NP: UU - Silent Night

[Upstart]

Meru, you are completely missing heysup's point. It dowdy really matter if stall is dominating now which I have seen several leaderboard players with stall teams. This round doesn't seem nearly as competitive as previous rounds were. Thus the better stall players don't even bother.
Now heysup's idea sounds good but it is impossible to fully disregard your personal experience. But acknowledge something is broken even if you can beat.

 

[Legacy Raider]

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.

That's a logical fallacy: if something has never troubled you then you can't rightfully think it's broken, because then you'd be basing your opinion on other people's experiences and theorymon. How do you know if something is "actually broken" if it's never seemed broken to you.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

i've never had a single problem with raikou....(or cresselia)

 

[iDunno]

The best thing that could happen to UU is the banning of Damp Rock. That's all there is to it. Rain itself is fine and is part of the game, but it is the fact that it lasts 8 turns that makes it broken in UU. I used to play UU often, but with the surge of Rain Teams, I found it to be tedious and overly difficult to get past Goreybyss, Ludicolo,Omanyte, Kabutops, etc. Many UU pokemon are sent to UU because even though their attacking stats are sky high, they're typing and speed are lackluster without rain support. In UU this is much easier to remedy therefore they become much more dangerous. Whenever I use rain I find it to be way to easy to win due to the fact that most rain sweepers are bulky as well as being fast and it is hard to take them down with priority and the like. Ludicolo is a prime example of this. The lack of sandstream to stop rain like you can in OU doesn't help the situation.

 

[Heysup]

That's a logical fallacy: if something has never troubled you then you can't rightfully think it's broken, because then you'd be basing your opinion on other people's experiences and theorymon. How do you know if something is "actually broken" if it's never seemed broken to you.

Not at all.

If you're basing your opinion of one experience with a single team, then you're not actually exploring whether or not a Pokemon is broken. If you make a team that's either a) extremely overprepared (to the point of "bad vs everything else) for a Pokemon or b) extremely underprepared for a Pokemon, then you're not giving that Pokemon a valid assessment.

You need to objectively say "is this my team that's causing me to be overly weak / strong against this Pokemon?". If so, you may as well try to optimize your team against other threats (if you are having no trouble due to overpreparation), or more commonly, you may want to try actually preparing for the "suspect" in question (if you have having lots of trouble due to underpreparation).

Obviously this is 100x more common as people underpreparing for a threat, but my point still stands. There is nothing fallacious about trying to actually deal with the suspect in question (or less commonly, trying to deal with other threats while also dealing with the Pokemon in question). Otherwise I believe you're simply going to be biased, in a bad way.

 

[whistle]

you can definitely adapt to suspects by changing your team within your preferred playstyle, so i agree that underpreparation/overpreparation is a bias that can be roughly approximated and corrected. but there's a big difference between how you deal with a slow, bulky sweeper if your preferred style is alakazam swellow scyther manectric sceptile registeel than if your preferred style is omastar chansey weezing milotic spiritomb hitmontop. you can change a few pokemon, maybe change that sceptile to a sd double edge version from specs... but in the end, if you keep within your playstyle, your options are relatively limited - you're not gonna stick a chansey and restalk weezing onto your superfast offense team.

imagine if there was a pokemon that destroyed offense but was total crap against stall. what if bluewind played stall to test how broken that pokemon was? maybe he is just so bad at stall that he loses every match just because he hates stalling, even if that pokemon is not effective against "well-played" stall. just using bluewind as an example because i remember him laddering stall while constantly saying how much he sucks at it. anyways, that's why the "change your team" argument isn't very applicable to "change your playstyle" - it forces you to become a different player, almost, and that's like performing an experiment without a controlled variable.

it might seem hard to fathom how such a pokemon might exist, or how venusaur specifically is so much harder to play with one playstyle than another. but that difficulty is exactly why attempting to account for playstyle biases is not possible and counterproductive. we can probably guess that in general, some styles are worse off against venusaur, but the the large variation within playstyles makes it hard to say exactly why in a specific instance.

