Robofiend

I'm down with moving Chansey to A rank Some other pokes to be discussed: Venusaur Ludicolo Aerodactyl Jolteon Starmie Forretress (I'm assuming we're keeping Metagross at A+) Slowbro Arcanine Magneton Tauros Slaking Heracross Ursaring Skarmory Weezing Flygon Gyarados Porygon2 Rhydon Dusclops That's a lot of pokes, but I get the feeling the old rankings are no good now, since they're mostly from the Gengar era.

I think the main argument against making Ubers an official tier, like Zebra hinted at, is that it's just super imbalanced/not fun to play and it's close to impossible for people to make sets that work in that environment. If for some reason we banned Dragonite/Salamence from Ubers then it might be fun/interesting, but as it is there's no reason a player shouldn't run some close variant of Tyranitar/Salamence/Jolteon/Gengar/Snorlax/Skarmory. The tier would just be dead and gimmicky from the get go, and it's unlikely that staff want to support OU/UU/NU/Doubles and Ubers.

yoooo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XvsTYq9INU

/agree with Zebra that Return/HP Fire is superior in a lot of ways to Ice Beam, but that is dependent on what your team needs also. Nik really crushed that post - the threat of losing 30% of your health is actually a big deal, especially when you combine the added effects of Toxic and spikes on Choice Banders and setup pokemon alike. The point is that P2 can be played around and is susceptible to getting walled/stalled itself if the opponent hits it with Toxic. Unless for some reason you're running P2/Vap or P2/Umbreon, there aren't really a lot of options for keeping P2 healthy. The point is that even if P2 became the dominant physical wall players could quickly adapt by running a surprise Toxic (Jolt/Arc/etc.) that would prevent Porygon2 from staying in play free of charge.

Ah, you do have a point, although it also relies on perfect prediction from the (maybe statused) Blaziken/Heracross user. I guess Chansey *could* stay in to get the Wish off when Blaziken (or whatever) goes to +2. But to me that just seems like a bad play: the Chansey user will have scouted the leftovers (I guess maybe you're using Lum, but that'd be pretty bad) and can thus infer that you're not choiced. Even if you were, Wishpassing to Slowbro is a much better play than letting a potential SD user set up, assuming Slowbro is at > 50% hp. I see your point but I think that almost anyone using these pokes would run Lefties on them just because of the threat of taking some residual damage along the way. Thus this argument relies on the idea that the Chansey user isn't that smart or that the SD user is running Lum or some other item that fakes out the Chansey user into thinking it's Choiced. The other way of looking at this scenario is that both players had Chanseys and realized how effective they would be in the current metagame to get them into the finals. Is it really a coincidence that two of the most successful players frequently used this pokemon while a lot of other players did not? In my eyes, later-round usage of a pokemon is more indicative that a pokemon is lower-risk and higher-reward, given that a player has used it to get to the finals of a tournament without being eliminated - even a skilled player would have trouble getting to the finals if they were using Mightyena (cough, Goldeneyes). Higher risk and lower reward pokemon like Manectric, Clefable or Blaziken don't make it to the finals of anything because they're bad - Arcanine, Metagross and Chansey did because they're good, or at least better than other possible options. * sits Note the 98.8% proability that this is a 3HKO, not a 2HKO. Do the calc for Slowbro Surf and it'll become apparent who wins that matchup.

Actually Heracross saw a lot more usage during the Marathon, so technically you're right here. Only thing is that no one runs Rhydon/Blazechicken because they're bad, i.e. Slowbro is still popular and sits on them, which means that taking Toxic and then getting forced out of play is just a bad time. The only thing about your second paragraph is that it's actually really hard for these pokemon to sweep, even with a free setup on Chansey. Heracross can break Weezing but only if it gets the Toxic and Swords Dances (also note that the occasional Dusclops sighting is bad news for Facade Heracross, altho Megahorn may still dent the Specially Defensive variant. It also struggles a bit with Skarmo, even at +3: +2 252 Atk Guts Heracross Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Weezing: 282-332 (84.4 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery +2 252+ Atk Guts Heracross Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Weezing: 310-365 (92.8 - 109.2%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO +2 252+ Atk Guts Heracross Low Kick (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 237-280 (70.9 - 83.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery Granted, if you know what your opponent has for a phys wall or Heracross check it will inform your decision. There's also the fact that Arcanine is really popular and that Heracross has trouble checking both Arcanine and Weezing and Skarmory and Slowbro at the same time. Blaziken has no business taking on a Slowbro, though it does perform decently against Arcanine, unless it gets played and Arc switches out to something else to get the Intimidate drop: +2 252+ Atk Blaziken ThunderPunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 228-270 (57.8 - 68.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery +1 252 Atk Blaziken Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Arcanine: 372-438 (96.8 - 114%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO Rhydon's interesting, but the most fatal problem for Rhydon is how important Sub can be to it, and how badly Toxic can mess that up. Assuming it's either Toxic'd or Subbed, however, Weezing is useless against it, Slowbro has a tought time with a +2 Megahorn (and doesn't like taking two EQ's/Rocks very much either) and Skarmory has to live in fear of the dreaded critflinch. Arcanine is also trash tier at dealing with it, although Rhydon really hates Metagross, Marowak, Flygon and Gyarados for their ability to come in on a good prediction and scare it out. Overall, not a highly viable pokemon because of its bad speed tier. TL;DR I want to believe Chansey's popularity will cause people to come up with new strats, but it seems a little unlikely given what I know about how many good walls OU has.

