GSC OU GSC Tiering Proposition - GSC Ubers -> GSC 1U and GSC Classic

[Jame$ G]

Well i'm not really a proponent for bringing ohko back as such, i'm quite happy with the current rule sets. It was just a suggestion if people were looking for new ideas for a gen2 tier. It has never been done before and it might be something that pleases the anti stall crowd. Personally i'm not fussed either way.

 

[Jame$ G]

And that would be in doubled up Poke Cup ruleset with a combined team level of 310 and singular pokemon capped @ 55. I think a full on OHKO clause would be little ott for most people.

 

[Mr.378]

Right I've been busy so I haven't been able to respond to this properly but I have considered this meta shift and honestly I can't say that I'm for it right now. While I do agree with the philosophy that ubers should be a main tier like what you may propose and that I like GSC OU I also don't want to unnecessarily meddle with the past so drastically right now. Though this really isn't changing anything as a whole so much as mixing up nomenclature that should be no reason to do this. The development that the main GSC OU has gotten over the past 15 or so years really paints it as a more ideal main tier then GSC ubers which while fun is more limited. In a way you can say it's a more radical GSC OU because offensive teams are more aggressive with the need to boom on things to remove them and defensive teams are stronger due to having the ubers to wall with since 3/5 of them have much more defensive power then offensive while the other 2 are fairly balanced in that regard. As such I feel like more to gain by having GSC OU, which is more diverse and skill based, be the main tier.

Sorry if this seems jumbled. These are just my primary thoughts on this issue. I want to say a bit more on the issue of letting ubers be the main tier but that is best saved for a different time I feel.

On my viability list: Yes this was designed with an ubers metagame in mind. I also structured it with the rankings being The Main 4 > Everything else that standard/overall solid > Niche stuff that could work > Niche stuff that people might use. For C-Rank I just used it as a catch all rank for everything else I've seen used, mentioned, or could conceive of at least a reason to use them. The stuff there isn't really meant to be good. If they were good then I would have included them in B. I hope that clarifies the list a bit.

 

[Enigami]

As I've repeated multiple times, the entire reason for this is due to the fact 1U should be the highest non-banlist. Forcing GSC OU to be 1U if GSC Ubers is a proper tier (which you even stated should be a main tier) is blatant favoritism, and goes against the precedent set by PP ORAS. As stated above, while likely more limited compared to GSC OU, GSC Ubers is very possibly more versatile than RBY OU, our 1U for RBY. I may be wrong, but forcing GSC OU solely because of tradition and diversity's sake goes against how we've been setting up Pokemon Perfect's tiering.

Addionally, everything I've seen and heard suggests GSC OU in its current form is very rarely played outside of Pokemon Perfect, which to me further lessens the need to enforce GSC OU as the standard.

I feel the only unbiased way to determine whether GSC Ubers should be 1U is to focus solely on Ubers as a tier ignoring all established GSC tiers. By itself, is it a proper tier? Does it have a sufficient amount of viable Pokemon and strategies? Most of all, is it fun? That is something I was hoping there would be more discussion of when I posted this thread. If the answer is yes, why other than our biases would we claim it is not suitable for 1U? If the answer is no, then it is not suitable for 1U, and that's that.

From everything we've discussed though, if GSC Ubers became 1U and GSC OU became 2A, they would be co-main tiers with the only main difference being GSC Ubers having the '1U' title and determining lower tiers.


"As such I feel like more to gain by having GSC OU, which is more diverse and skill based, be the main tier."
Considering GSC Ubers has not been fully explored, that's quite subjective. Not only that, but a very poor argument to make GSC OU our 1U. If ADV XU was more diverse and skill based than ADV OU, should it become 1U? Again, GSC OU should be 1U in the case that GSC Ubers is not suitable, not an arbitrary judgement on 'diversity and skill'.


"These are just my primary thoughts on this issue. I want to say a bit more on the issue of letting ubers be the main tier but that is best saved for a different time I feel."
No time like the present! We need discussion on this, especially before GSC 1U is determined. If we establish GSC OU as 1U, then later decide "Okay, now we might want to discuss GSC Ubers", there would be heavy resistance atleast because of the work of starting over. This needs to be examined before anything is set in stone.

The Borat quote above I feel does a good job of describing this: "the requirements to keeping something the same is much lower than the requirements for change, and that's ok, that's how life is. look at how hard it is to amend the constitution. look at how difficult it is to get faster internet in the us - the initial 768kbps definition for dsl is totally arbitrary, look how retardedly hard it is to change that."

In regards to the viability list, that's why I repeatedly mentioned it was 'incomplete' (I guess that didn't exactly mean what I'd meant, can't think of a better word for it right now.) Your list makes a good starting point, but I definitely want to get proper rankings for it. I gathered that it wasn't to Pokemon Perfect scale, and is probably more like A=A-B, B=B-C, and C=C-F. From what I've seen, every Pokemon B rank or higher would be very likely candidates for viable Pokemon and atleast C Rank or above in proper rankings and be serious choices for teams.

