Do you like/dislike Smogon's tiering process?

[Remorph]

To be fair +2 Shadow Claw 2HKOs max/max Giratina and I don't think its Dragon Claw can OHKO back unless you also run Shadow Sneak. Technically that's not a counter either.

Earthquake should OHKO. I recall you saying survive a switch in, not be a counter.

Name one thing that can safely switch in on this in the sunlight with Stealth Rocks down. Just. One. Thing.

And what about Max Defense Air Lock Rayquaza?

 

[LetsGoJeto]

They can, and they did. It just took a sickening amount of focus to defeat Blaziken without it shredding your team.

I guess. After losing because of him the first few times, I've managed to pull something out my ***. However, if dragonite and vaporeon has fainted, it's pretty much game.

 

[GOLDENCRS]

To be fair +2 Shadow Claw 2HKOs max/max Giratina and I don't think its Dragon Claw can OHKO back unless you also run Shadow Sneak. Technically that's not a counter either.

Exactly my point, it isn't countered which was AWESOME by Smogon for banning him, but it is the Closest Thing We Have. And it is in Ubers.

 

[Blue Harvest]

Earthquake should OHKO. I recall you saying survive a switch in, not be a counter.



And what about Max Defense Air Lock Rayquaza?

Earthquake Giratina and Defensive Rayquaza work I guess lol.

In OU defensive Gyarados and Salamence also did fine, though Blaziken often ran Stone Edge over Shadow Claw.. Even at its peak I don't think Slowbro was ever THAT common.

 

[Remorph]

But still, who uses a tank Rayquaza, anyways? And if it dies, then you are screwed. I'm just glad Blaziken is banned. And there is one more counter. RAGE QUITTING. lol

 

[kaiser soze]

That's assuming that espeon sets up screens with blaze. Chances are, he'll appear later on. And if he doesn't, my focus band lead will set up rocks, attack and dragonite will simply finish him off with extreme speed.

I'm pretty sure a good opponent is going to have a Dragon counter. And they would be using Team Preview to their advantage so they would send it out at an optimal time or maybe even trick you into sending a weak lead so they can start off with it.

 

[Rezzuréct]

FYI, Blaziken is OU on PO Server, But why Smogon think Blaziken is Ubers?

 

[Remorph]

FYI, Blaziken is OU on PO Server, But why Smogon think Blaziken is Ubers?

They are resetting the tiers September 1st. That may be the day of retribution against Blaziken.

 

[LetsGoJeto]

I'm pretty sure a good opponent is going to have a Dragon counter. And they would be using Team Preview to their advantage so they would send it out at an optimal time or maybe even trick you into sending a weak lead so they can start off with it.

It really doesn't matter because dual screens prevents a lot of crap from happening.

 

[Remorph]

It really doesn't matter because dual screens prevents a lot of crap from happening.

Assuming you survive to set them up.

 

[LetsGoJeto]

Assuming you survive to set them up.

I usually do though so...

 

[Remorph]

I usually do though so...

But if you don't, you are dead.


Let's get back to the topic.

 

[LetsGoJeto]

But if you don't, you are dead.


Let's get back to the topic.

Not entirely. Depends what's on the other person's team, but that's where multiscale dragonite saves my butt usually.

 

[Casty]

Alright, I see I'm going to be the first one to open a can of worms here, but I feel it's necessary to get any discussion going.

I have a mixed feelings about smogon tiering system as a whole. I don't care that much about the generation V... yet, but I felt that in gen IV, everything past Garchomp was handled horribly, with biggest offenders being Latias and Salamence.

The former was literally kept being tested until it was banned, despite the majority of over 120 voters voting it OU three times in a row (four if you count the initial test). Why did this happen? Simply because people who wanted Latias to stay OU stopped giving two shits about suspect testing something they already believed was firmly OU. This left us with about 20 voters (as seen here) making the decision for hundreds who played the game. Most of which were, of course, people who wanted Latias gone ("most", as in 13 people lol). I do not want to spin some conspiracy theories here, but everything that happened after that ban made it seem like the decision about Latias tiering was made before the official vote was held at all, similarly to the RSE Baton Pass "test" from not so long ago. Every mention of Latias was swept under the rug in the span of two days, which was a bit suspicious to say at least.

