[UU Discussion] Kangaskhan

[OldKeith]

If we were in a metagame with Clefable as the specwall instead of Kangaskhan, would the metagame be better?

 

Clefable is slower than most banders, including the non-speed invested ones. Considering it needs both a healing move and aromatherapy to achieve Kang's surability, it is safe to say that it is less of a threat to the meta.

[PandaJJ]

You are right about the fact that don't keep OP stuff in the tier to check other OP stuff (...) We must be at least somewhat certain the metagame will be better than the one we have here after the ban or at least going in the right direction(...)

Also I wanna address something here: If we were in a metagame with Clefable as the specwall instead of Kangaskhan, would the metagame be better?

 

Well, this is a lot of what makes people reluctant to ban certain pokemon. They think that a metagame must necessarily improve with each ban. The problem is that if we have "OP stuff" to check "OP stuff," then banning one of them will make the other worse, hence possibly making the metagame worse. Was it the wrong thing to do? No. It just means that we need more bans. In a metagame which is almost good, each ban might improve the metagame, but in a metagame that is born from usage stats, there might be a lot of things that are banworthy, but somewhat balance each other out. In that case, we might not see a better metagame untill all of them are banned. What I am saying is that UU still suffers from being very careful with banning right after the creation, and that Kangaskhan is one of the pokemon in the pool that should have gone rather early.

 

Does a metagame with clefable as the main special wall look better? One of the best ways of beating special walls, by using choice banders, is at least effective against clefable, while it almost fails against kangaskhan due to it's raw power. But based on my comment above, none of this matters when we are considering whether kangaskhan is banworthy.

[BurntZebra]

Well, this is a lot of what makes people reluctant to ban certain pokemon. They think that a metagame must necessarily improve with each ban. The problem is that if we have "OP stuff" to check "OP stuff," then banning one of them will make the other worse, hence possibly making the metagame worse. Was it the wrong thing to do? No. It just means that we need more bans. In a metagame which is almost good, each ban might improve the metagame, but in a metagame that is born from usage stats, there might be a lot of things that are banworthy, but somewhat balance each other out. In that case, we might not see a better metagame untill all of them are banned. What I am saying is that UU still suffers from being very careful with banning right after the creation, and that Kangaskhan is one of the pokemon in the pool that should have gone rather early.

 

Does a metagame with clefable as the main special wall look better? One of the best ways of beating special walls, by using choice banders, is at least effective against clefable, while it almost fails against kangaskhan due to it's raw power. But based on my comment above, none of this matters when we are considering whether kangaskhan is banworthy.

Using choice banders is even less effective vs clefable. Clefable consistently runs protect, so unless you're double switching in choice banders from other choice banders, you can't really predict around clefable. If its a possible set up pokemon, clefable can easily wish pass to something like vileplume or some other defensive pivot to stop the pokemon, with minimal risk. 

[gbwead]

Using choice banders is even less effective vs clefable. Clefable consistently runs protect, so unless you're double switching in choice banders from other choice banders, you can't really predict around clefable. If its a possible set up pokemon, clefable can easily wish pass to something like vileplume or some other defensive pivot to stop the pokemon, with minimal risk. 

Wish/Protect/Aromatherapy leaves Clefable completly harmless. If I play Tentacruel and someone sends Clefable, I will just stay and force Clefable to reveal its moves; if the Clefa in front of me got nothing to hit me I will just stay and hit him constantly. If Kanga switches on Tentacruel, I am switching out (switch out on Kanga is never safe). Kanga, unlike Clefable, takes momentum away from special attackers and punish all the switch ins. 

The problem here is not that Kanga counters special attackers, but the way he counters them. (can't wait for usage to come out XD)

[RysPicz]

Do not forget Cradily as sdef wall option.

[BurntZebra]

Wish/Protect/Aromatherapy leaves Clefable completly harmless. If I play Tentacruel and someone sends Clefable, I will just stay and force Clefable to reveal its moves; if the Clefa in front of me got nothing to hit me I will just stay and hit him constantly. If Kanga switches on Tentacruel, I am switching out (switch out on Kanga is never safe). Kanga, unlike Clefable, takes momentum away from special attackers and punish all the switch ins.
The problem here is not that Kanga counters special attackers, but the way he counters them. (can't wait for usage to come out XD)

50 damage is enough to prevent most Pokemon from coming in more than twice safely. Also clefable definitely doesn't need to run aromatherapy, since something like lanturn or vileplume can easily be paired with clefable, allowing clefable to run thunder wave or toxic or some other utility move.
Kangaskhan either lacks bulk or power in most cases. If it doesn't run earthquake or lots of attack investment, it will not be able to ohko Pokemon like houndoom/manectric/tentacruel, while houndoom can 2hko kangaskhan with charcoal boosted fire moves, manectric can 3hko with magnet boosted tbolt, and tentacruel can be a huge issue if it's running swords dance.

