OU Suspect Testing Proposals

[dadoux]

I don't see why a lot of people are bitching about the fact that you can suspect a pokemon just because of one move / ability. For me it's actually a good thing, we could do the same in the other way too, like adding some moves to some pokemons to add diversity to the metagame / balance it a bit, the fact that the community is controled by Game Freaks decisions kinda sucks imo, smogon got a large enough community to live by it's own in my opinion.

Banning sheer force landorus and letting the sand force one in OU( the sand force one is basically walled by skarmory / bronzong and stuff, while still doing a good job without being totally inbalance), unbanning mold breaker Excadrill / blaze blaziken (he could be nice in UU) sounds good to me.

 

[ShootingStarmie]

But where is the line drawn? Eventually we'd have like Mewtwo but with only Support moves, Raquaza at lv 80 only, and some other bullshit. It gets way too complex imo and is overall just stupid. These pokemon are broken, and we shouldn't be nerfing them just so they're allowed in standard play.

 

[X5Dragon]

These pokemon are broken, and we shouldn't be nerfing them just so they're allowed in standard play.

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone in OU telling you Mold Breaker Exca or Blaze Blaziken to be broken.

 

[ShootingStarmie]

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone in OU telling you Mold Breaker Exca or Blaze Blaziken to be broken.

Yeah, and I'm sure many people don't think lv 45 Kyorge is broken either. Lets just nerf everything and not have tiers any more, because everything should be allowed in every tier with restrictions.

 

[dadoux]

Why going to the extreme ? Let the ubers in uber, lvl 80 ? I don't say anything about stats. But hum what's the point of talking in the smog about "Move the pokemon should learn" ?...smogon is a community with like 100 000+ members, his own simulator, why not testing moves if they are totally logical in everyone's mind ? And i'm talking about a balancing factor, like adding a move / ability on a pokemon to make it more viable without being overpowered and helping him counter a top tier pokemon who is starting to being unstoppable, not playing every Uber in OU because it's just fun.

Banning every OP pokemon is not good either, it's really better to find a way to deal with it, but if you are making pure fun of what i'm saying, there is no point of debating.

 

[ShootingStarmie]

Banning every OP pokemon is not good either, it's really better to find a way to deal with it, but if you are making pure fun of what i'm saying, there is no point of debating.

Is this sarcasm? Banning every OP Pokemon isn't a good thing. What? How is that not a good thing?

 

[Halcyon.]

Why going to the extreme ? Let the ubers in uber, lvl 80 ? I don't say anything about stats. But hum what's the point of talking in the smog about "Move the pokemon should learn" ?...smogon is a community with like 100 000+ members, his own simulator, why not testing moves if they are totally logical in everyone's mind ? And i'm talking about a balancing factor, like adding a move / ability on a pokemon to make it more viable without being overpower and helping him counter a top tier pokemon who is starting to being unstoppable, not playing every Uber in OU because it's just fun

Banning every OP pokemon is not good either, it's really better to find a way to deal with it, but if you are making pure fun of what i'm saying, there is no point of debating.

Simply put, because then we aren't playing Pokémon.

 

[Pocket]

Huh @ Morpheus? We aren't giving Pokemon moves that it doesn't learn in the game - then we wont be playing Pokemon. Adherence to the game is one of the most important tenets of Smogon.

 

[X5Dragon]

OK no more talk about teaching pokemon new moves and playing with, or rather inventing a new game with new mechanics, we got Other Metagames for that. This is a topic talking about Suspect Testing in OU, let's keep it relevant thanks or otherwise it will be closed by a moderator.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Banning something with a specific ability but not banning it with a specific move/level/whatever is an arbitrary decision. Pokemon are a combination of dozens of factors, you cant just pick one and negate the others just because you think its more important. If blaziken didnt had swords dance it wouldnt be broken either but people find it easy to suggest a speed boost ban on it. Thats why complex bans make no sense and should generally be avoided. The entire point of tiering is to separate each threat in their own groups to give every mon a shot at being viable and not to try to customize them to fit our own needs.

