PokeCommunity's Competitive Battling Community

Ársa · Dec 5, 2013

.Gamer said:
how are you going to pair them together when you can only have one megamon per team???

Because Luke doesn't have to be Mega?

TrainerNico · Dec 6, 2013

Not to mention, U-turn and Volt Switch can also be an answer to Mega Gengar, after Perish song using it then switch in the counter and it will be forced to switch out.

Ársa · Dec 6, 2013

I'd like to also mention, that there are many more physically-defensive ghosts to play with this Gen - Gourgeist, Trevenant and even Aegislash - that Gengar is unable to trap, not to mention the distinct possibility of MeGar being KO'd by a Shadow Sneak.

Pokedra · Dec 6, 2013

Smogon always does this to be honest. There's just stuff that is top-tier in terms of offense/defense/support and fits in the metagame despite that but they'd rather ban it because they don't want to deal with it anymore. Which is fair for centralization issues I guess. But Gengar-M is by no means broken, although if we are talking about ladder play and the amount of poor players then I suppose in the hands of a good player it may be.

Ársa · Dec 6, 2013

Pokedra said:
Smogon always does this to be honest. There's just stuff that is top-tier in terms of offense/defense/support and fits in the metagame despite that but they'd rather ban it because they don't want to deal with it anymore. Which is fair for centralization issues I guess. But Gengar-M is by no means broken, although if we are talking about ladder play and the amount of poor players then I suppose in the hands of a good player it may be.

Which is partially what I've been saying as well. People use MeGar the wrong way.

See: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/gas-pedal-xy-ou-hyper-offense.3493531/

Explains its uses in an offensive team. He claims it's broken, but I sense only because he's had success with it against a ladder that largely is still unsure of how to play around MeGar.

champagnepapi · Dec 6, 2013

Pokemon are evaluated by smogon in the hands of a good player.

Also, of the pokes you mentioned, Gengar can deal a good deal of damage to Phys Def Hippo, Quagsire and Gliscor. This is especially true with Gengar vs. Heatran, Focus Blast won't KO, but it hits quite hard, 2hkoing SpDef Versions and doing like 70-80 to offensive. If Heatran has taken rocks or other damage, then Heatran might be reaching a point where its near dead and something like a Shift Gear Genesect can kill it after a boost. A lot of Pokemon just need their counters SOFTENED to sweep. This is the basis of teambuilding where you put 2 "breakers" that support each other. Now you don't have to do this with Mega Gar, you can pretty much kill or damage almost any Pokemon you need. I suppose you can make the same argument that Gothitelle can do this as well, but it's nowhere near as good as Mega Gar.

wolf · Dec 6, 2013

Every Pokemon is manageable depending on the skill of the player. It's not exactly difficult to beat a newbie who uses an Ubers team, for example. (Arceus is a bit ridiculous, though.) Stuff like Gen 4 Salamence and Mega Gengar may not seem overpowered in the hands of a typical battler on the ladder, but a good player may use it well enough to be considered broken.

Pokedra said:
Smogon always does this to be honest. There's just stuff that is top-tier in terms of offense/defense/support and fits in the metagame despite that but they'd rather ban it because they don't want to deal with it anymore.

Smogon was far from ban happy in Gen 5. There were plenty of top-tier threats like weather, Keldeo, Terrakion, Reuniclus, the dragons, and so on that they never bothered to ban. And look what happened to the metagame. Heck, they even went so far to unban a controversial Uber (Kyurem-B). While they could've balanced the metagame significantly by banning more stuff like weather, they probably decided it would take up too much time, or they simply decided to stick with the hand they were dealt.

Pokedra · Dec 6, 2013

awolffromspace said:
Every Pokemon is manageable depending on the skill of the player. It's not exactly difficult to beat a newbie who uses an Ubers team, for example. (Arceus is a bit ridiculous, though.) Stuff like Gen 4 Salamence and Mega Gengar may not seem overpowered in the hands of a typical battler on the ladder, but a good player may use it well enough to be considered broken.