 

[Disaster Area]

Well I'd say 2A would be kept like that so that people who have left for a while can get back into the community without having to learn a different format, and to ease the transition over to 1U as the main meta.

Viability Rankings isn't really too important in this discussion, but 378's rankings give food for thought. Ultimately though it can be dealt with once the issues in this thread are settled.

Oh also Bedschibaer might well be a person who wants to see this and can comment on it sensibly.

 

[Enigami]

Viability Rankings isn't really too important in this discussion, but 378's rankings give food for thought.

True, but it helps to show that GSC Ubers may not be restrictive as previously thought.

 

[Ortheore]

I don't like comparisons to RBY because there should be more viable options available because there are more total options available. More to the point, I don't see any need to compare to other metas unless they are directly influenced by what's at hand (ie. not rby). Whether or not this point applies to GSC OU is open to debate- if we can provide a new tiering system without impacting the current GSC OU then I think comparisons to GSC OU aren't valid since they would exist independently. That of course, is uncertain so GSC OU comparisons do hold some validity for the time being.

The point is, questions of whether something is balanced, diverse and fun don't need to be answered relative to another meta, and that trying to do so I think is a bit of a red herring. Heck, if you wanted to oversimplify things, those are technically yes/no questions.

I intend to start working on our own uber viability rankings soon, and hopefully that should help us explore things and find answers to these questions. I'll also work on OU rankings once the next season gets into motion.

 

[Enigami]

"The point is, questions of whether something is balanced, diverse and fun don't need to be answered relative to another meta, and that trying to do so I think is a bit of a red herring."
I did not mean to say it should be like RBY, I think maybe I overdid the RBY comparisons a bit. My point was to look at GSC Ubers in a vacuum, but maybe I didn't get my point across correctly. The RBY comparisons were more to show where a hypothetical less diverse GSC 1U than the current GSC OU could still be a perfectly valid metagame. I'm not sure exactly how diverse GSC 1U should end up, but I do know that whatever we consider the highest valid tier with the least number of bans should be 1U.

Seeing as RBY has 15 '1U' Pokemon, by going with the increased percentage of Pokemon in GSC relative to RBY, a somewhat objective number to aim for with GSC 1U would be around 24. GSC OU by Smogon's count has 24 Pokemon. GSC Ubers with current partially tested Pokemon has 17 assuming Mr.378's "B" and higher ranks are '1U' material, and possibly 23 with current "C" ranks. That's a pretty small gap between GSC OU and GSC Ubers right now, although with deeper exploration that could fall either way.

Edit: I must've been really sleepy when I counted the Mr.378 viability ranks, I somehow counted 19 B+ ranks with 23 C+ when it should be 17 and 23 C+. Surprised no one noticed that.

 

[Bedschibaer]

I haven't read the whole thread but since I was asked for an opinion here is just my opinion on general gsc tiering:
Changing the tiers that have been played for years just for the sake of doing so on some """more objective""" grounds doesn't really accomplish anything since it will only take away playerbase. People are used to playing the same gsc ou for a decade now, picking up a different tier just to play on a different website isn't really something many people will realistically do, especially since tiering will always be something that's very subjective, despite what method you will do it in. Improvement to the tiers in question is subjective and you should be aware of that, and drastically reducing your playerbase and making it harder to pick up the tier (you will need new resources, your new tier will appear more obscure) isn't really something that's worth making a change that can only subjectively increase the game we are playing, at least in my opinion.

An active tiering process in an old generation is barely ever possible. Maybe in bw for example like smogon did lately, but look at the decision process, it's quite questionable for me. Gsc just has a tiny playerbase and pretty much all of the relevant stats are based on tournament play, so tiering based on active usage will never make sense again, that process only really works for the current generation where you can actually take data based on a big playerbase and many battles. Look at the usage stats on showdown and po over the time, what's below snorlax and the electrics often changes quite drastically over the time of just a month because single players have an actually big impact on the ladder usage.

Tiering based on viability is a very iffy issue. On paper it might look fine, but think about it, what are you actually going to accomplish with it? The viability you are basing your tiering off of is determined on the "old" playingfield. If you take out certain components or let in certain components into the tier the viability of everything changes which would lead to changing the tier eventually which would lead to changing the viability of everything eventually, etc. And the question I ask myself there is why? What exactly are you accomplishing with that other than eventually making the tier a little different? Is it hard to see any change that would make the tier """better""" based on viability tiering. Also who should make those decisions? It's not possible to make viability decisions objectively, so you are just making your tiering less objective again.

Alot from what I got out of that thread is pretty much just effectively renaming the tiers. I mean you can do that, but what does it accomplish? OU becomes Classic? Well okay, people are still going to play the tier that is popular. I've also never been a big fan of putting in alot time into microtiers, just not my interest, just not the interest of many people. I'm more of a defender of keeping things the way they are, since splitting the playerbase really shouldn't be in anyone's interest.

 

[Lutra]

Old gen tiers in the future won't have player bases, if all the old players retire and the current players can't see the attraction of them.