 

[X5Dragon]

I'm not seeing the arbitrary decision here, and we aren't just picking one characteristic arbitrarily, isn't Sand Rush what pushed Excadrill towards ubers? Isn't Speed Boost what pushed towards ubers? Isn't separating each ability of Excadrill and their different levels of threat into their own group and giving every mon a shot at being viable?

 

[ShootingStarmie]

I'm not seeing the arbitrary decision here, and we aren't just picking one characteristic arbitrarily, isn't Sand Rush what pushed Excadrill towards ubers? Isn't Speed Boost what pushed towards ubers? Isn't separating each ability of Excadrill and their different levels of threat into their own group and giving every mon a shot at being viable?

You don't ban a Pokemon just because of one characteristic. You ban it because of multiple reasons on top of that one hugely broken characteristic. Excadrill wasn't just good because of Sand Rush, it was immune to Thunder Wave, Toxic, could Rapid Spin, etc.

Same can be said about Blaziken. Speed Boost wasn't the only reason it was broken. It was the main reason yes, but you have to factor in SD, great STAB, HJK's base power pumped up etc.

 

[X5Dragon]

You said it yourself, one hugely broken characteristic, in addition to other great qualities the pokemon has, so if we remove the hugely broken characteristic that was Sand Rush on Exca and Speed Boost on Blaze, you are left with a pokemon that has great qualities, but is not broken anymore or at the very least, meriting a test in OU.

 

[ShootingStarmie]

You said it yourself, one hugely broken characteristic, in addition to other great qualities the pokemon has, so if we remove the hugely broken characteristic that was Sand Rush on Exca and Speed Boost on Blaze, you are left with a pokemon that has great qualities, but is not broken anymore or at the very least, meriting a test in OU.

But that can be said about a lot of Uber Pokemon. Same with BL Pokemon in UU etc. We'd end up with no tiers as every Pokemon would eventually be allowed in every tier with restrictions if we start complex banning.

 

[cjrocker]

You said it yourself, one hugely broken characteristic, in addition to other great qualities the pokemon has, so if we remove the hugely broken characteristic that was Sand Rush on Exca and Speed Boost on Blaze, you are left with a pokemon that has great qualities, but is not broken anymore or at the very least, meriting a test in OU.

If a Pokemon has many characteristics that alone are not broken but altogether lead to it being broken, we ban the Pokemon. We didn't ban U-Turn on Genesect, we didn't ban Hurricane on Tornadus-T, we banned them as a whole. Banning Sand Rush or Speed Boost on Excadrill and Blaziken, respectively, would be just as arbitrary and ridiculous.

 

[Spinda]

You said it yourself, one hugely broken characteristic, in addition to other great qualities the pokemon has, so if we remove the hugely broken characteristic that was Sand Rush on Exca and Speed Boost on Blaze, you are left with a pokemon that has great qualities, but is not broken anymore or at the very least, meriting a test in OU.

I'd dare say Manaphy isn't uberworthy without boosting moves, so we could just take away calm mind and tail glow and let it be OU :]

 

[X5Dragon]

But that can be said about a lot of Uber Pokemon. Same with BL Pokemon in UU etc. We'd end up with no tiers as every Pokemon would eventually be allowed in every tier with restrictions if we start complex banning.

The only pokemon who would be eligible to be treated the same way are those who were banned to higher tiers and the main cause of such ban was because of a "broken" ability, I don't see where the threat on tiers exists or how more than a handful of pokemon would be effected.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

You said it yourself, one hugely broken characteristic, in addition to other great qualities the pokemon has, so if we remove the hugely broken characteristic that was Sand Rush on Exca and Speed Boost on Blaze, you are left with a pokemon that has great qualities, but is not broken anymore or at the very least, meriting a test in OU.

