[OU Discussion] Snorlax [Test banned]

[Hotarubi]

On 11/1/2016 at 0:07 PM, Murcielago said:

I'm surprised this is still going on... at this point its clear that pachima simply doesn't like snorlax and wants it banned.  There are clear definitions as to what constitutes a ban and snorlax doesn't meet them.  At this point it is time to stop whining about it.

Yes you are right lets stop whining about it.

Lets have this snorlax fix.

[Murcielago]

We have gone around this merry-go-round time and time again hotarubi.  Simply because you want to use non-viable gimmicks in ou is not a basis to ban something that isn't broken.  I have already listed the reasons as to why snorlax shouldn't be banned, and it really shouldn't be.... 

 

Remember, banning snorlax will not fix inept team building, or sub-par game play... the two main issues plaguing most "snorlax haters"

[OrangeManiac]

I'm a bit worried about Snorlax' current usage. Not just the fact it's 45% but the fact the fact it is increasing and increasing despite people knowing their (good) opponents will use the maximum effort to check it. This argues that the Pokemon is just way too good. I personally stopped using Lax for the fact I expected to gain no momentum with it since I'm gonna face Hazers, SubPunch Looms, anything that will stoo Snorlax's momentum. Even despite of this Lax keeps increasing and increasing usage. Is Body Slam spam really that good? By looking at pure data, I can't do anything but agree it is. The fact since last usage checkpoint and forum discussion Lax has increased its usage even further I have no way but to personally incline to say this Pokemon is unhealthy for the metagame.

 

"There is no cure for cancer" - ThinkNice 2014

[KaynineXL]

An incline in usage is no evidence to imply it's unhealthy.

 

What we need to remember though, in OU, there really is only two truly viable special walls, Snorlax and Chansey. Sure, we could add Porygon, Umbreon, Venusaur, Gardevoir but honestly, they don't offer nearly as much as the first two I mentioned, they have their little niche's though.

 

When you have a choice of two special walls, does it really surprise you that their usage is high. It's not like physical walls where there's a whole bunch which you can mix up to make a nice defensive core.

[OrangeManiac]

7 minutes ago, KaynineXL said:

An incline in usage is no evidence to imply it's unhealthy.

 

What we need to remember though, in OU, there really is only two truly viable special walls, Snorlax and Chansey. Sure, we could add Porygon, Umbreon, Venusaur, Gardevoir but honestly, they don't offer nearly as much as the first two I mentioned, they have their little niche's though.

 

When you have a choice of two special walls, does it really surprise you that their usage is high. It's not like physical walls where there's a whole bunch which you can mix up to make a nice defensive core.

 

Because you said it as a lone paragraph I'm gonna have to 'correct' myself and say that usage obviously isn't the only indicator of unhealthiness, but one significant factor of it. There's lots of really 'unhealthy' things about Lax mostly relating to competitiveness and skill but I always wanted to argue "it's not uncompetitive enough and there's ways for to beat it if you build your team right" but at this point I don't even know what to argue for to keep Lax in other than "well maybe this isn't enough still for a Ubers sentence"..

 

I personally think that we don't need special walls with the same intensity as we did pre-scarf metagame. Offensive teams don't have that same issue as they did before with special sweepers. Plenty of Scarfers can beat special "monsters" like Zam, Jolteon and Starmie with quite of ease and many of the your mentioned lessen checks can often check every version of the scary spec sweepers barring set up + Life Orb set. And to be fair, if people wanted to just wall Zam and Starmie they would use Umbreon. Can't beat that Pursuit Trap as a psychic counter. I really don't think Lax is solely used because of the fact specsweepers are strong.

[KaynineXL]

2 minutes ago, OrangeManiac said:

 

Because you said it as a lone paragraph I'm gonna have to 'correct' myself and say that usage obviously isn't the only indicator of unhealthiness, but one significant factor of it. There's lots of really 'unhealthy' things about Lax mostly relating to competitiveness and skill but I always wanted to argue "it's not uncompetitive enough and there's ways for to beat it if you build your team right" but at this point I don't even know what to argue for to keep Lax in other than "well maybe this isn't enough still for a Ubers sentence"..

