[UU Suspect Test] Porygon-Z

[DoubleJ]

 

What is this?

 

Porygon-Z has been dying in Borderline 1 for several months and given recent additions to Pokemmo including Assault Gear, some Hidden Abilities, and access to new moves, the Tier Council has voted to suspect test Porygon-Z in the [UU] tier as its usage has once again fallen in [OU].

 

What to know?

 

Porygon-Z was considered too much for [UU] offensively the last time around, and that could very well still be true. We are hoping to prove with practical data, given the aforementioned changes, that this is still the case.

 

Noteworthy sets?

 

Choice Specs w/ Download (or Adaptability)

- Tri-Attack

- Thunderbolt

- Ice Beam

- Hidden Power Fire/Psychic/Dark Pulse

 

Choice Scarf w/ Download

- Tri-Attack

- Thunderbolt

- Ice Beam

- Hidden Power Fire/Psychic/Dark Pulse

 

Sweeper w/ Download (or Adaptability) - Life Orb or Leftovers

- Tri-Attack

- Ice Beam/Dark Pulse

- Nasty Plot

- Substitute/Agility/Recover

 

Hit-and-Run w/ Download (or Adaptability) - Life Orb

- Tri- Attack

- Thunderbolt

- Ice Beam

- Teleport

 

Noteworthy calcs?

 

It hits everything, really, really hard, but it's made of paper. The tier has overall become more hostile for Porygon-Z though with the addition of more offense such as Mach Punch Machamp, Vacuum Wave Toxicroak and Poliwrath, Feraligatr and Crawdaunt, and of course the great offense stopper: Ambipom. It's overpowered attacks feel less overpowered now with the addition of Assault Gear on the likes of Spiritomb, and it has to contend once again with its greatest [UU] rival: Empoleon.

 

 

Please take your time to review the [UU] tier as we suspect test Porygon-Z for at least 1 month, or seasonal cycle. The tier council will the move forward with a vote when ready and a simple majority vote will determine whether pZ is still BL2 or if it's fit for [UU].

 

 

Please discuss.

[BaliAds]

To be honest I think Porygon-z might not actually be bad for UU it's got reliable counters now in Empoleon and Gigalith which both provide great bulk in stopping it. It also is great for putting a check to the stall-meta which is so prevalent in UU right now.

My main issue with adding PZ to UU is this will almost assuredly raise the amount of usage Gigalith gets and bring it back into UU by the next tier changes, meaning Venomoth becomes even harder to stop in NU and any data we get from this month with Venomoth (if it is deemed suitable for NU, I doubt it will anyway) becomes redundant as we're probably losing the biggest check to it in a month. I don't think it was right to suspect test these two pokemon at the same time as we're pretty much having NU screwed over and UU screwed over every other month by the looks of things. 

I'm not saying the overall issues with the tiers are TC's fault, and I'm sure we can find a solution for the problems the tiers are facing but stuff like this needs to be better considered before a decision is made since it's hurting both tiers.

[DoubleJ]

@BaliAds 

 

Mentioning Gigalith as a potential check is a really good point and something that could certainly rise to [UU] as a possible answer. 

 

I think we'll just have to wait and see how usage evolves this cycle, and this concern will certainly be taken into consideration as we proceed with these tests. 

[TohnR]

5 hours ago, DoubleJ said:

it's made of paper

That part used to be an argument but isn't exactly true. His bulk (85/70/75) and speed are actually quite mid tier when compared to what's available in the tier. Certainly not his greatest strength, altho being Normal type is terrible on the defensive side, it's not that bad for a pokemon like PZ that will not get pressured too much by hazards unlike Yanmega and will be able to eat a few STAB hits from standard UU mons. Revenge killing it is far from impossible but it's not as easy as it might seem 🙂 

Here are a few examples of moves (all + atk or speatk) that PoryZ is capable of eating without any bulk investments : 
252+ Atk Scarf Krookodile Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Porygon-Z: 115-136 (71.8 - 85%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Yanmega Bug Buzz vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Porygon-Z: 129-152 (80.6 - 95%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Nidoking Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Porygon-Z: 144-172 (90 - 107.5%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
(you can imagine the scarf variant doesn't come close to revenge killing)

The rest of your post is absolutely flawless and gives good insight about the tier changes that could make PZ less centralizing, thank you for that

 

2 hours ago, DoubleJ said:

Mentioning Gigalith as a potential check is a really good point and something that could certainly rise to [UU] as a possible answer

Gigalith would bounce back to UU since Shaymin was sent to Borderline regardless ...
You are right to believe it will be one of the key answers to PZ in the tier alongside Empoleon and AV Spiritomb. 