No. You cant say that the ability was the most important factor because everything about those pokemons added up to make them broken. If we remove swords dance we achieve the same effect, if we remove their main stab moves we achieve the same effect etc. Just because YOU feel like the ability+pokemon ban is reasonable but another kind of ban inst is simply your opinion and nothing else. We cant make tiering decisions based on opinions, we must be objective and simple. If the pokemon is broken, its banned. If the pokemon inst broken it inst banned. Thats simple, effective and is why tiers exist in first place.

 

[cjrocker]

The only pokemon who would be eligible to be treated the same way are those who were banned to higher tiers and the main cause of such ban was because of a "broken" ability, I don't see where the threat on tiers exists or how more than a handful of pokemon would be effected.

What makes you think that they were banned because of their ability? It was their ability in conjunction with the rest of the Pokemon, a combination that was found to be broken.

 

[ShootingStarmie]

The only pokemon who would be eligible to be treated the same way are those who were banned to higher tiers and the main cause of such ban was because of a "broken" ability, I don't see where the threat on tiers exists or how more than a handful of pokemon would be effected.

Why are you restricting this to abilities only? And if that's the case why haven't you brought up Thundurus, and Genesect, and Landorus? These were all arguably broken because of their abilities as well. Also, like I said before, it wasn't just their ability that broke them, it was their ability and everything else they had to offer, which was deemed broken.

 

[X5Dragon]

No. You cant say that the ability was the most important factor because everything about those pokemons added up to make them broken. If we remove swords dance we achieve the same effect, if we remove their main stab moves we achieve the same effect etc. Just because YOU feel like the ability+pokemon ban is reasonable but another kind of ban inst is simply your opinion and nothing else. We cant make tiering decisions based on opinions, we must be objective and simple. If the pokemon is broken, its banned. If the pokemon inst broken it inst banned. Thats simple, effective and is why tiers exist in first place.

I don't have to say, you can visit the suspect threads of each pokemon and see what the decisive factor was in voting them uber. The way it should be seen: Exca + Sand Rush, broken, Exca + Sand Force/Mold Breaker, meriting a test in OU.

Edit: As for why abilities and not moves or natures or stats, well aside from the fact the way abilities were treated and argued about in OU suspect threads, the same stats are shared by all Excadrills, all Excadrills can learn the same moves (disregarding event pokemon), all Excadrill regardless of anything else can have each and every nature, but once an Excadrill gets an ability, it doesn't get or share any other.

And unlike stats which remain the same, or the learnability of moves, or natures that raise the same stats no matter what else differs, abilities offer different things to a pokemon, whether good, bad or nothing at all.

 

[cjrocker]

I don't have to say

Actually you should, since the onus is on you to prove that they were banned b/c of their abilities and their abilities alone. I'd love to see where you read that that was the case.

 

[Halcyon.]

No one is denying that Sand Rush was broken on Excadrill. What they're saying is that it was just one of several qualities that made Excadrill broken. We probably wouldn't have banned Excadrill without Swords Dance, or Excadrill without Earthquake. Choosing to point out the ability as being the broken part is arbitrary and creates awful precedent where we can ban qualities of Pokémon that were broken instead of the Pokémon themselves.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

''I dont have to say''. Great then why are you making this thread in first place? This is the very definition of an arbitrary decision. No im not gonna check those threads lol, its obvious that people will be talking about their abilities since they are part of the reason why they were banned, but its not the only one.
Stop trying to make a point without any arguments, if you cant provide any logical reason as to why your proposal is valid then theres no reason to bother arguing.
Stop trying to customize this game to fit your needs, introducing more unnecessary complex bans just because you want 2 specific pokemons to drop a tier, seriously im literally getting sick of this. We are simulating a game, not trying to modify it until we get our own desirable metagame (which is different for every single player).

 

[X5Dragon]

And when did I say it was the only reason? I said decisive. I'm making arguments and responding to yours which is so far consisting of the word arbitrary and complex without even explaining why , and if you don't want to put an effort into a discussion I'm not exactly forcing you to participate or to accept my views. This isn't customization, I'm taking about actual differences that exist in these pokemons, and this will not effect just a few pokemon, it will effect the way we approach banning.