[gbwead]

Also clefable definitely doesn't need to run aromatherapy

If you play Clefable Wish/Protect without aromatherapy why are you running Clefable in first place...

Kanga Wish/Protect is the same thing as Clefable but with better stats.

 

50 damage is enough to prevent most Pokemon from coming in more than twice safely.

Haunters disagrees.

 

Kangaskhan either lacks bulk or power in most cases. 

How does Kanga lacks power compared to Clefable?

Edited February 18, 2016 by lamerb

[OrangeManiac]

Clefable is slower than most banders, including the non-speed invested ones. Considering it needs both a healing move and aromatherapy to achieve Kang's surability, it is safe to say that it is less of a threat to the meta.

 

Hmm, so basically UU metagame without Kangaskhan would be Clefable as the new specwall and making CBers more viable than they are now. I guess that sounds fair.

 

Well, this is a lot of what makes people reluctant to ban certain pokemon. They think that a metagame must necessarily improve with each ban. The problem is that if we have "OP stuff" to check "OP stuff," then banning one of them will make the other worse, hence possibly making the metagame worse. Was it the wrong thing to do? No. It just means that we need more bans. In a metagame which is almost good, each ban might improve the metagame, but in a metagame that is born from usage stats, there might be a lot of things that are banworthy, but somewhat balance each other out. In that case, we might not see a better metagame untill all of them are banned. What I am saying is that UU still suffers from being very careful with banning right after the creation, and that Kangaskhan is one of the pokemon in the pool that should have gone rather early.

 

Does a metagame with clefable as the main special wall look better? One of the best ways of beating special walls, by using choice banders, is at least effective against clefable, while it almost fails against kangaskhan due to it's raw power. But based on my comment above, none of this matters when we are considering whether kangaskhan is banworthy.

 

The problem is we cannot know. It could very well be that after banning multiple things and meta getting worse and worse suddenly with enough bans we would reach an enjoyable, balanced metagame. But we cannot know. Pre-usage statistics metagame we did like 9-10 quick bans in NU and I'm not convinced the metagame we got after it was any better. We just had 10 less Pokemon, sameish problems. Everyone were on the board of banning all these things but the outcome still wasn't what we wanted.

 

Even more so, the tiers are changing constantly by usage. We cannot really artificially try to make a tier too much of the like we want because usage might mess it up anyways. Because of these reasons I think metagame should be observed ban by ban and if the metagame doesn't get better by each ban, then I guess you cannot argue the Pokemon was in fact unhealthy to the metagame. I'm aware there are multiple aspects to a healthy metagame and that makes this the worse. What we can all agree on regarding Kangaskhan that it isn't too nice when a Pokemon automatically takes 1 out of 6 party slots in majority of the cases but then again, it is not the only aspect to a healthy metagame. I think what Keith pointed out about Clefable being the specwall making offensive play more viable is pretty big and if we were to consider offensive play is not as viable as we want it to be I guess you have now two big reasons to consider why Kangaskhan is unhealthy to the metagame.

[LionKIng]

I don't think that banning kanga will solve anything, in fact it will only result in more bans wich is bad for the smallest tier in pokemmo right now. Not having scizor in the tier means kanga can use icepunch over firepunch making it harder for the metagame to have viable switch ins. I really think scizors ban was unecessary and every time theres a ban like that (over a period of tourneys) we somehow not get tourneys for a few weeks and then the dust settles and people forget all about that pokemon. Is it a coincidence? Maybe but some would argue that it has happened a few times already, the same thing hapenned with gengar. 

 

But I agree that the UU tier is cancer atm but I do not think it is because of kanga alone. Its the lack of good offensive pokes, each time we have good wall breakers they get banned because they are deemed too OP. Take scizor for exemple. We also lack diversity in the tier, half the pokemon in it are either BL2 or just at the cutoff to go to NU. Wich doesnt mean they are not viable but there is other stuff that can do it better within the same tier. 

 

Heres a reason why I think usage does not work on a mmo enverinonement : Tiers are always changing because of usage and sometimes they do not warrant a ban/unban, and this causes constant change and is hard to keep up for the majority of the community. Its hard to adapt to a new tier because grinding a new comp takes alot of time and dedication, how many times did someone grind for a comp and it got banned within the week it was done? I know it hapenned to me with the unbans and since then I have a hard time getting back into UU because its unstable, and breeding a new poke takes ressources and I have no garanty that itll stay in the tier. Same thing hapenned with my scizors I had in bank, they are now useless. I mean sure it would work if it was easyer to get a comp but as it is now, its too hard to remake a complete new team for a tier that will last one month and you will have to adapt to the meta or quit it. 

