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

[Enigami]

Alright, new post to steer things in a different direction. Maybe I've been going at this the wrong way.

My largest problem with the arguments that GSC OU should be 1U is that it forces GSC Ubers into being 1P/banlist, when it doesn't appear to qualify as one. Going by 1U = viable tier with least number of bans, GSC Ubers looks like it qualifies. But the problem is PP 1U is also considered the 'main' tier, and those opposed to GSC Ubers = 1U want GSC OU to be the main tier, even though most of those opposed also seem to agree that GSC Ubers is balanced, just not as diverse as GSC OU.

I don't care about GSC Ubers being the main tier, I just disagree with the notion of forcing it to be considered a banlist just because people don't like that it would be the 'main' tier over the one they want. Perhaps instead a minor change to PP's tiering structure would be a suitable compromise.

1U would remain the 'main' 'OU' tier and determine lower rankings, 1P would remain the banlist, and instead some other designation could be the 'highest non-banlist' tier if applicable for the generation. So GSC 1P = banlist, GSC 1S (or whatever) = minimal bans to make a viable tier (GSC Ubers), and GSC 1U = main tier (GSC OU). Or perhaps 1P is only a banlist if there are overpowered Pokemon (like RBY Mew/Mewtwo), and when there aren't any, its simply the 'playable tier without banned Pokemon' while 1U can be whatever is desirable for the 'main' tier.

In any case however, I'd prefer if GSC Ubers were renamed to reflect it being a legitimate tier (perhaps GSC Legends or something?), since the Ubers name implies a banlist/unviable tier.

 

[Disaster Area]

Generally the 1P tier is still played (as it tends to be a balanced but not as diverse meta - this is true for RBY too). Ubers on Pokemon Perfect is just a colloquial name anyway, its official name would be GSC 1P, and that in time will have its own connotations I'm sure.

 

[Ortheore]

js I don't think our viability rankings are yet reliable. I put together the initial list on my own, though I did look to Mr 378's list as a supplement. There's obviously a big problem with this as my experience is very limited. There's also the issue of just how top heavy the list is- I agree that there are plenty of viable options but in practice you're not going to see a lot of that diversity because the top few pokemon are just that good.

I suppose I can cook up an OU viability ranking thing as well. On the bright side it'd be less bad than the ubers one because I'm a bit more familiar with OU. Heck, in the meantime we could even just use smog/po threads, but I agree that we should have our own ranking thread. Once we have something to compare to, we can start looking at how many pokemon are viable and how many pokemon you can reasonably expect to see. Those discussions would cover diversity, while looking at balance would generally involve just discussing each pokemon, what its best sets are and how that pokemon is handled. I don't want to characterise it as a suspect because I feel that the mindset they are approached with on PO/smogon is not appropriate in this circumstance

Yeah js I intend to ensure that Ubers is played either way, if it's 1U then all good for it, but if it's not then it's still a great option for breaks and eventually I could implement a GSC other tier season, which would include ubers and all tiers below 1U.

Honestly I'm not sure what to say at this point, I think we need more testing, more discussion on each invididual meta, while DA's points about a council are also noteworthy. Not to mention that we should also consider if we were to only ban some Ubers, whether that would work.

 

[M Dragon]

those opposed to GSC Ubers = 1U want GSC OU to be the main tier, even though most of those opposed also seem to agree that GSC Ubers is balanced, just not as diverse as GSC OU.

Most Uber metagames are balanced, and in fact there are great player that have specialized in playing the Ubers metagame, and in fact it has been used as a big part in some prestigious tournaments (for example smogon tour when dpp). A lot of people loved DPP Ubers for example (including myself), and it was a balanced metagame.
However, it was overcentralized around the huge threats (kyogre, groudon, pakia, dialga, mewtwo, rayquaza, latios, giratina-o...), and that is obv a problem for a main tier.
What you are saying about GSC Ubers metagame can be said about every Uber metagame (but RBY because lol RBY Mewtwo). Most of them are balanced! but they are not main metagames because they are overcentralized around very few mons and strats (and they are still balanced!).