 

I personally think that we don't need special walls with the same intensity as we did pre-scarf metagame. Offensive teams don't have that same issue as they did before with special sweepers. Plenty of Scarfers can beat special "monsters" like Zam, Jolteon and Starmie with quite of ease and many of the your mentioned lessen checks can often check every version of the scary spec sweepers barring set up + Life Orb set. And to be fair, if people wanted to just wall Zam and Starmie they would use Umbreon. Can't beat that Pursuit Trap as a psychic counter. I really don't think Lax is solely used because of the fact specsweepers are strong.

When you say "I don't even know what to argue for to keep lax in other than....", that confuses me because I remember you making a great post a while back giving some great reasons why Snorlax has good qualities for OU. I also remember JJ made a good post mentioning some. Currently duelling someone atm, otherwise I'd go more into detail.

[OrangeManiac]

11 minutes ago, KaynineXL said:

When you say "I don't even know what to argue for to keep lax in other than....", that confuses me because I remember you making a great post a while back giving some great reasons why Snorlax has good qualities for OU. I also remember JJ made a good post mentioning some. Currently duelling someone atm, otherwise I'd go more into detail.

My "praise" for Snorlax was for the fact it gave ironically special sweepers more viability existing in the metagame than being banned because I assumed Lax users would use turn into Chansey. I'm just not that convinced people use Lax because of its special defensive abilities anymore but instead use Lax for whole other reasons. 

 

I like playing devil's advocate at times, not like I haven't seen what's wrong with Lax but when it was 7 pages in a row almost unfair bashing of Lax I just decided to say there might be a different perspectives to the issue.

[LuisPocho]

1 hour ago, KaynineXL said:

When you have a choice of two special walls, does it really surprise you that their usage is high. It's not like physical walls where there's a whole bunch which you can mix up to make a nice defensive core.

not only snorlax usage is high... snorlax´s counters´ usage is high too... even the usage of counters of snorlax counters´ is high!.. not even chansey triggered that... it has to mean something..

 well, maybe Im exaggerating but its true that it seems that players dont use a sole counter/check to control snorlax, they build almost the whole team around it... maybe because the great snorlax movepool...

[NikhilR]

The spdef walls in NU and UU wouldn't be so bad in OU, such as kecleon, cradily, wish raichu. Rest Kanga is also solid at taking hits and it can hit back hard while at the same time having its own flaws. Banning Snorlax would force people to run an spdef core rather than running one pokemon to handle all spakers. 

Edited November 7, 2016 by NikhilR

[KaynineXL]

Just now, NikhilR said:

The spdef walls in NU and UU wouldn't be so bad in OU, such as kecleon, cradily, wish raichu? Rest Kanga is also solid at taking hits and it can hit back hard while at the same time having its own flaws. Banning Snorlax would force people to run an spdef core rather than running one pokemon to handle all spakers. 

A sp def core?

 

Nik just wants us all to use walls. Get outa here.

[Murcielago]

2 hours ago, OrangeManiac said:

I'm a bit worried about Snorlax' current usage. Not just the fact it's 45% but the fact the fact it is increasing and increasing despite people knowing their (good) opponents will use the maximum effort to check it. This argues that the Pokemon is just way too good. I personally stopped using Lax for the fact I expected to gain no momentum with it since I'm gonna face Hazers, SubPunch Looms, anything that will stoo Snorlax's momentum. Even despite of this Lax keeps increasing and increasing usage. Is Body Slam spam really that good? By looking at pure data, I can't do anything but agree it is. The fact since last usage checkpoint and forum discussion Lax has increased its usage even further I have no way but to personally incline to say this Pokemon is unhealthy for the metagame.

 

"There is no cure for cancer" - ThinkNice 2014

A few things regarding this:

 

A:  You have to remember that the "Chansey is our only viable special wall" meta had a way more centralized distribution of usage.  We also had metagross at over 45% back then... along with seeing the same teams over and over, I really wish the usage statistics were available, it would but these "unhealthy" and "centralizing" arguments to rest.

 

B: No, body slam spam isn't good.  Its a strategy to deploy if your looking for a quick loss against someone who is half way decent.

 

C: We are probably seeing an increase in snorlax users because a lot of players don't want to grind and invest hours into breeding a pokemon just for it to be useless in a month or two.  Now that it has been made clear that snorlax isn't broken, that it under no circumstance deserves a ban... more people are making them and experimenting with it (this is a guess, but a logical one IMO).  In order to assess this we really would need to wait 4+ months to see if usage continues to increase, and pay more attention to what good players who actually understand the meta are doing as compared to the hordes of newbs.

