Tiers. Why have them?

[-Nator-]

I can understand that. If you just put all the pokemon under one grouping, though, the weaker ones won't see any use because there are much better options. That would be pretty much the same as taking out every tier except OU. In OU, you're allowed to use any pokemon that's not Uber, but people don't because not all pokemon are as amazing as some.

The reason you don't like the tiering system is because OU teams don't have a lot of variety, right? Well, you're allowed to use whatever lower-tiered pokemon you want in an OU battle. But that doesn't mean you're going to win. People in OU use the pokemon that will win battles. Same in UU, except there are fewer choices.

You do make some good points, BUT, who says these so called "weaker" Pokemon don't have good uses? They can be just as powerful as the standard stereotypical "OU" Pokemon if you strategize wisely. Most people just choose to use recycled strategies, with no fresh ideas whatsoever. I'll admit, I've "stolen" a few strategies myself, but I've also devised a good number of ideas that I have seen no one else use.
Anyway, I'm not here to really argue. Everyone has their opinion, and I'll respect yours if you respect mine.

 

[zozo]

I can see why you don't much like tiers. They definitely make it a bit more challenging to form teams if you want to stay all in one tier, or you happen to like a bunch of banned pokemon, strategies, or items.

On the other hand, like many people are saying, they do give the competitive community a great common ground to battle on that makes things more balanced and uniform. The rules may be challenging, but rules can provide structure that makes the battle experience altogether more enjoyable.

At the same time, it is an online community, not some sort of binding court of law, so you don't have to adhere to those rules if you don't want to. Personally, I find that competitive battling is too intense for my taste, so I just make the teams I like and "exercise" them on the Battle Subway or in wi-fi battles. Sometimes they win, and often they lose, but I have fun no matter what.

I guess that's all what it comes down to. What are you going to have the most fun doing? If you don't like the tiers one little bit, stick with casual battles or wi-fi battles. Or, if you want to really get competitive, just find the niche where you find you have the most fun and go crazy!

 

[Nesquik3D]

Ever tried finding 6 vs 6 battle, or really, ANY battle that didn't use smogon rules? Because I did, and barely anyone wanted to play.

See, that's the problem. "Smogon" may not force their rules on you, but the idiots who cannot get out of their comfort zone surely do. I cannot speak for the OP, but I think that was his original point anyway. He may wanted to play with SB Blaziken allowed, but since most Wi-Fi players are too stubborn to use anything else other than smogon 6 vs 6, he was essentially forced to play by their ruleset, and bam, this thread was born.

I've seen it happen way too many times before.

That was basically my point, people can't get out of their comfort zone and play with no tiers for a specific match and just have a plain ban list. But I don't play with SB Blaziken, I want Drizzle + Swift Swim allowed.

 

[PikaPika677]

That was basically my point, people can't get out of their comfort zone and play with no tiers for a specific match and just have a plain ban list. But I don't play with SB Blaziken, I want Drizzle + Swift Swim allowed.

If you want to play with Swift Swim and Drizzle, go to Ubers. Plenty of Kyogre to leech off of.

 

[randomspot555]

You do make some good points, BUT, who says these so called "weaker" Pokemon don't have good uses? They can be just as powerful as the standard stereotypical "OU" Pokemon if you strategize wisely.

No one ever said they're necessarily "weaker" (though many are). Remember, in OU standard matches, Pokemon from lower tiers CAN STILL BE USED. And in the Uber tier, ALL POKEMON can be used!

But the thing is, some Pokemon are just flat out better than others, or have very limited uses.

Butterfree, for example, has a pretty good Sp Atk movepool and has Quiver Dance to boost it's Sp Atk.But it's super frail, loses HP to Stealth Rock, and is pretty slow without boosts. There are SO MANY OTHER Sp Atkers that can boost their stats more reliably. So using Butterfree as a Special sweeper is pointless because there are dozens of Pokemon that can do that job and do it better.

Butterfree however does have Compoundeyes, which gives it a near 100% accurate sleep and a paralysis move that can hit Ground types.

But that's pretty much its only use.

Most people just choose to use recycled strategies, with no fresh ideas whatsoever. I'll admit, I've "stolen" a few strategies myself, but I've also devised a good number of ideas that I have seen no one else use.

Choosing strategies just because they're "new" is just as bad as blindly copying/pasting sets from someone else. You don't get bonus points for creating some gimmick. You either win a battle or lose a battle.

I can see why you don't much like tiers. They definitely make it a bit more challenging to form teams if you want to stay all in one tier, or you happen to like a bunch of banned pokemon, strategies, or items.