What I mean with this is that balance is not the only criteria to say if the metagame is good enough.

Doug made a thread in smogon about the characteristics of a desirable metagame, which is a bit outdated but I think that its still p good, especially for old gens: Characteristics of a Desirable Pokemon Metagame | Smogon Forums


As I said in the skype convo, I love GSC Ubers, but my issue with it and the reason why I think GSC OU is a better metagame and the reason why its the main instead of Ubers is the diversity.

In GSC Ubers you have monsters that take very little damage from nearly everything, and what is worse: 4 Ubers have a recovery move with 32 PP (and the other one a recovery move with 16 PP), and all the 5 Ubers have amazing defensive and offensive stats. There is no reason to use fighters like Machamp, or mixed sweepers like Dnite, Nidoking or TTar (Crunch TTar does not even 3hko Lugia and does not 2hko Mew or Mewtwo). Sweepers like Vaporeon are useless vs Celebi, Curse Lugia or even Ho-oh with Sunny Day + Solar Beam (Surf does like 40% vs Ho-Oh, it is that bulky). Even Zapdos loses to IB Lugia most of the times (Thunder barely 2hkoes and it is not a speed tie).
Miltank? Useless, and much inferior to Celebi and Umbreon, no reason to use it.
Exeggutor? Useless, other than sleeping it does nothing. Its boom has a 40% chance of killing Mewtwo, thats something I guess.
Gengar? cant even 3hko Lugia and its boom is too weak. It cant touch Mewtwo/Mew. It spin blocks I guess, since Forry is usually the spinner.

 

[Enigami]

Zapdos Thunder vs. Lugia: 224-264 (53.9 - 63.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Lugia Ice Beam vs. Zapdos: 137-162 (35.7 - 42.2%) -- 94.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Zapdos' Base Speed: 100
Lugia's Base Speed: 110
Miltank has growl to stall cursers to keep them from freely setting up on it, and isn't wrecked by Lugia (you know, the Pokemon that's on nearly every team?). Not 'useless'.
Exeggutor can also leech seed and stun spore, and strong boom + sleep isn't horrible. Not great, but not 'useless'.
Gengar booms and spin blocks, yeah, but it also can sleep and has boom immunity. It also gets a fast Destiny Bond. As for can't even 3HKO:
Gengar Thunder vs. Lugia: 153-180 (36.8 - 43.3%) -- 99.7% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery


I can't take your opinions seriously when just about every one of your 'facts' are straight up wrong, M Dragon.


Still, in regards to GSC Ubers, I'm going to do a deeper examination into variety of OU tiers from RBY to XYZ to get a more accurate picture of about where GSC should be in relation to variety, "'Wide' is sufficient, not 'widest'". That said, I'm beginning to think GSC Ubers would be close to reaching that point, but it'd fall a little short of where it needs to be.

 

[M Dragon]

Zapdos Thunder vs. Lugia: 224-264 (53.9 - 63.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Lugia Ice Beam vs. Zapdos: 137-162 (35.7 - 42.2%) -- 94.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Zapdos' Base Speed: 100
Lugia's Base Speed: 110
Miltank has growl to stall cursers to keep them from freely setting up on it, and isn't wrecked by Lugia (you know, the Pokemon that's on nearly every team?). Not 'useless'.
Exeggutor can also leech seed and stun spore, and strong boom + sleep isn't horrible. Not great, but not 'useless'.
Gengar booms and spin blocks, yeah, but it also can sleep and has boom immunity. It also gets a fast Destiny Bond. As for can't even 3HKO:
Gengar Thunder vs. Lugia: 153-180 (36.8 - 43.3%) -- 99.7% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery


I can't take your opinions seriously when just about every one of your 'facts' are straight up wrong, M Dragon.