 

D: While looking at usage stats... you have to remember that 90% of the players doing comp are newbies... and quite frankly not very good, and that is putting it lightly.  We shouldn't be concerned with how the masses of newbs looking for a quick loss behave... but rather... how the game will change if a ban was to be put into place....

 

A few very likely scenarios if snorlax was banned:

 

Chansey vs. trapinch OU meta, trapinch usage over 30% (a complete tiering failure and nightmare)

 

6 wall mmo... utilizing sweepers and wall breakers will have diminishing returns and players will result to using 6 walls to plug the holes left by a lack of snorlax.

[Gunthug]

8 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

A few things regarding this:

 

A:  You have to remember that the "Chansey is our only viable special wall" meta had a way more centralized distribution of usage.  We also had metagross at over 45% back then... along with seeing the same teams over and over, I really wish the usage statistics were available, it would but these "unhealthy" and "centralizing" arguments to rest.

 

B: No, body slam spam isn't good.  Its a strategy to deploy if your looking for a quick loss against someone who is half way decent.

 

C: We are probably seeing an increase in snorlax users because a lot of players don't want to grind and invest hours into breeding a pokemon just for it to be useless in a month or two.  Now that it has been made clear that snorlax isn't broken, that it under no circumstance deserves a ban... more people are making them and experimenting with it (this is a guess, but a logical one IMO).  In order to assess this we really would need to wait 4+ months to see if usage continues to increase, and pay more attention to what good players who actually understand the meta are doing as compared to the hordes of newbs.

 

D: While looking at usage stats... you have to remember that 90% of the players doing comp are newbies... and quite frankly not very good, and that is putting it lightly.  We shouldn't be concerned with how the masses of newbs looking for a quick loss behave... but rather... how the game will change if a ban was to be put into place....

 

A few very likely scenarios if snorlax was banned:

 

Chansey vs. trapinch OU meta, trapinch usage over 30% (a complete tiering failure and nightmare)

 

6 wall mmo... utilizing sweepers and wall breakers will have diminishing returns and players will result to using 6 walls to plug the holes left by a lack of snorlax.

Sorry for quoting the whole thing since I'm on my phone, but I wanted to address a common misconception I've been seeing a lot the last couple weeks. We did not decide that snorlax doesn't deserve a ban - we failed to reach a decision on whether snorlax deserved a ban. Iirc the council was split right down the middle with one abstaining. That doesn't rule out the possibility of a ban, all it did really was kick the decision out another month so we could evaluate the tier some more 

[LuisPocho]

7 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

A:  You have to remember that the "Chansey is our only viable special wall" meta had a way more centralized distribution of usage.  We also had metagross at over 45% back then... along with seeing the same teams over and over, I really wish the usage statistics were available, it would but these "unhealthy" and "centralizing" arguments to rest.

Although I always wanted it banned, Chansey was never as centralizing as snorlax... only speacial sweepers were affected directly

 

 

9 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

you have to remember that 90% of the players doing comp are newbies... and quite frankly not very good, and that is putting it lightly.  We shouldn't be concerned with how the masses of newbs looking for a quick loss behave... but rather... how the game will change if a ban was to be put into place....

Paraaaaaa murcielago, tan groso sos? cuantas copas tenes?

[Murcielago]

@Gunthug

 

Wow, thanks for the clarification.  Good luck with the decision... In my opinion its very cut and dry.  When can we expect to have a final verdict on this? 

[Gunthug]

Just now, Murcielago said:

@Gunthug

 

Wow, thanks for the clarification.  Good luck with the decision... In my opinion its very cut and dry.  When can we expect to have a final verdict on this? 

We just had a meeting this weekend, and you guys will see the results of that meeting later today. I can't say it'll be a "final verdict" though 

[Murcielago]

wow... you flushed the meta didnt you?

[Hotarubi]

37 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

wow... you flushed the meta didnt you?

No they fixed it.

You see in order to view what we are missing out on we have to cut the cancer out. 

The usage keeps rising and rising.

Poke that was once viable and well liked is being left to sit because people have to build for this cancer.

This was inevitable and hopefully it becomes permanent.

 

[Murcielago]

Well... "cancer" is a buzzword to suggest you don't like something... but I have said this countless times... doesn't really matter though.  Removing snorlax opens up the doors for the stuff that is actually broken to be exploited even further... so no worries, its all good.

