NP: UU - Silent Night

[Bluewind]

@Thund: Muk can only setup on Earthquake-less Venusaur, something Registeel can do as well. However, Registeel doesn't take skyhigh amounts of damage because of some surprise Eathquake.

@Heysup: Huge block of text... but regarding what Eo said about Venusaur KOing Weezing, he means you can do the following: Sleep the Weezing switch, Leaf Storm Weezing (1 turn asleep), switch out and bring something that threatens an OHKO (2 turns asleep). The next time you bring in Venusaur Weezing can no longer switch in because it will be KO'd by the Sludge Bomb on the switch and the subsequent Leaf Storm. I agree that's indeed very situational though.

On another note, if you wanna be 101% safe against Venusaur, use Registeel and Weezing. SD (except for those that carry Return and are extremely lucky) and mixed sets with Earthquake are completely walled by Weezing, while Special sets are countered by Registeel. The only possible combination of attacks that could break the duo is Swords Dance/ Earthquake/ Power Whip/ Return; but that would mean no Sleep Powder to gamble with Weezing and some recognizeable overall suckiness. The two of them together are no absurd combination as well (Weezing resists Fighting and Ground, while Registeel takes on Psychic hits). Finally, I wouldn't call it absurd to run the two of them and make yourself completely safe against the number pokémon, especially when many others like Clefable go through the same thing (no, Hitmontop cannot beat Calm Mind LO Psychic. Yes I've gone that far, because this is no more absurd than many arguments I have been reading in this thread.)

 

[shrang]

Furthermore, this also reinforces the point that you need multiple Pokemon in order to check Venusaur.

But like I said before, you don't need a lot of effort to have multiple Pokemon to check Venusaur. It is rather easy to make a good team with good synergy that can easily have 2-3 Venusaur checks in it. I'm not saying Venusaur is crap, but you can easily make a UU team that has 6 Pokemon to counter Luvdisc. Is Luvdisc broken because you ended up with 6 counters?? I don't think so.

 

[Thund91]

@BW:I'll take my chances setting up on Venusaur 82% of the time.

 

[franky]

best venu check(s) in tandem: specially defensive weezing + arcanine (specially defensive or standard defensive).

take the sleep with weezing. arcanine is the one that advocates the switch out if weezing is running low in percentages. from that point, you should avoid giving venusaur a free switch-in. (i run ice beam on milotic so that venusaur is always going to synthesis instead of using sludge bomb as i switch in venusaur). just wanted to point this out and from the past posts i read, most people make it sound like its impossible.

 

[Bluewind]

@BW:I'll take my chances setting up on Venusaur 82% of the time.

My real point was, can't Registeel do the same but with much less of a risk factor and more overall usefulness (I know comparing two completely different mons is subjective and that there are teams and teams, but many would agree Registeel is more useful than Muk is most cases)?

 

[M BLADE]

On another note, if you wanna be 101% safe against Venusaur, use Registeel and Weezing. SD (except for those that carry Return and are extremely lucky) and mixed sets with Earthquake are completely walled by Weezing, while Special sets are countered by Registeel. The only possible combination of attacks that could break the duo is Swords Dance/ Earthquake/ Power Whip/ Return; but that would mean no Sleep Powder to gamble with Weezing and some recognizeable overall suckiness.

Power Whip does almost as much damage as Return (102 BP from Return, 90 form STAB resisted Power Whip),so there's little need to use Return since Power Whip is enough to take down Weezing (and it opens space for Sleep Powder of couse).
Of course, assuming you need a Venusaur that can break through both.

Other than this, Registeel + Weezing is a good combo. People tend to pair it with Spiritomb as well, and those three together are somewhat hard to break through (Houndoom can, but W/E).

About Muk: Muk at least hits harder than Registeel and it's immune to Trick, so it's not all lost (though relying on a mono poison attack, assuming Curse Rest Talk, isn't the greatest thing of the world. Well, neither does mono Steel, but hey).

 

[Thund91]

My real point was, can't Registeel do the same but with much less of a risk factor and more overall usefulness (I know comparing two completely different mons is subjective and that there are teams and teams, but many would agree Registeel is more useful than Muk is most cases)?