The current system used in Smogon and various Smogon Jrs tends to just arbitrarily leave the standard old gens tiers as the tiers that were based on the last significant usage statistics, with a bunch of bans breaking transitivity thrown into the mix. There are two problems I can think of with even a large sample size: one is no one can be fully knowledgeable in the tier, and to make matters worse, there's a whole range of different levels of knowledge; second the usage is ultimately based on trends. On the first problem, given that knowledge with tiering has gradually increased across the generations, with a growing overall competitive player base, I forsee players in the future not being able to relate to the old gen tiers at all. On the second problem, put trends together with the fact of how the tiers are just left, and you can see how the last stage of a tier may well not be the best at all for relating to players.

I think it's very sensible to explore coming up with a new way to do things. We don't know all the answers yet, because of the tremendous foresight required for coming up with good tier lists, but what's the point of supporting a flawed system that actively encourages tiers to not be made equal (particularly if they go past their expiry date)?

I feel like these are the messages sent to players currently:

"Sorry rby/gsc/adv legend, we've got nothing to interest you, as you don't like legitimate current tiers."

"Sorry new player, the old gens were created in the tiering dark ages, nothing to value here."

"Sorry players, enjoy our chaotic tiers, created with the help of some deeply flawed process, which we'll do nothing about. Enjoy reading our insubstantive threads, because we got the fundamentals wrong."

 

[Disaster Area]

I think that this thread should probably be laid to rest and say that we keep the status quo just for the absence of support from top gsc players, and the disappointingly small support that the generation has in general.

I mean I think if we had larger amounts of players playing GSC regularly on here, and of a high standard (so I mean people like beds 378 and lavos rather than me enigami and marco) then we might be able to discuss this thing more seriously, but for now I think beds point about it changing the status quo as being harmful does matter at a point where the generation has such a small amount of people still taking a serious interest in it.

 

[Enigami]

@Disaster Area Why are you trying to shut down discussion? This isn't a resolved issue, and if you haven't noticed 2 out of the 3 GSC players you named are here and discussing this. Also, why are we worried about changing the status quo of GSC when the status quo is that it is borderline dead? If anything, I'd imagine a shake up would draw new attention to it.

Furthermore, why did you not address Bedshibaer's arguments against Pokemon Perfect's tiering using viability rankings? I'm kinda annoyed you ignored that and jumped straight to "Let's not discuss this at all". Personally though, I feel that considering the small playerbases of the old gens, that the council/viability ranking system is probably the best you can get.

@Bedschibaer I want to argue with you, but I need clarification on something from Lutra and Disaster Area first. What exactly is Pokemon Perfect's tiering philosophy?

As I've understood it, the first tier is the viable tier with the smallest banlist. Those banlists contain Pokemon that are too powerful for the other Pokemon to deal with. In RBY 1U, that's Mew and Mewtwo. In ORAS 1U, that's Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre, Mega Gengar, Mega Salamence, Mega Rayquaza and Geomancy. From what it appears, in GSC Ubers there is a legitimate possibility that it is sufficiently balanced, which could very well end up with what is currently GSC Ubers being the viable tier with the smallest banlist (none).

If my understanding is correct, then your arguments should be regarding GSC Ubers' viability as a tier, not that you don't want things to change. If it is viable, and you make GSC OU 1U anyway just because its familiar and 'what its always been', then you completely undermine the purpose of Pokemon Perfect's reexamining of the tiering of older generations. Why then wouldn't you just play on Smogon? What's the purpose of Pokemon Perfect's tiering if its just going to be a carbon copy of what's done before?

 

[Jorgen]

1 - The current GSC and RBY tiers were established before the age of hard usage criteria; they may not be wholly viability-based, but they are probably moreso than they are for newer gens.

2 - If you want to change the tier go all out. Don't keep "GSC Classic" or whatever as an option, it's 1U, 2U or bust at Pokemon Perfect. At first I thought "well nobody would even play the 'new' tiers" but really, GSC tournaments are so infrequent and the number of active players so small that if you offer regular GSC 2U tournaments for the small set of people craving a competitive GSC kick, I could see it gathering some legitimate steam.

 

[Ortheore]

Some comments about our tiering project that aren't quite relevant to this thread, but I wanted to respond to Bed

Spoiler: tiering process

I think it's important to have an "active" tiering process for old gens. One of the biggest complaints I have with past gen tier lists as they are now is that they are fixed, meaning that they do not reflect developments in our understanding of the game, and are not really open to changes if ppl decide that things could be done better. And it's important to be clear here- this active tiering process does not need to occur over a handful of months, it can take a year or two between cycles, since we all know that RBY/GSC metas are a lot more stable than current gens. The purpose is not be constantly redefining things, but instead to not fall by the wayside and stand as a relic of antiquity.

RBY's tiering (2K10) is a prime example- the old list does not reflect a Wrap meta, nor Crystal's mechanic changes and changes to our understanding of what is effective in OU. Look to how players now value Jolteon and Rhydon, while tradition is the only reason Persian is listed OU these days. Meanwhile, if you look at their UU tier, there is a lot of redundancy there and that kind of inefficiency is something that always bothered me. By having some sort of ongoing process you help avoid these pitfalls.

