HP legends ruined GSC

[jaQ]

Yea ok, I exaggerated a bit, but a lot of old timers couldn't take GSC as serious when these started showing up everywhere and it pushed them to move on instead of adapting. I want to make this as short and to the point as possible so here goes - These things were initially banned for a reason, they:

Restricted an already narrow metagame.

What I mean is that letting Zapdos and raikou have access to these moves greatly diminishes the already few pokemon that can hard counter them. Rhydon and Nidoking lost their awesomeness of being great counters, Steelix declined as well in not fairing as well against the bird. Good players that like the run UU teams against standards had almost nothing in their entire tier arsenal to deal with these monsters. It's just unfair, they were already amazing pokemon and people had to make them stronger? I don't want to hear "hidden power is a move they learn and should be able to use" as an excuse because I'll just point my finger to hypnomissy.

Just to add while zapdos and raikou are used on almost every serious team without the presence of hidden power, giving them hidden power practically assures them a place on all teams. You used to be able to run teams without them and still do well, now that they've been buffed there's never a reason to exclude 1, they just cover way too much and are countered by so little. Nobody likes when top tier characters get buffed.

I believe Jorgen was arguing that snorlax should be banned, pointing to the facts that he's clearly overpowered and he himself forces a lot of teams to prepare multiple counters for his threatening moveset variations. While I couldn't agree more, and also feel he should've been banned a long time ago, the fact that he's remained and been the basis for team building in this generation, I'd feel his banning would cause too great a shift in the metagame that would serve to upset too much of the remaining generation.

This isn't the case with banning hp legends. It would only weaken two already very strong pokemon and open up more pokemon to use against them.

My final point is that nothing hard counters them anymore except for blissey, who sucks anyway. Even snorlax gets eaten away eventually

 

[Jorgen]

Raikou hard-counters too. You don't have to use Blissey. But then again using Raikou to counter... Raikou just kinda proves your broader point.

I think the initial reason for their unbanning is that Snorlax was everywhere anyway to wall them, and Raikou is pretty close to everywhere even without HP legends. So the thinking was "why keep this really arbitrary-looking ban if every team can wall it anyway?" It didn't help that it applied to shit like Articuno too, I mean who really cares about HP Electric on that? I sure don't. It also doesn't help that legends were getting nerfed while the even bigger elephant in the room got off scot-free.

I will agree, though, that Hidden Power Zapdos/Raikou are pretty centralizing, to the point where unbanning HP Electrics kinda seems like a bad idea in retrospect. With their unbanning you lost a lot of the interesting electric-ground dynamic that forced people to actually think and predict to a certain extent. Nowadays, Grounds are basically "gimmicky" switch-ins to Electrics instead of instantly and reliably punishing the opponent for keeping their superfast superbulky superstrong Electric in. Especially Zapdos, Ground-types are now, to a large extent, actually countered by Zapdos. The end result is that, much like with an active Snorlax, there's almost no penalty to just staying in and attacking without giving a second thought to what will happen next (Raikou is a bit more pressured by potential Ground switch-ins, but really, you hit them once with Hidden Power and they're basically done being a threat).

And no, if you banned Hidden Power on these guys, you wouldn't just replace them with Hidden Power Ampharos and Jolteon. The former is way too slow and the latter is way too frail. It's the combination of Speed, Bulk, and awesome coverage that makes HP Electrics so damn good.

The main reason I'd be against the more elegant full ban of these guys, though, is because A) same reason Snorlax is so controversial (wayyyy too much shakeup for an old gen prized for its tier stability, better to do the precedented, if inelegant, hidden power ban, if any change is made at all), and B) Vap kinda gets a free pass without the Electrics around to kill it.

EDIT: Oh how did I forget about the stupid "too hard to catch ingame" argument? That was awful, it's no harder than an otherwise perfectly DV'd Zapdos. That said there's legitimate competitive concerns with HP ZapKou imo, much moreso than fragile Jolteon.

