- 39
- Posts
- 10
- Years
- Age 23
- Seen Jun 28, 2014
I'm talking about the Megas
Smogon and the Pokemon Metagame
- Thread starter SparksPKMN
- Start date
- 1,904
- Posts
- 10
- Years
- Age 44
- Seen Oct 9, 2017
It's interesting how people keep defending the bans by saying it keeps people from using the same pokemon over and over again, but if you look at the tries people ALREADY do that because if they're in this teir, they can't use that, that, that or that, so that ONLY leaves this or this. Even the smogon movesets primarily list moves to counter SPECIFICALLY NAMED pokemon rather than pokemon types and list the counters againas specifically named pokemon rather than types because of the tries, there's only specific pokemon you can use in specific teirs. Not to mention my endless rants against their idiotic bans (yes, idiotic!) Blaziken gets banned because of speed boost? I forgot that the faster it gets, the more moves per turn it gets. Oh wait! It doesn't! If you're slower than Blaziken when the battle starts, Blaziken gets NO benefit whatsoever. Then there's the stupid double team ban. Oh no! A move that has dozens of counter moves, several abilities and even an item that counters it, THERE'S NO DEFENCE AGAINST THIS SUPER MOVE! Better ban it from use! I'm just waiting for them to ban Nuzzle. (A move that damages AND paralyzed?! Holy crap!! Screw Arceus, pichu will destroy everything in existence! ;-) )
There's the lame justification of "evasion makes the game based on luck rather than skill!" Which could be said about EVERY move. If you're prepared, evasion boosts mean nothing. But everyone is smogon apparently loses both bladder and bowel control at the thought of it.
A HUGE thing that the teirs have produced is interchangeable movesets. You look (objectively) at a crap ton of the movesets are totally interchangeable. If it's a special sweeper, it has thunderbolt, flamethrower, ice beam, psychic. If it's a physical sweeper it has earthquake, Rock slide, close combat, flare blitz, annoyed have toxic, substitute, confuse ray, etc, etc. those aren't the actual movesets, but my point has been made that you can defend the tiers by saying that it prevents the same pokemon from being used over and over, but it really doesn't. It in fact not only makes the same pokemon used over and over, it makes the same movesets used over and over. It genuinely won't take you very long looking at smogon movesets to see movesets that don't even take the type consideration of the user into account, let alone ones that make no use of it's natural stat spread or ability. (There's plenty that DO, don't get me wrong, but there's stills significant number that don't)
Basically, everything is an interchangeable physical sweeper, or a special sweeper, or an annoyer, or a wall, or a baton passer, or a healer. The only thing that prevents identical movesets on everything in the same category is that not everything can learn everything. And on top of that, there's the hugely underused class if pokemon that are obviously meant to be evaders. Just because smogon wets themselves in terror at the thought of a surskit with double team, they simply ban the move altogether rather than learning how to combat it. There's many pokemon that have good attacks and speed but terrible HP and defenses. Obviously those ones are not made to fit into the narrow category smogon sets up, but rather their own class where they hit hard and just try not to get hit back in return by slinking into the shadows. But because smogon thinks every battle should be like the British army where everyone just stands there firing at each other no one learns new, unique strategies, no one learns how to use evaders and therefore never learns how to counter them, so the meta game stagnates because no one is trying creative, amazing, wonderful strategies, they just make all the pokemon fit into 1 of 5 categories and try to shoehorn similar movesets onto everything in that category.
I too am a strong believer in everything has a counter battling, because everything does. The teirs make everyone use the same pokemon over and over, but allowing anyone to use anything does quite the opposite. Sure at first people will keep using the most powerful same pokemon over and over, but then people will figure out counters to those, and the. More people will use those and someone else will figure out counters to those and so on and so on. Just because today everyone is using mega kangaskhan, for example, doesn't mean people won't figure out counters to those, have the counter on all their teams then very quickly no one is using kangaskhan but rather the counter, and so on and so on, and the game will evolve from there. Removing the incentive to think for yourself by banning pokemon, moves and strategies doesn't help anyone. It in fact reduces imaginative battlers and makes them unable to function if anyone else tries anything other than the smogon pre approved movesets.
There's the lame justification of "evasion makes the game based on luck rather than skill!" Which could be said about EVERY move. If you're prepared, evasion boosts mean nothing. But everyone is smogon apparently loses both bladder and bowel control at the thought of it.