Objectivity is a valid objection to using viability as a means of tiering. Ideally this would be mitigated by having a large number of people contributing input at some stage of the process- while still not really objective, a democratic approach at least serves to minimise the impact of individual biases. Unfortunately, we haven't really got this democratic approach because, well, we're not that big (yet). I've gone about this elsewhere, but tier lists should ideally follow a natural progression from strong->weak. Viability is directly evaluating this, giving you a more accurate tier list, while usage stats often result in anomalies such as gen 4 Evire. Not to mention we have no way of collecting useful usage stats for past gens lol. Also the way the tiering system works, we don't have to worry about changes invalidating their own basis the way you described- it gets passed on to lower tiers, which can respond to the changes in their own time.

It's weird, we shouldn't change for the sake of changing, but at the same time "it's how it's always been" isn't an adequate reason for maintaining the status quo imo. If there were a subsequent more pragmatic reason like "no-one would like it" then that's a different matter.

I want to be clear: I don't want to compromise GSC OU at all. For this to have my support we'd have to cater for both OU and 1U equally, and then if one dies off due to lack of players, well, so be it. I think it's important to cater to GSC OU, since it's a tier that's universal and one that people invest a fair amount of time in. People can come here from other sites and transfer knowledge/skills and may be in the same boat as Bed, may not want to invest time in a tier that is not as well established

My understanding is that 1U should be the least restrictive balanced tier (what Enigami described). If GSC Ubers is that tier, then for the sake of consistency with our own system we should implement the change. The reason for a ban(list) being implemented should only be due to disrupting the game's balance or being otherwise cancerous. Series canon and tradition should be discarded imo, since they do nothing for this process and they obviously have a huge impact on past gens.

I was gonna write more but I can't think of what I was gonna say...

I think this proposal is interesting enough that I intend to give it the support it needs to be well explored so we have a clearer picture. Basically, expect more tournaments.

 

[Disaster Area]

Okay question for Jorgen Bedschibaer Mr.378 Moon Light:
Would 'GSC Ubers' be balanced and diverse enough to be the 'OU' [i.e. 1U] tier for Pokemon Perfect?

Also I'm curious about Jorgen saying we should go 1U/2U or bust rather than keeping old GSC around. I think honestly my main motivation towards keeping them around is that should anyone have left the Pokemon community from years gone by and wish to rejoin a competitive GSC community, that they should have the option to play something comfortable when they return. However, part of me now is saying that well.. Smogon or whatever can do their part and not change their GSC ruleset much (not exactly hard to imageine) and we're free to explore another.

I want to have as many experienced GSC-playing voices input on this as possible, to avoid merely having an echo chamber and not make a decision based upon our own inexperience (myself, lutra, Ortheore, and Enigami are open to a bolder decision upon tiering, but none of us are really high-level GSC players).

Edit:

I think this proposal is interesting enough that I intend to give it the support it needs to be well explored so we have a clearer picture. Basically, expect more tournaments.

I just want to point out that it's worth noticing how few top GSC players are playing regularly on Pokemon Perfect these days, so I'm a little ambiguous to how useful this would be. NOT to say it is worthless, not at all, but to say that we need the very best players we can to be taking an interest in what we do for this to work.

Edit 2:

@Disaster Area Why are you trying to shut down discussion? This isn't a resolved issue, and if you haven't noticed 2 out of the 3 GSC players you named are here and discussing this. Also, why are we worried about changing the status quo of GSC when the status quo is that it is borderline dead? If anything, I'd imagine a shake up would draw new attention to it.

Furthermore, why did you not address Bedshibaer's arguments against Pokemon Perfect's tiering using viability rankings? I'm kinda annoyed you ignored that and jumped straight to "Let's not discuss this at all". Personally though, I feel that considering the small playerbases of the old gens, that the council/viability ranking system is probably the best you can get.

I was just worried about losing the last of our top players and it was knee jerk. Also I had just got on and was probably going to write more later. That being said I think Ortheore responded to Beds' point very well.

 

[Jorgen]

Would 'GSC Ubers' be balanced and diverse enough to be the 'OU' [i.e. 1U] tier for Pokemon Perfect?

No.

Balanced? Sure why not. But there's maybe like 12 viable things in Ubers because the gatekeepers are just so dominant; 90% of things you might consider toying with get dismissed out of hand "because Lugia". Plus, being able to use ultramons, lore or no lore, balance or no balance, is just less appealing than playing with more "normal" mons.

