[Discussion] Snorlax/Blissey's Place in the OU Meta (Snorlax AND Blissey moved to Ubers)

[Linken]

i think with an less time expensive way of access to fairly usable comps people wouldn't complain much but try out new teams... (should try out the "new" breeding system someday XD)

a reason why only one month of testing isn't enough in my opinion

but that's another story for later.

I think the meta right now is more match up based than ever before and RNG does have more impact on a game since keeping your momentum became way harder

[codylramey]

Obvio not gonna happen but i feel like team preview would be perfect for this kind of meta. Thats just my opinon.

 

I also think that one month isnt gonna be enough to get solid accurate results. Jay sayin.

[DoubleJ]

Ok, my assessment after a participating in and watching a full day of top tier OU.

 

1. Special Attackers are pretty baller

- Gardevoir: Absolutely shits on a lot of "common" special walls we have available including Porygon2, Ludicolo, Arcanine, Venusaur, and basically anything not named Pursuit Umbreon, Metagross, or Scizor, but even then HP Fire really dampens the day on those latter two.

- Gengar: The God of special sweepers right now, clear the field of Umbreon and those fast Starmie and voila, Gengar can now wreck everything. Really though, bulky sets take down common Gengar checks, while sweeper versions poop on the entire meta. You're a fool if you don't run Gengar right now, it's just that fucking good.

- Jolteon: The only sweeper that gets hands down stopped by something. Porygon2 walks in on Jolteon, steals its lunch money and makes it go running home thanks to Trace. Gardevoir is a pretty good answer abusing Trace as well. 

- Starmie: The anti-special sweeper special sweeper. With its glorious speed and diverse movepool it doesn't need to set-up like some of the other sweepers, and it can generally hit everything you throw at it. It might not be able to OHKO most things, but it does benefit by being able to wear down its checks, at least those outside of Ludicolo and Umbreon.

- Porygon2: With HP Fire, P2 instantly becomes a bulky behemoth on the field that has both great coverage and insane power. Unfortunately it's speed leaves it vulnerable to most physical attackers that make it shiver in its... Upgrade?

 

2. Umbreon is our best special wall, but....

- It's absolutely shit when it comes to defending against physical attackers. It is basically set-up bait for every physical attacker available. Protect? Well sure, if you're looking at a Choice Band user you just set yourself up for an unfavorable switch in, due to your overly predictable defensive switch. Wish? Glorious for sustainability on wall-heavy teams, but you better pack a Spinner because those countless switches are going to add up eventually when you start taking powered up hits. 

- Is it even viable? I think so because of it can stop special walls, but I choose not to run it simply because I can't afford to lose something else on my team to that +2 Ursaring or Heracross.

 

3. Dugtrio

- Umbreon and Porygon2 are great checks and maybe even counters to the special walls in our meta, but unfortunately both are derailed by Dugtrio which has time and time again proven to be the darkhorse for ban appeal. Pair Dugtrio with Gengar and Starmie and well, you have a winning recipe already. 

 

4. Is there strategy in this OU?

- The only strategy I saw in this version of OU is trap or be trapped. I ran into two pursuit users per team I faced and saw Dugtrio wipe the floor with Umbreon and Porygon2. 

- Set-up is endless with all of the physical sweepers abusing special walls, and special sweepers abusing teams without Umbreon.

 

5. Is this version of OU balanced?

- Hell no. It may be "fun" for some people due to the insanity of options available, but it all seems to come down to the same thing, Gengar sweeping a team when Umbreon dies. That or, oh Gengar died now my opponents team has no offense. Gengar is the pedestal by which this meta revolves and its only because he is dancing around with really only one check. Yes I say check because Gengar can be built to beat Umbreon while still having the offensive power to sweep teams. I'm thinking of bulky Taunt/Counter/Shadow Ball/Sludge Bomb sets.

 

 

Special Sweepers are of course gifted the keys to the OU kingdom without Snorlax and Blissey, and unfortunately the only true check that we have to slow down the majority of these sweepers lacks offense. Thus allowing physical sweepers to beat the crap out of it and everything else. It is also susceptible to Dugtrio, unlike Blissey, which could run Hail and not hurt its ability to do its job, and Snorlax, which could run Whirlwind to phase out the subversal set. Umbreon is simply left without any options unless you decide to run Roar, which really could be an option with all the Swords Dances, Belly Drums, and Bulk-Ups coming at it, unfortunately though, that just means you are "at risk" for taking a hard hitting punch to the face. 