A HUGE thing that the teirs have produced is interchangeable movesets. You look (objectively) at a crap ton of the movesets are totally interchangeable. If it's a special sweeper, it has thunderbolt, flamethrower, ice beam, psychic. If it's a physical sweeper it has earthquake, Rock slide, close combat, flare blitz, annoyed have toxic, substitute, confuse ray, etc, etc. those aren't the actual movesets, but my point has been made that you can defend the tiers by saying that it prevents the same pokemon from being used over and over, but it really doesn't. It in fact not only makes the same pokemon used over and over, it makes the same movesets used over and over. It genuinely won't take you very long looking at smogon movesets to see movesets that don't even take the type consideration of the user into account, let alone ones that make no use of it's natural stat spread or ability. (There's plenty that DO, don't get me wrong, but there's stills significant number that don't)
Basically, everything is an interchangeable physical sweeper, or a special sweeper, or an annoyer, or a wall, or a baton passer, or a healer. The only thing that prevents identical movesets on everything in the same category is that not everything can learn everything. And on top of that, there's the hugely underused class if pokemon that are obviously meant to be evaders. Just because smogon wets themselves in terror at the thought of a surskit with double team, they simply ban the move altogether rather than learning how to combat it. There's many pokemon that have good attacks and speed but terrible HP and defenses. Obviously those ones are not made to fit into the narrow category smogon sets up, but rather their own class where they hit hard and just try not to get hit back in return by slinking into the shadows. But because smogon thinks every battle should be like the British army where everyone just stands there firing at each other no one learns new, unique strategies, no one learns how to use evaders and therefore never learns how to counter them, so the meta game stagnates because no one is trying creative, amazing, wonderful strategies, they just make all the pokemon fit into 1 of 5 categories and try to shoehorn similar movesets onto everything in that category.
I too am a strong believer in everything has a counter battling, because everything does. The teirs make everyone use the same pokemon over and over, but allowing anyone to use anything does quite the opposite. Sure at first people will keep using the most powerful same pokemon over and over, but then people will figure out counters to those, and the. More people will use those and someone else will figure out counters to those and so on and so on. Just because today everyone is using mega kangaskhan, for example, doesn't mean people won't figure out counters to those, have the counter on all their teams then very quickly no one is using kangaskhan but rather the counter, and so on and so on, and the game will evolve from there. Removing the incentive to think for yourself by banning pokemon, moves and strategies doesn't help anyone. It in fact reduces imaginative battlers and makes them unable to function if anyone else tries anything other than the smogon pre approved movesets.
Last edited:
- 1,904
- Posts
- 10
- Years
- Age 44
- Seen Oct 9, 2017
I don't think their should be a teir system at all. I DO however think that you should have the option to not battle someone when you see their party before the battle starts.
- 39
- Posts
- 10
- Years
- Age 23
- Seen Jun 28, 2014
Then there would hardly be any battles since people can just not battle people they'll lose against, and so no one gets to battle.
Zerrah.
Mauling with Ursaring
- 248
- Posts
- 16
- Years
- Age 31
- Seen Jan 15, 2018
I understand what you guys are saying, but I think your thinking is slightly skewed. The tiers are mostly determined with how often something is used, barring when something is banned for being too powerful. When you're playing in OU for example, you can use basically anything in OU or lower. You are NOT by any means limited to using only OU Pokemon. I personally love to use Quagsire, I don't care if he was considered NU.
I personally agree with most of Smogon's decisions. Blaziken and Lucario were already really good on their own and did not need the extra power from the mega stones, despite the lack of held item. I find it unfortunate that Kangha's mega made it so broken, as it is almost unplayable without it. The tier system allows people to play Pokemon how they want to play it. Want to have a team full of the strongest legendaries? There's a tier for that.
That being said, if you don't like Smogon's tiering, simply don't abide by it when playing in Battle Spot or sanctioned tournaments. But if you want to partake in tournaments through forums and Pokemon Showdown, you will have to abide by their rules, or risk not playing there at all.
I personally agree with most of Smogon's decisions. Blaziken and Lucario were already really good on their own and did not need the extra power from the mega stones, despite the lack of held item. I find it unfortunate that Kangha's mega made it so broken, as it is almost unplayable without it. The tier system allows people to play Pokemon how they want to play it. Want to have a team full of the strongest legendaries? There's a tier for that.