 

[Mr.E]

HP Legends weren't initially banned at all. It was some tournament BS started by garbage players who didn't like Raikou/Zapdos and made up some crap about lol-too-hard-to-catch-ingame. (Which isn't even true at least for the birds, they're trivial to catch.) I'm not sure how it became commonplace in GSC's later lifecycle but I'm glad I managed to get it removed for SPL. *ahem*

Honestly, it really doesn't even matter as much as most people think. Non-HP Raikou already handled Grounds reasonably well, where "reasonably well" is "better than most other Electrics," with Crunch. Crunch deals okay damage and an untimely defense drop is brutal. The best Grounds, Marowak and Nidoking, don't resist Zapdos' Drill Peck and its immunity would be a pain regardless. Steelix would get a nice boost since it resists Crunch, Golem/Rhydon would still hard counter Zapdos RBY-style, but let's face it Steelix hits too much like a wet noodle to be more than mediocre regardless. Raikou and Zapdos would still be two of the best non-Snorlax pokemon in OU.

Besides, it's incredibly hypocritical to not allow Raikou/Zapdos access to it when you still got fucking Growth Jolteon sitting there merrily blowing up Grounds with it. And those other four legends nobody cares about.

 

[magic9mushroom]

HP Legends are broken. Snorlax is broken. Stats and typing will tell in a meta where loleverything can run Leftovers+RestTalk and get away with it and everything under the sun has Curse.

Also if you really want to wall HP Legends there's RestTalk Lax. Boring and passive but it gets the job done.

 

[scorpdestroyer]

Of course HP legends ruined GSC, why else is the subforum for it called Ruins of Alph?

 

[Bedschibaer]

I wouldn't call Blissey a hard counter to anything in the first place. A counter actually has to scare out the opposing mon, and blissey can't really do anything other than toxic, a pretty weak ice beam/flame thrower (possible 5hko on Raikou, lmao) or seismic toss, all of which won't take it down because of Rest.

The reason i don't think the hp legends are a problem is not because they are undubitably the second and third best and most broken mons in the current GSC Ou metagame, but more because the best and most broken one is also the best to handle them and usually wins a 1on1 matchup. (Snorlax unboosted double edge is a possible 2hko on Raikou, while Raikous Thunder fails to 3hko. Not to mention that any special hidden power is a possible 9hko) This whole matchup does look a bit better for Zapdos, everyone can look at the calcs himself, but Raikou is used more and the hidden power has a bigger impact on him since Zapdos barely cares about the ground types that much anyways.

If hp legends are centralizing? yes, but it doesn't make that much of an impact on an already centralized to hell metagame. I don't think there even is a way to bring GSC to a point like BW OU, where a diverse variety of playstyles is viable. If you ban Lax, or if you ban HP legends the meta will just centralize to the next best thing. I honestly do not think there is or can be non centralized GSC.

 

[Torty73]

why the heck are you talking about this - the tier coped with it for AGES

 

[Bedschibaer]

Only because something has been a certain way for long time it doesn't necessarily mean it should be that way.

 

[magic9mushroom]

why the heck are you talking about this - the tier coped with it for AGES

Only because something has been a certain way for long time it doesn't necessarily mean it should be that way.

Yeah, is-ought fallacy.

 

[jaQ]

Can't really argue with any of you. All points were well made and make sense. It would seem like a big step to ban hp legends again and most of you have moved on and dealt with them or even grown to like them.

The point I strongly disagree with is from mr swimmer in that the best pokemon (snorlax) deals with them so well. While that is clearly true, if you're using snorlax everytime to wall raikou/zap your switches will become more predictable and you will get counter switched a lot more often. I like to have at least two answers to the main threats of GSC to avoid risky switch-ins where if I guess wrong I'm in dire straights. As of now I don't see another answer to hp kou/dos.

That ruins of alph comparison was pure win.