 

[Disaster Area]

Also going to copy some skype logs of M Dragon/Me talking about this [M Dragon = David]

Spoiler: Skype Logs

[19/09/2015 11:24:02] David: comparing RBY with GSC to say that gsc ubers is "balanced" is dumb
[19/09/2015 11:24:03] David: tbh
[19/09/2015 11:24:14] David: i mean i love gsc ubers
[19/09/2015 11:24:24] David: its probably my fav ubers metagame
[19/09/2015 11:24:28] David: together with dpp
[19/09/2015 11:24:44] Danilo De Tullio: rby uber is more stallish than every other uber meta
[19/09/2015 11:24:46] Danilo De Tullio: n_n
[19/09/2015 11:24:46] George S. [Disaster Area]: mm well
[19/09/2015 11:24:53] David: but theres 0 reason
[19/09/2015 11:24:55] David: to make it main
[19/09/2015 11:24:57] George S. [Disaster Area]: the comparison was cross-generational not just RBY and GSC but
[19/09/2015 11:25:01] David: if you compare gsc ou
[19/09/2015 11:25:03] David: with gsc ubers
[19/09/2015 11:25:04] George S. [Disaster Area]: well no there is it's the same as with our oras
[19/09/2015 11:25:11] George S. [Disaster Area]: if you have a balanced diverse metagame
[19/09/2015 11:25:14] George S. [Disaster Area]: w/o any mon bans
[19/09/2015 11:25:17] George S. [Disaster Area]: then don't ban mons?
[19/09/2015 11:25:26] David: gsc ou is a better meta
[19/09/2015 11:25:52] David: thats false
[19/09/2015 11:25:54] George S. [Disaster Area]: okay. Can you expand on the point in the thread?
[19/09/2015 11:25:57] David: if you dont ban
[19/09/2015 11:26:02] David: you dont have a diverse meta
[19/09/2015 11:26:09] George S. [Disaster Area]: in oras we banned
[19/09/2015 11:26:14] David: because the number of viable mons
[19/09/2015 11:26:18] David: is much lower
[19/09/2015 11:26:22] George S. [Disaster Area]: mega ray/mence/gar and primals and a couple of minor other things
[19/09/2015 11:26:22] David: for example
[19/09/2015 11:26:22] George S. [Disaster Area]: and
[19/09/2015 11:26:25] George S. [Disaster Area]: the meta is diverse
[19/09/2015 11:26:26] George S. [Disaster Area]: and balanced
[19/09/2015 11:26:35] George S. [Disaster Area]: and actually an
[19/09/2015 11:26:36] Danilo De Tullio: lol guys
[19/09/2015 11:26:37] David: the number of viable mons in gsc ou
[19/09/2015 11:26:38] George S. [Disaster Area]: interesting point
[19/09/2015 11:26:39] Danilo De Tullio: gsc ou is the best meta
[19/09/2015 11:26:40] Danilo De Tullio: x_x
[19/09/2015 11:26:40] George S. [Disaster Area]: brought up
[19/09/2015 11:26:46] George S. [Disaster Area]: in the discussion is
[19/09/2015 11:26:49] George S. [Disaster Area]: whilst gsc ubers has
[19/09/2015 11:26:52] George S. [Disaster Area]: fewer viable mons
[19/09/2015 11:26:52] David: is much higher than gsc ubers
[19/09/2015 11:26:59] George S. [Disaster Area]: the mons that there are, particularly the main ones have
[19/09/2015 11:27:03] George S. [Disaster Area]: more variety of moveset
[19/09/2015 11:27:11] David: so?
[19/09/2015 11:27:15] David: the main problem of rby
[19/09/2015 11:27:18] George S. [Disaster Area]: not to paint one as the better or worse meta but
[19/09/2015 11:27:22] David: is that its over centralized
[19/09/2015 11:27:31] George S. [Disaster Area]: the lesser diversity of mons
[19/09/2015 11:27:34] David: its the same team with 1 or 2 variations and the lead game
[19/09/2015 11:27:45] George S. [Disaster Area]: and the higher diversity of movesets
[19/09/2015 11:27:45] David: gsc has much more variety
[19/09/2015 11:27:49] George S. [Disaster Area]: could be viewed as balancing?
[19/09/2015 11:27:51] David: gsc is the most strategic gen
[19/09/2015 11:28:00] David: in the long term thinking
[19/09/2015 11:28:06] George S. [Disaster Area]: yeah I agree
[19/09/2015 11:28:26] David: trying to compare gsc and rby which are completely different
[19/09/2015 11:28:29] David: is dumb
[19/09/2015 11:28:38] David: because you are basically saying
[19/09/2015 11:28:46] David: look gsc ubers is as balanced as rby ou
[19/09/2015 11:28:47] George S. [Disaster Area]: eh there's truth in that but at the same token
[19/09/2015 11:28:53] George S. [Disaster Area]: it's more a cross-generational philosophy
[19/09/2015 11:28:54] George S. [Disaster Area]: than
[19/09/2015 11:28:59] George S. [Disaster Area]: merely comparing rby/gsc
[19/09/2015 11:29:14] David: gsc ubers is a good meta
[19/09/2015 11:29:15] George S. [Disaster Area]: it's just rby/oras so far though that we have the 1u metagame well agreed upon
[19/09/2015 11:29:19] David: but its more rby like
[19/09/2015 11:29:28] David: gsc ou is much more strategic in the long term
[19/09/2015 11:29:45] George S. [Disaster Area]: do you think though that
[19/09/2015 11:29:47] George S. [Disaster Area]: the degrees to which
[19/09/2015 11:29:51] George S. [Disaster Area]: gsc ou and gsc ubers have
[19/09/2015 11:29:54] George S. [Disaster Area]: respectively been explored
[19/09/2015 11:30:00] George S. [Disaster Area]: impacts the nature of your statement?
[19/09/2015 11:30:15] David: well
[19/09/2015 11:30:44] David: i dont want to feel pretentious
[19/09/2015 11:30:48] David: *to sound
[19/09/2015 11:30:59] David: but i know every gsc ou matchup
[19/09/2015 11:31:03] David: and every gsc ou situation
[19/09/2015 11:31:07] David: same with gsc ubers
[19/09/2015 11:31:12] David: i have played a ton