The problem I have with Restalk Registeel is that it's typing makes it easy to break through with special attacks (particularly Fire, but Focus Blast is annoying too) so all the set up would be for nothing. Houndoom, Moltres, and Blaziken are all problems, while Muk only has to worry about...STAB Psychic...From Alakazam and Mesprit which he can still survive. And he actually sets up on most lolUxie.

Timid LO Alakazam Psychic vs. standard Curse Muk (252HP/176+SpD) = 72.9% - 86%

That's pretty impressive seeing how it's one of the strongest special attacks in the game (and the strongest special attack that will be hitting Muk in UU).

 

[Bluewind]

@M Blade: Accuracy issues. I'm also pretty sure Return gets you an XHKO that Power Whip doesn't after 2 SDs. Also I don't get the point of RegiWeezTomb cores. Registeel already handles Ghosts (except for gay WoW Rotom if you don't run Rest), while Weezing already handles fighters.

@Thund: What I had in mind actually were issues when taking on physical hits and setting up. For example, once it hits +2 (IIRC), CB Dugtrio can no longer defeat it unless a crit happens; same applies to Donphan. It can even Rhyperior I guess (even though I think this one 3HKOes Registeel even at +2). But yeah, that's a rather subjective comparision.

 

[Envoy.of.Water]

The interesting thing about Venusaur is that it shoots for Offensive Characteristic but somehow ends up in the Support Characteristic.

It supports the team in an offensive manner.

On a bad day, it will sleep RestTalk Weezing, but that lets another Pokemon come in, set up (Houndoom takes a boost from WoW, Arcanine is inmune to it, Rhyperior laughs at Thunderbolt, etc) and potentially kill it (or the switch in). From there, Venusaur can just put something else to sleep and possibly blow a hole in the opponent's team by severely crippling a Pokemon. This is on a bad day.

On a good day, your opponent could likely have one dead Pokemon, one sleeping Pokemon and one crippled Pokemon by the time Venusaur falls. This opens up so many chances for X teammate(s) to come in and sweep.

As an offensive Pokemon and sweeper, Venusaur is most definitely not broken. As a supporting Pokemon, things get a little more controversial.

And I think that's what's getting to most people. You're all looking at Venusaur from an offensive perspective (because that's what he's mostly used for), but it's the support that he offers a team through this offense that you have to really analyze.

Obviously, Sleep Powder, his typing, neutral coverage from his STAB moves and natural bulk are the big things to analyze. He can come in with relative ease due to his useful list of resistances and 80/83/100 defenses, eliminate a Pokemon through Sleep Powder and possibly hurt a would be counter for a teammate before it's forced to switch out.

The question really becomes: Is Venusaur broken as a SUPPORT Pokemon? Not an offensive one.

Remember, he's being nominated on the Support Characteristic, not the Offensive one. Weather or not he can sweep a significant portion of the metagame unaided is of little importance.

 

[Thund91]

Yes, it's completely dependent on the team. Registeel has an easier time with physical hits while Muk has a less common special weakness and stronger Attack (and arguably slightly better STAB). I just find it sad that people immediately dismiss a Pokemon because of the "NU" status without realizing it can fuck over a decent amount of the tier (including the top 2).

 

[Red Ink]

Muk, as many would (or should) know, is a pretty stellar Pokemon at the moment. I know someone mentioned it some pages back, and I've been thinking about him for a while. I gave the following set a whirl the other day and was pretty impressed by how it handled.

Muk (M) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Sticky Hold
EVs: 212 HP/148 Atk/148 SDef
Careful nature (+SDef, -SAtk)
- Substitute
- Curse
- Poison Jab
- Shadow Sneak / Brick Break (?) / Focus Punch (?) / Ice Punch (?)