Personally I only want your opinion if you know what you're talking about. One of the things I don't do is listen to people who have opinions despite knowing next to nothing about what they're saying. Sadly, in order to have a voice here you have to make good points and defend them in a way that is consistent with the policy that competitive players from all over the world agree to. New players are going to play the game whether they like it or not, (hopefully). For everyone new player who thinks using Porygon2 isn't as fun as using Snorlax there is an older player who recognizes that Snorlax just wasn't good for the game. Furthermore, it's irrelevant whether you/anyone else finds the game "fun". Two examples: 1. Some players think it's really fun to use really broken stuff like Baton Pass or Choice Band Salamence because they can just rip through people's teams. Most of us don't. 2. Some players don't enjoy the game because they're bad and can't compete with the top talent in a balanced tier. As such, these players prefer to have broken elements in the game that can help give them an easy win over the best players. Overall "fun" is a bad criterion for a good competitive game because it's so subjective. The best we can do is build a balanced game where the best players consistently win and the worst players consistently lose. It just doesn't add anything to the discussion to complain about the "chain ban" and is a form of uguuing, which we don't do. You need to have sound, metagame-based reasons to support or reject a ban - just criticizing the "powers that be" for the fun of it does nothing to help decide whether or not something like Gengar should be banned. This "chain ban" happens in every competitive pokemon game - it shouldn't be surprising to you if you've played pokemon outside of this game (which is highly recommended if you want to understand the competitive nature of pokemon). As for "UU's being used in OU" - usage based tiering exists and defines what is OU and what is UU. Sometimes things change when there are bans. Deal with it.

Sorry you don't like OU but it's also not exactly fair for new players to come in and say "play by our rules" when there is general consensus that the game is better now than it used to be. It might seem hard to believe, but a lot of people thought OU wasn't even fun to spectate, much less play in the Curselax/Dragonite/Blissey days. If you have feelings about any pending decision you should communicate those feelings in the suspect thread for them to be considered: however it's likely that unless you read the thread you will end up repeating someone else's points almost exactly word for word and won't have a great understanding of the other side's opinion. edit: About "banning all the OU's": we don't ban because of high usage - that is just usually colinear with unhealthiness/brokenness. Even so, bans happen in every competitive tiering community (Smogon) when tiers are first formed. It can take a long time and a lot of work to establish a balanced metagame so you basically have to be patient and trust that it will happen because it almost always does. We're closer to balance in NU/UU but sometimes when there are a lot of powerful pokemon (like in OU) it can be hard deal with overcentralizing. Basically, in the old days people had Snorlax on 60%+ of teams, Blissey on 30% of teams, Metagross on 40% of teams, Gengar on 30% of teams and Arcanine on 35% of team - everyone was pretty much running the same team with minor variations. That's not a fun game and almost everyone agreed, hence we made the decisions necessary to change that. Today OU is more diverse than ever, even if for some reason you find it undesireable.

+1 I believe there will be an announcement about this exact topic by staff soon(tm). In the mean time, some thoughts:

but but but all you have to do is erase a name and put another name in there

I'll take it tim, hell yeah

You're really just being uncharitable here so let me explain all of the points I've made and why you're constructing a strawman (not chill, brah): 1. Similar =/= Exact 2. Pokemon similar to Chansey exist and check forces that people claim would be too strong without Chansey (which is a good thing to consider before making random-ass bans) 3. Chansey does a better job at Support/Cleric/Toxic defense/Entry Damage/etc. than other similar pokemon 4. Chansey is centralizing and/or bad for the game in one way or another 5. Even if banning Chansey doesn't vastly improve the viability of special sweepers it might still have payoffs in the diversity of special walls department. You can't debate 1, you can't debate 2, you can't really even debate 3 (I think it's well established by everyone that Chansey is a superior special wall in almost every department besides checking CM users and please don't say fucking Porygon2 again because it can't Wish/Protect or deal with status without relying on Chansey's presence in the tier). You can debate 4, and I welcome that because it's obviously the weakest link in this argument. You could debate 5, I guess, but keep in mind I'm being charitable here by assuming you're right about special sweepers remaining bad. Like I say, even if special sweepers aren't super highly used, they'll appreciate at least having the chance. I just showed an example (CM) of how special sweepers could adapt to something like Umbreon, should people choose to use it (never mind the fact that its worse than Chansey at doing the special wall thing). That's reason enough to accept the idea that special sweepers could become more viable, especially in light of calcs like: [spoiler] +1 252+ SpA Alakazam Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Metagross: 146-174 (78 - 93%) -- guaranteed 2HKO +1 252+ SpA Alakazam Hidden Power Fire vs. 128 HP / 0 SpD Metagross: 146-174 (85.3 - 101.7%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO +1 252+ SpA Alakazam Hidden Power Fire vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Metagross: 146-174 (94.1 - 112.2%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO +1 252+ SpA Alakazam Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Metagross: 146-174 (78 - 93%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes (ofc Charcoal gives a much appreciated power boost here) +1 252+ SpA Charcoal Espeon Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Metagross: 172-204 (91.9 - 109%) -- 50% chance to OHKO +1 252 SpA Charcoal Espeon Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Metagross: 158-186 (84.4 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO +1 252 SpA Charcoal Espeon Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Metagross: 158-186 (84.4 - 99.4%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes (keep in mind Zam has +5 SpA on Espy, so similar calcs for timid Zam) [/spoiler] In other words, people would have to be afraid of something other than Physical attackers and if Porygon2 got trapped, statused or otherwise killed, CM would be a pretty legit strategy, assuming some damage against other would-be checks. Of course, it might not be a surefire win, but that's kind of the goal of having a balanced metagame. Sure, run bite, idc. You may come to regret it, however, when you can't get that clutch Pursuit damage on Starmie or Toxic a Slowbro to death. All I'm saying is that Umbreon has to make choices about what it runs, which can hurt its ability to blanket check the whole special side of the tier and still be effective as a supporter. Chansey doesn't have those choices because it doesn't need Heal Bell to stay healthy or a different attacking move - ST hits everything for at least some damage.

Espeon can be built to win against Umbreon (and to Survive CB Aero's Pursuit) while still snagging the KO on Umbreon (esp. if it runs Morning Sun): 0 Atk Umbreon Pursuit vs. 74 HP / 0 Def Espeon: 50-60 (33.5 - 40.2%) -- 11.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery +2 252 SpA Espeon Signal Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon: 104-124 (51.4 - 61.3%) -- 95.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery 252 Atk Choice Band Aerodactyl Rock Slide vs. 74 HP / 0 Def Espeon: 124-147 (83.2 - 98.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery 252 Atk Choice Band Aerodactyl Pursuit vs. 74 HP / 0 Def Espeon: 90-106 (60.4 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery Zam also has options against Umbreon, although it's admittedly worse just from a lack of bulk: +2 252+ SpA Alakazam Signal Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon: 116-138 (57.4 - 68.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery 0 Atk Umbreon Pursuit vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Alakazam: 62-74 (47.3 - 56.4%) -- 28.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (if Zam lives boosts on the switch, boosts on the first Pursuit, attacks on the second and lives it is likely to win as after 2 turns of lefties recovery, Umbreon should have about 56% health at best) Pursuit/Toxic also does way less against special sweepers not named Starmie, and is far less threatening than losing 1/3 of your HP on your Heracross or something when you swap in against a Seismic Toss.

Yeah, except with Umbreon you have no NC, need to run heal-bell to protect from Toxic Stall, can't ST and you die to CM Signal Beam/have to choose between Pursuit/Toxic as your damage output. Of course you could sack Wish/Protect for moonlight, but then you're nowhere near as effective as Chansey at supporting.

Can we get a page for "best DPP OU players"

IGN: robofiend yeah i know i'm after the deadline but yolo

Gengar has been banned to Ubers There has been a lot of discussion about what (if any) characteristics Gengar has that make it banworthy. It can be a powerful special attacker, a powerful mixed attacker, a bulky status spreader, or even a perish trap wallbreaker. This kind of diversity of sets compounded with Gengar’s powerful dual stabs and formidable special attack stat vastly restricted teambuilding. While Gengar may have been offensively Uber, it was also clearly unhealthy, which was reasoning behind this test ban. Gengar's presence alone made running anything that didn't have a course of action against it a liability, and the rise in usage of Cloyster, Ursaring, Skarmory, Weezing and many other pokemon is indicative of exactly how much Gengar restricted diversity in OU. In particular, Gengar made many of the tiers physical walls unviable as they opened the door for it to come into play and status stall, trap or sweep its way to victory. Gengar exerted a large amount of pressure on every team and was frequently accused of being “too good not to use” as it fit well into nearly any team. After spectating five or six OU tournaments without it and considering the changes in usage stats, the Tier Council came to the decision to ban Gengar with a vote of 6 to 1. While the current meta is not perfect (we recognize recent complaints that defense has become to strong), it is clearly more varied, balanced and competitive in the wake of Gengar being banned.

