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April 2023 Movement Discussion Thread


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11 hours ago, gbwead said:

Let me make it clear for both of you:
 

This post is extremely wrong and stupid. When a mon is suspected to have OFFENSIVE UBER characteristics, you should look at the walls it breaks. 

I promised myself I wouldn't reply to you anymore, but since I was kinda at fault here, I'll have to.

 

You are right. When a mon is suspected as offensive uber, you should look at the wall it breaks. I am sorry if, in my needless sarcasm, I lost clarity and went to focus on something I didn't want to focus at all. What I meant is that posting random calcs without any context whatsoever tells me nothing. If it did, some other wallbreakers would be offensive uber too. They are not. Why? Maybe because they cannot pressure the field often. Maybe because they cannot shift momentum against those walls it is supposed to beat, in a reliable or consistent way. Or maybe even they require such insane amounts of prediction to work. None of this is immediately proven or disproven by a bunch of calcs. 

 

Do I think Nidoqueen is an issue? Yes. 

Do I convince anyone of that with a random carefully picked list of calcs? No.

Calcs are supposed to support any argument. Not to be the argument. 

 

Again, I am sorry, if I went over my head with this particular subject and deviated from what I really wanted to claim.

11 hours ago, gbwead said:

With that being said, @pachima, you can't really complain that Wrath is wrong to look at defensive mons as counters to a potential defensive uber pokemon because 
1) you did the exact same thing in your previous paragraph when an offensive pokemon was being looked at

2) you fucked up royally when you were TC and banned P2 as offensive uber instead of simply defensive uber

You can't cast stones at people when you are showing the worst example of what should not be done. You can't blame new TC members for not understanding our tiering terms correctly when you have set an awful precedent when using them in the past.

1- Explained above.

2- This is only true in your head. However, since I unfortunately cannot convince you otherwise, I'll just leave it at that. 

Either way, to clarify, and I don't give a damn to whether you choose to believe in it or you don't, I was actually one of the very few people that was against, and explicitely argued so in TC, that in the P2 ban argument, we shouldn't label it as anything, simply because I didn't believe it correctly fit any of the nonsense labels we had at the moment. Was it offensive uber? No. Was it Defensive Uber? Maybe, but not quite, since its main problem wasn't really being able to switch on most things but also pressure and punish to extreme levels Offensive teams. For this reason, if it depended on me, I wouldn't label P2 as anything, and would just create a thread, trying to explain why this mon was too strong for the tier instead. 

 

I will let you take a wild guess to whoever forced us to imprint a label on anything we were voting at the time, for absolutely no reason at all.

 

And for God sake don't even mention the PZ issue you are apparently so delusional in your created lie you refuse to let go, because I have better things to waste my time on. Thank you. 

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53 minutes ago, pachima said:

And for God sake don't even mention the PZ issue you are apparently so delusional in your created lie you refuse to let go, because I have better things to waste my time on. Thank you. 

I didn't say anything about PZ...

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47 minutes ago, pachima said:

 

I will let you take a wild guess to whoever forced us to imprint a label on anything we were voting at the time, for absolutely no reason at all.

I don't know what happened back then but I know one thing : " Defensive / Offensive Uber " shouldn't be the primary way a tiering policy should happen.

 

Obviously some Pokemon cannot be taken down or cannot be stopped and therefore ruin a metagame, but not all banworthy Pokemon are that extrem.

 

It happens plenty a time that a Pokemon is a the limit of both which I think might be the case for p2. I will try to explain it by giving grades to what a Pokemon can do, and I'll explain the terms before.

 

Offensive Uber caracteristics will refer to the ability of forcing your opponent to have a selected few specific wall to be able to prevent you from making progress, as well as putting pressure on your opponent (= forcing them to respond to your Pokemon, it's especially good when it's difficult to pivot around it, either because it hits too hard or because it's not really threatened by anything you will send )

 

Defensive Uber caracteristics will refer to the ability of preventing your opponent from doing meaningfull progress and shutting down lots of offensive Pokemons for basically free without decent counterplay being offered to your opponent.

 

Now let's use the P2 example for it :

Discharge , Ice Beam, Toxic, Recover.

 

We all know the crazy p2 defensive abilities to shut down a lot of offensive threats, but it have trouble healing properly due to the recover nerf and the lack of leftovers, it's weak against volturn cores, really hates entry hasards and statuts.