 

OU is just bad and it's not going to improve until we increase the number of available pokemon. Yes this means we need legendaries like Celebi and Suicune to stabilize the meta. Both of which can act as a dual physical and special wall to allow for appropriate pivots or simply to stop common threats. Until then, I believe that Snorlax and Blissey need to be a part of this game in order to achieve balance and avoid chaos, which is what I believe the current meta is like. 

 

tl;dr The tier council tried, but I think we just need to revert back to the old meta until some sort of development change is made by the Devs. 

Edited June 28, 2015 by DoubleJ

[codylramey]

Umbreon cant learn roar. And the TC already assumed gengar was going to be a problem. JJ in ur opinion if they banned genga, and maybe dugtrio who has been on the chopping block from the day it came back, do you think we could have a meta w/the extra choices that you spoke of and have it be decently balanced? That is until we get the legends. Im not happy with the "we are going to have a shitty meta w/o more pokes" approach.

[DoubleJ]

Umbreon cant learn roar. And the TC already assumed gengar was going to be a problem. JJ in ur opinion if they banned genga, and maybe dugtrio who has been on the chopping block from the day it came back, do you think we could have a meta w/the extra choices that you spoke of and have it be decently balanced? That is until we get the legends. Im not happy with the "we are going to have a shitty meta w/o more pokes" approach.

 

It's all speculation, but if the council wants to just keep on test banning shit further and further then why not. In my opinion Gengar also proves to be a staple to our meta defensively with its unique typing and ability. In a stable meta, Gengar is healthy. In an unstable meta like this one, Gengar is just too rampant. 

 

 

EDIT:  Adding Snorlax, Blissey, Gengar, and Dugtrio to our extensive banlist isn't going to do much, in my opinion, other than take us closer to a Smogon-style UU defensive core. After seeing the meta and experiencing it first hand, I think a meta with Snorlax and Blissey offered more balance by stabilizing special sweepers and limiting physical sweepers with Body Slam paralysis and Boltbeam respectively. Right now special sweepers can attack willy nilly putting a big hurt on their checks and physical sweepers are unphased by the pitiful special walls available. 

Edited June 28, 2015 by DoubleJ

[codylramey]

But these bans in place now did add variety correct? That was the whole point of the test to see if it adds variety. I guess we will see a lil more when we get more usage. But judging by the last usage, iirrc, gengar and metagross was the only poke >50% which imo is great.

[Gunthug]

Wtf is a "smogon style uu defensive core?"

[lVlusay]

DoubleJ post is right on. We won't have balance until we get new pokemons, specifically walls that can take physical hits like Celebi Suicine, Milotic and possibly Zapdos. And actually we don't even need much, 2-4 of them will be enough to balance out the OU metagame. Until then, we definitely need Snorlax and Blissey back.

[BurntZebra]

DoubleJ post is right on. We won't have balance until we get new pokemons, specifically walls that can take physical hits like Celebi Suicine, Milotic and possibly Zapdos. And actually we don't even need much, 2-4 of them will be enough to balance out the OU metagame. Until then, we definitely need Snorlax and Blissey back.

But you don't mention why snorlax and blissey should be brought back. Legendaries that can act as physical walls have no direct corrolation to why snorlax and blissey are justifiable in the OU meta.

[lVlusay]

But you don't mention why snorlax and blissey should be brought back. Legendaries that can act as physical walls have no direct corrolation to why snorlax and blissey are justifiable in the OU meta.

 

Legendaries have no connection to Snorlax/Blissey test ban and in no way I tried to make that connection. I mentioned them because I agree with DoubleJ's point that with them the meta will be more balanced. In terms of why Snorlax and Blissey should be brought back I already explained in my previous posts, but as I said DoubleJ explained everything on that situation very well. Just reread it.

[Grimreminder]

The return of the potiental ban snorlax yet again. But this time they finally testing blissey after it's been 2 years since I have seen ppl complaining about her.

