Sandslash Fan
Spikey Boi
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It's one of the only things that makes Klefki able to actually kill things on a regular... might as well ban the Klefki :/
Slippery slopes!
Smogon and the Pokemon Metagame
- Thread starter SparksPKMN
- Start date
Slippery slopes!
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- Houston,TX
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None of these would fix the problem. There is still Prankster + Confuse Ray/Flatter, so people could still abuse the strategy to a lesser extent.
Banning Prankster + Confusion in its entirety is the way to go here. It makes it so there's absolutely no way for people to luck out against those immune to Twave. If we go out of our way to actually ban this, we should, you know, ACTUALLY ban it and make sure that nobody can abuse Prankster Parafusion anymore.
Flushed
never eat raspberries
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I think the main thing they're looking at is SwagPlay, which only Klefki and Liepard have access to (as far as I know), and is potentially more dangerous than just normal Parafusion, especially confusion with Confuse Ray/Flatter. Perhaps banning the individual 'mons or moves wouldn't alleviate the entire problem, but it'd essentially do what you yourself said, people would abuse the strategy to a lesser extent.
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We are surprised that it took that long for them to come up with a discussion considering what Smogon thinks about those kind of elements.
See, the confusion mechanics had always been considered fishy because it has a chance of 50% to stop any kind of action, which is much higher than an initial Minmize (40%) or paralysis (25%) and works on almost any target, unlike Attract. Prankster does not help in that regard because in Singles it is almost impossible to outplay a +1 Swagger without engaging dice rolls or using the obscure Own Tempo, unless you are using using Prankster Sub or Prankster Taunt - which is casting out devils by Beelzebub. And as you know, Smogon aspires to minimize luck as far as possible without changing the inherent game mechanics.
Before someone starts whining, we can comfort you: This is most likely only going to affect Smogon Singles. In Doubles, it is perfectly possible to prevent Prankster Swag with Quick Guard while the partner is free to move.
See, the confusion mechanics had always been considered fishy because it has a chance of 50% to stop any kind of action, which is much higher than an initial Minmize (40%) or paralysis (25%) and works on almost any target, unlike Attract. Prankster does not help in that regard because in Singles it is almost impossible to outplay a +1 Swagger without engaging dice rolls or using the obscure Own Tempo, unless you are using using Prankster Sub or Prankster Taunt - which is casting out devils by Beelzebub. And as you know, Smogon aspires to minimize luck as far as possible without changing the inherent game mechanics.
Before someone starts whining, we can comfort you: This is most likely only going to affect Smogon Singles. In Doubles, it is perfectly possible to prevent Prankster Swag with Quick Guard while the partner is free to move.
dontstay96
Grass-man
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Okay, I'll say my opinion.
I personally don't like to play by Smogon rules, but a lot of people do, and that's okay... until everyone has the same pokemon, I'm pretty sure that a lot of Smogon players have a team of Swords Dance/Outrage Garchomp, Bullet Punch/Pursuit Scizor, Double Screen Espeon etc. and that's not fun people, they are telling you how to do your teams and how to play, IDK I think it's more enjoyable to build your team on your own, learning what you should or should not do buy your own means, they are telling you how to play! For me logging on a website, searching for how to make a specific pokemon has no skill, because you're not doing it... that's my opinion.
About the tiers, I kinda like them in some cases, mostly for not using legendaries, but come on, Mega Gengar? Mega Blaziken?
Yeah if you encounter a guy with a Mega Blaze you'll tell yourself "Oh no the a**hole with the Mega Blaze" but it's the same in other games, the a**hole with the rocket launcher on a shooter, the a**hole that always chooses Barcelona on FIFA, The a**hole that only uses a Bugatti Veyron on Gran Turismo or Forza, the a**hole that uses an unstoppable Exodia dec on YuGiOh! It's a part of games since online play was introduced!!!
I repeat, it's my opinion, please respect it, becouse I'm respecting yours
(Sorry if I have bad english)
I personally don't like to play by Smogon rules, but a lot of people do, and that's okay... until everyone has the same pokemon, I'm pretty sure that a lot of Smogon players have a team of Swords Dance/Outrage Garchomp, Bullet Punch/Pursuit Scizor, Double Screen Espeon etc. and that's not fun people, they are telling you how to do your teams and how to play, IDK I think it's more enjoyable to build your team on your own, learning what you should or should not do buy your own means, they are telling you how to play! For me logging on a website, searching for how to make a specific pokemon has no skill, because you're not doing it... that's my opinion.
About the tiers, I kinda like them in some cases, mostly for not using legendaries, but come on, Mega Gengar? Mega Blaziken?
Yeah if you encounter a guy with a Mega Blaze you'll tell yourself "Oh no the a**hole with the Mega Blaze" but it's the same in other games, the a**hole with the rocket launcher on a shooter, the a**hole that always chooses Barcelona on FIFA, The a**hole that only uses a Bugatti Veyron on Gran Turismo or Forza, the a**hole that uses an unstoppable Exodia dec on YuGiOh! It's a part of games since online play was introduced!!!
I repeat, it's my opinion, please respect it, becouse I'm respecting yours
(Sorry if I have bad english)
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You are entitled to your opinion just fine until you start to make up facts from baseless assumption. Then we will take the liberty of refuting that kind of argument - which is probably like beating the dead horse because roughly half of the thread was dedicated to that.
