Survey Results and Urshifu-R Suspect!
Here are the results of the recent survey, unfortunately I've been a bit tardy in making this post. Thanks to everyone who responded!
The council has also decided to suspect test Urshifu-R! Any opinions you want to share concerning Urshifu-R can be posted in this thread, but can also be proposed in the voter requirement suspect thread
here, if you wish to get the message to those whose vote you may sway.
The Council had their eyes primarily on a big 4 of offenders when we launched this survey, but the balanced voting shown by the results made it difficult to draw any firm conclusion that any of these 4 were outright broken. As such we decided against a quickban for any of these 4 and decided a suspect test of the most problematic one would be our course of action.
There are some conclusions I'd like to draw from the responses. I'll start off with our biggest offenders:
These "Big 4" are the biggest offenders in the tier as we stand currently.
With differing levels of votes regarding tiering action, the council took all of this info into consideration when the decision was made to target
Urshifu-Rapid-Strike with a suspect test which can be again be found
here. To keep it short, Urshifu-R had the second most combined 4 and 5 votes after Lugia and when factoring in all votes it was weighed at the top. The council also agreed that Urshifu-R was more deserving of immediate action than the other options due to be being problematic in metas past, but ultimately the tiebreaker was simply unanimous agreement.
Despite being lower in overall weighed votes,
Gouging Fire was the 2nd biggest offender in consideration from the council. It's versatility with access to great stat distribution, setup, reliable recovery, and powerful attacks make it a big nuisance to deal with in matches. Pinsirite, Metagrossite and other stones give it a fair amount of unpredictability that make it overbearing when considering it's breaking and boosting power. It's lack of overlap between counterplay between all of it's sets make it very hard to offensively check, and it's flexibility to break through strong Rock-type answers with either Lucarionite Outrage or Earthquake frustrates common defensive answers.
It may come off as controversial that
Lugia avoided a suspect test, even though it had the most combined 4 and 5 votes. It's versatility and outright bulk make it a threat, and it's annoying to cover all Lugia sets in the builder, but the council still feels Lugia is underdeveloped and not worthy of a suspect test over the other offenders at the moment. Its general passivity in its pre-Mega form makes it very reliant on Calm Mind boosts to break through teams, and builds ranging from balance to hyper offense rarely struggle to revenge kill it. However, the combination of STAB Psychic Noise, reliable recovery, Substitute or Magic Bounce make it very problematic into passive teams like stall. Expect Lugia to remain in the spotlight for the near future.
Finally,
Red Orb has been a topic of question in the tier for a while now. Looking back at the Pre-DLC2 meta, Enamorous and Jolteon were both banned with Red Orb being a primary reason. With plenty of votes ranging from worthy to potentially worthy of a suspect, the meta agrees that Red Orb needs to have a solid look at being removed from the Metagame. Overall, the council felt that a suspect can wait a little longer as we deal with these powerhouses in order of most pressing. We recommend people begin collecting their thoughts on Red Orb and share their opinion in anticipation for any action in the near future. The introduction of the Weather Ball TM has made a great many Pokemon a fine suitor for this transformational item, offering +50 Special Attack and a Fire-typing to go alongside Desolate Land and what equates to a 100BP Sun Boosted STAB that still punishes any Blue Orb would-be-answer. Raging Bolt, Lugia, and Landorus-I are all abusers running amok at the moment, putting a stopgap to most any Water-type offensive threats while threatening the plethora of strong Steel and Fairy-types that are common in the metagame. It certainly stifles a significant amount of weather setting playstyles or items.
I'll end off with the more benign offenders that were on the survey.
Coming off it's recent suspect test,
Eternatus still managed to snag a couple of votes of 5 as a problematic Pokemon. Eternatus won't see any action until significant meta development occurs, as it was voted to remain in the tier by a pretty substantial margin (19/24 votes for DnB). Nevertheless, its versatility and great offensive and defensive profile make it a meta staple for the foreseeable future, so we can expect some meta development to better prepare for Eternatus' dangerous offensive sets. The council agrees that Eternatus isn't safe for good, but for now we wait.
Altarianite is a foundational piece in the metagame and is a contender for best overall transformational item. The council wished to see how it was perceived and with a quiet 3 votes for being potentially worthy of a suspect, we've got our answer. Altarianite isn't overbearing or problematic and isn't likely to recieve any tiering action in the near future.
Dragonite has been a centralizing Pokemon for many generations, due to it's combination of movepool, specifically access to ExtremeSpeed as well as it's good typing, good pre-mega abilities in Inner Focus and Multiscale and all around stats. With only 3 votes of 3 as being potentially worthy of suspect and 1 vote of 4, Dragonite seems to be in a fine place in the current meta and the council doesn't consider it problematic.
Additionally, the council wanted to gauge the feelings on
Rusted Sword and
Terastallize Clause.
Both this item and this clause were put into effect in a pre-DLC metagame, potentially opening the door for reintroduction at some point. Indeed, it would be highly unlikely that both of these options would be test simultaneously as they can be compounded to break a great many Pokemon. Rusted Sword had far more agreeable survey results in comparison to Terastallization, so perhaps a Rusted Sword re-suspect is in the cards in 2024. Offering a secondary Steel-typing and +30 boost to Attack and +10 to Speed alongside a free one-time Intrepid Sword 1.5x boost is very strong for a single transformational item, and the council is currently pre-occupied with what is currently in the tier that perhaps deserves to be banned. Terastallize received a riveting 8 votes of 5 (or unworthy of a resuspect), and with strong Ubers like Arceus, Lunala, Necrozma-Dusk-Mane, Ho-Oh, and Eternatus in the tier, it's unlikely that a Terastallize clause resuspect is worthwhile discussion in the meantime. Nonetheless, these results are interesting to look at and we hope you can appreciate our curiousity.
In the meantime, I encourage everyone to go get voter requirements for the ongoing
Urshifu-R suspect test and to post your opinion on any of the big 4! Also let us know what else you would like to see us put on the next tiering survey, which we will post sometime during the upcoming Mix and Mega Open! Signups open next Sunday (March 17th)
Thank you for reading and have a great day!
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mostly serves as a way to deal with pesky electric types that trouble the defensive mons
