UU Viability Thread

[DoubleJ]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a moment. The council was pretty much given an ultimatum from the community that uu needed change. One group of people felt chansey was the one true problem, while another group (much smaller) felt it was something differently altogether that couldn't be id'd.

The council likely convened and thought to themselves, we have a ban list 20+ pokes long and we only keep adding to it. What can we do differently that might help the meta rather than just continue down this unhealthy ban after ban technique?

So this was their answer. Slowking checks scizor and charizard, charizard checks scizor, umbreon checks slowking, and scizor and machamp check umbreon. This likely felt like a safe core to introduce that would also help to unripe the stagnant state of our tier.

We don't know how this will look but it's worth a shot. And a month long trial, or test period, is efficient. I honestly like this method. It's different and also appropriate. While these threats look terrifying, i believe we are creative enough to work with these threats.

Machamp though seems like an unnecessary inclusion, but it would provide more pressure against scizor and it is also handled "somewhat" well by other common defensive threats that are already being used and were mentioned previously.

[Senile]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a moment. The council was pretty much given an ultimatum from the community that uu needed change. One group of people felt chansey was the one true problem, while another group (much smaller) felt it was something differently altogether that couldn't be id'd.

The council likely convened and thought to themselves, we have a ban list 20+ pokes long and we only keep adding to it. What can we do differently that might help the meta rather than just continue down this unhealthy ban after ban technique?

So this was their answer. Slowking checks scizor and charizard, charizard checks scizor, umbreon checks slowking, and scizor and machamp check umbreon. This likely felt like a safe core to introduce that would also help to unripe the stagnant state of our tier.

We don't know how this will look but it's worth a shot. And a month long trial, or test period, is efficient. I honestly like this method. It's different and also appropriate. While these threats look terrifying, i believe we are creative enough to work with these threats.

Machamp though seems like an unnecessary inclusion, but it would provide more pressure against scizor and it is also handled "somewhat" well by other common defensive threats that are already being used and were mentioned previously.

idk why people are coming up with these large theories on why things happened. The reasoning for all of this wasn't any of this stuff, it's what I said just a few posts ago, hue. It's also not a month long trial, it's just a month before they open up a suspect thread for a potential ban. IE, it's not like it's a month, and then they move like 3 pokemon up, which I think is probably what you interpreted it as.

[DoubleJ]

idk why people are coming up with these large theories on why things happened. The reasoning for all of this wasn't any of this stuff, it's what I said just a few posts ago, hue. It's also not a month long trial, it's just a month before they open up a suspect thread for a potential ban. IE, it's not like it's a month, and then they move like 3 pokemon up, which I think is probably what you interpreted it as.

I'm not going to start an unwarranted argument with you. I'm on your side here. I like these decisions and im happy the council finally came together to solve a problem. So how about ou now?

[Senile]

I'm not going to start an unwarranted argument with you. I'm on your side here. I like these decisions and im happy the council finally came together to solve a problem. So how about ou now?

I'm not arguing m8, this was a joint decision between the UU and Overseeing council, since we had to step in after Umbreon got banned, I was there during the discussions of moving things down. I'm just informing you guys, don't overthink it too much.

 

Also, working on OU. Tell Robofiend to look at the fucking PM and actually be online, kek.

[LionKIng]

[quote name="BurntZebra" post="1074298" timestamp="1433786876"]

actually sitting on my couch right now kek. If chansey was banned, people would just run umbreon as a special wall, and umbreon is not banworthy under any characteristic. Chansey is not banworthy either since it has no offense and is easily killed by physical attackers. Protect is a shit argument since every pokemon besides wynaut/ditto/weird pokemon learns it, same goes for toxic. Its not like these tier changes are going to be permanent either, machamp might be moved back up, possibly along with others, depending on how the meta looks in the next UU tournament.[/quote]
but its not all pokemons that can run it and not be penalized for loosing 1 move slot kek, wish doesnt go without protect so your argument is invalid tbh

edit: fuark nik already stated this hue

[quote name="fredrichnietze" post="1074400" timestamp="1433794533"]