 

Its apparent that our job as comp players is to simply stay ahead of the curve, exploit the holes and problems in the meta while drawing as little attention to them as possible.  If anything this whole snorlax thread serves as a ruse and a distraction from the real problems in the meta, no worries, its all good.

 

Despite the fact that I am often a condescending jerk, my arguments and position on this issue was for what I believe the good of the game.  A stable meta = a good meta...  If there is infact a test ban it does nothing but make pokemmo comp play a scene even more difficult to break into and further tips the scale in favor of players such as hotarubi, and myself...  it is very easy for the upper echelon of players to exploit the tier councils incompetency and relentlessly punish the general player base... and thats whats going to go on during the shit show that will undoubtedly ensue.

 

The general public will be struggling to catch up to the changing meta as every month or two something changes... ban something else, bring snorlax back... all the while the elite players relentlessly punish them with the broken mechanics still available... new players breed the broken shit... then its banned... you get the picture...

[OrangeManiac]

11 hours ago, Murcielago said:

A few things regarding this:

 

A:  You have to remember that the "Chansey is our only viable special wall" meta had a way more centralized distribution of usage.  We also had metagross at over 45% back then... along with seeing the same teams over and over, I really wish the usage statistics were available, it would but these "unhealthy" and "centralizing" arguments to rest.

Unhealthy and centralization verdicts are not binary. It's a scale. The council just decides when it's too much and hits banhammer on the Pokemon. There's lots of really unhealthy things about Snorlax which even anti-Lax ban people recognize, so how can put the arguments completely to rest? That's not how tiering works. It's not binary. Also Chansey having still around 30% usage indicates Chansey is still being used as a go to special wall, Lax is used for whole lot of other things such as sweeping, wallbreaking, and Paralyze spreading. And mostly: all the things combined.

 

Quote

 

B: No, body slam spam isn't good.  Its a strategy to deploy if your looking for a quick loss against someone who is half way decent.

Even best players can't stop RNG. I know I argued it's less scary than most people in this thread said it to be but saying it isn't good is ridiculous.

 

Quote

 

C: We are probably seeing an increase in snorlax users because a lot of players don't want to grind and invest hours into breeding a pokemon just for it to be useless in a month or two.  Now that it has been made clear that snorlax isn't broken, that it under no circumstance deserves a ban... more people are making them and experimenting with it (this is a guess, but a logical one IMO).  In order to assess this we really would need to wait 4+ months to see if usage continues to increase, and pay more attention to what good players who actually understand the meta are doing as compared to the hordes of newbs.

I know gunthug already addressed this but.... "under no circumstances a ban"? Okay no need to go further, I explained you the whole thing that tiering isn't binary. I know in Smogon stuff like SPL's usage is taken into consideration to lessen the portion of noob usage but just because we don't have that doesn't mean we shouldn't use what we have currently effectively.

 

Quote

 

D: While looking at usage stats... you have to remember that 90% of the players doing comp are newbies... and quite frankly not very good, and that is putting it lightly.  We shouldn't be concerned with how the masses of newbs looking for a quick loss behave... but rather... how the game will change if a ban was to be put into place....

"Newbies" is a very objective definition too. What defines a newbie? Being new? Being bad at playing? Lots could call me a noob running a Xatu in OU while other couldn't because I have lots of playing hours. Usage isn't the be all end all but it's most reliable way to get objective information of our metagame.

 

Quote

A few very likely scenarios if snorlax was banned:

 

Chansey vs. trapinch OU meta, trapinch usage over 30% (a complete tiering failure and nightmare)

 

6 wall mmo... utilizing sweepers and wall breakers will have diminishing returns and players will result to using 6 walls to plug the holes left by a lack of snorlax.

 

Trapinch was barely OU. At the absolute peak I think it did hit 7-8%. And this was before Life Orb and with Life Orb beating Chansey has become notably easier as the only breakers for it are no longer Choice Banders and the notorious Chansey + Weezing core has become notably easier to break too with set up physical sweepers with Life Orb or mixed sweepers. People hated Chansey for the fact it used Protect and got a switch in wanted on the field knowing opposing move. It no longer can do that.

