[UU Discussion] Vaporeon [Banned to BL]

[Tyrone]

 

The Tier Council would like to discuss the possibility of Vaporeon being banned from UU under either the unhealthiness, overcentralization, or offensive uber characteristic. Vaporeon has several different options in the sets it can run, meaning it can fit into a variety of team archetypes. Vaporeon's base stats and movepool make it a popular choice for many UU teams, which could lead to a meta centralized around Vaporeon. 

 

Sets:

 

Vaporeon @ Leftovers  

Ability: Water Absorb  

EVs: 116 Def / 252 SpA / 140 Spe  

Modest Nature  

- Growth  / Wish

- Surf  

- Ice Beam  

- Hidden Power [Electric]  / Hidden Power [Grass] / Wish

 

The offensive set is quite the surprise for most people, as its time in OU gave it a defensive connotation, rather than something you might see sweeping. This Vaporeon might not sweep through teams completely, but it can do some serious damage by 2hko'ing special defensive Cradily at +1, or doing 45-50% to special defensive Kangaskhan at +1. Unfortunately, this vaporeon has no where near the same amount of bulk as the max hp/defense variant that everyone knows. This leaves vaporeon prone to being revenge killed by Swellow, Breloom, Zangoose, Granbull, Donphan, Azumarill, etc. The first three moves are set in stone for the most part, but the fourth move can be wish or hidden power grass as well, as hidden power electric coverage is not always necessary. 

 

Vaporeon @ Leftovers  

Ability: Water Absorb  

EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spe  

Bold Nature  

- Wish  

- Protect  

- Ice Beam  / Heal Bell / Hidden Power [Electric]

- Surf  

 

This is the standard set which gives up a lot of offense in order to take physical attacks better. This Vaporeon can no longer take on Kangaskhan or Cradily, but it takes on the physical attackers listed above much better, usually only being 2hko'ed by most of them. This Vaporeon also can support members on either a defensive team or an offensive team, making it a popular choice for many teams. This set will rarely be able to run heal bell without repercussions as dropping any move on the set will open up many more weaknesses, either to grass types, strong physical attackers, or bulky pokemon in general. 

 

Although Vaporeon is seemingly bulky, it struggles with status, strong attackers, and certain set up pokemon. One might think that Vaporeon can pass endless wishes to a Clefable or Vileplume to patch up its weakness to status, but strong physical attackers such as Donphan, Crawdaunt, or Zangoose discourage that greatly. Other pokemon such as swords dance Tentacruel can take advantage of Vaporeon's limited coverage and easily set up for a quick kill on some pokemon. 

 

Due to Vaporeon's potential versatility and above average base stats, the Tier Council sees Vaporeon as a potentially unhealthy and/or centralizing threat within the UU meta at this time. 

 

Please use this thread to discuss whether you believe Vaporeon should be moved up to BL or stay in UU.

[DoubleJ]

Idk, who keeps deleting my post over at the other thread (looks at Noad and Tyrone), but I'll say it a third time: Wish Vaporeon + Cleric Umbreon together with Steelix and Stalltaria is a nearly unbreakable core. The tier council is notorious for protecting, or turning a blind eye, to defensive threats in the tier and not instantly banning Vaporeon is another example of this. All I can ask is that Vaporeon is removed from UU as soon as possible. 

 

UU right now, is broken and disgusting. 

[Arimanius]

Well to be honest I agree with u jj but I would ban umbreon instead since only vaporeon for me could (COULD) bring some offensive to the uu meta with its offensive set and the defensive one is really exploitable with the common breloom, the normal spammers like kanga or zangoose physical tentacruel and the special attackers like tentacruel, manetric and also the status like toxic and can put some pressure in the walls like defensive plume and defensive exegg and would stop houndoom cold. But I do agree those cores u mentioned or even umbreon+vaporeon+omastar/steelix+crobat/exeggutor is imposible to break, it was my first thought when both came down

[OrangeManiac]

I don't think Vaporeon is good for the UU metagame in a lot of ways. The biggest issue is that main offensive threats have so much trouble switching in for Vaporeon, which makes the Wishing unacceptably easy. The main Pokemon to defeat Vaporeon are defensive Pokemon and that won't help to make the tier much more healthy considering UU already had issues with reliably breaking the defensive cores. Vaporeon, however is the worst offender and not even a product of a nicely working core due to such a significantly nice special attack. I personally think if there was to ease out the stagnation of the UU metagame, Vaporeon just has to go. I'd say it wouldn't be wrong to consider it support Ubers. 