Not liking Smogon rules is the most reasonably statement because it is an opinion, something you are entitled to have. Then you said that people start to use the same Pokemon and sets over and over and force you to do the same. Besides that two of the sets you have given are NOT the most used on Smogon (Scarf-Chomp is more popular than SD-Chomp, BP-Espeon is more used than DS-Espeon, roughly 4% of the Pokemons are Scizors with Pursuit), they will not force you to use something in particular in any shape or form. The only thing they can do is giving you advises on what is hot in the moment, but when building your team you are on your own. Everyone has to consider for themselves whether to take or to ignore advises. The analyses Smogon provides don't force people to use them, it is the other way around: They relect on what people use the most. Try it yourself; take a mon of your choice and try to work its absolute maximum potential out if it. Chances are you will end with something very similar to one of the sets they deem viable or at least something in the other options section.
The tr;dl version of the argument is that Smogon forces centralization which basically runs contrary to the whole idea of Smogon. We will come back to this one shortly.
The other argument, that something should be allowed because it is part of the game. This argument falls flat because restrictions have been in place since VGCs exist. Everyone is complaining because they don't allow everyone's favourite nuke mon anymore but we yet have to see someone defending Smogon for allowing maboroshi no pokemon, those event only releases that are banned from normal paly despite not being overpowered (except for Darkrai, it can stay where it is). And arguing that those Pokemon are not part of the game won't do it, it would completely miss the point we tried to bring across: Smogon's tiers are just alternative formats that strive to have a less centralized metagame.
Back to the centralization part: We think we can have a carefully-considered guess; you neither have Smogon nor VGC (official) experiences. Which is fine, because according to your opinions you would hate VGC even more than Smogon. Garchomp and Rotom-W are used in more than 30% of all teams; Kangaskhan, Tyranitar and Salamence, Amoonguss and Charizard are all used in more than 20% of the teams and they are closely followed by Mawile and Aegislash. If you compare it to the Smogon formats, both Doubles and OU, you will see that even the most popular mon in the respective tier is not used more than in 20% of the teams.
See, there is nothing inherently wrong with a centralized metagame. Chess for example is as centralized as it can get for a game that allows that many options. However, saying that Smogon is bad because of centralization while preferring the official formats is very much misinformed or even manipulative (depending on how aware you have been of the circumstances).
Not liking Smogon rules is the most reasonably statement because it is an opinion, something you are entitled to have. Then you said that people start to use the same Pokemon and sets over and over and force you to do the same. Besides that two of the sets you have given are NOT the most used on Smogon (Scarf-Chomp is more popular than SD-Chomp, BP-Espeon is more used than DS-Espeon, roughly 4% of the Pokemons are Scizors with Pursuit), they will not force you to use something in particular in any shape or form. The only thing they can do is giving you advises on what is hot in the moment, but when building your team you are on your own. Everyone has to consider for themselves whether to take or to ignore advises. The analyses Smogon provides don't force people to use them, it is the other way around: They relect on what people use the most. Try it yourself; take a mon of your choice and try to work its absolute maximum potential out if it. Chances are you will end with something very similar to one of the sets they deem viable or at least something in the other options section.
The tr;dl version of the argument is that Smogon forces centralization which basically runs contrary to the whole idea of Smogon. We will come back to this one shortly.
The other argument, that something should be allowed because it is part of the game. This argument falls flat because restrictions have been in place since VGCs exist. Everyone is complaining because they don't allow everyone's favourite nuke mon anymore but we yet have to see someone defending Smogon for allowing maboroshi no pokemon, those event only releases that are banned from normal paly despite not being overpowered (except for Darkrai, it can stay where it is). And arguing that those Pokemon are not part of the game won't do it, it would completely miss the point we tried to bring across: Smogon's tiers are just alternative formats that strive to have a less centralized metagame.
Back to the centralization part: We think we can have a carefully-considered guess; you neither have Smogon nor VGC (official) experiences. Which is fine, because according to your opinions you would hate VGC even more than Smogon. Garchomp and Rotom-W are used in more than 30% of all teams; Kangaskhan, Tyranitar and Salamence, Amoonguss and Charizard are all used in more than 20% of the teams and they are closely followed by Mawile and Aegislash. If you compare it to the Smogon formats, both Doubles and OU, you will see that even the most popular mon in the respective tier is not used more than in 20% of the teams.
See, there is nothing inherently wrong with a centralized metagame. Chess for example is as centralized as it can get for a game that allows that many options. However, saying that Smogon is bad because of centralization while preferring the official formats is very much misinformed or even manipulative (depending on how aware you have been of the circumstances).
Griffinbane
I hate Smeargle.
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Boyo's got a point there. Popular 'mon usage doesn't get that high in Smogon as far as I remember. On the other hand, right now Kangaskan and Talonflame's got about a 50% usage. Charizard, Garchomp, and Mawile each have at least 30%. Manectric and Tyranitar are common to see on a team. You could say that VGC is more centralized than Smogon's, even if you split it into tiers.
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Mega Gengar has no counters, Mega Kangaskhan has no counters that are viable in regular OU play outside of checking Kanga. Mega Blaziken has few counters(mainly stuff like Unaware Quag), but it can Baton Pass its boosts to something else that can destroy you. Mega Lucario has no counters, and when you figure out what set it runs, it's at +2 and can outright sweep you with ease.