Smogon was far from ban happy in Gen 5. There were plenty of top-tier threats like weather, Keldeo, Terrakion, Reuniclus, the dragons, and so on that they never bothered to ban. And look what happened to the metagame. Heck, they even went so far to unban a controversial Uber (Kyurem-B). While they could've balanced the metagame significantly by banning more stuff like weather, they probably decided it would take up too much time, or they simply decided to stick with the hand they were dealt.

Gen IV Mence was not broken in the least, every team carried SR, the most dangerous variant was MixMence. Switching in and attacking cost you 35%, you had to play it very well and when you do it was extremely effective. But the facts remains it had drawbacks, Scizor running around on 30% of teams and dealing 65% to it with BP didn't help it either. SS teams also got quite popular if I recall, shortening his lifespan even more. Mence was simply a portable nuke on a timer and the player needed to use it well, a good tool doesn't mean it's broken.

The thing is, these Pokemon were the best at what they did but they needed support and good play. Will a good player using Gengar dominate a weaker player? Of course, but it doesn't matter if the good player uses something else. They'll still beat the weaker player most of the time. And it's not like you can't use Gengar-M yourself, the metagame hasn't settled yet so an insta-ban on something more questionable seems rushed to me. Blaziken and stuff like Arceus are a given but Gengar not so much I feel.

Gen V OU was broken no matter what Smogon did, it was basically who had the bigger gun in every match. Nintendo handed Smogon a jug that been shattered and basically told them to fix it. It's no wonder they gave up. So yeah I speak more of Gen IV bans.

wolf · Dec 6, 2013

I personally thought Salamence and, to a lesser extent, Dragonite were overpowered in Gen 4. Gen 4 OU was much more balanced after the Salamence ban anyway; Dragmag teams weren't so dominant after it happened. Then again, I didn't like dragons to begin with.

Pokedra said:
Gen V OU was broken no matter what Smogon did, it was basically who had the bigger gun in every match. Nintendo handed Smogon a jug that been shattered and basically told them to fix it. It's no wonder they gave up. So yeah I speak more of Gen IV bans.

How so? Gen 5 UU was almost on par with the balance that Gen 4 OU had, and the same can be said for Gen 5 RU and Gen 4 UU. Gen 5 UU was like that mostly because weather was banned in addition to the aforementioned Pokemon not being available in the tier. Gen 5 OU had the potential to be balanced if Smogon banned more, but they chose not to.

Pokedra · Dec 6, 2013

awolffromspace said:
I personally thought Salamence and, to a lesser extent, Dragonite were overpowered in Gen 4. Gen 4 OU was much more balanced after the Salamence ban anyway; Dragmag teams weren't so dominant after it happened. Then again, I didn't like dragons to begin with.

How so? Gen 5 UU was almost on par with the balance that Gen 4 OU had, and the same can be said for Gen 5 RU and Gen 4 UU. Gen 5 UU was like that mostly because weather was banned in addition to the aforementioned Pokemon not being available in the tier. Gen 5 OU had the potential to be balanced if Smogon banned more, but they chose not to.

Even before the Mence ban it was still relatively balanced, getting rid of Mence weakened offense I suppose. But the problem is Mence never dominated like a Uber should, he was rarely top 5 iirc. He had checks, he could be revenge-killed, DDsets were stopped cold by several viable mons. MixMence was the only arguable case due to "nocounters Uberz!1". Dragmag didn't seem too common, I mean yeah it was popular but I didn't see anything wrong with it. There was still a healthy blend of stall, bulky offense and hyper offense.

They'd have to ban so much they'd be making their own metagame instead of Nintendo doing it. Nintendo provides the parts, Smogon builds the game. If Nintendo doesn't ban weather, Smogon shouldn't ban it either unless it's ridiculously broken and it wasn't. It just ruined the metagame. And banning like 15+ Pokemon from a tier isn't a good idea either, they've never done it before and people would complain. And you would need like 15 bans because BW OU was full of ridiculously high-powered moves backed by weather and ridiculous offensive stats.

Nolafus · Dec 6, 2013

Pokedra said:
Even before the Mence ban it was still relatively balanced, getting rid of Mence weakened offense I suppose. But the problem is Mence never dominated like a Uber should, he was rarely top 5 iirc. He had checks, he could be revenge-killed, DDsets were stopped cold by several viable mons. MixMence was the only arguable case due to "nocounters Uberz!1". Dragmag didn't seem too common, I mean yeah it was popular but I didn't see anything wrong with it. There was still a healthy blend of stall, bulky offense and hyper offense.