Still, in regards to GSC Ubers, I'm going to do a deeper examination into variety of OU tiers from RBY to XYZ to get a more accurate picture of about where GSC should be in relation to variety, "'Wide' is sufficient, not 'widest'". That said, I'm beginning to think GSC Ubers would be close to reaching that point, but it'd fall a little short of where it needs to be.

So whats your point with Zapdos vs Lugia? Zapdos 2hkoes while Lugia 3hkoes so it cant switch in (also I meant that it is NOT a speed tie) my point is that Lugia can beat even its "#1 counter"
The only good thing Miltank has over Celebi is that it can Growl Lugia. Umbreon is much better at that though. The only reason to use Miltank is if you need a heal beller that beats Lugia, otherwise its useless.
Egg has little to do in a metagame full of very bulky psychics where heal bell is very common. Not useless but not an optimal choice.
Thunder ggar is uncommon, it usually has tbolt instead. Even if its thunder it has a 30% chance of 3hkoing Lugia, and it can always just recover the damage.

Nope none of my facts is wrong, but the mistake i made when typing

 

[Enigami]

Okay, I can see what you meant. The way it looked it seemed you were spouting a bunch of nonsense. I disagree with a couple of your points here, but that should be discussed elsewhere.

 

[Ortheore]

ok I posted the GSC OU viability ranking thread a day or two ago, and while it's still a rough version (there's probably loads wrong with it but oh well) there's still stuff to go off. The first thing that sticks out is that there are a lot more A rank options in OU compared with Ubers, which I think is a reasonable depiction of the respective metas. When you consider how top-heavy these lists are, having a large number of A rank pokemon is a big deal for OU. Anyway, what are everyone else's thoughts?

 

[magic9mushroom]

The first tier level (level 1) contains every pokemon available in a given tier category (such as standard singles format for a given generation). Within that level is the balanced tier (1U) and one or more banlists (usually 1P).1U is the metagame with the fewest restrictions that is still adequately balanced and diverse. Level 1 tier environments have the fewest restrictions from the whole tier category, as the set of Pokémon allowed is not dependant on any higher balanced tier's sufficiently viable or banned elements (such as pokemon). A pokemon may be banned from 1U if it has a detrimental effect to the metagame, usually by impacting balance and/or diversity. If it is banned from 1U, it is then placed in the banlist for that level (generally 1P).

P is reserved for traditional tiers such as RBY Ubers and BL where no higher Pokémon are banned.
Q, R, S... are tiers in between the traditional broken and balanced tiers where less broken Pokémon are banned.
U is reserved for the balanced tier, or 'Used tier' of the tier level.

There are three options:

1) Discard PP's stated tiering philosophy.
2) Hypocritically ignore PP's stated tiering philosophy while paying lip-service to it.
3) Use something other than GSC OU as "GSC 1U".

Snorlax in OU is at least as game-breaking as Lugia is in Ubers, so GSC OU is not a valid "U" tier by the stated PP rules.

GSC Ubers is more balanced, to my understanding, than any other no-ban tier. There are no Big Legends with permaweather, and there's no "god mon" like in R-B-Y-Stadium (Mewtwo) and X-Y-OR-AS(-Z) (Mega Rayquaza, unless Z exists and has something to balance it). Lugia's a gatekeeper, and on essentially all teams, but it doesn't reach THAT level of dominance, or even IMO Snorlax's level of dominance over GSC OU (for one thing, Mewtwo and Mew are almost as good while being very different, and Mewtwo at least is much more flexible, whereas Snorlax in OU is both cheesily powerful and much more flexible than the three next-best 'mons).

GSC OU is certainly an interesting meta and should be kept around for legacy purposes if nothing else (probably as 1W, with OU + Celebi being 1V), but U it ain't.

I'll also say that I would be interested in what forms the 2P and 2U tiers for GSC would take. Snorlax, Zapdos and Raikou would all be banned from 2X tiers by virtue of being great in 1U, so they'd be at an interesting level of power.