 

I seriously feel and have felt this way since tiers by usage was first presented that it would not work. Its been a year and we have no tiers to be proud off. Ou is somewhat decent but could probably be better. UU is a disaster and NU has more pokemons than OU and UU and ubers combined. Not sure if thats how its supposed to be but there should probably be more of those pokes in UU. If you ask me I really think for the above reasons that theorymon like we had in the past had a better success in tiering then what we have now. All the tier members that wanted this way of working are now all gone(Senile and thinknice mostly) why are they gone? did they realise they did a fiasco with this way of doing? We arent showdown, we can not poop comps like we want to and constant changes is really bad for the competitive scene.

 

I May have repeated myself a few times and I sincerly apologize, im not the best at doing big speaches like this. But I want things to change and Im positive that tiers by usage is bad for this game, and tier council members should push for a better way of doing tiers, because so far I am very dissapointed in how it has been handled. 1 step forwards 10 step backwards since it waas introduced. They seem to be banning stuff out of theorymon and screwing tiers afterwards by tiering usage, does not make any sens to me. Either do it 1 way or the other, both will not work. 

[DoubleJ]

 

Also I wanna address something here: If we were in a metagame with Clefable as the specwall instead of Kangaskhan, would the metagame be better?

 

I would have to argue that it wouldn't be better. Clefable sorely lacks any offense and its primary set which includes Seismic Toss is torn to shreds by Ghost-types. When you use Clefable you are basically just RNG bait since you are relying on Wish/Protect as your primary form of healing and you have to withstand powerful Thunderbolts and Ice Beams. While Clef is a great special wall, it really lacks something when it comes to our current UU metagame. Kangaskhan fills the role much better (obvious) and it can heal itself from any problematic RNG through Early Bird/Rest. 

 

tl;dr Clefable can take hits, but it's bad since everything under the sun can switch in on it

[Viking]

i think kanga is not neccessary to wall the special offenses ..

 

Cradily / Clefable and probably many others pokemons can replace him, ofc they are more weak and less offensive..

I think a bann could be nice and force ppl to think a little more about their team build

[PandaJJ]

The problem is we cannot know. It could very well be that after banning multiple things and meta getting worse and worse suddenly with enough bans we would reach an enjoyable, balanced metagame. But we cannot know. 

 

We ban things according to tiering policies. Tiering policies say nothing about what the metagame looks like after the ban has been put into effect. Why? Because as I illustrated, if a metagame contains two banworthy pokemon that checks each other and we ban one of them, the metagame will now be overcentralized around the other. This shows that determining whether a ban was correct or not by looking at the resulting metagame is not a good way to approach the problem. If the metagame is still containing banworthy pokemon, they will be banned next. While we "can't know" that the metagame won't get worse with every single ban, if that were the case, our tiering policy is not working. However, these tiering policies are taken from and used by smogon, and they seem to work. There is also great evidence to suggest that this never will happen. If you order pokemon by base stats, they will form a pyramid. The pokemon that are banworthy are typically at the top of this pyramid, and as more bans go through, the pyramid is flattened out. Since typing is fairly evenly distributed, we would expect to reach a metagame with a lot of variety and viable pokemon.

 

 

I don't think that banning kanga will solve anything, in fact it will only result in more bans wich is bad for the smallest tier in pokemmo right now.

 

That comment does not belong in a tiering discussion. We very well do know that a single ban might not solve any problems by itself, but if it doesn't the following bans will. Techically UU is not the smallest tier in the game, NU is. What typically happens is that when a banworthy pokemon is banned, several underused pokemon become viable in it's place, or because of its absence. Bans more often than not makes for more viable pokemon, not less. If kangaskhan is deemed banworthy but does not make more pokemon viable, it's because there are other things that prevent that.

 

Scizor

 

Scizor was mistakenly unbanned several months ago due to a formal inaccuracy in the comment explaining its ban. We alll knew it was banworthy all along, it's sad that it took them so long to ban it again.

 

Usage

 

There is little difference between the way we ban things now as opposed to what we used to do. We do have more precise banning criteria now, however. The diffrence between before and now is this:

-Before we started with a list of pokemon that people thought were not used a lot in the above tier and were not broken in the tier they were placed in. Then we proceeded to ban pokemon that seemed banworthy, and bring back pokemon that did not seem broken.

-Now we started with a list of pokemon that did not have a certain usage in the above tier. We then proceeded to ban things according to ban criteria, occasionally bringing down stuff that is seeing too little usage in the above tier.