[DoubleJ]

Umbreon cant learn roar. 

 

Confirmed Fox, since Kitty Cats can Roar with the best of them. 

 

 

But these bans in place now did add variety correct? That was the whole point of the test to see if it adds variety. I guess we will see a lil more when we get more usage. But judging by the last usage, iirrc, gengar and metagross was the only poke >50% which imo is great.

 

I honestly don't know what the goal of this suspect ban was. If it was to add variety then I think they succeeded since everyone is scrambling to find something that works outside of trapping, but we'll have to wait on usage. But in my opinion the goal of any meta should be to achieve balance, whereas no one play-style dominates. In this meta that isn't the case, since trapping overrules basically everything. 

 

Bring a Dugtrio: Trap kill Umbreon, Porygon2, Lanturn, Chansey, and a plethora of squishier and/or slower sweepers including but not limited to Houndoom, Jolteon, Heracross, etc.

 

Bring a Pursuit user: Scizor and Metagross do a wonderful job Pursuit killing Gengar, Gardevoir, Alakazam, and Starmie, probably the most common special sweepers being used excluding Alakazam.

 

Most teams rely on Umbreon or Porygon2 as a special wall and most teams include Gengar since it's just down right too good not to use.  

 

In the old meta, sure Snorlax and Blissey usage was skyhigh, but players still deviated from using them and had success. In this meta it's extremely difficult to deviate from this basic playstyle unless you go full YOLO hyper-offense and pray you make the right predictions when you need to. 

 

Wtf is a "smogon style uu defensive core?"

 

It was just a play on the slippery slope of bans we are facing that is slowly taking us from that standard Gen 3 Smogon OU to Gen 3 Smogon UU. 

Edited June 28, 2015 by DoubleJ

[Grimreminder]

But in all honestly I agree with DoubleJ post. Getting rid of snorlax and blissey( even though I depised that bitch lol) will make the OU meta even worse. Blissey is basically a noob/teambuilder check. It completely shut downs any hard hitter special attackers if anyone thinks that they can sweep someone with no physical attacker. Sure your have some players just say just use a physical hitter even though players now these days know their shit.

Honestly banning them won't make a difference as like gengar will get even stronger if both bliss and lax are ban. Because eventually when gengar is started to be suspect tested, something else will become too op and this turns into a domino effect. Until the Devs decide to add new pokes or legendaries, we shouldn't be banning anything until the game is complete.

[Gunthug]

It was just a play on the slippery slope of bans we are facing that is slowly taking us from that standard Gen 3 Smogon OU to Gen 3 Smogon UU.

Yeah that's what I thought - it immediately stuck out to me as a needless combination of buzzwords designed to incite the musays, kanzos, etc of the forums behind your side. Basically, you're talking out of your ass. We're not even close to a standard smogon gen 3, so why even attempt to compare our meta game to smogon? And defensive core...is that unique to UU or something? Also, do you also adhere to the school of thought that any poke that is once UU will remain UU for eternity?

It was a quite nasty way to end a quality post. This discussion doesn't need your coy mischaracterizations

There were some other oddities in your op - like brushing roar umbreon off as an impossible gimmick but pretending hail bliss isn't a fucking giant gimmick. What you meant was QA umbreon, which is literally exactly as gimmicky as hail bliss to deal with dug. Otherwise, I can't argue much with your observations since j wasn't at Tt. it just confuses me why you're so immediately dismissive of a dug/gar ban

Edit; dammit why is etern ally sensored again. Edited June 28, 2015 by Gunthug

[codylramey]

Yea J sounds to me like ur biggest problem is dugtrio, and to a lesser extent gengar. Hail and WW was rarely used on lax n bliss so dug could most of the time kill them too so bringing them bak wouldnt change that. It would change however the consequences of bringing in spcl attackers (mainly with lax) making a dug + 2-3 spcl attacker teams harder to use... kind of.