They'd have to ban so much they'd be making their own metagame instead of Nintendo doing it. Nintendo provides the parts, Smogon builds the game. If Nintendo doesn't ban weather, Smogon shouldn't ban it either unless it's ridiculously broken and it wasn't. It just ruined the metagame. And banning like 15+ Pokemon from a tier isn't a good idea either, they've never done it before and people would complain. And you would need like 15 bans because BW OU was full of ridiculously high-powered moves backed by weather and ridiculous offensive stats.

Gen 5 was my first competitive experience, so I can't comment on the past generations, but I do feel like OU had way too much emphasis on power. Not to mention I lost interest in the OU side of the metagame since everyone was using weather. I resided in the NU side of things for the longest time. Looking back, I don't think I liked the gen 5 metagame all that much because it took way too little time to get good at it. Everyone was putting too much emphasis on power and I think I won my first tournament a month into competitive play. I don't know about you, but that's way too little time.

I'm really liking the extra strategy in gen 6. Already I've noticed a difference and I've had to heavily adjust my strategy for it. I mean, I can actually use Tangrowth in OU. I tried that last gen and it didn't work out at all.

wolf · Dec 6, 2013

Pokedra said:
Even before the Mence ban it was still relatively balanced, getting rid of Mence weakened offense I suppose. But the problem is Mence never dominated like a Uber should, he was rarely top 5 iirc. He had checks, he could be revenge-killed, DDsets were stopped cold by several viable mons. MixMence was the only arguable case due to "nocounters Uberz!1". Dragmag didn't seem too common, I mean yeah it was popular but I didn't see anything wrong with it. There was still a healthy blend of stall, bulky offense and hyper offense.

From my experience, Dragmag was all over the place before Salamence's ban, maybe even more so than in Gen 5 OU. Regardless, Gen 4 Salamence and Mega Gengar were only examples. My point was that even the most powerful Pokemon can seem underwhelming when used by a typical battler.

They'd have to ban so much they'd be making their own metagame instead of Nintendo doing it. Nintendo provides the parts, Smogon builds the game. If Nintendo doesn't ban weather, Smogon shouldn't ban it either unless it's ridiculously broken and it wasn't. It just ruined the metagame. And banning like 15+ Pokemon from a tier isn't a good idea either, they've never done it before and people would complain. And you would need like 15 bans because BW OU was full of ridiculously high-powered moves backed by weather and ridiculous offensive stats.

I'm not sure I follow. Smogon makes their own metagames; GF isn't the one that makes their tiers. Bans don't alter mechanics. Smogon has plenty of metagames with absolutely massive banlists (see: UU and below), and yet OU shouldn't receive the same treatment? The Uber tier is only going to get larger as the power creep gets worse and worse. Smogon can either do whatever it takes to make OU as balanced as possible, or do very little to retain a "small" and "simple" banlist (because the VGC banlist is so small! /s) and keep it as close to what GF intended. GF is not very capable of keeping competitive Pokemon balanced, so I think Smogon should do what it can to balance its standard metagame while still remaining true to Pokemon's primary mechanics. If I wanted to play GF's metagame, I'd go play VGC, but this is Smogon's metagame.

Pokedra · Dec 6, 2013

awolffromspace said:
From my experience, Dragmag was all over the place before Salamence's ban, maybe even more so than in Gen 5 OU. Regardless, Gen 4 Salamence and Mega Gengar were only examples. My point was that even the most powerful Pokemon can seem underwhelming when used by a typical battler.

It was popular no doubt, but unlike Gen V which you either ran weather or lost there was potential in every playstyle. And aren't we trying to create a metagame for the general? The fact is any top tier Pokemon is borderline broken if used right, in BW UU I swept more then half of some people's teams with Kingdra (and I'm not even that great of a player) because I played him right with the right support and these weren't new players, they were fairly good players with 1900+ ratings and just played poorly which I capitalized on. Mega-Gar can do that but against a decent player who knows the metagame while he'll have an answer to stop Mega Gar if it threatens your team. If there's a threat, deal with it with good play and team building. Mega Gar isn't so powerful you can never counter it, it has flaws and needs support to be very good hence I don't feel it's broken. Slap Blaziken on any team and that team instantly becomes much more powerful. Slap Lugia on it and the same thing but Mega-Gar is more questionable.