Now, the list we started with is bound to be a lot further away from our ideal metagame than the one we started with before. This is why I think it was a mistake to be reluctant to make a lot of quick bans. The way I see it, usage is simply a way to remove pokemon from the metagame that is already seen in a higher tier, in a way to make the pokemon in the tier be less arbitrary. I remember we had forretress in UU before, despite it being used quite a lot in OU. This won't happen anymore, and it's not a problem as long as we adjust the metagame according to tiering principles. I think we are getting a lot closer to a varied metagame now than we ever were, as long as we stop doubting tiering policies.

 

And seeing is this has now turned into a clefable discussion against my original intention, let me clear that up. Somebody here was concerned that by banning kangaskhan, UU is suddenly stripped of all it's viable special walls. I was merely pointing out that this can't possibly be true, seeing as clefable has the same defensive stats and typing as kangaskhan. I just wanted to say that the metagame is not gonna be thrown into turmoil, although even if it that happens, it is not relevant to this discussion. The pokemon respinsible for such a turmoil would then be banned. 

 

So far none of the arguments against a kangakshan ban are valid by tiering policies, making me wonder if people are doubting them to begin with.

[Gunthug]

My one gripe with your argument, Panda (forgive me for not quoting, I'm on my phone), is that i really can't see kanga fitting into one of the main three uber criteria. It's not sweeping a majority of the Meta, it's not walling a majority of the meta (mostly just sp attackers), and it's certainly not a support uber. What we have is a Pokemon with a frightening combination of strength, bulk, and speed that borrows attributes from all the uber criteria. It is certainly centralizing, that much cannot be debated (by far the easiest Pokemon to slot into any team/play style right now) but the question becomes whether that centralization is unhealthy for the meta game.

Unfortunately due to the subjective nature of unhealthiness bans, we have no real option but to look at the meta game after a theoretical ban. This is why most unhealthiness bans are preceded by a test-ban to determine the ban's effect on the meta. If, for example, we test banned kanga for 4 tournaments, and the resulting metagame was unbalanced and dominated by pokes like manectric or rain omastar (just an example, not saying it would be), we'd have to determine whether the kanga ban actually improved the health of the meta or not. It's super subjective and generally a last resort, but I have a hunch that's where this discussion is headed

[OrangeManiac]

We ban things according to tiering policies. Tiering policies say nothing about what the metagame looks like after the ban has been put into effect. Why? Because as I illustrated, if a metagame contains two banworthy pokemon that checks each other and we ban one of them, the metagame will now be overcentralized around the other. This shows that determining whether a ban was correct or not by looking at the resulting metagame is not a good way to approach the problem. If the metagame is still containing banworthy pokemon, they will be banned next. While we "can't know" that the metagame won't get worse with every single ban, if that were the case, our tiering policy is not working. However, these tiering policies are taken from and used by smogon, and they seem to work. There is also great evidence to suggest that this never will happen. If you order pokemon by base stats, they will form a pyramid. The pokemon that are banworthy are typically at the top of this pyramid, and as more bans go through, the pyramid is flattened out. Since typing is fairly evenly distributed, we would expect to reach a metagame with a lot of variety and viable pokemon.

 

Well if we were to look at those tiering policies, they're probably the vaguest thing on the planet. I could name plenty of Pokemon from any tier ever and reason why they are unhealthy to some degree and by the tiering policy definition it theoretically could even make sense. "Forretress (or any other spiker) is an unhealthy Pokemon because it makes you run either a Rapid Spinner or Magneton, both of which are low in numbers so it centralizes the meta a lot. Pls beuhn." By approaching only one aspect of "unhealthiness" theoratically you could make stupid arguments like I just made about Forretress but even Forretress to a degree is a meta centralizing. I'm fairly dissapointed we don't use the Smogon's "what a good metagame should look like" long ass post used as a "guideline" which ThinkNice used to link back and forth when he was in the council but it was never implemented as a thing to "Senile's Tiering Etiquette Guide" which is kind of the thing we use as "tiering policies" now. I'm just saying we kinda have to look at the metagame when defining what is an unhealthy Pokemon for a metagame, otherwise I just see it impossible.

 

Also if there was to objectively determine a banworthy Pokemon, there would be need only for a one guy. No council, no discussion threats, nothing.

[DoubleJ]

 

Also if there was to objectively determine a banworthy Pokemon, there would be need only for a one guy. No council, no discussion threats, nothing.

 

DoubleJ for Supreme Ruler of the Objective PokeMMO Tier Council

 

 

EDIT: Regardless, there are pros and cons to both systems. Fortunately usage based tiering removes the most subjectivity from bans and thus we can effectively function at a higher level. The old system was poop because there was no baseline to build upon other than Gen 3 Smogon which is not the gen we are currently playing in. We are in a unique system that deserves its own tiering system. 