[Rendiz]

So if we are using the pretense of something with high usage being annoying and making the meta stagnant being banworthty. Then proceeding to ban any pokemon that become a problem because of it like some others have suggested with gengar dug  ect wouldn't that just turn into an endless cycle of banning and unbanning things just to try and stop people getting bored rather than trying to create a healthy and competitive meta. While i'm aware this is just a test ban and is likely to be revoked I still really do not like the idea of removing variety to add variety.

 

With the fatso's gone it feels very difficult to make a solid defensive core which can deal with the abusrd amount of threats people are running now while still maintaining some kind of offensive power yourself. OU has become more of a glorified game of rock paper scissors (A little over-exaggeration). If only we could add extra pokemon *cough* legendarys *cough* to increase variety rather than removing some of the metas staple pokemon.

[DoubleJ]

Yeah that's what I thought - it immediately stuck out to me as a needless combination of buzzwords designed to incite the musays, kanzos, etc of the forums behind your side. Basically, you're talking out of your ass. We're not even close to a standard smogon gen 3, so why even attempt to compare our meta game to smogon? And defensive core...is that unique to UU or something? Also, do you also adhere to the school of thought that any poke that is once UU will remain UU for perpetuality?

It was a quite nasty way to end a quality post. This discussion doesn't need your coy mischaracterizations

There were some other oddities in your op - like brushing roar umbreon off as an impossible gimmick but pretending hail bliss isn't a fucking giant gimmick. What you meant was QA umbreon, which is literally exactly as gimmicky as hail bliss to deal with dug. Otherwise, I can't argue much with your observations since j wasn't at Tt. it just confuses me why you're so immediately dismissive of a dug/gar ban

Edit; dammit why is etern ally sensored again.

 

Hmmm... I wouldnt say Hail Bliss is a GIANT gimmick. It proved to stop SubFlail/Reversal users which included Dugtrio, Heracross, and Gyarados. Losing one moveslot also didn't really hinder Bliss all that much as it still did it's job stopping special threats. Throw on Boltbeam + Softboiled and voila, it still has decent offense to go along with its ability to slay a common counter. 

 

Hail bliss is entirely viable and AW has won countless matches and tournaments using that strategy.

 

Also, not really sure where all of your emotion has arose from. Settle down a bit. I made my point and it's just there for people to acknowledge or disregard dependent on how they see fit. You understand where I'm coming from when I say "Smogon UU Defensive Core". The pokes that we are using are not the traditional OU that most of us are accustomed to and because of this we are left with some pretty poor options to check some insanely powerful sets. They just don't stack up against the offensive firepower in the special sweeper category. 

 

Yea J sounds to me like ur biggest problem is dugtrio, and to a lesser extent gengar. Hail and WW was rarely used on lax n bliss so dug could most of the time kill them too so bringing them bak wouldnt change that. It would change however the consequences of bringing in spcl attackers (mainly with lax) making a dug + 2-3 spcl attacker teams harder to use... kind of.

 

I don't like bans. Getting to a ban is extremely messy and causes confusion as to what a meta will look like moving forward. Take for instance any ban we've made in OU. We've basically shit on one another to the point of exhaustion and disrespect. For example, I used to have a lot of respect for gunthug simply because he made a lot of efforts to argue in a sensible manner, but with most of his recent stuff he's just kind of attacked commenters for the smallest amount of bullshit. I get tired of commenting in these threads, but I also like to play this game and I don't want to play in a meta where safe switch ins are hard to come by and one wrong prediction can cost you the entire match. Even RNG's affect on this meta has increased. 

 

Also whirlwind lax was a very common moveset, and probably its second most commonly ran set behind curse. It provided an opportunity get rid of Dugtrio, stop opposing Curselax from setting up, and also helped when you had Spikes on the field. 

[Gunthug]

 

I don't like bans.

I think your entire post can be summed up with this sentence. You go in with this mentality and meld the evidence to fit this conclusion. In fact, you've been very vocal since the test ban idea came out that you thought this was a horrible idea so I don't see why your posts shouldn't be taken with a giant grain of salt.