I'm not sure I follow. Smogon makes their own metagames; GF isn't the one that makes their tiers. Bans don't alter mechanics. Smogon has plenty of metagames with absolutely massive banlists (see: UU and below), and yet OU shouldn't receive the same treatment? The Uber tier is only going to get larger as the power creep gets worse and worse. Smogon can either do whatever it takes to make OU as balanced as possible, or do very little to retain a "small" and "simple" banlist (because the VGC banlist is so small! /s) and keep it as close to what GF intended. GF is not very capable of keeping competitive Pokemon balanced, so I think Smogon should do what it can to balance its standard metagame while still remaining true to Pokemon's primary mechanics. If I wanted to play GF's metagame, I'd go play VGC, but this is Smogon's metagame.

Smogon would rather not ban something like weather unless they had because it breaks the game, weather did not break the game, it just made it worse. Gamefreak themselves nerfed weather in the end. Smogon can do whatever it wants but they try make it so it's as close to the cartridge experience as possible, I remember reading a thread on Smogon about this. Weather and powerful isn't broken, it's just awful but Smogon wasn't going to ban weather nor the 15+ powerful Mons for balance but it takes too much away.

wolf · Dec 8, 2013

Pokedra said:
Smogon can do whatever it wants but they try make it so it's as close to the cartridge experience as possible, I remember reading a thread on Smogon about this.

OU is far from being a traditional and pure experience, though. Ubers is the only metagame close to that, and even it has a few clauses that set it apart from that description. I recall there being discussions on Smogon about this too. I've read some of the recent threads but one that sticks out in my mind is, of course, Doug's metagame characteristics thread. In the end, there isn't a right or wrong way to manage a metagame. There's going to be people that want to adhere as closely as possible to what game intended, and those that prefer to do whatever it takes to make the metagame enjoyable. Anyway, change of topic, yes?

What Pokemon do you predict to be banned next?

Sorry if it's a little unoriginal! Went with the first thing that came to mind. Feel free to bring up something else.

Ársa · Dec 8, 2013

awolffromspace said:
What Pokemon do you predict to be banned next?

Honestly, I'd like to hear anybody else's thoughts on this. Having played quite a bit of singles on showdown and battle spot doubles online, I really haven't found anything particularly ban-worthy. Charizard-Y comes to mind as the only possible ban, however with the weather-nerf even that seems a stretch.

Charizard-Y flourishes in doubles, with a sun-boosted Heat Wave demolishing anything that doesn't resist it. I've been playing with a Charizard-Y + Chlorophyll Venusaur lead, and after a first-round protect Venusaur can just sleep anything that poses a threat to Charizard, who can at least 2HKO anything that doesn't resist Heat Wave (which for those who don't play much doubles hits both opposing enemies and has a relative high chance to inflict burn). That and access to a 1-turn Solarbeam thanks to its ability, and bulky waters and rock types which usually wall most Charizard sets simply bite the dust. Paired with Venusaur - who under sun only needs to run 28 Spe EV's to outrun Jolly Mega Aerodactyl - and with good play you can essentially run through any team that doesn't have Hail / Rain. Even then, it's a simple matter of subbing out and in, or even running a Ninetails in the background who is another bulky type with access to a (albeit less reliable) sleep inducing move.

Ooka · Dec 8, 2013

I see Mega Kangaskhan getting banned soon. Other than it, I haven't noticed much that's overpowered personally. Maybe Mega Lucario, dunno.

zygardian harbinger · Dec 8, 2013

I'm not entirely sure about Mega Kangashkan. Despite the 1.5x damage output to some of its moves, it doesn't seem all too dangerous to me. Mega Lucario- that's a whole different story. It sits well with a good base 145 Attack and 140 Special Attack, only 3 weaknesses, a good 8 resistances, and a decent movepool. It's definitely something to watch out for.