k

so as senile said umbreon ban was unjustified. as a result zam/slowking were banned from a meta that was incomplete. for char/champ/zam, i was against zam ban in the first place. jolly swellow outspeeds and 1hko's zam and can pursuit it, plus zam is 1-2hko by nearly all priority. just about every pursuit trapper can 1hko zam and zam no longer has the godly coverage it once had with e punches. even umbreon, chansey, and spec wall khan around to shit on it all day. champ i was against but got outvoted. char im on the fence towards but a lot of people who's opinions i respect believe it's worth testing and i trust them.[/quote]
zam makes you run [u][b][size=5]JOLLY[/size][/b][/u][size=5] [size=4]freaking swellow, like why would you have to run a jolly swellow just for 1 pokemon. It already hits kinda bad with adamant + CB + stabs, if you give it jolly nature it will just be not viable to even run it anymore. I think that a pokemon to be moved down from OU or Bl should not affect the current meta in a big way. These 6 pokemons getting moved down surely does that in a big bang making everything we been working for the past 6 months useless...I mean yo can you make up your mind and do your job right the first time around, we are just going back in time now and trying to fix something taht didnt need fixing in the first place. I get that umbreon got banned for no apparant reason making slowking and scizor getting banned too...but why go past umb and bring back zam, charizard and machamp>> imo they are really way too strong for UU and they have no place in our meta. Having a pokemon like alakazam is just like not being able to run any other sp attacker other then zam because zam can do what everyone else does but better.[/size][/size]

Edited June 9, 2015 by Noad

[BurntZebra]

but its not all pokemons that can run it and not be penalized for loosing 1 move slot kek, wish doesnt go without protect so your argument is invalid tbh

 

edit: fuark nik already stated this hue

Chansey can run shadow ball, aromatherapy, softboiled, thunderwave, light screen, growl, safeguard, counter, or psych up. So its not like chansey only has 4 viable moves and therefore it can run protect freely. It is giving up utility and support just like any other pokemon (and wish without protect is pretty trash anyways)

[fredrichnietze]

zam makes you run JOLLY freaking swellow, like why would you have to run a jolly swellow just for 1 pokemon. It already hits kinda bad with adamant + CB + stabs, if you give it jolly nature it will just be not viable to even run it anymore. I think that a pokemon to be moved down from OU or Bl should not affect the current meta in a big way. These 6 pokemons getting moved down surely does that in a big bang making everything we been working for the past 6 months useless...I mean yo can you make up your mind and do your job right the first time around, we are just going back in time now and trying to fix something taht didnt need fixing in the first place. I get that umbreon got banned for no apparant reason making slowking and scizor getting banned too...but why go past umb and bring back zam, charizard and machamp>> imo they are really way too strong for UU and they have no place in our meta. Having a pokemon like alakazam is just like not being able to run any other sp attacker other then zam because zam can do what everyone else does but better.

in ou the only reason to run +speed star is gengar. the only reason to run +speed aero is jolteon. the only reason to run + speed magmar in uu is hitmonlee (and haunter maybe).

you can still run swellow with adamant and quick attack 1hko with guts activated 

252+ Atk Choice Band Guts Swellow Quick Attack vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Alakazam: 118-139 (90 - 106.1%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO

just now there are pros and cons to adamant vs swellow. 

 

you are entirely right we should have got it right the first time. we messed up and i think it's better to fess up and fix the problem then try to hide it. 

 

zam i did quiet a few calcs for when it was originally banned. and on paper it's not broken. we'll find out in the next month or two how well it fits in uu. i think the main reason people think zam is broken is because in most players minds zam=espeon which is not true.

 

you may be right on char. or maybe the priority in UU is enough. time will tell.

[LionKIng]

 

in ou the only reason to run +speed star is gengar. the only reason to run +speed aero is jolteon. the only reason to run + speed magmar in uu is hitmonlee (and haunter maybe).

you can still run swellow with adamant and quick attack 1hko with guts activated 

252+ Atk Choice Band Guts Swellow Quick Attack vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Alakazam: 118-139 (90 - 106.1%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO

just now there are pros and cons to adamant vs swellow. 