 

 

EDIT2: While this is an important discussion, I think we should move on from it here. If the community truly wants to have a new tiering system, then that discussion should be made through it's own thread. I would suggest first contacting Tyrone in private pm with your request and then opening a discussion thread if necessary. 

Edited February 18, 2016 by DoubleJ

[Tyrone]

It's great to see so much input on this so far.

 

But I've got to remind you guys of following message:

 

Please keep the Discussion on topic.

 

 

If you wish to Discuss tiering policies, there's a nice thread here.

https://forums.pokemmo.eu/index.php?/topic/52463-tier-policy-discussion-usages-actual-role-in-tiering/

[Gunthug]

I don't even think we should be discussing usage based tiering vs. whatever lesser alternative exists. Usage is how tiering is supposed to work, hence the names "overused," "underused," etc. the ONLY reason we haven't always done it this way is our lack of usage statistics in the past. Let's focus on our metagame and not get derailed by cries for a crappy old meta that isn't coming back

Ninjad by tyrone

Edited February 18, 2016 by Gunthug

[DrCraig]

@PandaJJ

@Gunthug

@GenerallySpeakingButILikedTheirArguments

 

I would like everybody to be aware of the notion Panda is setting. We make bans when pokemon are a problem in the meta at a moment in time, and the future is, for the most part, disregarded. If we didn't ban Kangaskhan because Clefable will replace it, that's pretty damn lame. We definitely have options following a theoretical Kangaskhan ban as multiple people have said, but that is not very relevant. I'm not implying we are going to ban Kangakhan tomorrow either; The tier council and competitive alley discussion are still developing.

 

Also regarding policy: the policies are very broad. Gengar, as an example, was a tricky pokemon and I'd put Kangaskhan in that same category. Not every banworthy pokemon will fall into three objective ban characteristics. We cannot base every single decision off of uber characteristics, and when a pokemon is arguably even unhealthy it gets complicated. I don't encourage anybody to interpret this as we can ban pokemon because "they're good at stuff but like the policy doesn't have a section for it." Kangaskhan is sitting right now in a situation where it seems necessary to ban it and the arguments for both sides are pretty weak. I want to see more tournaments and of course more discussion. I wish we had more UU tournaments in the past 1 and 1/2 months.

Also if there was to objectively determine a banworthy Pokemon, there would be need only for a one guy. No council, no discussion threats, nothing.

 

 

@PeopleWhoDontLikeUsage

Usage statistics were only put forth as a logical way to create an overused, underused and neverused tiers. Strength base tiering ultimately must follow because there is no way these tiers will balance themselves. We do not use usage as a primary characteristic for ban either, it is rather a tool. We have a small sample size which really sucks, but if pokemon are reaching 40% usage or so, they're going to turn some heads.

LF usage tyrone

 

 

I've been reading the discussions and I don't think I am ready to make a decision yet. I don't know about other tier council members, but I'd assume the feeling is mutual.

[OrangeManiac]

It's great to see so much input on this so far.

 

But I've got to remind you guys of following message:

 

Please keep the Discussion on topic.

 

 

If you wish to Discuss tiering policies, there's a nice thread here.

https://forums.pokemmo.eu/index.php?/topic/52463-tier-policy-discussion-usages-actual-role-in-tiering/

 

Why is this thread still a thing. I think it should be trashed but opening up an overall tiering policy discussion guide would be beneficial if you find those kind of comments "not on-topic", even though they kinda are on-topic.

Edited February 18, 2016 by OrangeManiac

[PandaJJ]

My one gripe with your argument, Panda (forgive me for not quoting, I'm on my phone), is that i really can't see kanga fitting into one of the main three uber criteria. It's not sweeping a majority of the Meta, it's not walling a majority of the meta (mostly just sp attackers), and it's certainly not a support uber. What we have is a Pokemon with a frightening combination of strength, bulk, and speed that borrows attributes from all the uber criteria. It is certainly centralizing, that much cannot be debated (by far the easiest Pokemon to slot into any team/play style right now) but the question becomes whether that centralization is unhealthy for the meta game.