Again, remember, Pokemon from lower tiers can participate in higher tiers. But they often only serve very specific niche sets because a lot of the standard sets suhc as sweeping and walls can be done better by someone in the tier,

 

[#chelloressurection]

Probably to distinguish stuff like tournaments. If we didnt have tiers, it would be mixed arceus tournaments, instead of keeping arceus inabled and forming the ubers tier.

 

[Zekromaster826]

I truely don't know...

 

[Gelatino95]

You do make some good points, BUT, who says these so called "weaker" Pokemon don't have good uses? They can be just as powerful as the standard stereotypical "OU" Pokemon if you strategize wisely.

First of all, OU pokemon aren't a stereotype. They've been playtested and are ranked according to usage. Second, the reason people don't use so-called "weaker" pokemon is because there are other pokemon that outclass them and there are better choices for pokemon to put on a team. You can bet that all pokemon have been playtested; Smogon has an article for every pokemon (they're not all made for fifth gen yet, though).

In the end, however, pokemon aren't put in tiers because of their power. They're put there because of usage. As the name implies, the over-used tier is for pokemon which are used the most. If you think Wigglytuff deserves some love and you start a movement where everybody starts putting Wigglytuff on their team, then it'll shoot to OU. But people don't do that because they want to win, so they use whatever pokemon will let them win against others.

In the end, though, it's all a matter of opinion. Sadly, teams can't have a ton of variety and perform well at the same time, so if you want to win, you'll have to use the same pokemon that others use, but if you don't care about winning, you can use whatever pokemon you want.

As for the "strategizing" thing, the people at Smogon do that for us. If you don't trust them, then you can playtest all your favorite pokemon and see how they perform, then come to your own conclusions.

 

[giratina hates shaymin]

Keep the tiers but for the love of arceus don't spazz out and call me a dirty cheater when i bring a BLAZE Blaziken out against your Team of Ferrothorn, Machamp/Conkeldurr, (other broken pokemon that somehow is not on the uber list)

 

[kaiser soze]

Time for my two cents I guess. Here's an analogy to help explain tier; bear with it if it sounds ridiculous.

Imagine you're going to have a fight with another guy and you have a choice between using a knife or a gun. Assuming you're not crazy, you want the gun because it gives you a better chance of winning. And if you have a gun, your opponent's going to choose a gun too because a knife has many obvious disadvantages against a gun. But what if you're better at using a knife than a gun, or you just like knife fighting better? You can convince your opponent on a ban on guns for the fight.

Now apply that to Pokemon. It's foolish to think all pokemon are created equal, and given the choice between a Febass and a Mewtwo it's pretty clear which one you would pick. There are definitely certain pokemon that can only be reliably countered by a few specific pokemon (as opposed to a certain type) because of their speed, defenses, or raw offensive power. So these pokemon are banned (Ubers is not a tier, it's a banlist). This is done by a community vote, not arbitrarily, and after much testing. And since rational players are expected to use good pokemon, they look to the usage of every pokemon in standard play (also called OU) and divide them accordingly. Tiering pokemon is very subjective and hard to measure; Volcarona might not be very powerful against Heatran but Ferrothorn begs to differ. Each tier also serves as a banlist to the lower ones (i.e. OU has Ubers banned, UU has Ubers, OU, and BL banned).

One of my personal favorite pokemon is Whiscash. While I like its design and such it has pretty average stats, so it's rarely used in competitive play, especially because Gastrodon, Swampert, and Quagsire for the most part are more effective Water/Ground mons, so it goes in the lowest tier. Thankfully, I can play in NU and use Whiscash without having to worry about hard hitters like Chlorophyll Grass types, Dragons, etc. Also, I can try to use it in OU as well if I really wanted to; it's risky, but with some good teambuilding and playing smart it might just work.

Smogon specifically (there's more than one competitive battling community) tries to make bans as simple as possible, especially for programming reasons with simulators. This is why all Excadrill and Blaziken are banned and Vulpix is BorderLine (banned from UU because of Drought).

To those asking about Drizzle+Swift Swim banned: It's hard enough to deal with in Ubers. First of all, about the only thing that outspeeds a SSer is another SSer, so they're hard to revenge-kill. Few things can absorb their attacks, since Rain offers double STAB boosts. Most of them are also not weak to priority attacks.

 

[~Sam~]

I think this fits better in the competitive section. Anyway, I certainly wouldn't want to see Moody Smeargle and Double Team Ninjask running around everywhere. I think tiers really help stabilize the metagame and prevent overpowered Pokémon from ruling it. Sure, it may be unfair at times but it's a lot better than having on tiers.

