Hidden Ability Placement Discussion Thread

[epicdavenport]

2 hours ago, EmilioGarras said:

What a way to taint the threat by saying absolutely nothing.

Anyway, the tiering for the moments seems fine. Very excited to see new Pokemon shine and glad we are having this discussion to see the most optimal way to tier new Pokemon.
Sharpedo to NU it's the only thing I disagree, but let's see if it should remain there. 

There's a few mons that can switch in against Sharpedo but my fear is the combination of Sharp and Blaziken together. All the new HA's are great but Blazikens position is still staying relatively strong. Quagsire use is probably going to skyrocket but the 2 have enough sp attack that a hidden power grass set isn't totally unviable. Losing out on a move slot might effect their offensive abilities to much though.

[gbwead]

We already have Mienshao. If you give us another Regen mon, PokeMMO becomes unplayable. And for the record, I have nothing against Regen mons, I have a problem with the way the 1 hour time limit is set up. Regen mons + 1 hour time limit = dead game.

 

If the devs plan to add regen mons, they need to change the 1 hour time limit to something like this:

Quote

After 1 hour, the player who has the most pokemon alive (excluding regen mons) wins.

If both players have the same amount of pokemon alive, the one whose party has the highest sum of HP in % wins.

or
 

After 1 hour, the player who has the most pokemon alive wins.

If both players have the same amount of pokemon alive, the one whose party has the highest sum of HP in % (regen mons = 0%) wins.

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by gbwead

[Munya]

Xatu has been moved to the OverUsed tier. While the tier council does not believe it is broken in the lower tiers, this move is being made preemptively to avoid disrupting the lower tiers under the assumption that Xatu will become OU by usage, either competing with or replacing Espeon in the tier.

[kiwi]

5 hours ago, gbwead said:

plz no, regenerator mons will kill the competitive scene

Stop the cap

[Umbramol]

11 hours ago, Munya said:

Xatu has been moved to the OverUsed tier. While the tier council does not believe it is broken in the lower tiers, this move is being made preemptively to avoid disrupting the lower tiers under the assumption that Xatu will become OU by usage, either competing with or replacing Espeon in the tier.

now thats how you ruin tiering!!

the assumption that an untiered pokemon will rise to OU as a reason to place it there is straight up stupid. the pokemon has a niche but its nowhere near that level. and we ve already done that with multiple other pokemons which might not even end up in OU. and we give the reasoning that "yes people are gonna use those" to let those pokemons jump 1-2-3 tiers at once?thats the whole reason of usage placement in this game. to determine what should be where.

We give pokemons 0 chance of going up naturally, disrupt the lower tiers in the way we take away new stuff that could be easily used there and give 0 motive or reasons for players to play lower tiers with the addition of HAs. and we force said tier to die AGAIN!! now we got 0 magic bouncers in the lower tiers for 2 months at least for absolutely no reason.

 

idk how these people think and vote but the assumption of "ye i would use it there" doesnt make a pokemon worthy of being placed in that tier!

Xatu is a pokemon that belongs to NU stat wise and has a niche that can be used in higher tiers. if said niche makes people wanna spam it in OU its their issue.

if that argument stood then we should move up into OU pokemons like golbat aswell. the niche doesnt mean that said pokemon will have 5% usage there. it means that its gonna appear in some teams. reconsider this placement now. you guys are ruining lower tiers for everyone, terrible decisions

[Umbramol]

That is the whole reason of usage placements. pokemons go up and down and reshape the meta. people get new pokemons or lose some. by placing a pokemon that has no job in said tier stat wise you take away the chance of it moving naturally, OR MAYBE NOT EVEN MOVING. cause u cant possibly know that. and if that move that you assume will happen came in naturally it would mean that either Xatu or Espeon will go OU and the other would eventually drop. and you disrupted the tiering so much that there will be none of them in the lower tiers for 1 and a half month. if that isnt disrupting the tiers, idk what is. REVOKE THE DECISION and start thinking, you cant place pokemons in tiers just by predicting it will eventually rise there

[Luke]

8 minutes ago, Umbramol said:

That is the whole reason of usage placements.