Unfortunately due to the subjective nature of unhealthiness bans, we have no real option but to look at the meta game after a theoretical ban. This is why most unhealthiness bans are preceded by a test-ban to determine the ban's effect on the meta. If, for example, we test banned kanga for 4 tournaments, and the resulting metagame was unbalanced and dominated by pokes like manectric or rain omastar (just an example, not saying it would be), we'd have to determine whether the kanga ban actually improved the health of the meta or not. It's super subjective and generally a last resort, but I have a hunch that's where this discussion is headed

 

You are right, it's a bit annoying that it doesn't fit into one of the uber criteria. I'm also just 95% sure it's banworty, I will let it be up to others to make that decision, I just felt the duscussion was really lacking in finding good arguments against kangaskhan (and I still believe clefable has nothing to do with this discussion.) I do however see a startling resemblance to snorlax in OU, I was however unable to dig up the thread for banning that. 

 

Well if we were to look at those tiering policies, they're probably the vaguest thing on the planet. I could name plenty of Pokemon from any tier ever and reason why they are unhealthy to some degree and by the tiering policy definition it theoretically could even make sense. "Forretress (or any other spiker) is an unhealthy Pokemon because it makes you run either a Rapid Spinner or Magneton, both of which are low in numbers so it centralizes the meta a lot. Pls beuhn." By approaching only one aspect of "unhealthiness" theoratically you could make stupid arguments like I just made about Forretress but even Forretress to a degree is a meta centralizing. I'm fairly dissapointed we don't use the Smogon's "what a good metagame should look like" long ass post used as a "guideline" which ThinkNice used to link back and forth when he was in the council but it was never implemented as a thing to "Senile's Tiering Etiquette Guide" which is kind of the thing we use as "tiering policies" now. I'm just saying we kinda have to look at the metagame when defining what is an unhealthy Pokemon for a metagame, otherwise I just see it impossible.

 

Also if there was to objectively determine a banworthy Pokemon, there would be need only for a one guy. No council, no discussion threats, nothing.

 

I was refering to Senile's thread, not the first one (that one is indeed vague.) The line between centralizing and overcentralizing is indeed subjective, your forretress is of course not even close to being overcentralizing (most notable because spikes does not even force you to run rapid spin, it can still be beaten.)

 

I will stop talking about tiering policies as per request by council members. Somebody should have a look at that snorlax thread, though.

[Gunthug]

Getting back to kanga, I want to propose a question. Is there any reason to run another spdef wall aside from Kanga right now? (Aside from wanting to run a different kanga set on the same team lol).

I'm glad you mentioned snorlax, Panda, because one similarity I'm seeing is that snorlax was just too good not to use.

[DoubleJ]

Clefable isn't the focus of this topic, but the question was just posed to assess a meta relying on Kangaskhan as the primary special wall vs a meta relying on Clefable as the primary special wall. This to me is a valid question regarding health of a tier, but it can only be made through speculation and understanding of the tier before Kangaskhan. 

 

Now that we have grown tired of that discussion, let's get back to the pros and cons of having Kangaskhan in the tier:

 

Pros

• Kangaskhan effectively checks overpowered special attackers such as Manectric, Haunter, Agility Ampharos, Rain Dance Omastar, Sunny Exeggutor, CM Slowking, etc
• Kangaskhan creates diversity, outside of its own use (right now this is only speculation by my own investigation of the tier... lf usage)
• Kangaskhan has counters and is limited by 4MSS when functioning as a special wall 
• Kangaskhan limits the effect of toxic stall on the meta

Cons

• Kangaskhan's above average speed prevents a lot of revenge kills from slower threats late-game which might succumb to a STAB DE
• Kangaskhan's bulk prevents a lot of revenge kills from non-CB attackers
• Rest + Early bird prevents Toxic stall
• Kangaskhan's moveset is very diverse preventing any one pokemon from countering all of its sets
• There are very few switch in opportunities outside of anything that resists STAB DE

***This is an analysis of the Special Wall Kanga only and excludes comments on CB Kanga

Edited February 18, 2016 by DoubleJ

[BurntZebra]

i think kanga is not neccessary to wall the special offenses ..

 

Cradily / Clefable and probably many others pokemons can replace him, ofc they are more weak and less offensive..

I think a bann could be nice and force ppl to think a little more about their team build

If cradily and clefable wall the same special attackers as kangaskhan, and its established that kangaskhan isn't offensive uber, then you have no argument to be made. People already have to think about their UU team a ton. Kangaskhan doesn't have a great match up vs every team. Some teams might prefer thunder wave or aromatherapy support from clefable, or the sweeping capability of curse cradily, while also being a harder stop to manectric. 