[BurntZebra]

Idk, who keeps deleting my post over at the other thread (looks at Noad and Tyrone), but I'll say it a third time: Wish Vaporeon + Cleric Umbreon together with Steelix and Stalltaria is a nearly unbreakable core. The tier council is notorious for protecting, or turning a blind eye, to defensive threats in the tier and not instantly banning Vaporeon is another example of this. All I can ask is that Vaporeon is removed from UU as soon as possible. 

 

UU right now, is broken and disgusting. 

Well it turns out that there hasn't been a UU tournament since the drop downs, so you don't really know anything about the current meta. 

 

Even prior to the drop downs, the meta wasn't actually all that stall oriented. There are a large amount of offensive threats like swords dance zangoose, sunny beam exeggutor, rain dance omastar, swords dance tentacruel, crawdaunt, armaldo, agility ampharos, absol, etc. 

 

I don't think there can be actual justification for banning vaporeon under defensive uber, as it does not wall significant portions of the meta, not even 1/3 of the viable meta to be honest. I would say vaporeon would most likely fit under centralizing or unhealthy characteristics, but obviously neither of those can be claimed without actually seeing vaporeon in the official tournament format. 

[DoubleJ]

My post about banning Kingler has 21 likes and Zebra's post about keeping it around because, and let me paraphrase here, "vaporeon is a bad defensive poke", has only 1 like which is of course from craig. 

 

I think that right there is a bit of community support for banning the Water Fox, but let's just wait 1, 2, or 15 UU tournaments before making that decision. 

[BurntZebra]

My post about banning Kingler has 21 likes and Zebra's post about keeping it around because, and let me paraphrase here, "vaporeon is a bad defensive poke", has only 1 like which is of course from craig. 

 

I think that right there is a bit of community support for banning the Water Fox, but let's just wait 1, 2, or 15 UU tournaments before making that decision. 

I don't post on competition alley to get likes. I post to give my opinion on issues and to potentially inform the community. I'm not really trying to defend vaporeon, even though you'd like to make it look like I am, I'm just saying quickbanning it for defensive uber characteristics would be incredibly stupid because it's no where near defensive uber. I think it will end up being too centralizing as many people will run it on offensive teams to pressure walls and people will run it on defensive teams as it is the only thing that isn't 2hko'ed by choice band crawdaunt. But only time will tell if it truly is centralizing or unhealthy. Also if I recall correctly, you were the one who delayed banning rhydon+charizard for an inappropriately long length of time. I assume it will only take one tournament, assuming vaporeon is banworthy, for vaporeon to be voted on by the council. 

[DoubleJ]

I don't post on competition alley to get likes. I post to give my opinion on issues and to potentially inform the community. I'm not really trying to defend vaporeon, even though you'd like to make it look like I am, I'm just saying quickbanning it for defensive uber characteristics would be incredibly stupid because it's no where near defensive uber. I think it will end up being too centralizing as many people will run it on offensive teams to pressure walls and people will run it on defensive teams as it is the only thing that isn't 2hko'ed by choice band crawdaunt. But only time will tell if it truly is centralizing or unhealthy. Also if I recall correctly, you were the one who delayed banning rhydon+charizard for an inappropriately long length of time. I assume it will only take one tournament, assuming vaporeon is banworthy, for vaporeon to be voted on by the council. 

 

This is getting really, really old. To go off-topic, as you seem to want to do, the UU tier council consisted of only Artemiseta and myself. We didn't have a third member, but fortunately we did have Tyrone who was our overseer and he did in fact support each of our decisions. Whether that was to deliberate on Rhydon, ban Charizard first, or actively try to seek a third member. The community was torn and the UU council had to think on it. When we finally decided enough was enough, which was when Rhydon finally saw higher than 40% usage it was the week of the UU Summer Finale and I, nor some of the staff members who oversaw the council, wanted to flip the tier before that finale. So again, please just stop. Your argument is weak and you only try to force the issue because the community is in the dark to nearly all of the tier council's discussion.

 

But that's not here nor there, I do hope that you stick by your words and ban Vaporeon after one tournament. You can clearly see, but maybe not, that it is defensively too much for the tier and has the qualities that would justify a ban because of unhealthiness. The rest of the council wanted it gone from day one, but you had to throw your weight around and let it come down. And with that, I'm done discussing this with Zebra. It's on him now, since he's basically the council anyway. 