 

[Bedschibaer]

Well, you already stated one answer to hp legends, Blissey, that kinda makes two answers.
And i mean only because a counter is predictable, it doesn't devaluate it in the slightest. It's like in RBY, if you have a Zapdos and your opponent has Rhydon/Golem you know it will come in every time, doesn't stop it from walling you all day though. Also "it doesn't handle it because i can predict it" isn't really an argument for me, you can go even further saying your opponent predicts you to predict and kinda pull that ad infinitum. It's a thing of how you play it, and that is something that can't be pre-written on paper.
Finding out what hidden power the opposing mon is running is pretty helpful, everyone knows the Steelix/Exeggutor combination and well, that in combination with lax should handle Zap/kou pretty well, while still being an amazing offensive core. Also hidden power isn't the main thing that makes Zap/kou broken, it's the sheer power they have, the great speed stats and the walling capabilities, and well, their typing that makes them so good. And rebanning hidden power on them (which would occur after a Snorlax ban of course, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense at all) doesn't nullify those threats. It might take away a couple of matchups they would otherwise win, but even then they still have a great matchup against half of the meta. Also if the legendary electrics would be gone things like Vaporeon would run rampant without any hard counters other than lelBlissey, which isn't a counter imo since it can't to shit back. Which brings me back to my point from before that GSC is a narrow and centralized meta, and that banning something would just lay the focus on something else the metagame centralizes around. Things like that just lead to a "let's ban the next best thing" attitude, because imo there is no balanced metagame, especially not in gsc. (all of the above was pure theorising, because we all know that a ban in gsc isn't very likely to happen soon)

 

[jaQ]

While blissey walls them completely, I was wrong in calling it a hard counter. As you said, it can't do shit back. It only baits hard hitters. I threw it in on the end of my argument without much thought.

The big issue I have is that raikou and zapdos have the ability to dictate your switches a lot better than they used to now that they have hidden power, to the point that just their presence is almost on the level of snorlax. Yes, they're still godlike without it, but they were never this threatening without hidden power.

A ban is stupid now, but I feel the unbanning of them was rushed by a newer generation that never truly understood why they were deeply frowned upon in the first place.

 

[Mr.E]

The "newer" generation is who banned them in the first place. I couldn't tell you exactly when the rule became commonplace but HP Legends weren't banned from Day 1 or even Day 365. The only reason they came to be frowned upon originally was the supposed difficulty of catching a legitimate in-game one, which is bullshit both because it doesn't even apply to birds (the easiest fucking mons to catch ever; the beasts are annoying though) and because this shit was all played on simulators anyway so who cares. It wasn't a power level concern, or at least that wasn't the reason used to justify banning them. (Obviously it was the reason people began fishing for an excuse to ban them!)

Thank goodness we're never going back to touch my lovely game with Smogon's current system or the entirety of OU would be banned from OU; Snorlax would be banned from Ubers. We're never going to get the same variety as later gens, no matter what you do or don't ban, because THERE SIMPLY ARE NOT AS MANY POKEMON. There are not 20 potential replacements for everything, there's two if you're even that lucky.

 

[Jorgen]

The unban wasn't rushed in by a newer generation or anything, as MrE pointed out they were unbanned for a long while before they were commonly banned. Plenty of older players were all for the ban being lifted as evidenced in these threads.

Since discussion of controversial GSC tiering decisions appears to be in vogue right now, I also dug up an old topic on Celebi, where you can read about people that supported/did not support that going to Ubers (one of the main arguments for keeping it was actually Hidden Power Bug). Also there's this topic wherein Borat and Carl, in the midst of their pissing match, touch on the subject of the various interpretations of the sleep trap ban over the years (and which, afaik, technically only encompasses Sleep Perish Trap on Smogon atm, although PO's tiers say no sleep trapping whatsoever and they actually boot you out of GSC for using a Sleep Trap set unless you're on certain servers, so for any aspiring GSC SPLers that don't mind playing a little dirty, be wary of where you play...)

 

[magic9mushroom]

Finding out what hidden power the opposing mon is running is pretty helpful, everyone knows the Steelix/Exeggutor combination and well, that in combination with lax should handle Zap/kou pretty well, while still being an amazing offensive core.