 

Re: bliss, hail was clearly only on blissey for dugtrio. The gyara thing I can KINDA understand because bliss threatens gyara w/that tbolt, but bliss isn't staying in on heracross long enough to see it set up for reversal. But I mean, yes, Bliss is a much better option than Umbreon, and that includes its heavy gimmick sets that focus on one single threat. Also, >WW lax is lax's second most used set. Lol, does that actually matter? Curse is BY FAR the most used lax set, I'd say in the wide variety of OU matches that I specced or played in before the ban I saw probably, 90% curselax? I dunno, anyone else care to weigh in? It's a pretty staggering disparity even between the top 2 sets.

 

For example, I used to have a lot of respect for gunthug simply because he made a lot of efforts to argue in a sensible manner, but with most of his recent stuff he's just kind of attacked commenters for the smallest amount of bullshit.

Lol and you claim my posts are laced with emotion? Don't mistake my refusal to let a made up, nonsensical phrase like "Smogon style UU defensive core" slide (did you accidentally throw the word smogon in there? I cannot for the life of me figure out its relevance) for emotion. There's no need to stomp and kick everytime someone disagrees with you. And as for the bolded part, just don't include any amount of bullshit in your posts and i'll leave you alone kek

 

 

e: and anyways, your explanation for that horrendous catch phrase wasn't great either. Notions of "traditional OUs" don't matter for this meta. Which is why every guy who comes onto these threads spouting shit like "Wow we're just headed towards UU?!?!" or "JEEZ just call it teh BL tier!1!" gets ignored and dismissed - because it's a stupid argument. If you're argument was simply that the options we have left, without snorlax and blissey, are inadequate to handle the offensive pressure of the tier, that's fine, but that doesn't really come naturally from what you DID say, nor does it address cody's question of how the tier would look without gengar

Edited June 29, 2015 by Gunthug

[DoubleJ]

I think your entire post can be summed up with this sentence. You go in with this mentality and meld the evidence to fit this conclusion. In fact, you've been very vocal since the test ban idea came out that you thought this was a horrible idea so I don't see why your posts shouldn't be taken with a giant grain of salt.

 

Re: bliss, hail was clearly only on blissey for dugtrio. The gyara thing I can KINDA understand because bliss threatens gyara w/that tbolt, but bliss isn't staying in on heracross long enough to see it set up for reversal. But I mean, yes, Bliss is a much better option than Umbreon, and that includes its heavy gimmick sets that focus on one single threat. Also, >WW lax is lax's second most used set. Lol, does that actually matter? Curse is BY FAR the most used lax set, I'd say in the wide variety of OU matches that I specced or played in before the ban I saw probably, 90% curselax? I dunno, anyone else care to weigh in? It's a pretty staggering disparity even between the top 2 sets.

 

Lol and you claim my posts are laced with emotion? Don't mistake my refusal to let a made up, nonsensical phrase like "Smogon style UU defensive core" slide (did you accidentally throw the word smogon in there? I cannot for the life of me figure out its relevance) for emotion. There's no need to stomp and kick everytime someone disagrees with you. And as for the bolded part, just don't include any amount of bullshit in your posts and i'll leave you alone kek

 

Sigh. I wasn't "stomping and kicking" because you disagreed with me, I was "stomping and kicking" because you purposefully went out of your way to negate my argument through unnecessary shit-talk and once again derail this thread.

 

They say this community is toxic. I think I found out another reason why.

 

I'm out. 

 

EDIT: Good luck on your boards. Hopefully when your scores come in you'll have something better to do than try and make people look like fools in a thread that really doesn't pertain to you. 

Edited June 29, 2015 by DoubleJ

[Gunthug]

Sigh. I wasn't "stomping and kicking" because you disagreed with me, I was "stomping and kicking" because you purposefully went out of your way to negate my argument through unnecessary shit-talk and once again derail this thread.

 

They say this community is toxic. I think I found out another reason why.

 

I'm out. 

 

EDIT: Good luck on your boards. Hopefully when your scores come in you'll have something better to do than try and make people look like fools in a thread that really doesn't pertain to you. 

How does the thread not pertain to me? I've always had an active interest in the competitive community and will continue to do so. Further, I didn't go "out of my way" to negate your argument, it was my direct intention and serves a role in the discussion. But I guess if I have the ability to characterize your initial "phrasing" as a way to rally the guys who constantly post shit like that ('we're heading towards a BL!' etc) then you can characterize what I'm saying however you like

 

But alright cya

 

edit: by the way i'm curious, where did I shit talk you?