On the other hand, Salamence was a victim of a horrible tiering experiment known as the smogon council. Holy crap, never before have I seen something as stupid as this. Reason to test? "It wouldn't hurt". Yeah, you're reading it right, the whole excuse to ban test Salamence (or at least the one that was mentioned the most) was "it wouldn't hurt". This was done despite Generation V already knocking to our doors, Stage 3 being already over as well as general unwillingness to test (read: ban) anything else. So let's say you wanted to do something to prevent Salamence from going to Ubers lala land. Well, I hope you have at least several alts on the top of the leaderboard, some smogon tour wins under your belt, as well as craptons of free time needed to write a huge essey describing why do you think a monster from a children's video game needs to be allowed. That was the bare minimum for being considered (not yet accepted!) for the 9-man council which sealed the fate of one of the last powerful Dragon-types left in OU. Fun stuff, no? In short, a pointless ban which skewed the image of "real" DPPt OU for years to come.

The sad thing is, during this time (which was half of the history of DPPt mind you) the game never experienced any sort of stability, had no chance to truly develop. Anyone who played gen 4 knows that the most important discoveries, like the suicide leads and Yachechomp were made before the suspect testing madness even begun. It is only when Salamence got banned that people finally got the chance to play in a stable metagame... but one month later, a new generation rolled around, and all this effort went to vain.

Thank God generation V brought us Philip7086, who finally poured some common sense to the stale suspect system, but I digress.

I have some thoughts about generation V suspects as well, but I'll leave them for another time. Let the flaming begin, shall we?

 

[complete legitimacy]

Alright, I see I'm going to be the first one to open a can of worms here, but I feel it's necessary to get any discussion going.

I have a mixed feelings about smogon tiering system as a whole. I don't care that much about the generation V... yet, but I felt that in gen IV, everything past Garchomp was handled horribly, with biggest offenders being Latias and Salamence.

The former was literally kept being tested until it was banned, despite the majority of over 120 voters voting it OU three times in a row (four if you count the initial test). Why did this happen? Simply because people who wanted Latias to stay OU stopped giving two shits about suspect testing something they already believed was firmly OU. This left us with about 20 voters (as seen here) making the decision for hundreds who played the game. Most of which were, of course, people who wanted Latias gone ("most", as in 13 people lol). I do not want to spin some conspiracy theories here, but everything that happened after that ban made it seem like the decision about Latias tiering was made before the official vote was held at all, similarly to the RSE Baton Pass "test" from not so long ago. Every mention of Latias was swept under the rug in the span of two days, which was a bit suspicious to say at least.

On the other hand, Salamence was a victim of a horrible tiering experiment known as the smogon council. Holy crap, never before have I seen something as stupid as this. Reason to test? "It wouldn't hurt". Yeah, you're reading it right, the whole excuse to ban test Salamence (or at least the one that was mentioned the most) was "it wouldn't hurt". This was done despite Generation V already knocking to our doors, Stage 3 being already over as well as general unwillingness to test (read: ban) anything else. So let's say you wanted to do something to prevent Salamence from going to Ubers lala land. Well, I hope you have at least several alts on the top of the leaderboard, some smogon tour wins under your belt, as well as craptons of free time needed to write a huge paragraph describing why do you think a monster from a children's video game needs to be allowed. That was the bare minimum for being considered (not yet accepted!) for the 9-man council which sealed the fate of one of the last powerful Dragon-types left in OU. Fun stuff, no? In short, a pointless ban which skewed the image of "real" DPPt OU for years to come.

The sad thing is, during this time (which was half of it's history of DPPt mind you) the game never experienced any sort of stability, had no chance to truly develop. Anyone who played gen 4 knows that the most important discoveries, like the suicide leads and Yachechomp were made before the suspect testing madness even begun. It is only when Salamence got banned that people finally got the chance to play in a stable metagame... but one month later, a new generation rolled around, and all this effort went to vain.