I was using this to patch up a few holes in a team of mine (namely Venusaur and Mismagius), so it might be a bit too specific for you guys. In any case, it's a slight re-jig of the Curse set posted on this site. HP is obviously 404, for the obvious reason. I was running 184 SDef, but changed it because 148 with a +SDef nature still means standard defensive Milotic needs two Surfs to break the substitute. The thing I liked about this set is that it could setup on the top two Pokemon in the tier, and take care of offensive Mismagius for me. Don't get me wrong, a lot of things do wall this, but that's what a team is for.

That was just my set for its intended purpose, but there are certainly a lot of options on offer.

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

Isn't it ideal to remove your playstyle from the equation when deciding a Pokemon's tiering status (like I needed to for Froslass/Raikou)? Otherwise you're going to undeniably have a bias.

I did not incorporate that point into any arguments about tiering. The point of that was to show how I related more to struggling with Venusaur than Raikou, and presumably vice-versa for more offensive players. It was an attempt at a comparison to display how Venusaur affects me.

Firstly, stats have absolutely nothing to do with "how good a Pokemon is". It only gives an indication of what's being used. If you're looking to counter a common Pokemon, or looking for which sets are most common, stats will help. If you're looking for the best Pokemon, stats will "possibly" give you a good correlation, but possibly not. Correlation does not imply causation. Just because (what you think) the best Pokemon are happen to be at the top of the stat chart, does not mean they are in fact the "better" Pokemon.

Yes, I know correlation does not necessarily imply causation. You should explain why it doesn't in this case then.

And some times Pokemon have different niches that are not part of the argument. For example, Arcanine is arguably better than Moltres, so it has competition. Venusaur has barely any competition as a Grass-type sweeper. When I compare the two, I am comparing them as sweepers alone. The fact that they have differences are what gives them various advantages/disadvantages over one another.

A "sweeper" is a made-up classification that cannot be used as a standard of comparison. "Hits things with Life Orb boosted attacks and has recovery" ignores typing, Sleep Powder, and Stealth Rock weaknesses.

Second, I never once argued that Moltres is better. In fact, I don't think you even read my posts if you managed to miss "I am not suggesting Moltres is better, because it isn't." At least read the comparisons and then decide you don't think their valid for whatever reason.

I never said you did, although I probably should have made it clearer that I was just trying to cover all my bases with that last statement.

The reason I made the comparisons, for the 1203912th time: People were complaining that Venusaur is bulky and is really hard to switch into. Moltres is also bulky and is hard to switch into (and if you want me to be honest, I'd rather switch into Venusaur then Moltres on my offensive teams). I am factually pointing out similarities between the two Pokemon. They are factuallysimilar in those ways. I know they have many many many differences, but you only need couple overriding similarities (they are both special sweepers that are bulky and hard to switch into) to compare two Pokemon. Again, availability heuristic is the false tendency just to think something is more correct or likely because it is easier to think of examples. That is what's happening here.

Like sweeper, "bulky" is another blanket term that misses out on the finer details. Moltres has a Stealth Rock weakness, cannot switch in on Water Pokemon, etc.

I would prefer people actually address the argument rather then try to attack the comparison itself.

With all due respect, I think it would be better if you could address the argument instead of sticking with your comparison, seeing as nobody has really been able to wrap their head around it.

But like I said before, you don't need a lot of effort to have multiple Pokemon to check Venusaur. It is rather easy to make a good team with good synergy that can easily have 2-3 Venusaur checks in it. I'm not saying Venusaur is crap, but you can easily make a UU team that has 6 Pokemon to counter Luvdisc. Is Luvdisc broken because you ended up with 6 counters?? I don't think so.

Right...Moltres was bad enough; I'm pretty sure Luvdisc cannot at all be compared to Venusaur.

It's not difficult to make a team with 2+ Venusaur checks. Three? I'm sure it's possible too, but I doubt it's commonplace. I can't really go and dispute this, but I want to point out some of the consequences of "having an increased number of Venusaur checks" on a team. Most Venusaur checks are Stealth Rock weak, so the more you add, the more you require a spinner, and by then, the possible options for the remaining slots are likely set in stone. Ergo, you have threats you haven't covered that can be covered by only a small proportion of possible Pokemon combinations. Furthermore, most of the few non-SR weak Venusaur checks are extreme set-up bait (read: Weezing and Registeel). Additionally, there's sleep - you either have to choose one of few select viable RestTalkers (not to mention the relative inefficiency of most) or just let one of your Pokemon take the sleep every time you encounter Venusaur.