[DoubleJ]

Overall, UU seems to be adapting well enough to this powerhouse. AV users, and especially those with resistance and immunity, can actually switch in safely; its speed continues to make it vulnerable to offensive play, and it needs a lot of support to sweep. Thoughts now that we're over a month in is that PoryZ may have found a new home. More discussion hopefully will help us make that decision as a TC.

[caioxlive13]

No changes beetween OU <--> UU, so we don't loss any key counter to it, or he gained a extra support to be broken. 

If it's fine on the current meta, no reason to it go to UUBL now.

Edited July 28, 2023 by caioxlive13

[TohnR]

4 hours ago, DoubleJ said:

Overall, UU seems to be adapting well enough to this powerhouse. AV users, and especially those with resistance and immunity, can actually switch in safely; its speed continues to make it vulnerable to offensive play, and it needs a lot of support to sweep. Thoughts now that we're over a month in is that PoryZ may have found a new home. More discussion hopefully will help us make that decision as a TC.

All I see is that nobody relevant is playing UU anymore and not many people made the effort of posting their thoughts on this suspect thread either (actually only Bali when you exclude both of us)
I guess whatever happens nobody cares anymore anyways ... Until someone makes a complaint next PSL that the tier is unbalanced 

[Bertolfoso]

9 hours ago, TohnR said:

All I see is that nobody relevant is playing UU anymore and not many people made the effort of posting their thoughts on this suspect thread either (actually only Bali when you exclude both of us)
I guess whatever happens nobody cares anymore anyways ... Until someone makes a complaint next PSL that the tier is unbalanced 

The main reason in my opinion is that these are not really suspect tests, they are more delayed Quickbans(/unbans). Discussion rarely makes people change opinions (which is fair), especially over pokemon stuff where change in opinions happens through experience. So personally I find using time to write detailed posts on "suspect tests" a waste. I don't know if I'm the only one feeling this way

[caioxlive13]

6 hours ago, Bertolfoso said:

The main reason in my opinion is that these are not really suspect tests, they are more delayed Quickbans(/unbans). Discussion rarely makes people change opinions (which is fair), especially over pokemon stuff where change in opinions happens through experience. So personally I find using time to write detailed posts on "suspect tests" a waste. I don't know if I'm the only one feeling this way

That's true for the past months. The tiers was complete chaotic, apart from OU and Dubs, that was not even worthy to try to play, because every f*** month you has to change team because a key mon of it was not avaliable on tier in one month. Also, UU was historically abandoned from playerbase due to it be the slowest tier of meta(Like, if stall was remotely viable at some point of history on one tier, the tier is UU), even Balanced vs Balanced was at the risk of reaching the timelimit. And have a reason for that. The offenses just need to be strong enough to be used on OU and that's it. Need to be capable of breaking some walls and not be awful on metagaming, or be able to deal with a top-tier mon. Weavile is not 100% perfect to OU, it had a lot of flaws, especially the 4x Fight weakness, it can't enter on field easily, but stays there because with Ice stabs and Speed good can be useful vs Nite, Serperior and Chomp, even if he has the same bulk of a Pasta. Defensive mons not, not only they need to be good, they also need to outclass the walls of OU more than get outclassed, or have a key feature helping him. For example: Cofagrigus was useful on past OU not because he is a good wall, Skarmory outclassed it 100%. The key feature saving it was the Mummy ability, that in combination with their ghost type, allowed it to wall Conkeldurr, a very problematic mon in the past, better than Skarmory was able to do. Their viability dropped like a rocket when Weezing entered on meta, because it was able to wall the problematic mons Cofagrigus walled in past, plus holding Serperior, a new problematic mon on metagaming. With all this restricted, while offensive mons that was in UU were the weak ones to OU, the defensives ones in UU was the ones simply outclassed. Milotic is a wall with potential to be good, but is simply outclassed on this role by other walls. So we have a unbalance on the offensive power and defensive power on tier.

