xXBlu3BreathXx

In general I do believe that drip feeding HA's serves the best interest of the games lifespan but some are obviously much more impactful. Given adequate time and community feedback, I don't think it is a stretch to say anything obviously OP for a current tier will be pushed up by the TC.

RAPIDASHing through the snow The boys ARBOK in town SEAKING VICTINI POLIswag Losing is ONIX-ceptable! EXEGGCUTE order 66 ESPEONage (Espionage) Not all GLOOM and HOUNDOOM MASQUERAIN party (Masquerade) You SPINDA me right round

I would like to stress this point, Dugtrio is a very unhealthy mon to have in the game full stop. It gets banned in some way or another in pretty much every gen on smogon (apart from gen 3 iirc). Removing autonomy from a player results in that player having a sour experience, I'd argue Dugtrio in any gen or tier could find a way to abuse this. While Dugtrio appears to not be performing that great that is irrelevant, Dugtrio is just there to remove some specific threat(s) to open up a sweep. Sure you can setup right away when it secures a kill (e.g. flying mon on locked eq) but the Dugtrio player decides if they want that to happen. If anything Arena Trap is the culprit in all of this, you could argue to revert Dugtrio's base attack nerf and to ban/nerf Arena Trap from the game after as some sort of solution. However, Dugtrio is currently NU and it would seem a bit weird to do something so drastic to a mon in that tier. In regards to my inactivity I guess I'm just bored of playing mons at the moment, there hasn't been any significant updates in a long while and I couldn't bring myself to keep repeating the same stuff over and over. Should I still be in the tc? I don't really know but I still lurk from time to time and gather my own opinion on things so take that as you will.

https://pokepast.es/8355ded2cf59856d

These "hax" items are always a controversial topic, in my honest opinion they are usually worthless. However, they are most definitely not useless as when they do work they will most likely have a huge impact. Sure it sucks having lost to a random mon outspeeding you or getting flinched by a Cloyster but I think it is important to understand there are necessary trades the user must take to use these items. For example, Cloyster (the most prominent user of Kings Rock) will be without a Focus Sash or White Herb, which would make setting up in the first place an issue. Now do I think these items are fair? Not really but you are more likely to get better use out less luck reliant items. The issue really arises when you have to constantly play against these and eventually succumb to one of these "strategies". These items hold a lot of power in lesser skilled players hands, I believe this is the root of the frustration as they now have a chance of beating a skilled player. These items are not consistent at all, you could win many times and never even know your opponent used one of these items. With that being said I do believe Kings Rock may need some more looking into. The flinch chance is consistent and could be used without setup if need be. As for the "hax" abilities I'm not really sure why they were reintroduced. Garchomp had Swords Dance removed so those abilities were somehow reintroduced, arguably Garchomp was the greatest abuser of a "hax" ability with Substitute + Swords Dance but it may still be a broken strategy. Just having the ability to dodge anything is insane on a mon like Garchomp, providing free turns to punish the opponent.

The meta will always evolve, whether that is due to popularity of Pokemon changing or new updates it is not something new. The reason why we have access to newer movesets is because they are playable in the official games, just because a Pokemon has been data mined to have access to new moves does not mean it will 100% have access to it if it is reintroduced into gen 8. They could easily remove them with a patch or just not have that Pokemon available in the game at all. A good example of this is when hidden abilities were introduced in gen 5, Chandelure originally had access to Shadow Tag but was never made available. In later games this was changed to Infiltrator.

If they are not playable in the official games do not expect them to be added.

I'm still not a fan of Conk. Jellicent and Spiritomb are on the rise to deal with it but not nearly enough, they do both have merits outside of being a Conk counter but they aren't that great compared to the rest of the OU metagame. I am aware that Conk does somewhat suffer from 4MSS but often enough the combination of drain, mach, facade + stone edge/rock blast is enough to leave a dent or sweep a team mid to late game. Without the right tools this mon becomes unkillable with drain punch spam healing it back to a healthy amount to then punish the next mon in the way. But surely with Conk's popularity that would mean running a counter or two is necessary? Well obviously, the problem rears its head when the only real counters are Cofagrigus and Spiritomb; everything else is merely a check (or dead with a bad predict) until you scout the moveset of Conk e.g. tpunch + ice punch Conk would make short work of Salamence + Jellicent. I believe Conk invalidates a lot of mons from functioning so it should be looked into further.

In all honesty it would be nice to have Jhoto but it essentially only offers the story, no new moves or Pokemon is a huge let down (I guess we would get some new hordes but that is very minor imo). It is inevitable that we will get Jhoto at some point but as a long time player it would be nice to finally get dungeons or something like weekly missions to change up the monotonous endgame game play.

Quick changelog: Conkeldurr to S from A+ Rotom Wash to S from A+ Garchomp added to A+ Reuniclus to A+ from A- Tyranitar to A from A+ Ferrothorn to A from A+ Hydreigon to A from S Blissey to A from B+ Salamence to A- from A Togekiss to A- from A Breloom to A- from B+ Pelipper to B+ from A Jellicent to B+ from B- Gyarados to B+ from A Dugtrio to B+ from B Mienshao to B from B+ Magnezone to B from B+ Gastrodon to B from B- Porygon 2 to B from B- Chandelure to B from B- Swampert to B- from B Kabutops to B- from B+ Mamoswine to B- from B Darmanitan to B- from B+ Mandibuzz to B- from B Heracross added to B- Lucario to B- from B Sigilyph added to B- Venusaur added to B- Removed Bisharp Removed Umbreon Removed Archeops Electrode to C from B- Haxorus to C from B- Arcanine to C from B- Removed Forretress Removed Scrafty Removed Smeargle Removed Staraptor

Quick changelog: Vaporeon added to A Druddigon moved to A from A- Scrafty moved down from A to A- Linonne moved down to B- from B Removed rotom mow and wobbufett

Edited the OP to include the second podcast.

I just used cooltext and picked one randomly, if someone could provide me with a better alternative I can change them up. Yeah this should be sorted out in the next one, my voice was being recorded locally and my desktop probably had the volume set too high.

Hey, the Tier Council has decided to release a podcast to paint a better picture of our thoughts. Keep in mind this is the first one so we are open to suggestions. We hope you enjoy it!

Forcing a level 100 restriction just makes the competitive scene a chore. This will invalidate perfect comps with a 30iv and cause unnecessary grind (some players have a lot of competitive Pokémon that would require a significant amount of time to train or rebreed).