 

[Legacy Raider]

Oh yeah I agree with that, you shouldn't judge a Pokemon based on your experiences with a single team. But just read what you wrote before again:

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.

The way you've worded it it's definitely a logical fallacy, and we just have to be careful before we throw out phrases like that.

 

[Stellar]

I've been playing every day for the last week or so and I completely and utterly despise UU. Because UU is so decentralized, games are decided about 90% of the time on team matchup. There doesn't seem to be any skill involved whatsoever. I have enjoyed the tier in the past when there were "big-hitters" like Raikou if only because they centralized the tier somewhat.

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

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

The first part of my justification is unbiased. The second part - the one you are referring to - can be seen as biased; however, the same arguments have been made in regards as to why Venusaur is not broken, why Crobat was broken, and so forth. You may choose to ignore it if you do think it's an invalid argument; it's not like I incorporated that into my Venusaur nomination. The actual discrepancy between my votes is a personal issue that is, I would wager, all but irrelevant to Venusaur's tiering, assuming that I am indeed "correct" on both counts.

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).

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.

You are comparing Venusaur and Moltres. My argument is that they are nothing alike. You argue that they are similar enough to warrant comparison. If they are similar enough to warrant comparison, then you cannot ignore the correlation between their usages. I cannot emphasize this enough.

A Pokemon that by definition is not "great" can be #1 just to stop a dangerous Pokemon from sweeping (Hi Scizor circa Salamence era).

We don't play Pokemon in a vacuum. The definition of great takes into account the metagame.

If you're basing your opinion of one experience with a single team, then you're not actually exploring whether or not a Pokemon is broken. If you make a team that's either a) extremely overprepared (to the point of "bad vs everything else) for a Pokemon or b) extremely underprepared for a Pokemon, then you're not giving that Pokemon a valid assessment.

You need to objectively say "is this my team that's causing me to be overly weak / strong against this Pokemon?". If so, you may as well try to optimize your team against other threats (if you are having no trouble due to overpreparation), or more commonly, you may want to try actually preparing for the "suspect" in question (if you have having lots of trouble due to underpreparation).

Obviously this is 100x more common as people underpreparing for a threat, but my point still stands. There is nothing fallacious about trying to actually deal with the suspect in question (or less commonly, trying to deal with other threats while also dealing with the Pokemon in question). Otherwise I believe you're simply going to be biased, in a bad way.

I agree, but isn't this common sense? Most good players will have taken steps to cover Venusaur should they have found themselves weak to it. Few players also limit themselves to testing out only a single team within a given playtesting period.

 

[Heysup]

Oh yeah I agree with that, you shouldn't judge a Pokemon based on your experiences with a single team. But just read what you wrote before again:

The way you've worded it it's definitely a logical fallacy, and we just have to be careful before we throw out phrases like that.

The bold-underline-italics on "us" was meant to emphasize the fact that I meant "just our own specific team"....not that we shouldn't use the evidence we collected. I thought it was fairly clear that's what I meant.

The first part of my justification is unbiased. The second part - the one you are referring to - can be seen as biased; however, the same arguments have been made in regards as to why Venusaur is not broken, why Crobat was broken, and so forth. You may choose to ignore it if you do think it's an invalid argument; it's not like I incorporated that into my Venusaur nomination. The actual discrepancy between my votes is a personal issue that is, I would wager, all but irrelevant to Venusaur's tiering, assuming that I am indeed "correct" on both counts.

Fair enough. However, the ideal is always to be 100% unbiased and objective.

You are comparing Venusaur and Moltres. My argument is that they are nothing alike. You argue that they are similar enough to warrant comparison. If they are similar enough to warrant comparison, then you cannot ignore the correlation between their usages. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Why can't I ignore an irrelevant point?

Stats do not correlate to anything besides "look people use this Pokemon more". That means absolutely nothing at all in this comparison of "being good". Stats are meaningless unless you're trying to find out what people are using. That's what they're for. Nothing more. Nothing less.