We don't currently have usage placements while HA's are being added. 

 

17 minutes ago, Umbramol said:

pokemons go up and down and reshape the meta.

Usually I'd agree, so would the rest of TC. But we literally have 60* Pokemon with HA's being added... This is why we are currently not using usage placements during this brief yet weird period of tiering. Many Pokemon which are in lower tiers are there because without their Hidden Ability they are not viable in higher tiers. But this all changes when they are added. If we leave these Pokemon there and just rely on usage to bump them up, we are gonna have 1-3 months of (rightfully) very angry players flaming TC for breaking the lower tiers & not taking action to prevent broken tiers.

 

21 minutes ago, Umbramol said:

OR MAYBE NOT EVEN MOVING. cause u cant possibly know that. and if that move that you assume will happen came in naturally it would mean that either Xatu or Espeon will go OU and the other would eventually drop. and you disrupted the tiering so much that there will be none of them in the lower tiers for 1 and a half month.

You're right, we don't 100% know this. However as a group unit we are trying our best to correctly tier the Pokemon, and what is the alternative that you are presenting? Letting 10-15* Pokemon which are likely too strong to stay in NU and UU, stay there and it be an absolute unplayable bloodbath? Every decision we make is public and can be questioned and scrutinised on this thread. We have defended every position we have made, and if we have been proven wrong we have changed our decision.

 

25 minutes ago, Umbramol said:

REVOKE THE DECISION and start thinking, you cant place pokemons in tiers just by predicting it will eventually rise there

It is not based on pure prediction that they will rise there. This is an aspect for certain Pokemon, but the majority are based upon what we deem is healthy for the metagame. But we are also taking into consideration that if a Pokemon is almost certain to rise (in our opinions) what is the value of letting it stay in a tier, people to build in that tier for it.. For it immediately to move up? 

 

 

I'd like to close this by saying, this isn't a dictatorship. If you disagree with a placement we have done you can post in this thread and your voice will be heard.. You can refer back to Quagsire, people here made some convincing posts and it made me re-evaluate my vote & I changed accordingly. Which enabled a Pokemon's tiering to change. We are trying to be very transparent about the process and allow people outside of the TC to chime in and give value to the discussion which we are very actively listening to.

[gbwead]

@Umbramol You do realise that Under Used is created based on what is going on in Over Used. This means at first every single pokemon starts as OU and then their usage dictates if they fall to a lower tier or remain Over Used.

With that being said, if TC was not intervening at all, Xatu would be OU by default and so would every other pokemon that has gained an hidden ability. If TC evaluates that a pokemon is likely to remain OU, they have no reason to intervene and they should keep it in OU. That's what happened with Xatu. They didn't take Xatu away from UU or NU, they simply didn't let it fall. They didn't go against any usage principles.

 

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by gbwead

[Umbramol]

15 minutes ago, Luke said:

We don't currently have usage placements while HA's are being added. 

 

Usually I'd agree, so would the rest of TC. But we literally have 60* Pokemon with HA's being added... This is why we are currently not using usage placements during this brief yet weird period of tiering. Many Pokemon which are in lower tiers are there because without their Hidden Ability they are not viable in higher tiers. But this all changes when they are added. If we leave these Pokemon there and just rely on usage to bump them up, we are gonna have 1-3 months of (rightfully) very angry players flaming TC for breaking the lower tiers & not taking action to prevent broken tiers.

 

You're right, we don't 100% know this. However as a group unit we are trying our best to correctly tier the Pokemon, and what is the alternative that you are presenting? Letting 10-15* Pokemon which are likely too strong to stay in NU and UU, stay there and it be an absolute unplayable bloodbath? Every decision we make is public and can be questioned and scrutinised on this thread. We have defended every position we have made, and if we have been proven wrong we have changed our decision.

 

It is not based on pure prediction that they will rise there. This is an aspect for certain Pokemon, but the majority are based upon what we deem is healthy for the metagame. But we are also taking into consideration that if a Pokemon is almost certain to rise (in our opinions) what is the value of letting it stay in a tier, people to build in that tier for it.. For it immediately to move up? 