If I had to rate it on 1-10 scale defensively  (1 sucking and 10 being top tier, 11 is banworthy) I would probably rate it a good 8 or 9 because those weaknesses are not so hard to compensate but what it brings to a team in preventing your opponents breakers to make progress is insane.

 

Now offensively, really what comes into it ? More or less nothing, however we have to take into account that it's slow and that statusing threats will often pressure it out of the field, also it might have to click Recover a lot so give you a lot of free turns, obviously those problems aren't so hard to make up for but they prevent it from being unstoppable offensively. Let's say it's also a high 8 or 9 rate.

 

We have something that's top class in both offensive and defensive capabilities without changing the set, which offensive capabilities will be enabled by the fact that you pair it in a team defensively sound, thus giving it very good defensive options AND the little offense it needs. I think everyone can agree that the Off/Def Uber criterias aren't met to make a ban, however it's obvious that the pokemon is way too good for the tier.

 

Tiering policy should probably be changed following this situation to represent more accurately what a broken Pokemon really is in a metagame, I think making a third category labelled " really good in both " wouldn't do it either. Tiering policy should label PRECISELY what is banworthy and what's not and not just throw up categories and call it a day because it leads to stupid discussions in which everyone is losing time for nothing.

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9 hours ago, gbwead said:

What's the protocol for a mon to be removed from the BL list?


Venomoth was banned from NU on the 29th of July, 2018.

Kingdra was banned from UU on the 26th of August, 2018.

 

It doesn't make sense for Kingdra to have been removed from the BL list while Venomoth has remained there.

If kingdra should be there then its likely a mistake that its not - user error, this is why I prefer to not manually keep track of things and why some things are not going to happen unless it gets automated.


pretty sure there is policy for unbanning anything in the policy thread.

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26 minutes ago, Zokuru said:

I don't know what happened back then but I know one thing : " Defensive / Offensive Uber " shouldn't be the primary way a tiering policy should happen.

 

Obviously some Pokemon cannot be taken down or cannot be stopped and therefore ruin a metagame, but not all banworthy Pokemon are that extrem.

 

It happens plenty a time that a Pokemon is a the limit of both which I think might be the case for p2. I will try to explain it by giving grades to what a Pokemon can do, and I'll explain the terms before.

 

Offensive Uber caracteristics will refer to the ability of forcing your opponent to have a selected few specific wall to be able to prevent you from making progress, as well as putting pressure on your opponent (= forcing them to respond to your Pokemon, it's especially good when it's difficult to pivot around it, either because it hits too hard or because it's not really threatened by anything you will send )

 

Defensive Uber caracteristics will refer to the ability of preventing your opponent from doing meaningfull progress and shutting down lots of offensive Pokemons for basically free without decent counterplay being offered to your opponent.

 

Now let's use the P2 example for it :

Discharge , Ice Beam, Toxic, Recover.

 

We all know the crazy p2 defensive abilities to shut down a lot of offensive threats, but it have trouble healing properly due to the recover nerf and the lack of leftovers, it's weak against volturn cores, really hates entry hasards and statuts.

If I had to rate it on 1-10 scale defensively  (1 sucking and 10 being top tier, 11 is banworthy) I would probably rate it a good 8 or 9 because those weaknesses are not so hard to compensate but what it brings to a team in preventing your opponents breakers to make progress is insane.

 

Now offensively, really what comes into it ? More or less nothing, however we have to take into account that it's slow and that statusing threats will often pressure it out of the field, also it might have to click Recover a lot so give you a lot of free turns, obviously those problems aren't so hard to make up for but they prevent it from being unstoppable offensively. Let's say it's also a high 8 or 9 rate.

 

We have something that's top class in both offensive and defensive capabilities without changing the set, which offensive capabilities will be enabled by the fact that you pair it in a team defensively sound, thus giving it very good defensive options AND the little offense it needs. I think everyone can agree that the Off/Def Uber criterias aren't met to make a ban, however it's obvious that the pokemon is way too good for the tier.

 

Tiering policy should probably be changed following this situation to represent more accurately what a broken Pokemon really is in a metagame, I think making a third category labelled " really good in both " wouldn't do it either. Tiering policy should label PRECISELY what is banworthy and what's not and not just throw up categories and call it a day because it leads to stupid discussions in which everyone is losing time for nothing.

Beautifully put. Thanks

 

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59 minutes ago, Zokuru said:

I don't know what happened back then but I know one thing : " Defensive / Offensive Uber " shouldn't be the primary way a tiering policy should happen.