We don't play Pokemon in a vacuum. The definition of great takes into account the metagame.

Yea, but again, they don't relate to this specific comparison, nor would it be accurate to suggest that 12122109 nobodies know which Pokemon are the best (or 12122109 people at all). Stats, once again, are for knowing what people are using. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I agree, but isn't this common sense? Most good players will have taken steps to cover Venusaur should they have found themselves weak to it. Few players also limit themselves to testing out only a single team within a given playtesting period.

Firstly, what are you basing this off of? And nonetheless, people can continuously fail at making their teams work well against specific threats (like me and RD kabutops last round).

 

[Lee]

I've been playing every day for the last week or so and I completely and utterly despise UU. Because UU is so decentralized, games are decided about 90% of the time on team matchup. There doesn't seem to be any skill involved whatsoever. I have enjoyed the tier in the past when there were "big-hitters" like Raikou if only because they centralized the tier somewhat.

I disagree, I find the tier to be very centralised but now it's around the FWG core (or should I just cut the crap and say the Arcanine/Milotic/Venusaur core) rather than around a single Pokemon like Raikou. Teams are always looking to exploit the opponents FWG core and the opponent is always looking to compliment his core with Pokemon that will make it difficult for them to do so.

Best Pokemon in the tier atm are Sp Def Arcanine and CBAzumarill.

 

[Anachronism]

I find CB Azumarill decidedly average unless you use Jolly, and even with Jolly you still don't outspeed 84 Speed Milotic (which, to be fair, most people don't use, but I do). To make matters worse, everyone is using Spiritomb these days, so if you decide to use Double-Edge, Superpower, or Return, you have become Pursuit bait. There is also the problem that the top 2 pokemon both resist your STAB, so you are forced into using either the above moves or Ice Punch (which has difficulty making it onto the 4th slot as it is what with Aqua Jet, Waterfall, Normal attack(s), and Superpower all being better in most cases).

 

[Lee]

Why would you ever use Superpower at all much less in place of Ice Punch and JOLLY?! I run 88 Spe to beat Weezing and Clefable, max Atk, rest in HP. Part of the reason he's so darn useful is his bulk so compromising that and a tonne of Atk (657 vs 598) just to try and outrun some things that he really doesn't need to outrun just baffles me. Tomb's Pursuit barely scratches him unless it's CB in which case you just got a golden opportunity to set up half the tier on his arse. As for Venusaur, offensive versions are ohko'd by Ice Punch, damn near ohko'd by Return and even Waterfall does around 40% forcing him to think about using Synthesis in the near future. Milotic is forced to Recover giving you a free switch without fear of Toxic/coverage attack. I'm not saying he isn't wary around those two but they're certainly not justification to avoid using him. Tbh if you're using Jolly and Superpower you probably don't have any place commenting on his capabilities!

Also predicting a Duggy rise in answer to SpD Arcanine!

 

[Alchemator]

I have to admit that I've never been a fan of Azumarill. 100/80/80 is pretty sweet for something that hits as hard as it does (I still don't find it hitting as hard as I think though).

 

[Meru]

Well it's September now and the new UU stats are going to come. I'm predicting a rise in Qwilfish leads to top 5, Swellow's usage to go down to freaking NU status, Arcanine rise, and possibly Venusaur to trump Milotic again.

 

[Anachronism]

Well, perhaps I am applying the age-old argument of "I have never had problems with it." I can see how it could be fairly effective, but you WILL be setup bait for things that I would rather not give a free turn (read: Mismagius, Toxicroak). Tbh I have never used CB Azumarill because almost every team has Milotic already and therefore I often find myself looking for something less redundant to include.

Yeah, Duggy is just as exploitable as ever. He makes it pretty easy to open holes in teams. The one thing I hate is when I am attempting to open up a sweep for Venusaur or something and they end up having both Registeel AND Chansey. The particular team I am using often ends up being forced to sac it when they bring particular setup sweepers into it, so it is really annoying when they don't reveal the second 'mon until later.