 

 

I'd like to close this by saying, this isn't a dictatorship. If you disagree with a placement we have done you can post in this thread and your voice will be heard.. You can refer back to Quagsire, people here made some convincing posts and it made me re-evaluate my vote & I changed accordingly. Which enabled a Pokemon's tiering to change. We are trying to be very transparent about the process and allow people outside of the TC to chime in and give value to the discussion which we are very actively listening to.

i get most of the stuff you are saying and this is the reason why i do not speak or voice my opinion in stuff that i might slightly disagree. Nidoking is an example of a pokemon that in my opinion should have never been placed in OU, but i give the benefit of the doubt because it has a strong kit and it might actually be OU or it might have months that it will drop to UU. so there we dont intervene much with the tiering.

For xatu's case we have a pokemon that with its ability at best it might skyrocket at 50% usage in NU , get a good usage in UU and enough usage in OU. the big but is that we assume that and while it might be a correct assumption, the moment xatu eventually reached OU, it would mean espeon would most likely fall to UU. if we place xatu in OU based on the assumption, having also espeon there, fucks over the lower tiers because we all know there is no way both will be used there. therefore since espeon reached OU by usage before, we have to let them compete while the lower tiers get to play with said stuff. it makes perfect sense placing xatu in NU or UU and let it be there until the usage changes happen. it wont disrupt the lower tiers. it is not a pokemon that will be too much in any of them. by making this decision we disrupt the metagame in lower tiers and keep them hostage of having the ability to use a magic bouncer that might exist there. if you place xatu in, lets say UU, you give a period for adaptation to players using magic bounce and a better transition for both xatu and espeon, while the meta isnt defined by magic bouncer or not. let alone how we dont kill the motive for lower tier players, including myself, for stuff that are gonna become a staple in said tier. if not xatu, espeon will be. depending on what the OU players decide to use most.

i am not saying to let pokemons in general stay where they were, im saying that we should be considering how strong or not they can be in their respective tier. 

For example say you put Nidoking, a pokemon seeming too much now for NU with its ability, in UU, you can test the pokemon in two tiers at once. if it ends up OU by usage placement later, thats on the players that use them. but since we agree that Nidoking isnt a BL pokemon, there is no reason to not get those data for for the month we have infront of us.

same goes to xatu and other stuff that might come or are here. like crawdaunt that has the potential to be a BL pokemon but still got placed in UU.

you simultaneously test it AND give it a smoother transition if its supposed to end up in OU.

My case is simple. if we keep removing pokemons from tiers that they have a chance of being there while they are not BL material and add too many stuff in OU at once, we risk next months of having multiple drops and therefore fucking over the tiers we were supposedly protecting. while if you place pokemons like xatu and nidoking lower, IF we judge that they are not too much for said tier, you might just lose them in a month but with smoother transitions overall and time for the community to adapt to those changes.

[Umbramol]

33 minutes ago, Luke said:

and what is the alternative that you are presenting? Letting 10-15* Pokemon which are likely too strong to stay in NU and UU, stay there and it be an absolute unplayable bloodbath?

in the case the alternative i was presenting wasnt very clear in the previous message. to sum it up in a few words, is that pokemon that we judge are not BL material for a tier, to not place them above it or even much above it. for example xatu might be meta defining in NU and while not being BL material statwise, its kit might be too much for NU right now and reshape the whole meta there. so yes we could take it away from NU.(same goes for nidoking), and you did that correctly with crawdaunt. though crawdaunt is a question mark for UU while it was placed there because you guys think that it will not be as good in OU. but for UU it might be too much. and we get to test that now. i support that we should give some pokemons, not all, the benefit of the doubt into lower tiers, before placing them immediately 1,2 tiers upwards on the belief that they will for sure rise from usage. 

because i didnt disagree that xatu will rise to OU, but if that happened naturally, UU would have another magic bouncer in the face of espeon, now it has none. so we intervened with its meta like this. 

[DarylDixon]

with xatu in ou, does we have chances to get espeon in uu at least?

[Munya]

Eventually its very likely, nothing is banned from it.

[RysPicz]

  

1 hour ago, Umbramol said:

because i didnt disagree that xatu will rise to OU, but if that happened naturally, UU would have another magic bouncer in the face of espeon, now it has none. so we intervened with its meta like this. 