 

Obviously some Pokemon cannot be taken down or cannot be stopped and therefore ruin a metagame, but not all banworthy Pokemon are that extrem.

 

It happens plenty a time that a Pokemon is a the limit of both which I think might be the case for p2. I will try to explain it by giving grades to what a Pokemon can do, and I'll explain the terms before.

 

Offensive Uber caracteristics will refer to the ability of forcing your opponent to have a selected few specific wall to be able to prevent you from making progress, as well as putting pressure on your opponent (= forcing them to respond to your Pokemon, it's especially good when it's difficult to pivot around it, either because it hits too hard or because it's not really threatened by anything you will send )

 

Defensive Uber caracteristics will refer to the ability of preventing your opponent from doing meaningfull progress and shutting down lots of offensive Pokemons for basically free without decent counterplay being offered to your opponent.

 

Now let's use the P2 example for it :

Discharge , Ice Beam, Toxic, Recover.

 

We all know the crazy p2 defensive abilities to shut down a lot of offensive threats, but it have trouble healing properly due to the recover nerf and the lack of leftovers, it's weak against volturn cores, really hates entry hasards and statuts.

If I had to rate it on 1-10 scale defensively  (1 sucking and 10 being top tier, 11 is banworthy) I would probably rate it a good 8 or 9 because those weaknesses are not so hard to compensate but what it brings to a team in preventing your opponents breakers to make progress is insane.

 

Now offensively, really what comes into it ? More or less nothing, however we have to take into account that it's slow and that statusing threats will often pressure it out of the field, also it might have to click Recover a lot so give you a lot of free turns, obviously those problems aren't so hard to make up for but they prevent it from being unstoppable offensively. Let's say it's also a high 8 or 9 rate.

 

We have something that's top class in both offensive and defensive capabilities without changing the set, which offensive capabilities will be enabled by the fact that you pair it in a team defensively sound, thus giving it very good defensive options AND the little offense it needs. I think everyone can agree that the Off/Def Uber criterias aren't met to make a ban, however it's obvious that the pokemon is way too good for the tier.

 

Tiering policy should probably be changed following this situation to represent more accurately what a broken Pokemon really is in a metagame, I think making a third category labelled " really good in both " wouldn't do it either. Tiering policy should label PRECISELY what is banworthy and what's not and not just throw up categories and call it a day because it leads to stupid discussions in which everyone is losing time for nothing.

For Pokemons, there are 2 ban categories:

  1. Uber Characteristics (Offensive/Defensive/Support)
  2. Unhealthiness

If a pokemon doesn't fit offensive uber characteristics perfectly and also doesn't fit defensive uber characteristics perfectly as well. The pokemon may still be banned as unhealthy. Almost all pokemon that are deemed uber will also be unhealthy, but a pokemon that is unhealthy might not be uber. Ultimately, the only practical difference between the two categories is that a pokemon can be quick banned as Uber, but can't be quick banned as unhealthy since unhealthiness needs to be demonstrated with the pokemon in the tier.

 

When it comes to P2, the reason why it fits Defensive Uber characteristics is because it walls a good portion of the metagame (8 or 9 out of 10 like you said) and it also prevents a lot of offensive pokemon to switch into it. P2 is not a passive wall or a set up bait. The combination of these two aspects are more than enough to deem that P2 fits defensive uber characteristics.

 

However, I don't agree at all that P2 fits Offensive Uber characteristics since it's not a very difficult pokemon to wall. Its most common sets are naturally stopped by pokemons like Umbreon, Unaware Clefable, Gigalith and Dusclops. Bronzong, Spiritomb and Snorlax are a little bit more shaky, but can sometimes work. I can't see P2 as a wallbreaker or a sweeper, so I don't think it fits Offensive Uber characteristics to a sufficient degree.

 

For reference point, these are the definitions we are working with:
 

On 10/24/2021 at 5:26 AM, Munya said:

1. Uber
An uber Pokemon will naturally meet one or more of the following characteristic. The amount of characteristics met is not relevant to whether or not it is moved up.

 

1 Offensive Uber

A Pokémon that in common battle conditions, is capable of sweeping or wall breaking through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.

 

2 Defensive Uber

A Pokémon that in common battle conditions is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame with little effort or compromise.

 

3 Support Uber

A Pokémon that in common battle conditions can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep or stall.

