever. It works for the metagame since it's easy to adapt.

Now, since this topic discusses mainly current tier changes, with bans, ups and downs etc, I believe the Shadow Tag discussion needs not continue. If you like, we can create a new thread about this, where we can discuss further, with more detail and probably calcs. Discussions about shaping the metagame includes the removal of bans due to how fluid the competitive scene becomes after each major game release, which is what I'm expecting come November. Yet not here, as multiple discussions will derail the topic and we'll be forced into the limbo of off-topic-ness.

Wait till September 30th for (hopefully) new movements inside the tiers.

[SJMistery]

Forcing the metagame to shift just to counter specific pokemon or moves is unhealthy for the game, as it does not allow other strategies to appear or work properly.

Shadow Tag is much superior to Arena Trap, and as I said, it's not Wobbufett we worry about, since it's in the same league as Duggy. Gothitelle was the mere reason ultimate trapping was stopped, and Wobba was the collateral damage. They could enforce a complex ban of Shadow Tag + Trick but they chose to ban the ability whatsoever. It works for the metagame since it's easy to adapt.

Wait till September 30th for (hopefully) new movements inside the tiers.

I disagree, as the alternative is having many MANY battles lost or won from turn 1. Restricting the number of viable pokemon is not as bad as it sounds man...

Plus they could have just banned Gothitelle if they TRULY wanted simplicity. Not like anybody uses it even on PU

And then what? Suffer yet another generation dominated by dozens of unskilled players voting to ban everything they don't use? The more we wait, the worse this problem will become.

Edited September 25, 2016 by SJMistery

[pyrromanis]

New tier changes:

Azelf moved from UU to OU (who would have expected this? It's not like you see it in any bird spam team...)

Quagsire returned to its original place in NU

Sawk moved from BL3 to RU.

[Ironbound]

I guess #sawkward no longer exists.

Azelf in OU seems strange but probably welcome. I'm glad that the fat stuff is dying down though.

[Robshot]

I was just reading all the recent topics on the forum and I stumbled on this one.

is it possible to have some explanation, like what does OU, UU, RU, NU and even PU mean.

is there somewhere a visual program to read that file or are you guys just scrolling through it?

[NickCrash]

We scroll. It's a word file after all.

The tiers you refer to are threatlists. The most popular one, OU, dictates that pokemon that have 50% chance of appearing at least once in every 20 battles in a tier, belong to that tier. The % of that is roughly 3.41% so if you take a look at the usage stats, everything above that point is considered to belong to that tier. The other tiers in descending order are the ones that follow OU and are: UU, RU, NU, and PU. All official and the same rule applies to them.

One can use any pokemon from a lower tier but not from a higher one, because they usually break the metagame and cause problems like overcentralization.

The Ubers tier, even if it's a tier higher than OU, is mainly a threatlist where everything that would unbalance OU is put. It's more centralizing due to its nature, but it still obeys to certain rules. AG is the highest one and where no rules exist, so if you want to play with huge power gaps, that's where you go.

The tiers OU, UU, RU, NU, PU all follow the same clauses allowing for movement of pokemon through those tiers based on usage (high usage on a higher tier to rise, low usage to drop) and are constantly changing (even if the changes are usually minor) because the tendencies in the metagame are changing. The division does not mean you wouldn't see a specific pokemon in a higher tier; it merely tells you it's unlikely.

Mainly the pokemon are put in their respective tiers based on their general appearance and ability but that's not always the case. Certainly, most OU pokemon would be game-breaking in a lower tier (and that's why you have large BL areas - banlists for lower tiers) but others could constantly rise and fall without major repercussions to the game's balance (like Mamoswine, Zapdos, Starmie, Celebi, Conkeldurr, Amoonguss, and Azelf do between OU and UU). Their presense to a certain tier may exploit their unique niche which becomes popular a certain time period so they rise (Azelf), they work as good checks or counters to certain threats (Amoonguss to Keldeo), or they drop in popularity and go to the next tier (Quagsire).

Make sure to visit Reborn Showdown! and check the Teambuilder to gain first-hand knowledge of the subject.

Create your own teams and join the fun

[pyrromanis]

We scroll. It's a word file after all.

Am I the only one that uses the search function with ctrl+F? I can literaly find whatever I want in no time...

[NickCrash]

Am I the only one that uses the search function with ctrl+F? I can literaly find whatever I want in no time...

I thought he meant the raw info from smogon's stats, where scrolling is pretty much instant given OU has ~70 mons.

[Robshot]

damn that explanation of NickCrash.

I think I understand what it means.

I'm trying to understand more about the pokemon stats (like EV, IV and the teambuilding)

I only played the normal pokemon games generation 1, 2 and 3 and now Reborn.

Pokemon Reborn is like hell for me, because what I normally did is just overlevel my pokemons to beat the gym.

but now I really need to have a strategy and good pokemons.

So it's probably a good idea to take a look in the OU, UU, RU, NU, PU to learn more about some pokemons their EV and movesets.

I'm also reading all the topics about the teambuilding and what for teams you can make.

Maybe I even make a program for it to visualize the file, I don't know how generic the format is.

On that site there are like multiple files from each tier (like ou-0.txt, ou-1500.txt, ...) what is the difference between them?

Edited October 6, 2016 by Robshot

[NickCrash]

We will not go deep into EVs, IVs and Teambuilding in this thread, because it could go off-topic quite fast (especially for teambuilding). We will however make similar threads in the future. I plan on making a couple of teambuilding workshops and so on, but next month because right now I'm working 12h a day. Check the already existing threads, and visit Bulbapedia, Serebii or PokemonDatabase. They present their data in different ways, but they are all concise.