It handles all Raikou and HP Water Zapdos. Doesn't handle HP Ice Zapdos that well. I mean obviously Steelix can take out Zapdos by Exploding, but other than that it's rather dicey, whereas that combo legit-beats Raikou with no questions asked.

Then again, Zapdos has a hard counter in Raikou itself, so that's less of an issue.

RestTalk Marowak also isn't a completely terrible idea for beating Raikou. That's what I used in the no-Snorlax part of the GSC Challonge (sic). Sure, it's 3HKOed, but Earthquake's an OHKO.

Also hidden power isn't the main thing that makes Zap/kou broken, it's the sheer power they have, the great speed stats and the walling capabilities, and well, their typing that makes them so good.

The fact that they have that coverage helps enormously, though. It's the difference between being an awesome, persistent mon that gets hard-walled all the time (and thus a somewhat defensive mon, like Starmie in RBY) and being terrifying adversaries like they are.

 

[jaQ]

Obviously they wouldn't start out banned as that makes no sense, they were frowned upon about a year after NB first showed up. I never used RSBot so I couldn't comment there. It usually takes a couple of years before overpowered options in games are identified and removed, or discussed thoroughly anyway.

Also, just because the argument "can't be obtained easily in game" was used a lot doesn't imply that there aren't better reasons to ban them. To each his own. I have to admit I did prefer when I could put a ">_> really hp raikou?" whenever someone used one and have that as an excuse if I lost. I'll just have to take it like a man.

As for celery, I was surprised it got banned. I skimmed the topic and people seemed pretty split on the first page. Not sure if I want to get into this one :D. I will say that the creators did a good job of not making it overpowered and giving it almost no moves.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Celebi doesn't really need a lot of moves to be a pain in the neck, though. It's got Recover, Heal Bell, a good typing with a ton of resistances, and the bulk to eat super-effective moves and keep going like nobody's business.

 

[Bedschibaer]

Well, i honestly don't like the grey area that "it's allowed but it's frowned upon" creates, because nothing ever stops people from really using certain things. If things make me win i use them, no matter what people think, that's kinda like the turboscrubs who call me out for using stall on the ladder (not gen 2 obvs) and then can't even break a Skarmory, call me a (BAN ME PLEASE) and leave.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Well, Skarmory may not be Grass-type, but it is flammable.

 

[Picollo]

oh man dont change metagames which are older than some people playing around here. -__- HP Legends are not and never will be a Problem at all, just stick with the guns you have and do your best around it.

 

[jaQ]

And it conducts electricity very well.

Skarmory can survive a raikou thunderbolt. Thus, hp legends are not op.

/thread

 

[Shiruba]

Skarmory can survive a raikou thunderbolt. Thus, hp legends are not op.

/thread

w-what
you can't /thread your own thread
IT'S AGAINST THE RULES

oh man dont change metagames which are older than some people playing around here. -__- HP Legends are not and never will be a Problem at all, just stick with the guns you have and do your best around it.

not necessarily; if it's a problem that needs to be addressed and is turning the metagame for the worse, then it's good to at least take a look at it. hp legends aren't nearly as meta-changing as a snorlax ban, which is still under heavy scrutiny on both ends.

 

[magic9mushroom]

And it conducts electricity very well.

I think you might have missed the joke.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

w-what
not necessarily; if it's a problem that needs to be addressed and is turning the metagame for the worse, then it's good to at least take a look at it. hp legends aren't nearly as meta-changing as a snorlax ban, which is still under heavy scrutiny on both ends.

Its not and it isnt

Leave well enough alone

 

[GregoryPippenbottom]

Its not and it isnt

Leave well enough alone

Every time I read a thread involving banning something, there's always posts like this. "Oh don't ban anything, the meta game is already too old" or "Oh they're not a problem, stop being such a puss" while ignoring paragraphs stating that they are. I have no problem if you have are against banning or what not, but if you're going to object to someone who's talking about banning, actually write out your opinion. It's completely rude, and quite frankly, insulting.