Edited July 29, 2023 by caioxlive13

[Bertolfoso]

1 hour ago, caioxlive13 said:

That's true for the past months. The tiers was complete chaotic, apart from OU and Dubs, that was not even worthy to try to play, because every f*** month you has to change team because a key mon of it was not avaliable on tier in one month. Also, UU was historically abandoned from playerbase due to it be the slowest tier of meta(Like, if stall was remotely viable at some point of history on one tier, the tier is UU), even Balanced vs Balanced was at the risk of reaching the timelimit. And have a reason for that. The offenses just need to be strong enough to be used on OU and that's it. Need to be capable of breaking some walls and not be awful on metagaming, or be able to deal with a top-tier mon. Weavile is not 100% perfect to OU, it had a lot of flaws, especially the 4x Fight weakness, it can't enter on field easily, but stays there because with Ice stabs and Speed good can be useful vs Nite, Serperior and Chomp, even if he has the same bulk of a Pasta. Defensive mons not, not only they need to be good, they also need to outclass the walls of OU more than get outclassed, or have a key feature helping him. For example: Cofagrigus was useful on past OU not because he is a good wall, Skarmory outclassed it 100%. The key feature saving it was the Mummy ability, that in combination with their ghost type, allowed it to wall Conkeldurr, a very problematic mon in the past, better than Skarmory was able to do. Their viability dropped like a rocket when Weezing entered on meta, because it was able to wall the problematic mons Cofagrigus walled in past, plus holding Serperior, a new problematic mon on metagaming. With all this restricted, while offensive mons that was in UU were the weak ones to OU, the defensives ones in UU was the ones simply outclassed. Milotic is a wall with potential to be good, but is simply outclassed on this role by other walls. So we have a unbalance on the offensive power and defensive power on tier.

No, sorry but you're completely wrong. What I am talking about is (in my opinion) an issue that is not meta specific, or about any tier in specific. It's a tiering issue, where I feel like Suspect Tests are not really useful at in the current state as it only gives the illusion of player participation. Also that is off topic (and my post kinda is as well, but less so)

[caioxlive13]

29 minutes ago, Bertolfoso said:

It's a tiering issue, where I feel like Suspect Tests are not really useful at in the current state as it only gives the illusion of player participation. Also that is off topic (and my post kinda is as well, but less so)

That's kinda true, because we are or in a favor of a mon get banned when in reality it was already guilty, or we're trying to get a problematic mon banned but TC doesn't want this to happen(like was with P-Z in the first time he got banned, TC waited until there was only gigalith left to check P-Z to then ban it, and with Crawdaunt they refused to ban it even with only 2 100% answers, that was Poli and Toxicroak. Recently toxicroak rised and i'm not 100% sure if he dropped back.)

Edited July 29, 2023 by caioxlive13

[TohnR]

On 7/29/2023 at 11:48 AM, Bertolfoso said:

The main reason in my opinion is that these are not really suspect tests, they are more delayed Quickbans(/unbans). Discussion rarely makes people change opinions (which is fair), especially over pokemon stuff where change in opinions happens through experience. So personally I find using time to write detailed posts on "suspect tests" a waste. I don't know if I'm the only one feeling this way

You're free to just say "Agree with what X said" or make a one-liner opinion and not waste much time tho 😉 (Also always ignore useless replies don't get baited xd)

 

But I'm going to be honest I don't blame mid/high level UU players for not posting their thoughts, I'm more disappointed that the game right now is in a phase where the TOP players who compete in the major tournaments (PSL, COTY, WorldCup UU MVPs) and go for top3 ladder, shinies, seasonals ... all those typically don't play the game right now because they're waiting on updates or the next PSL. And that phase is not ideal to be making big suspect tests in my opinion.