The ou-0 shows all pokemon used, unweighed. The ou-1500 shows the general usage weighed, and that's the one they use to determine usage stats. The final one is what's used mostly in high ladder, but it doesn't change much because of how the math is made. I currently don't remember and since I am from mobile I can't properly search it. You should check the ou-1500 (I believe I had a link in the OP for that, may need to update at some point).

Anyway, back to the topic. The most noticable change as of September is Azelf rising up to OU. Now, many would claim it's due to a specific team archetype becoming even more popular nowadays, and with how open smogon is to all readers, I end up seing the same freaking Azelf (+Shedinja+Duggy) 1/6 times, which is insane. Sure the others are less useful, and Azelf has been a nice suicide lead since BW, but it had dropped from grace a while ago. Pyrrhon had made a nice team at some point that utilized Azelf's speed and offensive capabilities, but apart from that it's one-sided. So what are your thoughts on the pokemon? Will it stay and dominate the metagame like my waifu Tangrowth did , or drop to the same hell it came from like Swagsire?

[Ironbound]

I resigned myself to gen4 long ago. I'm not up-to-date on anything beyond the Salamence ban in Platinum and the rise of Flygon.

Anyhow, despite that, my gut tells me that this spike in usage, if it's based on a particular archetype (cringed at the mention of Shedinja + Dugtrio) will certainly not be enough to make sure that azelf gets a permanent spot in OU. Either it will diversify, and people will reawaken the thing's insane offensive and offensive support capacities, or the thing will die down eventually.

Of course, disenchanted as I am by anything beyond gen4, I don't really care whether my prediction turns out true or not, but Dialga will tell.

EDIT: Nice avatar, nick.

[NickCrash]

Steel types, master race.

It is a bit weird that it's partnered with those two, but it's the team that's built this way. Notable mention is also M-Sableye. The pokemon is still in my list to use but it still looks one-dimensional to me. Perhaps others would find out more ways to exploit its high speed and offenses. Time will tell.

On another note, Magneton has risen in usage in UU, even if for just a bit.

[Ironbound]

Steel types, master race

Magneton has risen in usage

PRAISE STEEL PRAISE MAGNET

*spazzes out*

Also, on that note, is it okay to talk about tiering and competitive of past generations here? If it is, is like to have a nice little discussion on gen 4 and relive the good ol' days, one last time before Sun and Moon brings even more ungodly shit to the already-besmirched table.

[pyrromanis]

Also, on that note, is it okay to talk about tiering and competitive of past generations here? If it is, is like to have a nice little discussion on gen 4 and relive the good ol' days, one last time before Sun and Moon brings even more ungodly shit to the already-besmirched table.

But gen 4 meta in unchanged for years! What is there to be discussed that isn't know after all this years?

About Azelf in OU, I don't think it will drop soon. Maybe after 2-3 months. But since we are going to have a new meta with sun and moon, I don't know if will we have any changes from that point and onwards (since the number of players keep plaing gen 6 will be reduced by a lot)

[NickCrash]

Viri probably means to discuss teambuilding and general battling strategy for previous gens, as even now tournaments include matches in tiers from previous generations. For example, the international championship (in which Kamina participated), they played in GSC OU, Gen4 OU, and BW OU, so it makes sense there is an archive that envelops the battling environment of the past.

For that reason I made a separate thread you are all welcome to join and discuss, and we could even start with Gen4 and probably also speculate where the new pokemon additions would be, if no mechanics were changed. This means no Megas, no Z moves, no new abilities after gen4.

Returning to the topic of Azelf, it can be seen in HO teams, but what can it do in Balance or even regular bulky Offense? I have not experimented with it yet (all attempts lead to failure), but I cannot find proper offensive cores that are not outclassed by already existing ones (even though those I thought of included a mega). If we are going to go back to the M-Gallade & Bisharp combinations, then I can also see Conk and Mence return from the UU universe to properly demolish them.

[pyrromanis]

Dugtrio is now banned from RU! I'm quite certain that now I won't see Dugtrio ever again in my life...

[AuthorReborn]

Dugtrio is still useful as a Trapper for Pokemon besides just Steel types (which Magneton/zone do better, since they have more bulk and better Special Attack than Dugtrio has Attack). It's pretty solid at removing things like non air-balloon/scarf Heatran, which is something Magnezone has some trouble with. Other bothersome Pokemon can be worn down and trapped by it, which is very useful for breaking certain stall teams or for keeping your stall team alive (as we saw with Shadow Tag Gothitelle + M-Sableye). Dugtrio will still see some usage, but it will be a lot more rare.

Also, I expect Azelf to remain in OU for the remainder of Gen VI. I think it will have a very good role as a suicide lead on HO and it can be a pretty solid Nasty Plot Cleaner imo, although dealing with Bisharp and other priority users is a must for it to do so. I doubt people will care enough to see if it can fall back into UU before Generation 7 begins.

[pyrromanis]

Mega Canserbleye is going to be suspected for OU!

Although I want it to be gone so bad, I don't think is worth banning (why we don't suspect Clef instead :] )

[NickCrash]

In my opinion it's not that bad for the meta. It's just that a certain successful team that used it in its core became very popular very fast and people were not prepared for it. Special wallbreakers, physical Fire types, and every single Fairy type can deal with it, especially since they seldom use the CM set.

Nope, Clefable is nowhere near broken. It's also cute and in like half my teams .

[Shinoda Yagami]

So what do you guys think of the m-sableye suspect? I think its not OP but way too annoying to be in OU ban baton pass too while we're at it.

[NickCrash]

Baton Pass has already been nerfed twice. There is no reason to ban it.

[NickCrash]

Latest Tier Shift for Gen6.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/smogon-usage-based-tier-update-november-2016.3586573/