 

2. Unhealthy

This relates to pokemon that restrict the metagame in ways which are unfavorable for an evolving competitive metagame. In other words, a pokemon which is unhealthy is something which heavily stagnates or centralizes the metagame in a way that is problematic for a healthy metagame. Note that it has to be in a way that is problematic for a healthy metagame. This is important to note, as being centralizing is not necessarily an indicator of a pokemon being unhealthy for the metagame.

 

An unhealthy pokemon is one which makes the metagame worse with its presence, by stagnating the metagame in a large, negative way. Most pokemon which are overpowered are typically also unhealthy, but they are not entirely mutually exclusive. In general, the only time that the unhealthiness of a pokemon is evaluated is when a pokemon seems to be problematic, but simply does not fit in either of the other two categories for Ubers.

 

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How would people feel about amending this section to allow skipping the 1 week discussion and going straight into suspect testing/thread assuming discussion has happened on a topic within one of the 4 open discussion threads and or the monthly discussion thread.

Quote

Reversing a Prior Ban & Suspect Tests

 

If a metagame has changed significantly to consider reversing a previous ban, the tier council will discuss and vote upon reversing the ban. If a ban is reversed, then a suspect test will be initiated, whereas the Pokemon being questioned will be reintroduced to the tier it was previously banned from. No other bans may be reversed during a suspect test, nor any bans be made (unless needed to be done emergently, if this occurs the suspect test will likely need to be extended). Changes can still occur based on usage. These typically happen at the beginning of a season when they will have the least impact on tiers.   The guidelines are largely the same as the standard process.

 

 

  1. A community member or tier council member recommends discussion on a Pokemon or an aspect of the competitive metagame that is currently banned(i.e. move, ability, etc.).
  2. If deemed appropriate, a tier council member then opens a discussion thread in the public forum.
  3. The community and tier council discuss the aspects of the aforementioned Pokemon, move, ability, etc for a period of at least one week (will likely take longer).
  4. After a period of at least one week of discussion, the tier council will vote whether to proceed with a suspect test of the nominated Pokemon, move, ability, etc.
  5. Suspect tests will last for a period of at least one month, and likely for an entire 3-month cycle. This allows for analysis of the tier and discussion amongst the tier council and the community. The tier council will proceed with a vote to reinstate the ban or keep the suspected Pokemon once the appropriate amount of time has passed and a decision is ready to be made.
  6. A vote requires a 2/3 majority by the tier council to pass
  7. When the decision is made, the council will post in the thread and notify the community of the decision. This post will provide the reasons behind the decision.
  8. No bans or unbans will be made for a period of at least one month after the Suspect Test is announced in order for the tier to stabilize after the change; changes may still occur by usage as dictated above.

Mainly the bolded part.

 

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34 minutes ago, Munya said:

How would people feel about amending this section to allow skipping the 1 week discussion and going straight into suspect testing/thread assuming discussion has happened on a topic within one of the 4 open discussion threads and or the monthly discussion thread.

Mainly the bolded part.

My understanding is that TC would then be allowed to blindside the competitive scene by banning stuff without any discussion taking place. Ban first, discuss later? Plz, no. We need more transparency, not the other way around. We need a way for players to open discussion threads, so the burden of opening these threads doesn't fall solely on the TC members shoulders.

 

 The bold part is way way way too vague. If someone says "ban charizard" and someone else replies "yes please", that should not be enough to warrant a ban. A discussion need more than that. If a pokemon could end up as banworthy, people need to know so they can make their case for or against the ban. That's what specific discussion threads are for. If someone writes in the NU thread "ban charizard", how am i suppose to know that i need to take this post seriously and reply because that simple minded post could end up being enough to warrant a ban?

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27 minutes ago, Munya said:

Nah this is specifically for ban reversal/starting suspect tests.  Wouldn't change anything for the banning process.

Imo, you guys should just vote publicly so people will automatically know if a ban is about to be reversed or if a suspect test is about to start. If that was the case, you could easily remove this entire section.

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Just as a summary of discussion here and discussion internally with the TC, our focus is on several pokemon in several tiers. These being Salamence (OU-->UU) and Haxorus (BL1) in UU and Cloyster (UU-->NU), Nidoqueen (UU-->NU), Venomoth (BL2), and Sharpedo (NU) in NU. As of right now, consensus in TC as far as I can interpret is that Vaporeon should be fine in NU. There is also an existing vote on the Porygon2 suspect test as well. Anything else not mentioned that is moving down a tier, is on a borderline list, or is a possible problem in the tier is likely just fine for now.