No blame on JJ tho this was a fairly well written suspect test thread 

Edited July 31, 2023 by TohnR

[Bertolfoso]

12 hours ago, TohnR said:

You're free to just say "Agree with what X said" or make a one-liner opinion and not waste much time tho 😉 (Also always ignore useless replies don't get baited xd)

 

But I'm going to be honest I don't blame mid/high level UU players for not posting their thoughts, I'm more disappointed that the game right now is in a phase where the TOP players who compete in the major tournaments (PSL, COTY, WorldCup UU MVPs) and go for top3 ladder, shinies, seasonals ... all those typically don't play the game right now because they're waiting on updates or the next PSL. And that phase is not ideal to be making big suspect tests in my opinion.

No blame on JJ tho this was a fairly well written suspect test thread 

I fear you misunderstood the issue I'm talking about. I have no problem expressing my opinion, and will do even though I am not the best of players, however what I am talking about is that a proper Suspect Test doesn't exist in PokeMMO.

 

On Smogon a Suspect test is a period where people can ladder to reach some requirements (usually a good win rate in a minimum amount of games) to be able to vote, whether it's an unban or ban process. In this way players that prove that are good enough to reach consistency and have an understanding of the tier at the time of the suspect are rewarded with a way to voice their opinion. It's used for problems that are not easy to decide, for which the Council of the tier decide to gather more opinions. 

Quickbans are reserved for threats that are clearly problematic (something like Kyogre in OU), where taking multiple weeks to gauge if they fit in the tier would be clearly considered a waste a time.

 

In PokeMMO Suspect Tests are nothing more than a notice the Tier Council gives to the competitive community to let it know that X is going to have action taken against sometime in the future (another problem would be the length of these, to be honest. It's already been 1 month for the suspects in UU and NU). The key problem is that, in my opinion, community input is more or less not very useful, because the final say is the councilmen's. To be clear, that is totally fair. Tier council members SHOULD vote for what they personally believe is best. They should NOT try to "represent" the community and go with what seems to be the general consensus (which is quite hard to know, on divisive topics). They are chosen as tier council members because it is believed that their ability is enough that the community trusts them with the task of making each tier a more competitive and enjoyable environment. 

So to be clear my issue is not with the Tier Council.

 

Sorry for the lengthy post but I wanted my point to be clearer.

[Azphiel]

Right now it seems that is PZ is alright and the playerbase adapted well enough. 

 

Assault vests make it much easier to handle as we now see Spiritomb rising in usage with probably the best winrate it ever had in UU so far. It can switch on any of its attacks and consistently pursuit trap it for a good amount of damage and it feels like that mon with this specific set has been key in making PZ easier to deal with. PZ feels way less centralizing than before as we see that the notorious PZ hard counter Gigalith only had 2% usage this month (I think it had around 10% last year when PZ was around? I might be wrong). I interpret that as a sign that Gigalith isn't needed that much because the new tools UU have are just fine.
Moreover, Bronzong is more commonly used with a +spedef nature as a mean to switch on tri attacks and Empoleon is still sitting comfortably around top 5 usage.
There is also that specific screen offense that got spammed quite a lot recently that could illustrate how hyper offense can overwhelm PZ teams. I'd also like to note that ditto could help a lot revengekilling setup PZ especially if you're using stall, we didn't have that tool last year either.

 

I'm fine with Porygon Z's suspect test ending this month

[PoseidonWrath]

14 hours ago, TohnR said:

But I'm going to be honest I don't blame mid/high level UU players for not posting their thoughts,

because we have certain people derailing the threads, so yea i dont blame them for not bothering getting quoted by a person that doesnt know a single thing, gets teached a lesson multiple times, but still act like a clueless monkey.

 

on topic tho i have seen people adapting alot with Pz, with spiritomb AV being popular. with Johto adding more stuff soon, i think it will keep him on a leash. 

 

Im also fine with Pz`s test being ended this month

[Munya]

What is then, or why is it not?

[DoubleJ]

After reintroducing PorygonZ to the Underused tier, the tier council has voted to end the suspect test. After a thorough investigation it is apparent that PorygonZ, while very good, is not the overwhelming offensive juggernaut it used to be.

 

@Munya you may now close this thread. Any further discussion can be directed to the UU Tier Discussion Request Thread.