[19/09/2015 11:31:18] David: and i have theorymond a lot
[19/09/2015 11:31:29] David: since gsc ubers was my fav non ou meta for a long time
[19/09/2015 11:31:33] David: when netbattle etc
[19/09/2015 11:31:38] David: and i have still played it
[19/09/2015 11:32:05] David: so i think i know those 2 metas and nearly every situation well
[19/09/2015 11:32:23] David: to predict p accurately what would change and what would happen
[19/09/2015 11:32:32] George S. [Disaster Area]: alright, I respect your knowledge and your opinion, please go on
[19/09/2015 11:32:33] David: if something changes
[19/09/2015 11:32:35] David: in the meta
[19/09/2015 11:32:56] David: its basically
[19/09/2015 11:33:13] David: that gsc ubers has much less viable mons
[19/09/2015 11:33:15] George S. [Disaster Area]: (also side question of would having any bans in gsc ou/any bans in gsc ubers make a 'better' metagame than current gsc ou?)
[19/09/2015 11:33:15] David: for example
[19/09/2015 11:33:24] David: nidoking, dnite, etc are nearly useless
[19/09/2015 11:33:28] David: in gsc ubers
[19/09/2015 11:33:38] David: they cant touch those bulky psychics or ho-oh
[19/09/2015 11:34:00] David: gsc ubers is a much more over centralized meta
[19/09/2015 11:34:11] George S. [Disaster Area]: alright, so gsc ubers has fewer viable mons; how much does the increased variety in movesets balance that out?
[19/09/2015 11:34:14] David: games are more similar to rby
[19/09/2015 11:34:24] David: well
[19/09/2015 11:34:32] David: the only mon
[19/09/2015 11:34:40] David: that really has more variery in movesets
[19/09/2015 11:34:42] David: is celebi
[19/09/2015 11:34:44] David: and not really
[19/09/2015 11:34:49] David: every celebi is nearly the same
[19/09/2015 11:34:59] George S. [Disaster Area]: mm that's interesting; the claims I've heard have more been that
[19/09/2015 11:35:00] David: ho-oh? curse and sunny day, not that impressive
[19/09/2015 11:35:07] David: its just a wall
[19/09/2015 11:35:11] David: that can hit hard
[19/09/2015 11:35:19] George S. [Disaster Area]: mew in particular and also mewtwo and lugia, and to a lesser degree ho-oh have more variety in moveset
[19/09/2015 11:35:22] David: and has a nice 50% attack that burns
[19/09/2015 11:35:26] David: mew?
[19/09/2015 11:35:29] David: its always sd
[19/09/2015 11:35:35] David: sball
[19/09/2015 11:35:36] George S. [Disaster Area]: well even SD has variety and
[19/09/2015 11:35:44] David: ghost + fighting coverage
[19/09/2015 11:35:55] David: and boom or soft
[19/09/2015 11:35:59] George S. [Disaster Area]: sball/submission or eq/rock slide + softboiled/explosion
[19/09/2015 11:36:00] George S. [Disaster Area]: ye
[19/09/2015 11:36:07] David: eq + rs is inferior
[19/09/2015 11:36:11] David: in ubers
[19/09/2015 11:36:23] David: because other mews
[19/09/2015 11:36:23] George S. [Disaster Area]: better vs ho-oh and zapdos though, I don't really know..
[19/09/2015 11:36:33] David: mew is the god of gsc ubers
[19/09/2015 11:36:36] George S. [Disaster Area]: also what about stuff like thunder wave, thunder, reflect, transform, etc?
[19/09/2015 11:36:44] David: its in the 100% of the teams
[19/09/2015 11:36:48] George S. [Disaster Area]: the main complaint I heard of people
[19/09/2015 11:36:52] George S. [Disaster Area]: about using those moves was
[19/09/2015 11:36:55] George S. [Disaster Area]: 'waste of a good SDer'
[19/09/2015 11:37:01] David: yes
[19/09/2015 11:37:06] David: why would you use that
[19/09/2015 11:37:07] George S. [Disaster Area]: having played a bit I can see where they are coming frmo
[19/09/2015 11:37:16] David: if you can use the SD set that dominates the meta
[19/09/2015 11:37:19] George S. [Disaster Area]: I'm not totally sure I fully agree with it, but I appreciate the viewpoint
[19/09/2015 11:37:28] David: look at BW
[19/09/2015 11:37:31] David: mew
[19/09/2015 11:37:38] David: it has a TON of sets
[19/09/2015 11:37:45] David: but you only see 1 set
[19/09/2015 11:37:48] David: 95% of the times
[19/09/2015 11:37:55] David: its the same in gsc ubers
[19/09/2015 11:38:04] David: theory says that mew can use a ton of sets
[19/09/2015 11:38:06] Lutra: thx
[19/09/2015 11:38:18] David: but in practice one set is much better than the rest
[19/09/2015 11:38:23] David: so most people use that set
[19/09/2015 11:38:28] David: reflect can be good? yes
[19/09/2015 11:38:30] David: it can be
[19/09/2015 11:38:36] David: transform?
[19/09/2015 11:38:43] David: what do u win with transform?
[19/09/2015 11:38:49] George S. [Disaster Area]: beat cursegia maybe?
[19/09/2015 11:38:54] David: it can ww
[19/09/2015 11:38:56] George S. [Disaster Area]: either way it's a fun move x_x
[19/09/2015 11:39:00] David: and well
[19/09/2015 11:39:09] David: if it curses when the transform
[19/09/2015 11:39:12] David: lugia is slower
[19/09/2015 11:39:15] David: so... yeah
[19/09/2015 11:39:16] George S. [Disaster Area]: i'm not saying it's viable even but it's one of those moves you can definitely try and theorymon with
[19/09/2015 11:39:25] David: yes but as i said
[19/09/2015 11:39:30] George S. [Disaster Area]: yeah I appreciate
[19/09/2015 11:39:33] George S. [Disaster Area]: your greater experience
[19/09/2015 11:39:33] David: [19 September 2015 11:38] David:

<<< theory says that mew can use a ton of sets
[19/09/2015 11:39:39] David: but in practice one set is much better than the rest
so most people use that set
[19/09/2015 11:39:49] George S. [Disaster Area]: also I think a part of my comment was me
[19/09/2015 11:39:54] George S. [Disaster Area]: getting the gsc mechanics wrong
[19/09/2015 11:39:54] George S. [Disaster Area]: x_x
[19/09/2015 11:40:03] George S. [Disaster Area]: a piece that I knew but had slipped my mind
[19/09/2015 11:40:10 | Edited 11:40:13] George S. [Disaster Area]: about phazing.
[19/09/2015 11:40:12] David: mewtwo?
[19/09/2015 11:40:17] David: they are all mixed
[19/09/2015 11:40:26] David: with boom sometimes (a lot of the times)
[19/09/2015 11:40:27] George S. [Disaster Area]: I've seen james g run
[19/09/2015 11:40:32] David: curse is viable
[19/09/2015 11:40:34] George S. [Disaster Area]: reflect psychic thunder(bolt?) recover
[19/09/2015 11:40:37] George S. [Disaster Area]: ya I've seen curse too
[19/09/2015 11:40:49] George S. [Disaster Area]: I've run toxic but that's possibly just me being a noob
[19/09/2015 11:40:54] David: that set is walled by lax and celebi tho
[19/09/2015 11:41:10] David: well mewtwo is basically a mon that hits very hard
[19/09/2015 11:41:15] David: takes hits really well
[19/09/2015 11:41:17] David: can explode
[19/09/2015 11:41:26] David: and dynamic punch lax / ttar
[19/09/2015 11:41:45] George S. [Disaster Area]: submission?
[19/09/2015 11:41:50] David: yes you can use it deffensively
[19/09/2015 11:41:52] George S. [Disaster Area]: or is dpunch better?
[19/09/2015 11:41:56] David: hmm problem of submission
[19/09/2015 11:42:10 | Edited 11:42:11] George S. [Disaster Area]: (submission is in the sample team on smogon btw)
[19/09/2015 11:42:26] David: is that its weaker
[19/09/2015 11:43:05] David: look
[19/09/2015 11:43:05] David: Mewtwo Submission vs. Snorlax: 161-190 (30.7 - 36.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
[19/09/2015 11:43:14] David: it cant 3hko lax!
[19/09/2015 11:44:11] David: well
[19/09/2015 11:44:21] David: basically gsc ubers is more rby like
[19/09/2015 11:44:27] David: few viable pokemons
[19/09/2015 11:44:37] David: games are more strategic in the short term
[19/09/2015 11:44:48] David: you wont see more than 1/2 different strats
[19/09/2015 11:44:56] David: gsc ou has a ton more of variety

Balanced? Sure why not. But there's maybe like 12 viable things in Ubers because the gatekeepers are just so dominant; 90% of things you might consider toying with get dismissed out of hand "because Lugia". Plus, being able to use ultramons, lore or no lore, balance or no balance, is just less appealing than playing with more "normal" mons.