Stay tuned.

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22 minutes ago, DoubleJ said:

Just as a summary of discussion here and discussion internally with the TC, our focus is on several pokemon in several tiers. These being Salamence (OU-->UU) and Haxorus (BL1) in UU and Cloyster (UU-->NU), Nidoqueen (UU-->NU), Venomoth (BL2), and Sharpedo (NU) in NU. As of right now, consensus in TC as far as I can interpret is that Vaporeon should be fine in NU. There is also an existing vote on the Porygon2 suspect test as well. Anything else not mentioned that is moving down a tier, is on a borderline list, or is a possible problem in the tier is likely just fine for now.

Stay tuned.

My predictions:

 

Salamence - suspect test, eventually getting banned(?)
Haxorus - suspect test, eventually getting banned(?)

Cloyster - suspect test, will probably be fine for the tier or move up to UU

Nidoqueen - quickban

Venomoth - unban

Sharpedo - ban

Porygon2 - ban

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11 hours ago, VelociRaptorr said:

 

Toxicroak is needed in UU in order to stop Crawdaunt. With the release of Toxicroak it is mandatory to have a Poliwrath in the team. And have you thought about nerfing the weather turns? Just like they did with Stall's movements.

Not true. Defensive shaymin aswell as salamence walls it completely. But is it healthy for a tier if you HAVE to run an specific pokemon/team composition to not get swept by another?

I don't think so. 

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Quote

 

252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Crawdaunt Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Shaymin: 102-122 (49.2 - 58.9%) -- 71.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery 
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Adaptability Crawdaunt Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 78-94 (38.6 - 46.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO 
252+ Atk Choice Band Crawdaunt Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 79-94 (40.1 - 47.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

 salamence is the most counter of all only problem are srocks and with that, he is more fast than crawdaunt for rooster or attack him with draco meteor.
Quote

0 SpA Salamence Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Crawdaunt: 126-148 (91.3 - 107.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO 

if salamence is bl1, then is more probably they need think if crawdaunt should to go bl1 or not.
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18 minutes ago, Zokuru said:

Crawdaunt is completely fine in UU, if you lose to it consistantly it's a skill issue.

If you've watched high level UU a very common gamestate is the dance trying to remove Poliwrath in order to activate Crawdaunt. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's "broken" but it is as centralizing as it can get. Despite this I see it is as somewhat of a necessary evil given how dominant stall can be in UU. 

 

But you really just hopped in the thread and said "skill issue" without further elaboration 🤣🤣

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This can't be real. The tier is completely dominated by Empoleon/shaymin/P2 and Crobat, all of them have been maintaining an absurdly high winrate as well as insane usage. How in the goddamn hell are people complaining about Crawdaunt, a Pokemon that has been rendered so irrelevant with the latest changes that it has 49,71% winrate. 

Wow. Just wow. There are plenty of things much more important to discuss and to focus on that Crawdaunt.

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2 hours ago, Zokuru said:

image.png.4dd5a548c868bf173fa56beeb4fd8006.png

"as centralizing as it can get"

First of all, win rate is not a valid metric to value the balance of any pokemon.

Second of all, this is only half a picture, to be fair, you should also look at usage and win rate of Crawdaunt counters (especially prior to March)

 

Now for everyone:

How can you say Crawdaunt is healthy and not centralizing, when we had Slowbro, Gastrodon, Vaporeon, Tentacruel drop to NU while UU Feraligatr is on life support? It's clear that its presence has been warping the tier around it. They got completely outclassed by being water resists/immunities that are not a Crawdaunt counter/check. 

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1 hour ago, Bertolfoso said:

First of all, win rate is not a valid metric to value the balance of any pokemon.

Second of all, this is only half a picture, to be fair, you should also look at usage and win rate of Crawdaunt counters (especially prior to March)

I showed its usage too. If Crawdaunt has a low usage AND its counter have a high winrate it means they win versus Crawdaunt-less teams without any issue, making Daunt a non problem.

 

Crawdaunt has never been problematic for offense to beat due to the sheer amount of RK and abusers (namely Blastoise easily getting a setup after Aqua Jet kills something), Stall and Balance have plenty of tools to play around it, especially now that Shaymin, Empoleon and Salamence have dropped. 

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