[DrCraig]

I do hope that you stick by your words and ban Vaporeon after one tournament.

I assume it will only take one tournament, assuming vaporeon is banworthy, for vaporeon to be voted on by the council. 

 

 

The rest of the council wanted it gone from day one, but you had to throw your weight around and let it come down.

 

1) Quick bans

Quick bans will be made when a certain aspect (be it a Pokémon, an ability, a move, an item or a combination of the aforementioned) of the metagame becomes so blatantly broken that passing it through a formal suspect test would be a waste of time and effort for everyone. From now on, quick bans will be made according to the following circumstances:
1.) Before the council makes any decisions, a thread will be posted in Competition Alley, so that everyone will get the chance to weigh in and potentially influence the decision. The thread will stay open for at least one week. Note that there does not necessarily need to be action after one week, a quickban could still be handed down weeks after the creation of the thread if for some reason the council feels the need to wait before making a decision.
2.) In the OP of the thread, and in comments by community members, there should be at least one mention of the quick ban so that the community knows it is being discussed.
3.) When the decision is made, the council will post in the thread and notify the community of the decision. The post will provide the reasons behind the ban. 

[BurntZebra]

This is getting really, really old. To go off-topic, as you seem to want to do, the UU tier council consisted of only Artemiseta and myself. We didn't have a third member, but fortunately we did have Tyrone who was our overseer and he did in fact support each of our decisions. Whether that was to deliberate on Rhydon, ban Charizard first, or actively try to seek a third member. The community was torn and the UU council had to think on it. When we finally decided enough was enough, which was when Rhydon finally saw higher than 40% usage it was the week of the UU Summer Finale and I, nor some of the staff members who oversaw the council, wanted to flip the tier before that finale. So again, please just stop. Your argument is weak and you only try to force the issue because the community is in the dark to nearly all of the tier council's discussion.

 

But that's not here nor there, I do hope that you stick by your words and ban Vaporeon after one tournament. You can clearly see, but maybe not, that it is defensively too much for the tier and has the qualities that would justify a ban because of unhealthiness. The rest of the council wanted it gone from day one, but you had to throw your weight around and let it come down. And with that, I'm done discussing this with Zebra. It's on him now, since he's basically the council anyway. 

I mean none of that is really true, pretty much all of the community outside of the ones who wanted to abuse rhydon+charizard wanted them banned, but that's besides the point. 

 

If you are really trying to prove that vaporeon is defensive uber, show me some calcs that actually show it being defensive uber. Vaporeon takes too much damage from attackers in general to be defensive uber. It can hardly take on choice band steelix, let alone threats like zangoose, donphan, breloom, or swords dance crawdaunt. Vaporeon also has no chance at stopping most of the special attackers in the tier either, as it loses to manectric/ampharos/exeggutor/lanturn straight up and is bait for calm mind slowking. You cannot claim unhealthiness on a pokemon that has never been seen in a tier before either, so stop trying. 

 

I am also in no way the whole tier council, but it has happened several times where there was a supposed consensus but a member eventually convinces others to change their vote. 

[Robofiend]

The reason that Vaporeon is getting more scrutiny than Umbreon is because Vaporeon actually has offense, while Umbreon is very similar to Clefable or other stallers who can Wish/Protect all day but can't really turn that into anything but a couple of stalled out turns for their team. Vaporeon's Surf alone (unboosted) does a sizeable chunk of damage to Steelix, Zangoose, Hitmonlee, Swellow, Manectric and a myriad of other physical attackers. Ice Beam hits Vileplume (+ other grassers) and Altaria hard enough to stop their setup or prevent them from counterstalling it.

 

Vaporeon's ability to stall out pretty much anything (Vileplume can't even 2HKO, Kanga can't break it, Clefable just counter stalls) is straight up toxic, especially since specially defensive teammates (Umbreon, Kangaskhan, Clefable, etc.) can back it up with even more Wish stall or sponge/cleric Toxic to keep Vaporeon healthy.

 

All of this doesn't even touch on how good the Modest Growth set is:

+1 252+ SpA Vaporeon Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Kangaskhan: 115-136 (54.2 - 64.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

2HKO on the tier's premier special wall is pretty amazing, not to mention that at +1 it has great chances against a ton of the tier's walls.