 

We ban things according to tiering policies. Tiering policies say nothing about what the metagame looks like after the ban has been put into effect. Why? Because as I illustrated, if a metagame contains two banworthy pokemon that checks each other and we ban one of them, the metagame will now be overcentralized around the other. This shows that determining whether a ban was correct or not by looking at the resulting metagame is not a good way to approach the problem. If the metagame is still containing banworthy pokemon, they will be banned next. While we "can't know" that the metagame won't get worse with every single ban, if that were the case, our tiering policy is not working. However, these tiering policies are taken from and used by smogon, and they seem to work. There is also great evidence to suggest that this never will happen. If you order pokemon by base stats, they will form a pyramid. The pokemon that are banworthy are typically at the top of this pyramid, and as more bans go through, the pyramid is flattened out. Since typing is fairly evenly distributed, we would expect to reach a metagame with a lot of variety and viable pokemon.

 

 

 

That comment does not belong in a tiering discussion. We very well do know that a single ban might not solve any problems by itself, but if it doesn't the following bans will. Techically UU is not the smallest tier in the game, NU is. What typically happens is that when a banworthy pokemon is banned, several underused pokemon become viable in it's place, or because of its absence. Bans more often than not makes for more viable pokemon, not less. If kangaskhan is deemed banworthy but does not make more pokemon viable, it's because there are other things that prevent that.

 

 

Scizor was mistakenly unbanned several months ago due to a formal inaccuracy in the comment explaining its ban. We alll knew it was banworthy all along, it's sad that it took them so long to ban it again.

 

 

There is little difference between the way we ban things now as opposed to what we used to do. We do have more precise banning criteria now, however. The diffrence between before and now is this:

-Before we started with a list of pokemon that people thought were not used a lot in the above tier and were not broken in the tier they were placed in. Then we proceeded to ban pokemon that seemed banworthy, and bring back pokemon that did not seem broken.

-Now we started with a list of pokemon that did not have a certain usage in the above tier. We then proceeded to ban things according to ban criteria, occasionally bringing down stuff that is seeing too little usage in the above tier.

Now, the list we started with is bound to be a lot further away from our ideal metagame than the one we started with before. This is why I think it was a mistake to be reluctant to make a lot of quick bans. The way I see it, usage is simply a way to remove pokemon from the metagame that is already seen in a higher tier, in a way to make the pokemon in the tier be less arbitrary. I remember we had forretress in UU before, despite it being used quite a lot in OU. This won't happen anymore, and it's not a problem as long as we adjust the metagame according to tiering principles. I think we are getting a lot closer to a varied metagame now than we ever were, as long as we stop doubting tiering policies.

 

And seeing is this has now turned into a clefable discussion against my original intention, let me clear that up. Somebody here was concerned that by banning kangaskhan, UU is suddenly stripped of all it's viable special walls. I was merely pointing out that this can't possibly be true, seeing as clefable has the same defensive stats and typing as kangaskhan. I just wanted to say that the metagame is not gonna be thrown into turmoil, although even if it that happens, it is not relevant to this discussion. The pokemon respinsible for such a turmoil would then be banned. 

 

So far none of the arguments against a kangakshan ban are valid by tiering policies, making me wonder if people are doubting them to begin with.

First, I would say that base stats definitely can't be an indicator of anything significant. Typing, ability, and moves have a large factor in what makes a pokemon powerful/banworthy, in addition to base stats. Wobbuffet's base stats are quite low, but its still banworthy just based off of its ability. Typing plays some role in pokemon, like normal pokemon are almost always superior special walls just because we lack special fighting moves, but that's not really the case for all types. The scizor ban was a bit interesting. It wasn't really offensive uber because defensive pokemon with fire moves could check it, but it wasn't really thought of being banworthy because the complaint about the UU meta was that it was too defensive and most thought that banning scizor would only make the tier more defensive. In fact, slowking was nearly banned instead of scizor first, even getting voted 5-1 in favor of a ban (I am the lone wolf), before craig went sassy black woman on everyone. Anyways, I don't really think the scizor ban should have happened any quicker. If we rushed through the tiering process, things end up being banned that shouldn't be banned. 

 

Also quoted from something I said in tier council thread relating to my opinion on kangaskhan.

 

 I'm not really sure if banning kanga will help *that* much. Cradily and clefable still shut down pretty much all special attackers, while swellow+houndoom can take out the set up pokemon that the special walls can't handle. In most of my UU battles, I'd much rather see a kangaskhan than a clefable. Clefable can keep a surprising amount of momentum with wish, while also fairing better than kangas vs some choice banders like steelix or armaldo. Clefable also has the advantage of always running protect, which makes choice banders very difficult to use effectively, and set up pokemon are inferior to choice banders in most pokemon. Kangaskhan's wish set is vastly inferior to clefable, so kangaskhan is basically a lone wolf every match it plays in.

 

Cradily is another issue unto itself, as the curse set is way too capable of sweeping teams, basically relying on ice beam rng or psychic special defense drops to have a chance at taking it out. Very few pokemon are able to take out a cradily at +1 defense and even fewer can switch in on cradily's attacks before it's even boosted. 