Nah Umbra, that's the thing- NATURALLY, Xatu and every other HA mon which gets released should start from OU, but some mons aren't OU material even with their hidden abilities and TC is doing a good job placing them in lower tiers so far (aside from Crawdaunt which is stupidly OP in UU currently, based on what I have seen, but it will most likely move up itself with usage because it's just so good in OU as well).

 

I'm very curious about what @suigin said in October movement thread about Garchomp's and Gliscor's Sand Veil. Can you Munyu or TC address it? It'd be great if we could get rid of evasion- boosting abilities. The less RNG we have in our meta, the better.

[Poufilou]

4 minutes ago, RysPicz said:

I'm very curious about what @suigin said in October movement thread about Garchomp's and Gliscor's Sand Veil. Can you Munyu or TC address it? It'd be great if we could get rid of evasion- boosting abilities. The less RNG we have in our meta, the better.

I wouldn't be mad if @pachimabring back primary intent bullshit just to get it banned if thats what it takes

[Munya]

9 minutes ago, RysPicz said:

  

Nah Umbra, that's the thing- NATURALLY, Xatu and every other HA mon which gets released should start from OU, but some mons aren't OU material even with their hidden abilities and TC is doing a good job placing them in lower tiers so far (aside from Crawdaunt which is stupidly OP in UU currently, based on what I have seen, but it will most likely move up itself with usage because it's just so good in OU as well).

 

I'm very curious about what @suigin said in October movement thread about Garchomp's and Gliscor's Sand Veil. Can you Munyu or TC address it? It'd be great if we could get rid of evasion- boosting abilities. The less RNG we have in our meta, the better.

The way I understand it there are 2 avenues for that to happen.

 

If Garchomp is going to go to Ubers because of Sand Veil, they can push to have the ability disabled again.

Or

They can try to push through a blanket "all evasion boosts are non-functional" rule for evasion clause if they can find a good reason for the policy.

 

But I guess this is a difficult thing to do because nobody has made a serious attempt at it.

 

4 minutes ago, Poufilou said:

I wouldn't be mad if @pachimabring back primary intent bullshit just to get it banned if thats what it takes

He is no longer a part of TC, forum ranks just haven't been updated yet they tend to lag behind.

[RysPicz]

6 minutes ago, Munya said:

They can try to push through a blanket "all evasion boosts are non-functional" rule for evasion clause if they can find a good reason for the policy.

 

But I guess this is a difficult thing to do because nobody has made a serious attempt at it.

I like this one a lot, although this also hits Serperior's defog-evasion interaction case which probably would have to get addressed as well. I would opt to get all evasion boosting abilities (well, Sand Veil and Snow Cloak) banned due to how uncompetitive they are and because it's another, unnecessary layer of RNG in our already RNG-heavy metagame. Where we take away RNG's influence, we get more place which can get filled with the right predicts and skill.

Edited October 23, 2022 by RysPicz

[gbwead]

If it was up to me, there would do the following changes:

• Nidoking from OU to BL
• Staraptor from OU to BL
• Crawdaunt from UU to BL
• Crobat from UU to OU
• Ditto from Untiered to OU
• Golbat from NU to UU
• Cloyster from OU to UU (I know it's not a hidden ability, but with so many movements happening, it's probably best to move it down with everything else)

Nidoking's usage is slowing down in OU, but the mon remains broken in UU.

Staraptor's usage is bad in OU, but the mon remains broken in UU.

Crawdaunt is busted in UU and should be BL.

Crobat would be OU by usage if it we were to use the 4.36% cut-off point. I believe there is a strong chance it would stay OU.

Ditto's usage in OU is very high. It will for sure be OU by usage.

Golbat is not going to stay NU, it will either take Crobat's place in UU or move up to OU directly. In both cases, Golbat should not stay NU.

Closyer's usage is so bad in OU and should definetly move down to UU.