 

[Ortheore]

hmm that did occur to me, and there's certainly an interesting discussion to be had. Like I'm intending to run a OU+Cele+Hooh tour at some point and it felt really strange contemplating banning Lugia/Mew/M2 and not Lax when those 4 are all clearly much better than everything else. And there's definitely no question of Lax's effect in OU.

Constructing an argument in Lax's favour is tough. You could argue that although it does warp the meta enormously, it still manages to be relatively healthy. Even if a few teamslots are relatively inflexible there's still a lot of things you can try in the remaining slots, and plenty of cool concepts for teams. Given that, it may not be worth pushing against tradition- if it ain't broke don't fix it.

It's uncertain how effective that argument really is, but it's what I suspect ppl would argue. A lot of people are opposed to change, and "Ban Lax omg" is something we've all heard several times before, so the habitual reaction is to dismiss the issue.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Constructing an argument in Lax's favour is tough. You could argue that although it does warp the meta enormously, it still manages to be relatively healthy. Even if a few teamslots are relatively inflexible there's still a lot of things you can try in the remaining slots, and plenty of cool concepts for teams. Given that, it may not be worth pushing against tradition- if it ain't broke don't fix it.

The obvious answer to that argument is "well, play 1W then". That's what V/W/X tiers are for.

V, W, X... explore alternate tiers where Pokémon could be banned.

 

[Disaster Area]

So

The first tier level (level 1) contains every pokemon available in a given tier category (such as standard singles format for a given generation). Within that level is the balanced tier (1U) and one or more banlists (usually 1P). 1U is the metagame with the fewest restrictions that is still adequately balanced and diverse

Basically, if having lugia around or snorlax around makes things not adequately balanced/diverse, what should be banned to achieve that? If, for example, we ban Snorlax+Zapdos+Raikou on top of the 5 'super legendaries' then what does that game look like? Does anyone know?

 

[Enigami]

Something I'm curious about is how restricting the Top 8 (Snorlax, Lugia, Mew, Mewtwo, Ho-Oh, Celebi, Zapdos and Raikou) to their Shinies would affect Ubers. Having their HP, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense and Speed reduced combined with the Hidden Power Grass/Dragon restriction (mostly affects Raikou and Zapdos) could have some interesting affects on the viability of other Pokemon.

Some noteworthy changes I've seen:

Spoiler: Changes

Steelix is now faster than Snorlax.

Suicune, Heracross, Misdreavus and Nidoking all speed tie Ho-Oh.

Houndoom speed ties Zapdos, Celebi and Mew.

Miltank is now faster than Zapdos, Celebi and Mew.

Gengar speed ties Raikou and outspeeds +0 Lugia.

Jolteon is now faster than Mewtwo, and goes from a 59% chance of unboosted Thunder 2HKOing Lugia & Ho-Oh to 97%.

Marowak goes from 10% chance of OHKOing Celebi with unboosted HP Bug to 48%, and becomes much more reliable at KOing Ubers after a Swords Dance.
+2 Earthquake vs Shiny Mewtwo: OHKO
+2 Earthquake vs Shiny Mew: 87% OHKO
Burned +2 Rock Slide vs Shiny Ho-oh: OHKO
+2 Earthquake vs Shiny Snorlax: 95% OHKO

Nidoking and Steelix benefit immensely from the Hidden Power Restriction, giving them excellent switch-in opportunities to Zapdos and Raikou without fearing super effective attacks. Nidoqueen might also be usable with Charm/Growl + Moonlight to prevent curse users switching in and setting up.

Rhydon and Golem are hard to say how they'd be affected, the Electric Legends often carried HP Water and HP Ice anyway, but them almost always carrying HP Grass could hurt them somewhat.