 

If the argument for banning kangaskhan is that special attackers are not viable, then a) banning kangaskhan won't really help, as cradily/clefable handle most just as well, or b ) special attackers are already pretty powerful and not even kangaskhan/other special walls really stop them. Type boosting items are the saviors for special attackers, allowing pokemon like houndoom to do up to 95% to max hp/special defense kangaskhan, or exeggutor to 2hko kangaskhan with solarbeam consistently. Even magnet ampharos does a whole 45-50% to kangaskhan. Bold misdreavus can set up on kangaskhan lacking crunch, as fire punch/ice punch won't break sub, which also beats clefable as well. 

 

I'm not really convinced of a kangaskhan ban at this point. Similar problem to chansey in OU, if banning the special wall doesn't make special attackers noticeably more viable, then what's the point. 

 

 

You are right, it's a bit annoying that it doesn't fit into one of the uber criteria. I'm also just 95% sure it's banworty, I will let it be up to others to make that decision, I just felt the duscussion was really lacking in finding good arguments against kangaskhan (and I still believe clefable has nothing to do with this discussion.) I do however see a startling resemblance to snorlax in OU, I was however unable to dig up the thread for banning that. 

 

 

I was refering to Senile's thread, not the first one (that one is indeed vague.) The line between centralizing and overcentralizing is indeed subjective, your forretress is of course not even close to being overcentralizing (most notable because spikes does not even force you to run rapid spin, it can still be beaten.)

 

I will stop talking about tiering policies as per request by council members. Somebody should have a look at that snorlax thread, though.

Kangaskhan definitely has some similar characteristics, although definitely not as extreme. The comparative bulk is still lacking, the usage of it is still lacking, the sweeping capabilities of it is lacking. It appears most discussion threads before hoenn have been trashed, although staff members may be able to dig some back up. 

 

I talked about overcentralization a lot when slowking was being discussed. It basically came down to "Are people running pokemon specifically to counter it?" and "Will those pokemon still be used if slowking was banned?". The answer seemed to be no for the first one and yes to the second one, leading to the conclusion that its not actually that centralizing. For kangaskhan, I can't really be sure. Are people running stuff specifically for kangaskhan? Maybe, although things that wall kangaskhan also wall swellow, one of the most used pokemon in UU, along with other huge threats like zangoose and granbull. If kangaskhan is banned, will people still run steelix/armaldo/cradily/sableye? Potentially, at least for the first 3, and currently I don't think sableye gets that much usage anyways. The other question to ask is "does kangaskhan make special attackers unviable?" That is probably the more important question to kangaskhan's effect on the meta, but it is also more difficult to answer. 

[Toast]

Getting back to kanga, I want to propose a question. Is there any reason to run another spdef wall aside from Kanga right now? (Aside from wanting to run a different kanga set on the same team lol).

I'm glad you mentioned snorlax, Panda, because one similarity I'm seeing is that snorlax was just too good not to use.

In my opinion yes there is, as for myself I don't usually run kanga because I think it's easily exploitable. Although Kanga is relatively easy to use, I always find difficulty running a specific def/sdef core with it. The most common core is probably Vileplume + Kanga (usage when), but even then that defensive core has it's flaws, such as normal spam or EQ spam. Because of that, IMO you'll have to run another wall to patch up those weaknesses, which I believe why the tier *may* seem so stally/wally. I think the reason why Kanga is so strong is because of the cores, not Kanga itself. I suppose this is where diversity/teambuilding starts to kick in, since every core is usually revolved around Kanga, new pokes are coming out to break those cores. Although Kanga is centralizing, there are pokes that can be subbed with it, even though nothing really compares to Kanga. Pokes such as cradily, lanturn, ampharos etc. can be used as a sdef wall, then possibly be backed up with a different core, which I hope that's where we can see more offense rolling in. tl;dr basically Kanga is really easy to use aslong as you have the right core, so everyone is using it which may be the reason why Kanga is so hard to take down, because of the lack of offense. Definitely need to see more UU tourneys kicking in for diversity or w/e, I think people are still adapting with Scizor gone, but I definitely do see a lot more diversity so that's great.

[gguti]

1 pokemon walling completely the 17 special atackers in the UU tier (and some physicals). Why is this even a discussion?

 

It's not like he's a Chansey that seismic toss you, he has massive stats and stab DE.

 

Some pokes like growth venu can setup on chansey easily, I don't see any special atkers in UU setting up on Kanga

 

He even walls some physical atkers.

 

The best answer to him would be... Steelix?, which unless CB does practically no damage, and Kanga with EQ ends up winning 

Edited March 22, 2016 by gguti