 

you are entirely right we should have got it right the first time. we messed up and i think it's better to fess up and fix the problem then try to hide it. 

 

zam i did quiet a few calcs for when it was originally banned. and on paper it's not broken. we'll find out in the next month or two how well it fits in uu. i think the main reason people think zam is broken is because in most players minds zam=espeon which is not true.

 

you may be right on char. or maybe the priority in UU is enough. time will tell.

 

why don't you just like do it the same way you guys did it for NU on a private server and like enrole capable players that can help you guys determine if this was a healthy idea or not by dueling multiple times and trying stuff out. It woulda been a way better idea then just dumping these monsters (zam, zard and machamp) in the UU meta. For me, the meta before this disaster was the most balanced UU meta ive had the chance to play on this game. You could literally run any playstyle and not have to worry about how bad it would be because everything was pretty balanced. I had a small problem with chansey because it meant you had to run digglet/trapinch just to kill it or literally run no sp attackers at all. But these unbans are literally shitt I hate everything about it.

[DoubleJ]

Lf spikes + pika espeed to shrek zam

[fredrichnietze]

Lf spikes + pika espeed to shrek zam

fake out + espeed garunteed 1hko vs zam from 252 att + nature light ball pika. doesnt even need spikes just synch instead of inner focus.

[DoubleJ]

fake out + espeed garunteed 1hko vs zam from 252 att + nature light ball pika. doesnt even need spikes just synch instead of inner focus.

The switch in isn't realistic but the revenge kill is. Just one option out there.

[Barrage]

I think out of all these Pokemon, Charizard is actually the most broken. Belly drum is extremely threatening, although priority does kill it. Charizard can also SD, but that is a bit slow and not quite as effective, but I could see it working. The biggest problem with it is that it also has viable special sets (sunny day/beaming, hp grass) that would kill the counters to the physical sets (Whiscash, Quagsire, Blastoise, list goes on). I dunno, I think this is way too terrorizing, but there's not much to be done about it now. To be honest all of these bans should probably have stayed where they were. It seems stupid to me to unban stuff just because it violated the procedural policy. Sometimes you have got to use your judgement if you ask me. At a glance, I could reason why all of these Pokemon should be BL and I have few reasons to believe they are in their rightful place in UU.

 

EDIT: Since this is viability thread, I am basically saying all the aforementioned pokes are A/S tier easily.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Barrage

[SpartacusGD]

Machamp will be broken im sure, nothing stops it, the other ones on the other hand is a good move made me wanna play uu again

 

edit : well after i come to think of it, i guess zard will be too much to handle aswell and will make players have to run more walls than usual cause of the versatility of its moveset. zam can be dealt with but gonna be very hard especially if your sp def wall gets trapped or just died, zam will be like god among men, like spartacus single handedly raping 30 roman soldiers or 20 mad gladiators.

 

but for the other 3, welcome back to uu <3

Edited June 9, 2015 by SpartacusGD

[OldKeith]

Can someone please tell me what the logic behind moving Machamp but not Hariyama (an inferior Machamp) down was?

[felix]

Can someone please tell me what the logic behind moving Machamp but not Hariyama (an inferior Machamp) down was?

i think we all are looking for some reasoning, maybe is hard to make a thread or a post to explain it.

[Arimanius]

From just gunthug's tournament I saw Umbreon being set up bait most of the time (no unhealthy) different charizards sweeping through teams (little bit op) Alakazam didn't see much but when I used one it was useless because of pursuit (No opinion yet) Machamp didn't see any giving too much difficult, mine was useless too in my second fight (No opinion yet), Scizor being regular (not unhealthy). Those are my thoughts right now after this tournament ofc we have to see more but right now for me that is

[DoubleJ]

Ya that core of pokes really balances each other out. The only downside is that they could be pretty centralizing for the tier.

[LionKIng]

Ya that core of pokes really balances each other out. The only downside is that they could be pretty centralizing for the tier.