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by gbwead

[caioxlive13]

Well, so far I haven't seen any problem in singles regarding the evasion boost from serperior. Is evasion itself anticompetitive? yea. But before, we had the problem of Rotom using defog in 90% of the OU without taking an immediate OHKO in response. Hyper Offense teams suffered from this because they often relied on Suicide Lead to set hazards. Nowadays, we have this boost that can cost the game if the opponent tries to defog "in the dry", without even thinking, so you can create a Mindgame to make the opponent think before using defog. Make him think about other options like using Trick to choice-lock your serperior, or Volt Switch to switch to a Crobat or Weavile and forcing serperior out of the field. This addition was more than positive for singles. Now in Doubles we have the real problem. Because nothing prevents the opponent from using defog against his own serperior, to intentionally increase evasion. But a nerf that would not impact in singles this legitimate switch strategy, nor the viability of defog, would be to simply change the defog targets, not to hit allies, only enemies.

Edited October 23, 2022 by caioxlive13

[Munya]

Crobat and cloyster are both on our radar.  Craws usage in ou since release is nothing to shy away from either

[suigin]

I feel like the defog/Serperior interaction can be avoided simply by not blindly clicking Defog when you know a Serperior is on the opposite team. While something like Garchomp just outright punishes you for using either Hippowdon or Tyranitar, something you cannot really change in the middle of battle, and it isn't something solely limited to matchup fishing, the Garchomp user can always just run their own Tyranitar/Hippo to get this advantage.

It's on the same vein as the Baton Pass ban.

[gbwead]

8 minutes ago, suigin said:

I feel like the defog/Serperior interaction can be avoided simply by not blindly clicking Defog when you know a Serperior is on the opposite team. While something like Garchomp just outright punishes you for using either Hippowdon or Tyranitar, something you cannot really change in the middle of battle, and it isn't something solely limited to matchup fishing, the Garchomp user can always just run their own Tyranitar/Hippo to get this advantage.

It's on the same vein as the Baton Pass ban.

If Serperior switches into Rotom and Rotom "predicts" that by not doing Defog, that doesn't mean the Rotom player is better off for that prediction. Serperior prevented Defog and that could still be a win.

 

Also, not targeting anyone in particular, but he Serperior talk should probably go in the Serperior thread since it had little to do with this thread.

[caioxlive13]

47 minutes ago, gbwead said:

If Serperior switches into Rotom and Rotom "predicts" that by not doing Defog, that doesn't mean the Rotom player is better off for that prediction. Serperior prevented Defog and that could still be a win.

 

Also, not targeting anyone in particular, but he Serperior talk should probably go in the Serperior thread since it had little to do with this thread.

he can using volt switch and enter with something that could KO serperior, such as crobat, or can be very annoying to one, like Togekiss Infinity Flinch. Also, he can trick Choice Scarf and weak serperior a lot, because serperior depend of Leaf Storm boosts to other attacks do damage. Obviously some serperiors start running Assault Gear, and trick rotom is one of the reasons(others include survive Bug Buzz from +0 volca and Kingdra Hurricane), but using the item means that he can't run Glare, so Scarf Users + Weavile/Crobat can outspeed and do a lot of damage, if not KO it, and he can't run Subseed, giving hope to defensive teams (still struggle if let Serperior stacks boosts and become a Snowball.)

Edited October 23, 2022 by caioxlive13

[TohnR]

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

• Crobat from UU to OU

You do realize that raising Crobat now would imply that multiple mons must be considered for a ban in Under Used ?
Because Crobat is the only mon that currently can be used in offense / bulky offense against threats such as Yanmega, Heracross & Durant 
Golbat can't compare with Crobat at all for what they do in UU. Raise it now and you also have to at least put Yanmega in BL range

[EmilioGarras]

I think crobat is a weird case were its so good in both tiers without being too broken for UU. I feel like if it stays in UU it will be fine which makes it a dynamic pokemon to use in both tiers without being broken, but checking key pokemon that are beasts if you don't look up for. (Like the Pokemon TohnR indicated)

Edited October 23, 2022 by EmilioGarras

[Huargensy]

It is not a thing to stay, we all know that it will increase due to use sooner or later, Crobat will be OU sooner or later and we have to see what will happen to UU when that happens

Edited October 23, 2022 by Huargensy