Thursday, March 6, 2014

Smogon February stats: The taste of karma

Sorry for what may seem like slacking off, I just totally forgot that these things came out. Let's write that thought dump, shall we?

Rotom-W lost a large chunk of its statistical dominance over the rest of the tier, presumably as a result of the deadly VoltTurn core it formed with Genesect being disbanded due to the latter's ban part of the way through the month. Can it last a full month without it while still keeping its throne? The answer in a month!

The big story, however, is what comes immediately after. Not content with breaking the top 10, Charizard now occupies the #2 spot on the OU ladder! I've already mentioned everything that makes it beastly last month, and I'm sure everyone was well aware of it anyway, so I should probably move on... except I won't because I forgot something. See, many Pokémon have the ability to go either physical or special, completely changing their check/counter list depending on what they do. But with Mega Lucario gone, it's safe to say that none of these Pokémon have the same level of sheer indecent power as Charizard. You see Charizard on team preview, you have no idea what's coming at you until you see the mega evolution animation, and 50% of the time it's too late.

I'm going to refer you to the latest issue of the Smog for a good explanation, specifically this article. While aim picked Mega Charizard X alone (and I can't hate, because it's a legit beast), PttP cheated a bit and picked both of them, for the simple reason that not knowing which of these two nukes is coming at you causes considerable stress at best, and a loss on your record at worst. The first replay he provided proves his point completely - even though he lost, at least bluffing Mega Charizard X when he really had Y prevented the dreaded Thundurus-I sweep and gave him a fighting chance. (Also want to point out, THREE weather inducers on the same team. That notion would've been unthinkable last gen!)

It's true, if Mega Charizard X didn't exist, Mega Charizard Y would be worse, not THAT much worse, but worse regardless. The reverse is also true. So if there's ever a suspect test involving either or both of them, we're going to have a kind of debate we've never had before. And the greatest irony in that? Charizard and Mewtwo both got two mega evolutions because they're by far the most popular fully evolved Pokémon. So in a way, being worshipped by six-year olds who put four Fire moves on theirs DID end up making it better. That is so wrong, so fucked up on so many levels, I have no words left. So let's move on.

Genesect and Mega Lucario were banned during February, so their rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. One thing to note, however, is that Lucario use dropped by over 40% despite being allowed for just over half of the month. Almost as if people stopped using it entirely with the Lucarionite gone. Looking forward to seeing where it ends up next month... turns out picking it for a mega evolution might not have been as dumb as previously thought. Adaptability was still a horrible decision, though, don't get me wrong. So who did Fighting-type users turn to with this loss? Well, Infernape lost ground, and so did Breloom... Conkeldurr, on the other hand, went from #15 to #8, becoming THE definitive Fighting-type in a generation where, Lucario megavolving aside, the Fighting type took an incredible amount of abuse (though it was definitely not uncalled for).

Another consequence of these bans is that Latios no longer needs to fear Genesect's U-Turn, and as such got a massive boost, from #32 to #19. I will admit, it felt wrong not having it in the top 20. Latias, on the other hand, LOST some ground. In the immortal words of Bill O'Reilly, you can't explain that. It's determined to be a big fish in the small pond of UU!

Seems like people aren't done discovering Bisharp yet - last month, it barely made the OU cut-off line, but now it's at #21 (and #20 is now banned). I've already gone in-depth as to why it's so good now last month, so I won't repeat myself. I will say this, however: seems like Knock Off is now one of those godly moves, like Boomburst or Shell Smash, that are only given to subpar Pokémon. I mean, look at what gets it now: subpar Pokémon (ranging from utter trash to decent Pokémon that would never be OU without it), special attackers, and Gliscor. Yeah, feels to me like Gamefreak is as infatuated with Gliscor as Smogon is with Garchomp. It always gets buff after buff after buff, it's scary.

The only other big movement within the confines of the OU cut-off line is Smeargle falling down pretty close to it, making Galvantula the top Sticky Web user. Also, Thundurus-I and Gardevoir make the cut-off line this month, so at least the latter gets some use somewhere, with the Gardevoirite being banned from UU!