Ultimately, I believe there is an impasse in that some of us think that most teams naturally come prepared for Venusaur, whereas others (at the very least, myself) believe that you're forced to go considerably out of your way to prepare for Venusaur.

 

[shrang]

Right...Moltres was bad enough; I'm pretty sure Luvdisc cannot at all be compared to Venusaur.

I'm not. All I'm saying that packing 2+ checks to a Pokemon can easily come naturally, and it doesn't mean that the Pokemon is broken due to this. I'm only using Luvdisc as an extreme to show this. You're missing my point on that. You may say "Well if I pack 2+ Pokemon to check Pokemon A then I need to sacrifice a team slot so I may not check something else". The point is that you can easily have 2+ checks for Venusaur while checking everything else because counters tend to overlap. I've made this point in the rain discussion too. I remember Flare saying you need 3+ Water resists to fight rain (Which is disputable), which limits your teambuilding. However, something as simple as Fire/Water/Grass + Toxicroak gives your 3 water resists and doesn't really limit teambuilding at all. The same be be appled to Venusaur, except you just use something slightly different.

EDIT:

On a good day, your opponent could likely have one dead Pokemon, one sleeping Pokemon and one crippled Pokemon by the time Venusaur falls. This opens up so many chances for X teammate(s) to come in and sweep.

You are seriously exaggerating, my friend.

 

[Head Smash]

I did not incorporate that point into any arguments about tiering. The point of that was to show how I related more to struggling with Venusaur than Raikou, and presumably vice-versa for more offensive players. It was an attempt at a comparison to display how Venusaur affects me.

It's pretty hard to respond to this without being smart-ass-y, but I'll try.

Saying "i had more trouble with Venusaur because of my playstyle" in defense to a point regarding why you nominated one and did not vote the other BL is, frankly, admitting bias. Of course everyone has bias, but really now? Using your playstyle to justify a discrepancy between votes? That's carrying the bias idea a little far.

Of course, it does make sense since you said Milotic is better than Venusaur in RMT but nominated Venusaur and not Milotic. But this is just . . . not illogical--rather, not right. Just my opinion, mind, don't take offense.

 

[whistle]

yeah i'm not seeing anything wrong with biases due to playstyle. your playstyle directly impacts how a pokemon performs against you which in turn serves as the sum of your experiences. attempting to ignore or "make up" for playstyle biases is essentially being dishonest to your firsthand knowledge concerning using a pokemon and facing a pokemon. i'd say blindly attempting to correct for a nebulous bias is a lot more harmful to the process than voting according to what you've experienced. now this is not to say that you can't be aware of potential biases... just that it's pretty silly to expect people not to have biases due to playstyles or to somehow "correct" for these biases (as if there is a "norm" from which to judge deviation in the first place).

 

[Head Smash]

yeah i'm not seeing anything wrong with biases due to playstyle. your playstyle directly impacts how a pokemon performs against you which in turn serves as the sum of your experiences. attempting to ignore or "make up" for playstyle biases is essentially being dishonest to your firsthand knowledge concerning using a pokemon and facing a pokemon. i'd say blindly attempting to correct for a nebulous bias is a lot more harmful to the process than voting according to what you've experienced. now this is not to say that you can't be aware of potential biases... just that it's pretty silly to expect people not to have biases due to playstyles or to somehow "correct" for these biases (as if there is a "norm" from which to judge deviation in the first place).

I don't follow. If your playstyle involves a lot of switching and the Pokemon that you're nominating takes advantage of switches--should not your playstyle make the Pokemon stronger? That should be taken into account.

If you have the one counter to a particular Pokemon on your team, of course you're going to have an easier time with it than others. But this does need to be taken into account--it's pretty easy to observe "how would my team fare if I didn't have this Pokemon that I had, or if I weren't using this combination to fend off against this threat."