This (10 char)

 

[jstinftw!]

In the end, though, it's all a matter of opinion. Sadly, teams can't have a ton of variety and perform well at the same time, so if you want to win, you'll have to use the same pokemon that others use, but if you don't care about winning, you can use whatever pokemon you want.

As for the "strategizing" thing, the people at Smogon do that for us. If you don't trust them, then you can playtest all your favorite pokemon and see how they perform, then come to your own conclusions.

Not entirely true.

It is difficult to be original and perform well at the same time, but if you're willing to put in that extra effort, then it's really not a big thing.

Whether it be the inability to come up with your own strategies and use the lesser-used Pokemon or laziness, just because everyone goes for the straightforward and overused strategies doesn't mean that those who don't are only going to lose.

The idea is to not limit yourself and actually think about what you're doing. If you want to use Pokemon lesser used, go for it. But think about what you're doing. Don't just slap together a bunch of Pokemon and hope for the best; think about each weakness and synergize. Hitmontop is UU but in VGC, Hitmontop is seeing #2 in usage just under Zapdos, who is also UU. The reason they're seeing such high usage is that they are easy to synergize with and they do bring a lot to the table when you intelligently put Pokemon on your team.

Granted, VGC use Double Battles, but still. They're UU and yet they are really popular right now.

And as for the bit about strategy, I kind of agree, but I think it takes a lot away to just follow what is written on paper for you. Look at the ideas, think of the possibilities, think about the Pokemon you are thinking of and just think. Strategies are all out there and limiting yourself to the 3 or 4 that Smogon puts on a Pokemon is a little bit sad, not to mention boring. I use Smogon btw, but I use it to get some ideas. Smogon analyzes the Pokemon for you to see, to spark ideas. To simply copy-paste those ideas makes the metagame boring.

Of course, as you stated, I guess opinion does make a huge difference of the argument. But I read somewhere that even Smogon doesn't like that everyone simply copy-pastes the ideas instead of making their own. It's what makes the metagame boring.

 

[Ísjaki]

idk, lets rebel against the pokemon government and not use tiers anymore! im sure my team of caterpie is just as good as the average uber team

 

[Blue Harvest]

I think this fits better in the competitive section.

No it wouldn't, because people in the competitive section already know why we have tiers. Every single GD topic that has been moved into the competitive section I have ended up closing because most of them feels like someone walking into a mechanic's office and saying "hey dude have you tried square wheels? Trust me on this one, it might totally work".

Ok I'm going to explain tiers now, since many of you have absolutely no idea why they are harmless.

Standard is the main tier. Around 630 Pokemon can be used in it, barring the FEW banned Ubers (20 Pokemon, so about 3%). If you want to take your team and play against people and don't plan on being a douchebag and using Mewtwo you will want to play standard. Many people refer to standard as "OU" but this is generally a misconception.. OU is merely a list of the 50 or so most commonly used Pokemon, it has absolutely no say on what you can and should use. If a Pokemon is found to be too powerful to the point where pretty much every team needs a Slowbro to not get destroyed (lol Blaziken) a Pokemon is banned. This happens VERY rarely and only happens when people from all websites (NOT JUST SMOGON, even Serebii has some say in what is banned) come together to vote on something.

But what if you want to use Excadrill or Blaziken or just load your team full of Poke-gods? Play Ubers. Ubers is pretty much the same as standard play but with no Pokemon bans.

That's pretty much it. There is standard with Pokemon bans (OU), and more rarely standard without them (Ubers). But what do you do when you get bored of fighting against people with boring standard teams? You play the other tiers. These extra tiers (UU / RU / NU / LC I think are the main ones) were created so nearly ALL Pokemon can be used effectively somewhere and to give everyone other options in what they want to play. I'm not going to waste time explaining what all the secondary tiers have for rulesets but just know that they have no effect on standard games.


tl;dr version: 97% of Pokemon are legal in standard, use what you want within reason and quit *****ing.

 

[Ísjaki]

No it wouldn't, because people in the competitive section already know why we have tiers. Every single GD topic that has been moved into the competitive section I have ended up closing because most of them feels like someone walking into a mechanic's office and saying "hey dude have you tried square wheels? Trust me on this one, it might totally work".

Ok I'm going to explain tiers now, since many of you have absolutely no idea why they are harmless.