I'm curious if you only banned one or two of the ubers - rather than all 5 - would that satisfy the criterion of being sufficiently balanced and diverse?

And I dispute the point about it being less appealing. Everyone has different viewpoints on this, and the current philosophy of PP roughly works in the way that: our 1U metagame should be the metagame defined as being the metagame with as few bans as possible to be sufficiently balanced and diverse (obviously subective but I don't think it's a sticking point). In RBY that means just banning Mew and Mewtwo, in ORAS that means the Primals, a couple of Megas, an ability, and a set of clauses. In ORAS many cover legendaries are usable (quite a few aren't even good), but the metagame is diverse and balanced.

Another point regarding that, it is a balance between making the competitive level similar to that of an in-game level, and making sure there are as few bans as possible. Lots of new players take issue with Smogon banning Aegislash or Greninja in ORAS OU for example, and their stance is justifiable, but not the only sensible viewpoint. Pokemon Perfect takes a different viewpoint, which differentiates it from Smogon (moreso in later generations) in terms of tiers. There has been some demand even from 'elite' players on Smogon for a tiering system change to the sort of system we're trying to implement on Pokemon Perfect. This is not to devalue your viewpoint, just to make it clear what it is that Pokemon Perfect does. Nevertheless judging from yours and M Dragon's comments, I suspect that the current OU tier is most likely sufficient for our 1U tier. Though questions on for example, a potential curselax ban, should we or should we not have freeze clause, should we have a sleeptrap ban or a sleep-perish-trap ban, remain unanswered currently, once we have decided upon the Pokémon legal, we should take a final look at.

Alright, a final point, we should probably agree upon a council once we have, as a community, hammered out the basic Pokemon bans, to decide upon the clauses. Maybe it could be Jorgen / Moon Light / Jame$ G / Bedschibaer / Mr.378 initially, just an idea.

 

[Enigami]

Balanced? Sure why not. But there's maybe like 12 viable things in Ubers because the gatekeepers are just so dominant;

[19/09/2015 11:44:21] David: basically gsc ubers is more rby like
[19/09/2015 11:44:27] David: few viable pokemons
[19/09/2015 11:44:48] David: you wont see more than 1/2 different strats

Uh, this is objectively false.

GSC Ubers Viability Rankings | Pokémon Perfect

For Pokemon currently ranked in GSC:
B rank and higher: 15
C rank and higher: 23
All ranked: 28.

Right now, one of my best teams uses 2 C ranks and 1 currently unranked Pokemon. I've seen a large variety in teams throughout the GSC Ubers tournament and a decent variety in sets. I've got a shortlist of about 13 more unranked Pokemon that could have viable niches, and likely more that I haven't seen yet. Additionally, I don't know if Tyranitar and Skarmory (both C Rank right now) have been ranked with the fact they actually CAN reliably phaze -1 Lugia. (I've seen discussion claiming they can't, but that's only true for simulators that don't allow DV/EV modification. No matter how much Lugia reduces its DV/EVs, at -1 it is still faster than 0 EV/1 DV Skarmory and Tyranitar)

Take into account Lugia is only 1 Pokemon that can be walled hard or easily phazed and that there is more ways than raw power to have viability.

 

[Disaster Area]

Right now, one of my best teams uses 2 C ranks and 1 currently unranked Pokemon. I've seen a large variety in teams throughout the GSC Ubers tournament and a decent variety in sets. I've got a shortlist of about 13 more unranked Pokemon that could have viable niches, and likely more that I haven't seen yet. Additionally, I don't know if Tyranitar and Skarmory (both C Rank right now) have been ranked with the fact they actually CAN reliably phaze -1 Lugia. (I've seen discussion claiming they can't, but that's only true for simulators that don't allow DV/EV modification. No matter how much Lugia reduces its DV/EVs, at -1 it is still faster than 0 EV/1 DV Skarmory and Tyranitar)

Take into account Lugia is only 1 Pokemon that can be walled hard and that there is more ways than raw power to have viability.

Yes but almost all of us are pretty inexperienced GSCers, it doesn't prove very much. And the comparision was between GSC OU as current, and GSC Ubers, rather than RBY.

 

[Enigami]

Yes but almost all of us are pretty inexperienced GSCers, it doesn't prove very much. And the comparision was between GSC OU as current, and GSC Ubers, rather than RBY.

That's why when the tournament is over, I want to battle Jorgen and M Dragon so any misconceptions can be cleared (either mine or theirs). I really would've preferred they were actually in the GSC Ubers tournament to prove their points though.

As for GSC OU > GSC Ubers, Pokemon Perfect tiers I thought were supposed to be looked at in a vacuum. For 1U, it should generally represent an increase of viable Pokemon from the previous generation (For RBY > GSC, a 3/5 increase would reflect the addition of 100 to 151 Pokemon. GSC Ubers is looking like it could have this).

I would really like to have viability rankings for GSC OU up and explored though, I want an objective look at GSC OU vs. GSC Ubers instead of just "No. GSC OU is much better because it is."