That being said, if you don't like Smogon's tiering, simply don't abide by it when playing in Battle Spot or sanctioned tournaments. But if you want to partake in tournaments through forums and Pokemon Showdown, you will have to abide by their rules, or risk not playing there at all.
They don't just ban pokemon for the laugh of it from OU.
They ban it because it has such a huge impact on the competitive play aspect of pokemon. If you don't follow bans and so on, then most likely you're a person who plays casually. In that case, go ahead and use any pokemon.
But it really isn't enjoyable at all when any pokemon is allowed, it creates an atmosphere of overpowered and predictable pokemon will be used constantly that have an alarming small amount of counters to them. Banning pokemon is needed in order for the metagame to be balanced and enjoyable to a sense, instead of having a complete dominant factor.
So in the case for megaevolutions, the ones currently banned simply have too strong abilities/too strong bases. Mega Gengar was ridiculous, it's ability enabled it to switch on anything and keep them trapped and there is NOTHING you can do about that whatsoever. The fact it had a huge special attack/speed base too enabled it to outspeed/kill anything. That's why it got banned. Mega Kani got banned because having 2 sucker punches is a bit... over the top coupled with a sword dance set up.
They ban it because it has such a huge impact on the competitive play aspect of pokemon. If you don't follow bans and so on, then most likely you're a person who plays casually. In that case, go ahead and use any pokemon.
But it really isn't enjoyable at all when any pokemon is allowed, it creates an atmosphere of overpowered and predictable pokemon will be used constantly that have an alarming small amount of counters to them. Banning pokemon is needed in order for the metagame to be balanced and enjoyable to a sense, instead of having a complete dominant factor.
So in the case for megaevolutions, the ones currently banned simply have too strong abilities/too strong bases. Mega Gengar was ridiculous, it's ability enabled it to switch on anything and keep them trapped and there is NOTHING you can do about that whatsoever. The fact it had a huge special attack/speed base too enabled it to outspeed/kill anything. That's why it got banned. Mega Kani got banned because having 2 sucker punches is a bit... over the top coupled with a sword dance set up.
Keiran
[b]Rock Solid[/b]
- 2,455
- Posts
- 13
- Years
- Age 32
- New Jersey
- Seen May 25, 2023
What you're asking for, OP, is called Battle Spot.
- 412
- Posts
- 15
- Years
- Mo f*%#$'n Pallet Town
- Seen Sep 13, 2023
But pokemon competitive is luck based... what you switch in on, the abilities one your facing might have, the idea you might be facing a sandstorm team and be facing a rapid spin excadrill... baton passers, sub/ dancers.... yeah these are all strategy based... butttt what good is a strategy if I out speed and crit out of luck. There isn't really any skill in pkmn, everyone can have what everyone else has and then its up to speed and crits, because the thing about pkmn is everything can be out sped and every wall can have a hole punched through it... the bans are just there to try to keep ppl who wanna explore their luck and tread dangerously without having to worry about completely being dominated, at which point strategy nor luck play a role... without the tiering system everyone would be using a team like
Mew two, deoxys, rayquaza, w kyurem, xerneas, yveltal
So what then when some guy wants to take his favorite aesthetically pleasing pkmn to battle... he gets wasted and melted through even with his best strategy...
- 412
- Posts
- 15
- Years
- Mo f*%#$'n Pallet Town
- Seen Sep 13, 2023
The UBER tier for pkmn who can be set up to be op. Countering any counters for them/ridicolous bst./ boosting to unreal stats ( protect/speed boost )
- 39
- Posts
- 10
- Years
- Age 23
- Seen Jun 28, 2014
All those Pokemon are banned for a reason, unlike Mega Blaziken, Kangaskhan and Gengar
- 15,939
- Posts
- 10
- Years
- Age 31
- Seen today
Mega Kangaskhan and Mega Gengar are banned for a reason. Whatchoo talkin' about?
- 412
- Posts
- 15
- Years
- Mo f*%#$'n Pallet Town
- Seen Sep 13, 2023
did you read my post?
lol
I was saying that people would be using teams of those pkmn left, righ,t and center if it wasn't for the tier system.
I don't even understand how you are trying to reply to it to be honest, no offense.
read the post though, I wasn't saying they shoudnt be banned
lol
EDIT:
I think I get what you are saying. You seen the pkmn names and just went ahead and posted instead of replying to the actual content of my post, I was confused at first.