 

[franky]

playstyles definitely sway the opinion of one's decision when it comes to tiering. one primary example is rain; a lot of typical offensive players are naturally going to have a hard time beating rain. in result, a lot of the offense players are a little biased when they are trying to justify rain (damp rock) as suspect over stall players. this is why i think discussions like this are always going to run in circles especially when there's a dispute between two players with two completely different playstyles - its simply not going to go anywhere. pokemon that give two of the common playstyles trouble will usually have something that two parties can agree on and cresselia is a great example to this - it troubled stallish teams and offensive teams and guess what? the general consensus agreed that it should be sent to bl territory. for pokemon like raikou, it will draw more heated controversies since raikou was primarily a threat to offensive teams moreover stallish ones. one even brought out the fact that you need chansey on an offensive team to fully check raikou.

 

[Banedon]

The fact that Venusaur has other sets is completely irrelevant to my argument. I am solely talking about Venusaur's most common (and best) set. Frankly, the other sets aren't anything special unless you want to sacrifice your bulk/power arguments for the mixed / sd sets.

And the worst part is, that again, other Pokemon (even Moltres) can fuck its counters up when they switch in too if it's using a different sets. If that was a valid argument, we'd have to ban not remotely broken Pokemon like Blaziken because it can be mixed, it can be SD, it can be scarfed and beat basically all its would-be counters.

The main message I'm getting from the Venusaur-for-BL camp is that you don't know what set it's running. If you do know that it is Timid LO with Leaf Storm + Sludge Bomb, then walling it really isn't hard. Registeel walls it completely, as does specially defensive Arcanine for example. The danger is that you don't know what set Venusaur is running. Look at the stats. Based only on natures, we have:

Approximately 40% of Venusaur are specially offensive
Approximately 20% of Venusaur are physically offensive (splitting down the "other" in the stats here)
Approximately 20% of Venusaur are specially defensive
The remaining 20% can be physically defensive or mixed

So although specially offensive Venusaur is most common, it's still in the minority in the sense that any Venusaur you see is more likely to be something other than specially offensive. Against this look at Moltres's stats. 8.7% of Moltres had Solarbeam, while 10.9% had U-turn. Given that choiced Moltres may not use U-turn, Milotic will hard counter well over 85% of the time. Here's another way of putting it: there are far more specially offensive Moltres running around than specially offensive Venusaur - by percentage, it's almost twice as many (about 80% vs. 40%). Milotic (and the Thick Fat Miltank, Chansey, etc that FlareBlitz mentioned) will wall Moltres over 85% of the time, but perhaps the only Pokemon that walls 85% of Venusaur is specially defensive Rest Talk Weezing.

Comparing to Blaziken would be more justified to be honest, although I can already guess what responses would be: Venusaur has more bulk, better resists + defenses to switch in with, a sleep move, and reliable recovery.

PS: Lol @ Eo's title, although I must say I didn't mean anything I've written as derogatory to Eo >_<

 

[Meru]

Has anybody even seen any Swellow lately? Feels like a pokemon of the past now...

 

[Choice Socks]

Has anybody even seen any Swellow lately? Feels like a pokemon of the past now...

I definitely have to agree with you there. I spent the whole day laddering and think I only saw two of them.
What I did see an awful lot of was hail teams, I think 1/4 of the teams I took on were hail. And that's not an exaggeration

 

[Heysup]

I did not incorporate that point into any arguments about tiering. The point of that was to show how I related more to struggling with Venusaur than Raikou, and presumably vice-versa for more offensive players. It was an attempt at a comparison to display how Venusaur affects me.

Well you kinda did when you voted Raikou UU and are pressing for Venusaur BL. At least that's what it seems.

Yes, I know correlation does not necessarily imply causation. You should explain why it doesn't in this case then.

Stats are a big pile of numbers of "what people use". It correlates because generally people use what's good. However it does in no way rank Pokemon from best to worst. A Pokemon that by definition is not "great" can be #1 just to stop a dangerous Pokemon from sweeping (Hi Scizor circa Salamence era).