Edited November 8, 2016 by OrangeManiac
writing with phone sucks

[gbwead]

11 hours ago, Murcielago said:

A:  You have to remember that the "Chansey is our only viable special wall" meta had a way more centralized distribution of usage.  We also had metagross at over 45% back then... along with seeing the same teams over and over, I really wish the usage statistics were available, it would but these "unhealthy" and "centralizing" arguments to rest.

This comparison doesn't work. What you call the "Chansey meta" had a very different usage gathering system than our current meta. For instance, Trapinch was OU by usage in the "Chansey meta" with 9 uses whereas Vapreon is not OU by usage in the current meta with 609 uses.

 

14 minutes ago, OrangeManiac said:

Trapinch was barely OU. At the absolute peak I think it did hit 7-8%. 

I don't even think Trapinch ever got over 5%. It was barely OU.

[Rendiz]

Sorry if someone else has already mentioned this as this thread has had far too many pages of pointless bickering and I've been avoiding it like the plague for a while. But considering what a contentious issue Paraslam was I feel as though gen7 paralysis mechanics would be of great benefit. This would help a lot of offensive pokemon be far better checks vs snorlax than they were previously, with even some walls outspeeding lax after the para. For example if you were to switch a CB hera in on a predicted curse and end up getting paralyzed you will still outspeed the snorlax and now have a guts boost making hera arguably more scary than it was before.

 

This would make Snorlax even weaker than it was before vs offense making it a lot less obnoxious to deal with. And considering how hard Milotic walls it Snorlax may even chose to run return over it since spamming paraslam won't give it the tremendous tempo gains that it used to provide vs a plethora of the meta.

[Gilan]

29 minutes ago, Rendiz said:

gen7 paralysis mechanic

This is Half Speed correct?

[Rendiz]

Just now, Gilan said:

This is Half Speed correct?

Yes

[OrangeManiac]

Gen7 introduces paralyze halving speed and confusion hitting yourself with 1/3th of the time? Shit, I'm already liking this gen and I haven't got my hands on Sun/Moon yet.

[Hotarubi]

10 hours ago, Murcielago said:

Well... "cancer" is a buzzword to suggest you don't like something... but I have said this countless times... doesn't really matter though.  Removing snorlax opens up the doors for the stuff that is actually broken to be exploited even further... so no worries, its all good.

 

Its apparent that our job as comp players is to simply stay ahead of the curve, exploit the holes and problems in the meta while drawing as little attention to them as possible.  If anything this whole snorlax thread serves as a ruse and a distraction from the real problems in the meta, no worries, its all good.

 

Despite the fact that I am often a condescending jerk, my arguments and position on this issue was for what I believe the good of the game.  A stable meta = a good meta...  If there is infact a test ban it does nothing but make pokemmo comp play a scene even more difficult to break into and further tips the scale in favor of players such as hotarubi, and myself...  it is very easy for the upper echelon of players to exploit the tier councils incompetency and relentlessly punish the general player base... and thats whats going to go on during the shit show that will undoubtedly ensue.

 

The general public will be struggling to catch up to the changing meta as every month or two something changes... ban something else, bring snorlax back... all the while the elite players relentlessly punish them with the broken mechanics still available... new players breed the broken shit... then its banned... you get the picture...

What exactly is it that removing snorlax will open the doors to that is so broken?

Chansey will be the run to special wall that everyone will use to cover the weakness in they team.

The fact that it is banned will not do anything except make other pokemon which where neglected in use more viable.

I see nothing wrong with that.

Though it is UU I can see this, hitmonlee is a pokemon with limber ability.

Though it can withstand a twave from chansey, certain things like choice banded bodyslam can ruin it and even OHKO it.

I think the most positive thing about this is the fact that you won't be seeing teams with both chansey and snorlax on them anymore.

A constant team I have run into several times includes chansey, snorlax, forretress, skarmory, being the defensive core to a team.

The other pokemon vary but this just ends up being a slow slow match.

I see nothing wrong with this but at the same time it gets very boring when you notice that the tier usage is reduced to only 20 pokemon, with emphasis on OVER USE.

I want a fun meta that is competitive and also allows for creativity.

I look forward to this test and I'm hoping that people can see what will surely become more viable again now that snorlax doesn't bar you from using it.

@Darkshade @Tyrone
This  suspense is killing me.

I feel like this is kind of stalling am i wrong?

 

Edited November 8, 2016 by Hotarubi