Pokemon that may want to ensure they always phaze out -1 Lugia regardless of EV/DVs (such as Skarmory, Rhydon and Tyranitar) can now do so without allowing Steelix to outspeed them thanks to Shiny Lugia's Speed DVs being locked to 10. (Steelix max speed: 158, -1 Shiny Lugia min speed: 161, so 159-160 speed guarantees phazing priority over Shiny Lugia while keeping ahead of Steelix)

Grass-types could see greater use, as Raikou is completely walled by them and Zapdos ends up with 4MSS wanting Thunder(bolt), Hidden Power Grass, Drill Peck, Rest and Sleep Talk all at once and needs HP Grass to keep from being walled by the more common Grounds.

Other niche Electrics could possibly become viable as well due to the Electric Legend's lack of coverage. Two that look interesting are Magneton, which resists all of the Electric Legends' attacks and hard counters non-EQ Lugia, and Raichu with Magnet, as it has a 75% chance of 2HKOing Shiny Lugia & Shiny Ho-Oh with Thunder where before it had a mere 11% with the regular Lugia/Ho-oh and can find more opportunities to abuse Encore with Zapdos, Celebi and Mew being slowed down.

There's a bunch more minor things, like explosions that some of the Top 8 could survive being much more likely to KO or guaranteed OHKO that makes them a bit easier to handle. I'll see what else I can find later.

Edit: One trouble though could be Shiny Mew. If I recall correctly in Gen 1-2 Mew is incapable of having the necessary DVs to be shiny, so if we're restricted to legally obtainable Pokemon, Shiny Mew isn't a possibility.

Edit2: Does anyone know whether or not RBY's event Mews had preset DVs? Because if any of them didn't, there's a possibility that Shiny Mew could be obtained.

Edit3: Oh, and also, on the Showdown teambuilder I implemented the ability to separate Shinies from their base form (mostly to see if I could), and I got it working 100%. So when you select a Gen 2 format for teambuilding, you can have Zapdos in Ubers and Zapdos-Shiny in OU. All you need to do is add the tier for its GSC Shiny in the database, and the UI automatically splits the Pokemon into two select-able entries with unique tiering. If you don't want a Pokemon to have its Shiny separated, all you need to do is not give it a GSC Shiny tier and they won't be split. Internally for Showdown, Zapdos-Shiny is simply a Zapdos that has its shiny flag set and has preset Def/Spc/Spe DVs and restricted Atk DVs, so no additional work is needed to add 'shiny formes' to the database. That should make Shiny-tiering very intuitive if we decide to tier them separately.

 

[magic9mushroom]

So



Basically, if having lugia around or snorlax around makes things not adequately balanced/diverse, what should be banned to achieve that? If, for example, we ban Snorlax+Zapdos+Raikou on top of the 5 'super legendaries' then what does that game look like? Does anyone know?

I think Vap is huge, though there remain a couple of set-independent counters (Electabuzz and Jolteon, though they're not particularly resilient) and a smattering of set-dependent counters (LS Starmie vs. non-HP-Electric, Leech Seed Egg vs. non-Ice-Beam I think? There's a few others that lose to multiple moves). Don't think it's too much better than (standard) OU or Ubers, while the banlist is getting a bit big there for 1U IMO.

Shinies

While this is interesting, I am not sure of the relevance to this thread unless you are seriously suggesting a "Shiny Legends/Snorlax Clause" as the answer to this tiering debate. Are you?

 

[Enigami]

I'm seriously suggesting it as a possible answer, but not necessarily the answer. With GSC, rather than straight banning, we've got a middle of the road nerfing option available that we don't have in any other generation due to GSC Shinies having differing movepools (loss of all Hidden Powers outside of Grass/Dragon) and effectively lower BST, and technically qualify as formes depending on interpretation. It also provides a far more intuitive alternative to the proposed ban on Hidden Power for Zapdos and Raikou that's come up before.