Using Toxic over WoW on Arcanine with minimal Atk and speed also opens up other stupid shit like CB Aggron to come in on you for free (nearly lost to one of those because I ended up having to sac 'Top to get the spin). I really like spD Arcanine though. It beats such a large portion of the top contingent of UU right now.

I am not sure if I agree with Meru's Qwilfish conjecture. While it is one of the best leads out there it seems like there are a lot of leads that don't get the usage they deserve while others get more than they deserve. Ambipom is like the goddamn Aerodactyl of OU. It has almost no business being such a predominant lead yet it keeps coming back every month.

 

[Alchemator]

Well it's September now and the new UU stats are going to come. I'm predicting a rise in Qwilfish leads to top 5, Swellow's usage to go down to freaking NU status, Arcanine rise, and possibly Venusaur to trump Milotic again.

@Swellow comment: Oh please god no, that thing would rip up NU (hey Taillow works decently ;D)

Anyway, to the bolded part of your post. I actually expect Milotic to stay on top. You can find viable alternatives to Venusaur depending on your team (Torterra, Sceptile) or even manage without a bulky Grass-type at all. However, you can't manage without a Milotic or several threats will destroy you (Note: Moltres, funnily enough Azumarill if it gets Venusaur with an Ice Punch and that's oh-so difficult...).

 

[PK Gaming]

There's no way Swellow is leaving UU. He's still a potent threat and an excellent late game sweeper.

Some predictions:
(not including some clear cut changes like Slowking and Regirock going into NU)

-Absol goes into NU.
-Poliwrath goes into NU
-Manectric goes into UU
-Kanghaskan goes into UU

 

[SJCrew]

Ambipom is like the goddamn Aerodactyl of OU. It has almost no business being such a predominant lead yet it keeps coming back every month.

Ambipom is ridiculous. It almost completely annuls suicide leads and can get the match going in your opponent's favor right away with Uturn. Even if your lead is something bulky that takes shit from its attacks, Taunt will inevitably make it setup bait for something else. This guy is the reason why the majority of UU's leads are anti-leads.

Aero is the defining lead for offensive teams and even with its lack of versatility, you won't find anything that does its job better.

 

[uragg]

Ambipom is ridiculous. It almost completely annuls suicide leads and can get the match going in your opponent's favor right away with Uturn. Even if your lead is something bulky that takes shit from its attacks, Taunt will inevitably make it setup bait for something else.

Aero is the defining lead for offensive teams and even with its lack of versatility, you won't find anything that does its job better.

lol while Ambipom is certainly a good lead, it's not that powerful. Kabutops and Alakzam, the most popular/useful suicide leads, completely manhandle it. and keep in mind that Ambi can't Taunt/U-turn at the same time. against something like omastar or kabutops, you either choose to prevent hazards and take a huge hit (~80%) or u-turn to something that gets rocks set up. granted the opponent must predict too, but the pressure is on the ambipom user.

and the last sentence basically cements that Ambipom is the UU Aero. what versatility are you going to see with Ambi other than a stupid nasty pass version? completely agreeing with ana on this one.

 

[whistle]

funny how i havent run defensive milotic on a team in over half a year :(

Ambipom is like the goddamn Aerodactyl of OU. It has almost no business being such a predominant lead yet it keeps coming back every month.

it's also like aerodactyl because it's a good lead that good players consistently like to make fun of!! :P

no but really, properly used ambipom is really annoying to face, especially if your lead matches up poorly or neutral against it. neutral matchups are stuff like mesprit/offensive uxie spreads where you get SR but it takes away 50%+ of your HP. the reason I think it is still good as a lead is that if you don't overuse its stab attacks/low kick, you can get really easy switchins for very dangerous pokemon - i.e. aggron if you uturn out of spiritomb, cb rhyperior if you uturn out of registeel, venusaur out of rhyperior, etc. early game, it should honestly play more of a support role than a sweeper/annoyer role. it feels sort of high risk/high reward because if you outplay your opponent with ambipom you can get off to an immense advantage, but if you get outplayed it really sucks.