As far as M gengar and M kangaskhan. There are ways to make them unstoppable. uhmmm Gliscor for example, he could boost M kangaskhan ridiculously, Switch in gliscor on something he can take two or three hits on sworddance and agility then baton pass to M kangaskhan, get off one power up punch from there and, viola, sweep an entire team, full of any pkmn from any tier pretty much.
That's why its banned. It can be set up to be OP.
Last edited:
The area in bold happened to catch my eye.
Just curious, have you ever actually played against, say, a mega Blaziken in OU? A Pokemon with not-too-terrible bulk, base 160 attack, two base 120+ STAB moves, fantastic offensive coverage, the inability to get burned, and the ability to get to +1 Speed and +2 attack in one turn in horrifically broken, and doesn't really have an expansive list of counters, does it?
+2 252+ Atk Mega Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 183-216 (46.4 - 54.8%) -- 10.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
(Aside from Giratina, who's in Ubers) Slowbro is the only Pokemon I've seen that isn't outright 2HKO'd or even OHKO'd by a +2 High Jump Kick. Are you honestly going to tell me that if I don't want to get swept by a Mega Blaziken, I have to run a max HP max Def Slowbro on every team I make? When it gets to that point, one would believe it fairly obvious that Blaziken deserves a ban.
Zeffy
g'day
- 6,402
- Posts
- 15
- Years
- Age 27
- Seen Feb 7, 2024
I was with you here until...
Obviously you have not played against a proper Blaziken. The user above pointed out the very reason why Blaziken has been banned so I'm not going to blab about that any longer.
Now you're just being silly. Here was me thinking "hey a person who's dissing smogon with a proper argument, I better get me some of that!" but only end up being disappointed. The theory of probability dictates that for a number of random sequence of events, a pattern is eventually going to arise. Since evading is a probability, raising your evasion high enough is surely going to somewhat produce a pattern. While irrelevant in most cases, you actually don't need any prior knowledge of probability to abuse increasing evasion. It is similar to the premise of other stat-boosting moves--the higher the number, the more likelihood of success. Meaning, if you eventually raised your evasion high enough, you almost have direct control of the game, which even a well-prepared cannot come back from. That's no fun now, innit?
You also raised a point about things that counter evasion abuse. I only have one thing to say to that: no. I mean, sure, you could just use moves that ignore evasion like Swift and Shock Wave, which would eventually lead to a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ metagame. Isn't that exactly the opposite of what you want to achieve?
tl;dr version: waa smogon is a big baby waa
The "stagnating metagame" is not exactly the fault of Smogon's tiering system. I hope you are still reading this because, surprise surprise, people play Pokemon. No one is discouraging you to use creative movesets--as long as it works. In fact, some of the known movesets right now were considered creative before--right until people started using them team after team. People people people people people. Do you see what I'm getting at?
I'm going to go on a limb here and say that you've no proper experience with the Smogon's metagames. Either that or you lack the basic understanding of simple logic. I'm sorry if that is a bit...insulting but I'm only being honest. They have banned most (emphasis on most) of the Pokemon with legitimate reasons. I'm afraid one or two counters are not enough to decry a Pokemon's ban. If a Pokemon is legitimately "broken" then everyone will be forced to use a niche Pokemon to counter something widely used, thereby leaving them with only 5 slots to work with; essentially giving up team synergy just to counter a single Pokemon.
I find it amusing the people keep insisting on dissing Smogon's tiering system. You're entitled to your own opinion, yeah, but at least support your opinions with actions. I have seen a many a people say "screw smogon I play by my own rules *puts on shades*" yet they still battle under Smogon's circumstances or worse (i'm talking about those who don't play competitive Pokemon at all).
- 5,616
- Posts
- 13
- Years
- Age 35
- Seen May 15, 2023
The official standards won't mirror Smogon's standards because the people who run it disagree with the mentality of "this is the only way to use them." That Smogon presents. Smogon has a higher rate of constantly repeating teams than the official tournaments do and a lot of local tournaments give off way better and more unique team formats.
Only things that are banned are event exclusive content, which I believe Soul Dew is event exclusive as well hence the item's ban, and main box art legends.
The only time they have ever banned Pokemon and or moves is if they had really bad effects like Chatter, Gravity and Dark Void.
