Scolipede OU but Blaziken UBER

[cjakabuck90]

Pardon my confusion or sheer misunderstanding but they pretty much do the same thing but one was banned to ubers while the other remains ou. Can anyone explain?

 

[srinator]

this better fits in short answer and question but,

Spoiler:

After extensive play-knowledge and observation, the council agrees on 3 vital points: getting a Speed Boost is trivial (with Protect), getting a Swords Dance is not as trivial but still highly probable, and Blaziken can either sweep a significant portion of the metagame late-game with just a Speed Boost or sweep a significant portion of the metagame at any point in a battle with a Speed Boost and Swords Dance.

The first point hopefully doesn't require too much explanation; simply bring Blaziken in, and choose to either Protect, Substitute, or simply KO various popularly used Pokemon, such as Aegislash, Scizor, Tyranitar, or Ferrothorn.
The second point is more obvious when looking at the current metagame. Aegislash does not OHKO Blaziken, so even if you guess wrong, you still have +1 Speed and +2 Attack. Tyranitar, Scizor, and Ferrothorn are near certain switch-outs in most cases, so that is a strong Swords Dance opportunity. Greninja is faster, but after a Protect, Blaziken is faster, which introduces another opportunity to either KO or Swords Dance. This point is actually important as well. After a Protect boosting Blaziken's Speed, many popular threats that formerly scared it, such as Greninja or Gengar, are now OHKOed, which introduces more chances to safely use Swords Dance. After viewing and playing battles ourselves and confirming with the usage statistics, we determined that, while it wasn't as easy as the free +1 Speed boost, it still was not too difficult to get a Swords Dance in to get +2 Attack with Blaziken.
With those two points in mind (that getting at least a single Speed Boost is trivial and at least a single Swords Dance is usually not an issue) it's clear that it's nearly impossible to stop a +2 Attack and +1 Speed, 339 Attack and 284 Speed, and STAB on both Flare Blitz and High Jump Kick Pokemon from sweeping the majority of the metagame. Blaziken has very niche counters (Slowbro is the closest thing to a counter and, even then, it falls to mixed Blaziken variants) and most of the time players must choose to sacrifice one of their Pokémon in order to bring in their revenge killer (Talonflame/Azumarill are omnipresent in today's metagame even because of Blaziken) and force Blaziken out. For the above reasons, the council determined that it would require enormous over-preparation to deal with Blaziken, so meeting that requirement hinders team building and provides an overall negative presence in the metagame.

Though the council doesn't use previous generation comparisons (at all) in determining a Pokemon's status, it might help to view it in a similar context. Blaziken was banned in Gen 5, and Gen 6 has nerfed potential checks like infinite rain via Drizzle, introduced Pokemon weak to Blaziken, such as Aegislash and Klefki, that are popularly used, and given Blaziken newer tools, such as Mega Evolution and the ability to Baton Pass boosts. The latter tool is particularly significant, as it introduces a whole new archetype of threat to prepare for (Baton Pass) that is often dealt with in a completely different manner than the standard methods to check Blaziken. New checks like Talonflame and Azumarill are certainly viable checks, but we felt that these checks, along with the ones that already existed, like High Jump Kick mindgames and recoil, were not enough to trump the ability to get Speed and Attack boosts relatively easily and subsequently (mindlessly) sweep a majority of the metagame.

source:smogon

 

[Pendraflare]

With Scolipede being my second favorite Pokémon of all time, this is gonna feel like a dirty confession, especially since I don't really battle competitively, but here goes.

In addition to what was said above, Scolipede has not only less Attack than Blaziken, but inferior attacking types to use and not quite as strong moves. There are some Steel-types that really cause Scolipede some problems, especially Skarmory, who eats everything it has to offer for breakfast, except MAYBE Superpower (which one, is kinda hard to get considering it's a B2W2 tutor move unless you're playing on Showdown, and two, cuts your stats anyway) and can either ruin your boosts or just slam you with Brave Bird. Its weaknesses are arguably easier to get in against it.

Gengar (which was mentioned in Blaziken's analysis) resists/is immune to a majority of its moves (Earthquake, Superpower, Poison Jab, Megahorn), and Scizor and Ferrothorn aren't much different (although the latter at least takes super-effective damage from Superpower, but I already discussed that one's drawback).

tl;dr: Blaziken's attacks have much more coverage against what the metagame uses than Scolipede's do.

 

[PlatinumDude]

Scolipede is BL, FYI. Why Scolipede is still OU is because it's not as strong as Blaziken and has more exploitable weaknesses, especially coming from the fact that it takes 25% damage upon switching in to Stealth Rock.

Edit: semi-Greninja'd

 

[cjakabuck90]

Ok so the difference is type coverage. Guess that makes since. But the baton pass is a thing and bar priority is pretty much unstoppable.

 

[Dark Azelf]

Baton Pass has been nerfed this gen thanks to it being broken and banned on more than one Pokemon and as thus BP scoliopede not unstoppable due to the aforementioned now, use Roar/WW/Taunt/perish Song/haze/encore etc etc or something that flat out walls it. See: anything with defense evs/steel/pokemon with move.

 

[champagnepapi]

Tiers are based on usage while bans are based on the community's judgment. Scolipede is OU because people use it, Blaziken is banned from OU because its very potent offensively and support wise to a point where its presence is detrimental to the ou metagame

 

[Polar Spectrum]

Everyone really already covered the reasons pretty well. Bug and poison aren't nearly as threatening of stabs as fire and fighting - and even with the access to coverage in earthquake and rock slide, either of those will take up a slot in the line of protect, swords dance, either stab, or baton pass. So while it can be used pretty effectively, it really isn't on par with blaziken's flexibility or offensive presence. Not to mention that while they're both weak to flying and psychic, scolipede's weak to rock and fire, which are debatably worse weaknesses than blaziken's alternative of water and ground.

 

[Musicality]

Yeah, the argument is pretty much wrapped up. The main difference to sum up, and maybe add a bit of my input to this conversation would be type coverage, weaknesses and metagame presence. Stats wise it already has a gap, if you're using both as sweepers and / or baton passers. Blaziken is a lot more threatening than Scollipede because while both don't appreciate Stealth Rock, nothing really likes to take A Fire/Fighting STAB coming off Base 120 while Scolipede has base 100 attack, respectable, but the power difference is noticable. Add on to the fact that Blaziken has the potential to go Mega and just has so much more coverage than utility. As good as Speed Boost is, it's Bug/Poison typing comes packaged with a multitude of weaknesses.

In short, Scolipede is just generally a weaker Pokemon than Blaziken in terms of stats, power, utility and coverage which is the main reason why despite both having wonderful abilities, one is still in OU while the other resides in Ubers.

 

[MoxieInfinite]

Pardon my confusion or sheer misunderstanding but they pretty much do the same thing but one was banned to ubers while the other remains ou. Can anyone explain?

One is broken and one isnt.

 

[Cloudfury]

Fire fighting with speed boost will maul all Scizors, Heatrans, Ferrothorns, Skarmories, Excadrills, Pinsirs, Terrakions, Tyranitars, Mamoswines; pretty much everything.

Never did like using steel types. Earthquake, fire, and fighting moves are so common.

 

[cjakabuck90]

The funniest part is I have now experienced it first hand as had no answer and gOt swept a few times Lmbo