Pokedra · Dec 8, 2013

Nothing strikes me as overly broken, Mega Kangaskhan is easily checked by a vast majority of mons and as long as you don't misplay and let it stack boosts you'll be good to go. Mega-Luke is insanely powerful but suffers from severe 4MSS so it can never easily sweep teams unless the player is terribad, plus without Mega-Gar things like Gyarados, Gliscor, Hippowdon can give him trouble.

Tide · Dec 8, 2013

Username:
Tide ("HiddenPowerFlying" on Pokemon Showdown)

How well did X/Y succeed in balancing the metagame? (answer to current topic):

I think certain aspects of X/Y contributed to a more balanced playing field in the metagame, and some aspects had the opposite effect.

Spoiler:

For example, by restricting abilities that initially allowed perma-weather (such as Drizzle Politoed, Sand Stream Tyranitar, Drought Ninetales, etc.) are now limited to a certain amount of turns, similar to the standard Rain Dance and Sunny Day moves. With this "nerf", it makes it much more difficult for any average player to create some basic rain team and go 10-1 without any specific skill to showcase.

In addition, Fairy types were introduced to level common Dragon types. Prior to the release of X/Y, many people felt Fairies would actually be overpowered, but little to no Fairy pokemon with extreme stats and sets were introduced. This made it so a newly-implemented type wouldn't counter everything and run the metagame. While the type is inclined to progress over time with future generations, this subtle transition didn't corrupt the competitive field.

On the other hand, I can identify two aspects that in some ways make the metagame more unbalanced. One being Mega Evolutions. While just about every mega can be countered - the overall composition of them are quite intense. The best example of this is probably Mega-Kangaskhan. It has an ability Scrappy in its pre-mega form, which prevents it from being permanently stuffed by Aegislash (in a worst case scenario), but upon mega-evolution, it can manipulate two Power-Up Punches in one turn; which is basically equivalent to a Swords Dance that inflicts substantial damage. On top of that, it can get dual Sucker Punch, which is priority and with the most minor prediction skills can sweep. I also can't forget that the pokemon is naturally bulky, and only gets more bulk - which allows it to set up extremely easily.
Now, not all pokemon have strategies to utilize to this extremity, but they all follow the same principle that just about all pokemon have the potential to absolutely destroy a team - with counters in place or not. I'm basically saying Mega's have a bit too many ways to wreck a team, as opposed to how it was in the previous generations. That being said, it can make it a bit unbalanced.

EDIT: Upon reviewing other posts in the thread addressing this topic, I agree with what someone said regarding the effectiveness of Hyper-Offensive based teams. With the higher value of sets like Rocky Helmet Ferrothorn, and Rocky Helmet Garchomp (Which already WERE very evident), offensive pokemon can be stopped in their tracks at ridiculously easy levels. X/Y also introduced a lot of walling tactics and new physical and special attackers which naturally provide more need for the common defenders. Thus, any amateur player can't just throw together six base 130 attack pokemon and succeed.

Another way X/Y makes the metagame unbalanced is the insertion of moves that do not follow the same type resistance patterns; namingly Freeze Dry and Flying Press. This takes battling out of its element by breaking the wall with Freeze Dry on a water type, or hitting something with Dual-STAB (Hawlucha), or hitting a pokemon for 8x super-effectiveness.

Altogether, X/Y's metagame changes, I feel, did more balancing than unbalancing - and it really has made the standard for skillful battling a bit higher with less broken strategies, EVEN factoring in Prankster Klefki and such. I hope this wall of text is perceived as useful discussion rather than gibberish.

Experience in competitive battling:
Nearly 4 years.

Favourite Pokemon:
Glameow (My favorite pokemon often change at a rather frequent rate. From a competitive spectrum, my decisions in usage are very influenced by the specific niches I want to utilize, so there are very few pokemon that I WOULDN'T try out. So, I'll just go with what I like among pokemon from a non-competitive perspective.)

Preferred playstyle/core:
I have experimented with many teams manipulating a variety of different strategies, but my most often used and preferred playstyle is a compromise I call Balanced-Offensive.

Extra:
I hope to associate myself with a community of respectable and intelligent battlers.

dreyko · Dec 8, 2013

With the banning of Gangarite and Blaziken (again), im not sure there is much left that is ban worthy right now. A lot of the megas left are very powerful, but also easily countered by other Pokemon.

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