Thank God generation V brought us Philip7086, who finally poured some common sense to the stale suspect system, but I digress.

I have some thoughts about generation V suspects as well, but I'll leave them for another time. Let the flaming begin, shall we?

Thank you. This was starting to turn into yet another "Why is Blaziken banned?" thread. Honestly, it's been proven countless times that it was the right decision. Why don't we use other examples? Garchomp, Thundurus, Latios, Salamence in 4th gen?

 

[Le_Juston]

Even tho I like to use Thundrus myself, I agree, it should be uber... the dragons, not so much... other than the Latis...

 

[BGP_]

Alright, I see I'm going to be the first one to open a can of worms here, but I feel it's necessary to get any discussion going.

I have a mixed feelings about smogon tiering system as a whole. I don't care that much about the generation V... yet, but I felt that in gen IV, everything past Garchomp was handled horribly, with biggest offenders being Latias and Salamence.

The former was literally kept being tested until it was banned, despite the majority of over 120 voters voting it OU three times in a row (four if you count the initial test). Why did this happen? Simply because people who wanted Latias to stay OU stopped giving two shits about suspect testing something they already believed was firmly OU. This left us with about 20 voters (as seen here) making the decision for hundreds who played the game. Most of which were, of course, people who wanted Latias gone ("most", as in 13 people lol). I do not want to spin some conspiracy theories here, but everything that happened after that ban made it seem like the decision about Latias tiering was made before the official vote was held at all, similarly to the RSE Baton Pass "test" from not so long ago. Every mention of Latias was swept under the rug in the span of two days, which was a bit suspicious to say at least.

On the other hand, Salamence was a victim of a horrible tiering experiment known as the smogon council. Holy crap, never before have I seen something as stupid as this. Reason to test? "It wouldn't hurt". Yeah, you're reading it right, the whole excuse to ban test Salamence (or at least the one that was mentioned the most) was "it wouldn't hurt". This was done despite Generation V already knocking to our doors, Stage 3 being already over as well as general unwillingness to test (read: ban) anything else. So let's say you wanted to do something to prevent Salamence from going to Ubers lala land. Well, I hope you have at least several alts on the top of the leaderboard, some smogon tour wins under your belt, as well as craptons of free time needed to write a huge essey describing why do you think a monster from a children's video game needs to be allowed. That was the bare minimum for being considered (not yet accepted!) for the 9-man council which sealed the fate of one of the last powerful Dragon-types left in OU. Fun stuff, no? In short, a pointless ban which skewed the image of "real" DPPt OU for years to come.

The sad thing is, during this time (which was half of the history of DPPt mind you) the game never experienced any sort of stability, had no chance to truly develop. Anyone who played gen 4 knows that the most important discoveries, like the suicide leads and Yachechomp were made before the suspect testing madness even begun. It is only when Salamence got banned that people finally got the chance to play in a stable metagame... but one month later, a new generation rolled around, and all this effort went to vain.

Thank God generation V brought us Philip7086, who finally poured some common sense to the stale suspect system, but I digress.

I have some thoughts about generation V suspects as well, but I'll leave them for another time. Let the flaming begin, shall we?

The reason why the metagame never seems stable is because some people learn of new strategies, or with certain bans some pokemon are able to take more advantage or things like that. Remember how Roserade was last gen? Sometimes it was like the thing wasnt used at all, then he was high in useage towards the end of gen 4! Machamp had huge useage at one point, etc. The metagame is never going to be stable. Tomorrow could start the rise of venomoth to OU(lol), and 2 weeks from now he'll crash. Also, i don't think there was just a ban for salamence just cuz they could lol, maybe he wasnt that threatening, but i'm sure there was a reason other than, oh let's ban him cuz that would make dnite better, or just cuz we freakin can. Latias may not have been exactly terrible either, but when you looked at 4th gen, those 2 were probably the most threatening pokemon in the 4th gen metagame. They may not have been scary enough to deserve a ban, but you cant say you didnt say oh **** when you saw a salamence or latias. It kind of reminds me of how excadrill is right now, maybe he doesn't deserve a ban, but you can't say you're not a little worried when you see one sometimes. Going back to how the metagame evolves, really if they would ban excadrill right now, how much do you think that would screw up SS and make teams change? When they do ban thundurus, how many people are going to get one more team spot cuz they had one poke JUST for taking him out? You can't complain that the game isn't stable, cuz it will never be 100% perfectly stable. The end of last gen was as good as it was getting, and now we have a new generation that might take some time to be fine as well.