+1 252+ SpA Vaporeon Ice Beam vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Vileplume: 164-194 (90.6 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

+1 252+ SpA Vaporeon Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Slowking: 94-112 (46.5 - 55.4%) -- 16.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+2 252+ SpA Vaporeon Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon: 111-132 (54.9 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

All of this is sort of beside the point: honestly, Vaporeon wouldn't be that scary if it could only pull off this set. Faster sweepers break it much easier than the defensive set and Toxic stall from Umbreon or Clefable would be enough to keep it from boosting past them uncontested. But compound this with the fact that each set can equally help offensive and defensive teams and you've got the true definition of an S rank: meta defining, capable of pulling off many sets effectively, and effective on many teams. While Umbreon might meet the last criterion, I certainly don't see it becoming meta-defining, maybe even becoming a check against Kangaskhan, Houndoom and a number of other sweepers.

 

TL;DR - lets use this thread to discuss Vaporeon (or not, since it seems most people agree it's pretty scary) and we can talk about Umbreon later, since it lacks some of Vaporeon's best traits.

[OldKeith]

I got to semis in a UU tournament last nights and I did not see a Vaporeon. The preconceptions about it are pretty strong, but I think it should be tested in the UU.

 

There are too many things that threaten Vaporeon that see a lot of usage in UU at the moment:

Vileplume

Tentacruel

Lanturn

Pikachu/Manectric (although I did not encounter the latter 2)

 

Vapo is pretty strong in terms of support, and nobody likes new wish passers in our tier. But unless Vaporeon becomes a visible problem, I say see how it goes.

[RysPicz]

I got to semis in a UU tournament last nights and I did not see a Vaporeon. The preconceptions about it are pretty strong, but I think it should be tested in the UU.

 

There are too many things that threaten Vaporeon that see a lot of usage in UU at the moment:

Vileplume

Tentacruel

Lanturn

Pikachu/Manectric (although I did not encounter the latter 2)

 

Vapo is pretty strong in terms of support, and nobody likes new wish passers in our tier. But unless Vaporeon becomes a visible problem, I say see how it goes.

I think that the main reason you haven't seen any is that it's a high-risk poke. What I mean, UU society didn't bother breeding it yet in fear of Vap getting banned as soon as they finish.

Btw I'd add Cradily to the things that threaten Vap. Tenta doesn't really threaten it much when you check the damage calcs (Tenta can only 4hko 0/0 Vap with Giga Drain while Vap 2hkos Tenta after +1 HP Elec). And considering how the tier looks like now, I don't see the usual defensive set as the most threatening, but the offensive growth one.

Thing about offensive set is, that it might be seriously helpful for the meta, as we lack good setup special attackers (most of them are psychic-typed calm minders that get shut down by Houndoom) that can shit on Kangaskhan.

I would be more worried about Umbreon right now.

[Tyrone]

The Tier Council has decided to ban Vaporeon from UU to BL for the unhealthy uber characteristic. 

 

Vaporeon has a great defensive impact on the already very defensive UU meta. Due to its great offensive presence, offensive Pokemon have many problems switching in against Vaporeon such as Breloom, Granbull, Zangoose, Pikachu, Swellow, Haunter, Absol, and, Exeggutor. The only offensive Pokemon that reliably can switch to Vaporeon to steal the momentum from it are Tentacruel, Lanturn, Ampharos, Slowking, and Crawdaunt (assuming no HP Electric/Grass, yet both are highly possible). As so few Pokemon can switch in vs Vaporeon, this leads to defensive Pokemon being the only switch ins to Vaporeon, which adds to the problem of over-defensiveness that we've seen in the past.

 

In addition to its defensive and offensive characteristics, Vaporeon serves as a great supporter to its own defensive teammates. Vaporeon's offensive power gives also gives it fairly risk-free Wishes and Heal Bells which it can use to support its teammates and bulky Pokemon are general receivers of Wishes and the Pokemon that benefit from the Heal Bell.

 

The biggest setbacks of Vaporeon is that it cannot itself exactly switch to a lot of Pokemon but it still has enough bulk to serve as a reliable defensive pivot. It also has trouble switching in against offensive Pokemon when it is inflicted with status. 

 

Vaporeon has a great combination of high base stats, useful defensive typing, a niche ability, and an above average movepool, which makes it an easy choice for many player's teams and thus must be greatly considered in teambuilding. With this being said, Vaporeon's presence in UU is not healthy for the tier, and shall be moved to BL.