Edited June 29, 2015 by Gunthug

[bl0nde]

Guys, relax. We've all made posts that have been perceived as stupid by one person or another and blah blah - It's all under the bridge guys at the end of the day.

 

Looking at the big pic, we haven't even gotten usage stats yet. Let's see what we have in the numbers then proceed from there. It is the most logical thing to do.

[Robofiend]

I'm tempted to believe that chaos is being mistaken for adaptation. From what I've seen, the game has been a lot more chaotic since the first time I played totally destroyed JJ when we were testing out the new meta.

 

A lot of people made similar arguments about Landorus about a month ago: "It's not as much fun", "It's too chaotic", "Now X is just too good" 

 

None of these are good arguments for why we would keep something around - while a metagame should have a fair amount of stability, the element of chaos is the hallmark of something else: diversity. You should be surprised by your opponent's team. You should be able to play carefully and protect certain teammates so that they can sweep unopposed later on. You should go "Oh shit, why did I sack my counter for X so early". But you shouldn't have to build your team around beating one or two key pokemon (whether it's Gengar+Starmie or Blissey+Weezing) to enjoy the game and be successful (as long as you aren't bad).

 

That said, if it is true that Starmie+Gengar+Dugtrio is the only team archetype around, we've got another level of problem. If that becomes the norm (despite the fact that teams like this get lolrekt by Gyarados, Aerodactyl, and a couple of others) then that would indicate that we either need to make some more bans or reconsider Blisslax. But I think it'd be wise to consider the fact that metagames in PokeMMO evolve at an amazingly low speed, so much that after a month some changes are still barely coming to mind for players, much less being fully built out (e.g. I only realized after a month of the Lax ban that Flygon, mixed Blaziken, and Ursaring were a lot better than Gyarados or Aerodactyl). That's part of why I wanted this ban to last longer, but I digress.

 

Furthermore, I see that Gengar is a big part of the game, being our only ghost type and a Levitator, so removing it could cause problems. But I'm not totally sure why everyone's having a coronary about banning it. Gengar's good in every metagame (except maybe Gen 4) so you've already put in all the effort you will ever need to getting your 5x31's, and it's not like Blissey, who becomes way less useful in Gen 4. Even if it's banned until we get some more checks it'll come back and be stronk af when the time is right.

 

Lastly, I don't see any reason to bring Snorlax back until we get Tyranitar, or Heatran. We've seen two times now that the Snorlax centric OU is just bad, flat and unfavorable for evolution and innovation. What's going to change that next time we bring it back to OU? At the very least, we saw that without Snorlax there were a number of different teams and playstyles being used, despite the near universality of Blissey.

[Gunthug]

Guys, relax. We've all made posts that have been perceived as stupid by one person or another and blah blah - It's all under the bridge guys at the end of the day.
 
Looking at the big pic, we haven't even gotten usage stats yet. Let's see what we have in the numbers then proceed from there. It is the most logical thing to do.

A good point

[DoubleJ]

At Robofiend, it's just that you can't counter Gengar in this meta without lax and bliss. Pursuit umbreon is a good check but sub-disable stops that outright.

It's too strong and with this being a suspect test no changes outside of bliss and lax can be made.

So what would you rather do? Go for the laxless meta that revolves around blissey or proceed with this meta and make a case to ban gengar too 1.5 months down the road?

Personally i liked the laxless meta more because like you said it offered quite a bit of diversity outside of blissey. But still number one on my list is just flat banning curse on snorlax.

You were right on about ttar being around for lax. But gen4 pokes are likely a year or more away. I mean, wouldn't we need another region and map? Not really high on the priority chain right meow. Until then we hope for quality changes by the ou council and maybe even legendary ou pokes like zapdos.

[DoubleJ]

Also on the chaos vs adaptation thing, gengar in the laxless meta was good but could still be handled by bliss in most cases so the concern was mostly how do we stop bulky phys sweepers from wrecking us without the rng bslam support? In this meta it's more along the lines of oh shit nothing truly stops even the most common gengar sets so how do we prevent it from utterly shattering our teams? I don't think we really can in this case.