Standard is the main tier. Around 630 Pokemon can be used in it, barring the FEW banned Ubers (20 Pokemon, so about 3%). If you want to take your team and play against people and don't plan on being a douchebag and using Mewtwo you will want to play standard. Many people refer to standard as "OU" but this is generally a misconception.. OU is merely a list of the 50 or so most commonly used Pokemon, it has absolutely no say on what you can and should use. If a Pokemon is found to be too powerful to the point where pretty much every team needs a Slowbro to not get destroyed (lol Blaziken) a Pokemon is banned. This happens VERY rarely and only happens when people from all websites (NOT JUST SMOGON, even Serebii has some say in what is banned) come together to vote on something.

But what if you want to use Excadrill or Blaziken or just load your team full of Poke-gods? Play Ubers. Ubers is pretty much the same as standard play but with no Pokemon bans.

That's pretty much it. There is standard with Pokemon bans (OU), and more rarely standard without them (Ubers). But what do you do when you get bored of fighting against people with boring standard teams? You play the other tiers. These extra tiers (UU / RU / NU / LC I think are the main ones) were created so nearly ALL Pokemon can be used effectively somewhere and to give everyone other options in what they want to play. I'm not going to waste time explaining what all the secondary tiers have for rulesets but just know that they have no effect on standard games.


tl;dr version: 97% of Pokemon are legal in standard, use what you want within reason and quit *****ing.

you are a woman so i will assume that you are wrong

 

[Will-powered Spriter]

BUT, who says these so called "weaker" Pokemon don't have good uses? They can be just as powerful as the standard stereotypical "OU" Pokemon if you strategize wisely. Most people just choose to use recycled strategies, with no fresh ideas whatsoever.

The problem there is, yes UUs, RUs or even NUs can beat OUs if you strategise wisely, this is only the case if the person using OUs does not. If they strategise wisely as well, then tactically neither has an advantage and the person with OUs would win because they have basically better pokemon.

How well Pokemon compare should be decided with the assumption that both sides are equally competent. Saying x is not better then y because a really good person with y could beat a really bad person with x is not an acceptable argument.
Perhaps in normal online play, where you will get loads of people running OUs because this website says they're better but they don't use any strategy, you can easily argue that a skilled player can use what they want because their opponents will mostly be crap, but TIERS DON'T EXIST IN NONCOMPETITIVE MEDIUMS, and arguments against them should keep that in mind.

 

[Gelatino95]

Most people just choose to use recycled strategies, with no fresh ideas whatsoever.

The reason people use strategies that others have come up with is because they work and they let people win battles. For most people, this is all that matters in competitive battling.

 

[AquaRegisteel]

I can understand that. If you just put all the pokemon under one grouping, though, the weaker ones won't see any use because there are much better options. That would be pretty much the same as taking out every tier except OU. In OU, you're allowed to use any pokemon that's not Uber, but people don't because not all pokemon are as amazing as some.

The reason you don't like the tiering system is because OU teams don't have a lot of variety, right? Well, you're allowed to use whatever lower-tiered pokemon you want in an OU battle. But that doesn't mean you're going to win. People in OU use the pokemon that will win battles. Same in UU, except there are fewer choices.

To back this up, if you gave the right support to something like Archeops (Which is a lot, including Rapid Spin/Heal Bell/Wish support), you could and would win matches with it.

 

[gyaradosuseddragonrage!]

Tiers are made to give strong Pokemon a fun challenge with other strong Pokemon, and weaker Pokemon a fun challenge with other weaker Pokemon. If a very strong Pokemon such as Salamence was in the same playing field as something like Timburr, and you had the choice which to use, and you MUST win, and assuming all else is equal, both are fully EV'd with beneficial natures and IV's, I suppose you'd choose Salamence. Not because you like it better, but because it's simply a stronger Pokemon than Timburr.

That's why tiers exist. You are allowed to use Timburr in the Standard tier, but you of course know the risks, thanks to tiers. Also, Salamence doesn't have to battle things like Timburr with Tiers, as it also allowed to battle things like Ferrothorn. This is what tiers do; they give Pokemon an even playing field.

As for the person who mentioned VGC and how things that aren't in the Standard tier work very well there, that's because it's 4v4 doubles. It's a different metagame from Standard, just like UU is a different metagame from OU.

 

[kaiser soze]

To back this up, if you gave the right support to something like Archeops (Which is a lot, including Rapid Spin/Heal Bell/Wish support), you could and would win matches with it.

You could, but because its ability is a liability it doesn't get much usage, so it's in the second to last tier. Regigigas and Slaking, despite having great stats, are hardly used because of their abilities.