Only things that are banned are event exclusive content, which I believe Soul Dew is event exclusive as well hence the item's ban, and main box art legends.
The only time they have ever banned Pokemon and or moves is if they had really bad effects like Chatter, Gravity and Dark Void.
Azire
Mr. Premier Ball
- 753
- Posts
- 11
- Years
- Seen Dec 25, 2016
Smogon......I don't play by their rules. I believe a lot of it is stupid. Blaziken is banned why? Blaziken isn't that great and Scolipede is actually 10x the Baton Passer Blaziken is. Being a BP fanatic I have tested this excessively. Blaziken is actually really easy to take down. I've never personally had a problem with it.
Evasion? How do people think this strategy is hard to battle against? Uncompetitive!? That's like saying Trick Room is uncompetitive. There is so much to combat evasion it's ridiculous it's still banned. The evasion argument is like trying to convert a 90 year old Catholic to Atheism. People against it just won't ever seen how blind they really are.
What's really bad? Stealth Rock. Not saying it should be banned but how does it not classify the same as other banned items? You have to put a counter or two on your team, it absolutely destroys certain Pokémon. Look at Rain last Gen. Almost every team you battle was Rain and all teams had like 9 different Pokémon. How was that fun?
Smogon is kind of that love/hate. It gives players something to abide by but it's far from perfect.
EDIT: On the evasion clause and making the game luck based, Focus Blast without evasion is luck based. How many Pokémon still run it for coverage? How many people still use Aura Sphere without evasion? Mega Gengar sometimes uses FB. Mewtwo X sometimes uses Aura Sphere. Evasion is just another strategy you prepare for, it's not even that great. You run Rapid Spin or Defog on almost every team? Why no Haze?
Evasion? How do people think this strategy is hard to battle against? Uncompetitive!? That's like saying Trick Room is uncompetitive. There is so much to combat evasion it's ridiculous it's still banned. The evasion argument is like trying to convert a 90 year old Catholic to Atheism. People against it just won't ever seen how blind they really are.
What's really bad? Stealth Rock. Not saying it should be banned but how does it not classify the same as other banned items? You have to put a counter or two on your team, it absolutely destroys certain Pokémon. Look at Rain last Gen. Almost every team you battle was Rain and all teams had like 9 different Pokémon. How was that fun?
Smogon is kind of that love/hate. It gives players something to abide by but it's far from perfect.
EDIT: On the evasion clause and making the game luck based, Focus Blast without evasion is luck based. How many Pokémon still run it for coverage? How many people still use Aura Sphere without evasion? Mega Gengar sometimes uses FB. Mewtwo X sometimes uses Aura Sphere. Evasion is just another strategy you prepare for, it's not even that great. You run Rapid Spin or Defog on almost every team? Why no Haze?
Last edited:
Super Bling
Clair pretty thick, huh?
- 93
- Posts
- 10
- Years
- Age 28
- Seen May 10, 2014
Well I mean...not everyone wants to bring a Taunter just for the attempt to avoid the Double Team/Minimize. Not everyone wants to bring an Aerial Ace or Shock Waver. There are even Pokemon with Prankster that get Double Team. You can't say that isn't annoying. You'll need a Prankster just to counter that Prankster.
Then again, it all comes down to luck. Luck has always played a big part in Pokemon.
But I'm not disagreeing with you or anything, just throwing my opinion out there.
I like Haze as a big **** you to all those Scizors and Cloysters though.
Last edited:
Azire
Mr. Premier Ball
- 753
- Posts
- 11
- Years
- Seen Dec 25, 2016
Well it's like you just mentioned, Haze isn't only for Evasion Pokémon/Teams. It actually has use against Pokémon that boost ANYTHING!! So it's not dead weight. One move slot and when is the last time you saw a team without a single booster?
Why isn't evasion allowed? Oh that's right!! It is in my eyes!! Granted I never use it like I never use Mega Kanga or Mega Gar but I don't tend to follow Smogon rules. Just cause I don't follow their rules doesn't mean I go out and make the most Uber hax team ever.
Why isn't evasion allowed? Oh that's right!! It is in my eyes!! Granted I never use it like I never use Mega Kanga or Mega Gar but I don't tend to follow Smogon rules. Just cause I don't follow their rules doesn't mean I go out and make the most Uber hax team ever.