So centralizing its crazy

[DoubleJ]

So centralizing its crazy

We'll just have to wait and see how players adapt. I can see things like exegg still being pretty viable so who knows. Houndoom still pretty beast with these changes along with a few other things. Swellow gonna see some shine.

[Gunthug]

I had a lot of success today using a team with only 1 of the new UU additions. I even used a couple NUs, and some lower usage UUs, and I found that each of the new threats were possible to handle with a well built team. Here are some notes from my observations today:

 

• Altaria is effective at keeping calm mind alakazam in check, and strong pursuit users like CB scizor also present huge problems for teams using zam.
• Machamp has a lot of trouble against hypno/grumpig/claydol if no ice punch, and even if it can take one of these down it's usually easy to sweep up with a revenge kill.
• Slowking is 2hkod by a LOT of strong physical attackers, so it's ability to switch in and act as a defensive pivot simply fails to live up to slowbro's abilities in OU. As a set up poke, it can be problematic - but again, no 2 moves can cover the entire tier. I saw a Slowking absolutely shut down by quag today, where even at +6 it had to switch out.
• scizor is everywhere, and boy is it scary if you aren't packing fire. 

 

Honestly, i don't think the new additions will be that centralizing

 

edit: oh, and how could I forget -

 

• Carry sludge bomb on your vileplume

Edited June 10, 2015 by Gunthug

[LionKIng]

I had a lot of success today using a team with only 1 of the new UU additions. I even used a couple NUs, and some lower usage UUs, and I found that each of the new threats were possible to handle with a well built team. Here are some notes from my observations today:

 

• Altaria is effective at keeping calm mind alakazam in check, and strong pursuit users like CB scizor also present huge problems for teams using zam.
• Machamp has a lot of trouble against hypno/grumpig/claydol if no ice punch, and even if it can take one of these down it's usually easy to sweep up with a revenge kill.
• Slowking is 2hkod by a LOT of strong physical attackers, so it's ability to switch in and act as a defensive pivot simply fails to live up to slowbro's abilities in OU. As a set up poke, it can be problematic - but again, no 2 moves can cover the entire tier. I saw a Slowking absolutely shut down by quag today, where even at +6 it had to switch out.
• scizor is everywhere, and boy is it scary if you aren't packing fire. 

 

Honestly, i don't think the new additions will be that centralizing

give it time, no one was really ready for this tournament with this slow breeding, nobody waas expecting this bomb blowing up and shattering everyones mind like that. It will take time for people to adapt and to show how strong these monsters are.

[Robofiend]

Machamp was actually my fault lul, only half srs in suggesting it, but it didn't receive the same benefit of the doubt that Hariyama did - and giving the benefit of the doubt is what good tier policy does. We're only supposed to ban things if it's totally necessary, and the Zam/Zard/Champ/Chansey bans weren't really shown to be necessary, they were just banned flat without seeing much use or much of a chance for people to come up with checks/counters to em.

[BurntZebra]

Machamp was actually my fault lul, only half srs in suggesting it, but it didn't receive the same benefit of the doubt that Hariyama did - and giving the benefit of the doubt is what good tier policy does. We're only supposed to ban things if it's totally necessary, and the Zam/Zard/Champ/Chansey bans weren't really shown to be necessary, they were just banned flat without seeing much use or much of a chance for people to come up with checks/counters to em.

To add onto this, there was only one UU tournament I believe where basically all the BL pokemon were allowed except chansey+slaking. Pokemon like machamp, alakazam, and charizard were mostly overshadowed by tauros, dodrio, marowak, and espeon, and yet were still banned because they were synonymous with OU to an extent. Similar to people complaining about the NU tier now that its just a bunch of old UUs. 

[DoubleJ]

I don't even know who sits on the council anymore. So I guess yagami is out and Think is back in? When did this happen?

[Noad]

I don't even know who sits on the council anymore. So I guess yagami is out and Think is back in? When did this happen?

At the weekend, you can find a full list of all members here: https://forums.pokemmo.eu/index.php?/topic/54048-pokemmo-tier-council-and-official-tier-policies/