Wait why are you doing the LSAT if you're talking about going to college? Law school? Also I second the "college is fun" thing

You need to actually contribute to the discussion if you're going to be here. Making this "ban chain" argument is a poor excuse for saying anything of value and we just don't listen - you're wasting your breath (and putting yourself in massive danger by texting and driving). You can make predictions about the metagame going to shit, but as you know those kinds of predictions are often wrong. Remember when everyone said non-Gengar OU would be all Normal spam, Magnetons, Dugtrios and other bad shit? It turns out that was a bad prediction because now we're discussing defense/Chansey being too strong in the current metagame. Those other things exist, but surely aren't as meta-defining as even I thought they'd be. No one "stopped playing OU" also - maybe you did, but the tournaments this weekend still filled up with people who wanted to play. By complaining about established tiering policy you just make yourself look bad and eliminate your voice from consideration by the people who make the decisions about tiering. If you really care, make an argument for Chansey to stay. If you just want to complain about this evil "ban chain" plot then do it somewhere outside of comp alley.

Even so, you have to recognize that Chansey wins a PP war, as long as it has enough Wishes. Venu's good for providing team support against Chansey but it can't really win the 1v1 unless it carries some random super high PP move.

If you look at Flygon's usage in the last two tourneys it has gone downhill. Same with Venu. It makes sense: Flygon needs a CB to be effective and Steel types like Skarmory/Metagross are everywhere. Venu can't hang without HP fire to hit steels as well and sleep is less useful when you have to deal with a common cleric healing sleeping pokes back to life. Well Chansey can make Venu waste Leech PP or take the Leech and then predict the switch out. Also Leech Seed alone isn't enough to beat Chansey. Chansey can just WishStall you down unless you have some other move with high PP or Rest or something odd like that. Giga - 8 Sludge/Sleep -16/24 Synth - 8 Leech - 16 vs. Wish - 16 Protect - 16 Seismic Toss - 32 Toxic - 16 Venu has other options, but none of them appear to really help with this imbalance in PP, except for maybe Growth. The best case (Block/Growth is below) but I think it's clear that no one currently runs that set. +6 0 SpA Venusaur Sludge Bomb vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Chansey: 372-438 (52.8 - 62.2%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Nik interpreted my post well. Venu does stall Chansey out, but unless you're running Block that never really translates into actually beating it.

The only way you can say this with a straight face is if you're saying that many people carry Chansey - no other top tier pokemon have access to heal bell besides that. In that case you're saying "Chansey checks Chansey so it's chill," which is just an argument for my side, which is saying Chansey is overly centralizing. @everyone else: you seem to be making two critical logic mistakes: one is that somehow Marowak, Blaziken and Flygon aren't afraid of status. The only way that they aren't afraid of status is if they have a cleric. Chansey is the only OU cleric (by usage). So basically you're saying they're cool as long as you run Chansey which just proves my point. The other is that other special walls somehow have a way of healing status, providing Wish Support, or providing some utility that Chansey doesn't. When you look at usage it's clear that Chansey does "special wall" better than pretty much anything, except P2 who beats the rare CM user from winning. Straight up ROFL at people pretending that Porygon switching in, taking Toxic damage and then being forced to switch out counts as "checking Chansey". Also kek at all these "counters" people are pulling out of their ass (Venusaur? Porygon2? Flygon2? Dugtrio?) All of them either get stalled out, get Toxic switching in, or are a liability for your team compared to Chansey when it comes to picking a special wall. Venu's not used currently because of it's Psychic/Ice weaknesses, so there's really no point in suggesting it as a Chansey counter when it's literally worse in every way except for being immune to Toxic/ST (not to mention that 8 Synth < any amount of Wish/Protect).

Another salient fact here are.. the actual calcs/logic behind this whole Facade argument: 0 Atk Porygon2 Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Chansey: 372-438 (52.8 - 62.2%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery If you're sending Porygon2 in to absorb the Toxic and retaliate, Chansey should just Wish/Protect you to death. First turn Chansey Protects, second turn Wishes, and so on. Against a good player using a near full-health Chansey, Porygon2 will lose to Toxic stall, plain and simple. Like you said, Guts users do a great job of abusing Chansey, but they run the risk of getting worn down or outplayed. If you fail to SD with Heracross when Weezing swaps in (Guts Facade can't kill Chansey) then Weezing wins and you pay for it in residual Toxic damage. If you instead decide to set up, the opponent can send in another fast attacker (Aero, Gyara?) and make you waste turns trying to hit Gyara/Skarm. It seems that outside of Guts users and Metagross, there aren't really good options for players to deal with Chansey, which is an argument for it being overly centralizing.