As I see it, these are all the main options for GSC 1U based on proposals that have come up before:

GSC Ubers - Fun and balanced tier, however as it currently stands (going by current viability rankings), GSC Ubers has 15-23 likely candidates for 1U, which places it closer to RBY OU than GSC OU in terms of centralization. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but can be depending on how much more diversity we feel there should be going from RBY > GSC.

GSC Ubers with Top 8 Shiny Restriction - Similar to GSC Ubers, but the drop in bulk and speed for the Top 8 would improve the viability of other Pokemon, especially those that would benefit from Zapdos/Raikou not having access to HP Water/Ice/Fire (i.e. Grass-types, Nidos, niche Electrics etc.). This could help with the diversity issue in GSC Ubers.

GSC OU with Celebi/Ho-oh/Shiny Celebi/Shiny Ho-oh unbanned - I honestly have no idea what any of these would look like.

GSC OU - Same as its always been.

GSC OU with Snorlax Shiny Restriction - Slight nerfing to Snorlax, now it has a little less bulk and Steelix always outspeeds.

GSC OU with Zapdos/Raikou Hidden Power Ban/Shiny Restriction - This probably would make Steelix, the Nidos, and Grass-types better, and open up more niches for lesser Electrics. I'd prefer the Shiny restriction though since it is simple and can be displayed through tiering the Shiny separately, whereas the Hidden Power Ban is a complex ban and not intuitive.

GSC OU with Top 3 Shiny Restriction - A combination of the two above. Steelix gains the most here thanks to outspeeding Snorlax and no longer needing to worry about HP Fire or Water from Zapdos and Raikou.

GSC OU with Snorlax Banned and Zapdos/Raikou Unbanned/Restricted to Shinies/Banned - No idea what these would look like either.

I personally prefer GSC Ubers (Top 8 Shiny Restriction) > GSC Ubers > GSC OU

 

[Disaster Area]

Note also there's further discussion here GSC OU - Shiny tiering | Pokémon Perfect

I personally don't actually care about the specific result, though I am highly curious.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Even Zapdos loses to IB Lugia most of the times (Thunder barely 2hkoes and it is not a speed tie).

Lugia has to Curse to threaten anything; after a Curse Zapdos outspeeds and Curse doesn't boost IB, so Zapdos can switch in after Lugia's Cursed once (+1 Aeroblast is still not remotely threatening). Also Sleep Talk exists and 5/9 denies the 3HKO.

If you're really terrified of IB Lugia Thunder Wave or Light Screen as a fourth is also doable.

 

[Roostur]

Whatever happened with this?

 

[Enigami]

Ignored. Higher ups decided that pandering to players of the most dead OU metagame of Pokemon was better than following the stated tiering philosophy that all Pokemon start out 1U (RBY excepted due to Mewtwo and Mew already being very thoroughly explored to be quickban worthy) and ignored whatever the original setup was. Same thing happened to ADV, and looks like it'll happen to DPP and BW too. Seems hypocritical to me that the only generation that actually followed the philosophy was Disaster Area's personal project ORAS 1U (which carried on to SM 1U), but whatever. Not my site, not my rules.

I want to get to GSC lower tiers anyway, and trying to argue against the old guard is like arguing with statues.

 

[Roostur]

Ignored. Higher ups decided that pandering to players of the most dead OU metagame of Pokemon was better than following the stated tiering philosophy that all Pokemon start out 1U (RBY excepted due to Mewtwo and Mew already being very thoroughly explored to be quickban worthy) and ignored whatever the original setup was. Same thing happened to ADV, and looks like it'll happen to DPP and BW too. Seems hypocritical to me that the only generation that actually followed the philosophy was Disaster Area's personal project ORAS 1U (which carried on to SM 1U), but whatever. Not my site, not my rules.

I want to get to GSC lower tiers anyway, and trying to argue against the old guard is like arguing with statues.

hmm. I also asked this in the sleep trap thread, has there been any discussion about hp electrics and whether or not they should be banned?