 

[Blue Harvest]

Alright, I see I'm going to be the first one to open a can of worms here, but I feel it's necessary to get any discussion going.

I have a mixed feelings about smogon tiering system as a whole. I don't care that much about the generation V... yet, but I felt that in gen IV, everything past Garchomp was handled horribly, with biggest offenders being Latias and Salamence.

The former was literally kept being tested until it was banned, despite the majority of over 120 voters voting it OU three times in a row (four if you count the initial test). Why did this happen? Simply because people who wanted Latias to stay OU stopped giving two shits about suspect testing something they already believed was firmly OU. This left us with about 20 voters (as seen here) making the decision for hundreds who played the game. Most of which were, of course, people who wanted Latias gone ("most", as in 13 people lol). I do not want to spin some conspiracy theories here, but everything that happened after that ban made it seem like the decision about Latias tiering was made before the official vote was held at all, similarly to the RSE Baton Pass "test" from not so long ago. Every mention of Latias was swept under the rug in the span of two days, which was a bit suspicious to say at least.

On the other hand, Salamence was a victim of a horrible tiering experiment known as the smogon council. Holy crap, never before have I seen something as stupid as this. Reason to test? "It wouldn't hurt". Yeah, you're reading it right, the whole excuse to ban test Salamence (or at least the one that was mentioned the most) was "it wouldn't hurt". This was done despite Generation V already knocking to our doors, Stage 3 being already over as well as general unwillingness to test (read: ban) anything else. So let's say you wanted to do something to prevent Salamence from going to Ubers lala land. Well, I hope you have at least several alts on the top of the leaderboard, some smogon tour wins under your belt, as well as craptons of free time needed to write a huge essey describing why do you think a monster from a children's video game needs to be allowed. That was the bare minimum for being considered (not yet accepted!) for the 9-man council which sealed the fate of one of the last powerful Dragon-types left in OU. Fun stuff, no? In short, a pointless ban which skewed the image of "real" DPPt OU for years to come.

The sad thing is, during this time (which was half of the history of DPPt mind you) the game never experienced any sort of stability, had no chance to truly develop. Anyone who played gen 4 knows that the most important discoveries, like the suicide leads and Yachechomp were made before the suspect testing madness even begun. It is only when Salamence got banned that people finally got the chance to play in a stable metagame... but one month later, a new generation rolled around, and all this effort went to vain.

Thank God generation V brought us Philip7086, who finally poured some common sense to the stale suspect system, but I digress.

I have some thoughts about generation V suspects as well, but I'll leave them for another time. Let the flaming begin, shall we?

Agreed. Last gen the suspect tiering was horrible. The end result, after Salamence, was a boring, stale metagame where pretty much everyone used the same team..

Lead / fire / water / grass / steel / scarfer. All built from the same pool of Flygon / Jirachi / Scizor etc. Balanced or not, it was **** to play.


This gen the suspect tiering is decent. The only problem is that there is still no limitation to the number of times something can be suspected. Reuniclus and Excadrill are nominated each round and I'm worried there will be a repeat of gen 4 Latias.. Otherwise its a definite improvement over last gen.

 

[kaiser soze]

Am I missing something on why Reuniclus is nominated?

 

[Blue Harvest]

Because its possible to run Tyranitar / Scizor on the same team and still have trouble bringing it down. I don't think its uber though.