A "sweeper" is a made-up classification that cannot be used as a standard of comparison. "Hits things with Life Orb boosted attacks and has recovery" ignores typing, Sleep Powder, and Stealth Rock weaknesses.

Like sweeper, "bulky" is another blanket term that misses out on the finer details. Moltres has a Stealth Rock weakness, cannot switch in on Water Pokemon, etc.

Those things you listed are differences for each respective Pokemon. Again, just because two Pokemon have differences, does not mean they are nothing alike (and thus not comparable). If there are similarities - as I have stated, the relevant similarities are being bulky, hard to switch into, and having instant recovery movies - then there's really no reason to not compare them. Of course you can find things that differentiate them and make one better than the other, but they aren't one-sided. For example, while Moltres can't switch into Water-types, Venusaur cannot switch into Earthquakes.

With all due respect, I think it would be better if you could address the argument instead of sticking with your comparison, seeing as nobody has really been able to wrap their head around it.

You are plenty able, just unwilling.

Ultimately, I believe there is an impasse in that some of us think that most teams naturally come prepared for Venusaur, whereas others (at the very least, myself) believe that you're forced to go considerably out of your way to prepare for Venusaur.

I agree, and this is what makes different users biased when it comes to tiering (even myself). I try to consider things like "is it just me that this Pokemon beats" when I am making a team to judge whether or not a Pokemon is broken or if I'm just not properly prepared, however, as whistle points out it's kind of silly to expect people to not have biases. It's just an ideal.

 

[whistle]

it's pretty easy to observe "how would my team fare if I didn't have this Pokemon that I had, or if I weren't using this combination to fend off against this threat."

yes, you can guess that your playstyle probably makes you worse off against particular threats. like offense teams are going to be weaker to raikou than the average defensive team. but other than a qualitative assessment of the bias (namely, does it exist, and if it does, in what direction it leans) there's not much to be said. it's hard to say "my opinion is that it's broken but when i take into my bias it is not broken" which is what i meant when i said bias is inevitable. i don't think anyone disagrees that playstyle is a factor that we should all be aware of when we read arguments. i think we should take arguments naturally and as they come; in other words, the author shouldn't bother trying to "correct" for any potential biases. we as readers can make our own assessments about which parts of arguments might be influenced by different playstyles.

 

[Heysup]

yes, you can guess that your playstyle probably makes you worse off against particular threats. like offense teams are going to be weaker to raikou than the average defensive team. but other than a qualitative assessment of the bias (namely, does it exist, and if it does, in what direction it leans) there's not much to be said. it's hard to say "my opinion is that it's broken but when i take into my bias it is not broken" which is what i meant when i said bias is inevitable. i don't think anyone disagrees that playstyle is a factor that we should all be aware of when we read arguments. i think we should take arguments naturally and as they come; in other words, the author shouldn't bother trying to "correct" for any potential biases. we as readers can make our own assessments about which parts of arguments might be influenced by different playstyles.

What I dislike about this, is that it means that a certain playstyle (ie offense or stall) will dominate all the time unless we have an equal amount of playstyles. For example, lets assume Venusaur dominates defensive players. If the leaderboard is full of stall players at the top that make requirements (it always is), then we're going to have a shit ton of trouble keeping Venusaur in UU because the stall players hate playing it.

That's why I think it would be best if we just ban what we think is "broken", not what troubles us specifically, but what is actually broken.

 

[SJCrew]

Broken doesn't have a specific definition, we're really mostly making it up as we go. Even the Uber characteristics haven't changed that. If more people think Venusaur is BL than those that think it's UU, then it'll be banned and that's just how it rolls.

There are still going to be unpopular opinions that certain Raikous BLs weren't ban worthy and as long as those exist, there's never going to be a true definition for what makes a Pokemon too difficult to handle.

 

[Meru]

If the leaderboard is full of stall players at the top that make requirements (it always is)

I seriously doubt this. Balance seems to be the team of choice for leaderboarders, then Offense, then Stall.

Unless you lump anything together that isn't offense as stall, then that's just a poor choice of words.