i guess it is ALSO like aerodactyl in that it makes a really dangerous LO sweeper mid-/late-game, although spiritomb's popularity means you have to be careful with it (that is probably an understatement).

classic arguments against using ambipom lead
- setup bait for spikes/sr/layers
- lets stuff that hits really hard switch in for nearly free
- trapped by spiritomb
- 4mss, to an extent

most of that can be alleviated through the use of coverage attacks + life orb or taunt. low kick 2hkos registeel, and also actually 2hkos kabutops in combination with fake out. for the really bulky stuff like defensive omastar i guess you are screwed unless you have taunt, but suicide lead omastar takes 60%+ from low kick (although i would not classify this as a "win", it's more of a tie-lean-towards-loss like the pixies).

but yeah i still think ana is correct in that it gets more usage than it 'deserves', and consistently at that. its odd i don't ever remember playing all those ambipom on ladder then when stats come out it's up there at the top... every month.

ive always been a fan of azumarill but not the cb version... its always been hit or miss for me. sometimes you play a guy who just gets overwhelmed by cb waterfall/aqua jet but then other times it does nothing besides let toxicroak set up on you. leftovers 4 attack gives roughly the same level of utility in terms of revenge-killing really frail stuff and general "i'm bulky" and you can do 80% to toxicroak with double edge.

 

[The Cicada]

Ambipom is screwed over by CB Spiritomb,thats why i never build a team without Spiritomb.

 

[Legacy Raider]

A great move for Ambipom that screws over a lot of its checks is Grass Knot. With a Hasty nature and a Life Orb, even with no investment, it becomes a big asset against a lot of the Pokemon that otherwise give it trouble. I've found Low Kick has very little use outside of hitting Registeel, which is a free set up for like 100 other Pokemon, but doesn't do enough to a lot of the super physically defensive Pokemon that Ambipom struggles with. So instead of trying to predict and 2HKO Registeel, you can use Grass Knot to OHKO a lot of 'bad matchups' and common switch ins.

LO Grass Knot vs 252 HP Omastar (90 bp after technician): 87.2 - 103.5% (guaranteed OHKO after Fake Out)

LO Grass Knot vs 4 HP Kabutops: 114.5 - 135.9%

LO Grass Knot vs 252 HP Cloyster: 76.3 - 80.1% (very likely OHKO after Fake Out)

LO Grass Knot vs 136 HP Solid Rock Rhyperior: 88.1 - 104.4% (very likely OHKO after Fake Out)

LO Grass Knot vs 52 HP Donphan: 56.3 - 66.5% (2HKO, or likely 2HKO with Return)


So even with this minimal investment, without removing from its attack or speed in the slightest, Ambipom can effectively use Grass Knot to surprise KO many common switch ins. Obviously doesn't help against Spiritomb at all, but many other pokes are screwed over.

 

[Arcticblast]

I gave up on using Pokemon that are meant to wall a while ago for the most part. I run Omastar and Mantine as my walls, with RP Rhyperior and Sub+CM Uxie as patches, and it's my best team yet (I also run Hitmontop and Agility Blaziken). Milotic, while it's certainly great, is slightly overrated in UU with all the Grass-types running around. As for Tomb, it's never really helped me.

 

[Cool Story Slowbro]

There's no way Swellow is leaving UU. He's still a potent threat and an excellent late game sweeper.

Some predictions:
(not including some clear cut changes like Slowking and Regirock going into NU)

-Absol goes into NU.
-Poliwrath goes into NU
-Manectric goes into UU
-Kanghaskan goes into UU

If anyone is moving to UU it's going to be Espeon. Espeon is far more overused than Manectric and Kanghaskan.

I agree with Absol moving down. Maybe even Slowbro will go down a notch.