Not much to signal in ubers, with the top 10 remaining intact, save for Lugia passing Ho-Oh. Genesect usage increased by almost 50% though, and Lucario actually topped that mark, suggesting that sometimes Pokémon only get discovered in ubers when being banned from OU.

And on that note, that's all for today. Bye bye!

23 comments:

  1. I'm just now getting back in the swing of things in the competitive scene after a several-month hiatus, and what better time to study up than spring break? Anyways, it always happens that when something gets banned from OU, it dramatically rises in Ubers usage. I'm fairly sure that a good chunk of this is because either people forget (or simply don't want) to change their OU teams, akin to the anomalous ubiquity of Charizard in the first half of gen 5. Some people like a Pokémon so much that they want to use it no matter what tier it is in. This was the goal of the lower tier, and the reason I got into Ubers. (I really liked Moody and wanted to still use it where I could. Say what you want about it's competitiveness, Moody teams are fun to use!) At any rate, Excadrill and Blaziken went from lol-worthy to serious threats to prepare for only after they got exiled. Anything to shake up the Ubers metagame and get people interested in other tiers is always welcome, so I'm not complaining. I look forward to a good hearty chuckle the day that Charizard is legitimately, unironically used in Ubers!

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  2. I think Smogon should maybe review their articles etiquette since 2 members who were picked to talk about one particular Mega each used their "Final Thought" to talk thrash about each other... Unless that's a running gag I'm not aware of.
    Otherwise I don't really have any comment, except that maybe I should consider following CBB's advice for my Mega Venusaur and drop Earthquake in favor of Sleep Powder. Though since its IVs are thrash, I didn't even intend to use it for competitive play in the first place... I raised it because it was the first Shiny I hatched. (And I managed to get Giga Drain on it too, so I thought I might as well give it a viable set.)

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    1. I know precisely dick about the who's who of Pokémon, and even I can tell it's an inside joke.

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    2. I didn't spend as much time as you on that website. It's the first time I'm seeing this. While the first guy's comment made me think it was a joke, the second pushed it further and made me question whether it was true or not. I'm sorry I can't understand the concept of "friendly" thrash-talking of that level. Because I don't do that. It's a goddamm waste of my time, not funny, nor entertaining.

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    3. Neither do I. On that note, if there's something Smogon's known for, it's their anal retentiveness (for better or for worse). Had there been even the slightest hint of actual malice in there, you can bet their interventions would've been chopped off.

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    4. And I do mean to emphasize "for better or for worse". You wouldn't believe the amount of ignoramuses that mouth off on their policies while actually not knowing shit. I haven't tried it, but apparently looking at Tumblr's "Smogon" tag is a death sentence, they supposedly make GameFAQs look well-educated. Frightening, I know.

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    5. Oh gosh. No wonder JelloApocalypse made a "Welcome to" video about it.

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    6. Out of pure boredom I did. It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. If anything it reminds me of Pokémemes before X and Y came out. Must be why I wasn't impressed actually... But now that competitive battling is easier to grasp thanks to this new generation, the hate has been massively toned down. There are still people who hate Smogon, but when asked why, they never provide any reasonable arguments so the now vast majority of people who do follow Smogon and respect their work will just laugh at their face.

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  3. I can't help but that Game Freak have become weak with dealing with Pokemon fans with the whole Charizard and Mewtwo thing. Going by their logic, we might as well have a Hoenn remake, Grass kicked out of the type chart and the female character always being Hilda.

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    1. Hey, at least they're working off what sells, instead of constantly shoving stuff no one cares about down our throats like a certain other Japanese developer.

      Besides, it's just having two mega evolutions instead of one. It's nothing major. Heck, it's a rather unique way of making a Pokémon better, so I gotta give them props, even if that may not have been the intention.

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    2. I'd love if more pokemon got the same treatment *cough venusaur x and y*

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    3. Nah, Venusaur's good enough as it is. It's already remarkable enough that it managed to make a defensive mega work as well as it did.

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    4. Yeah who would have guessed that one of the best defensive pokemon was a grass/poison. That said, I do wish that if they continue the mega pokemon thing that they make more defensive types (actually, I wish there was more emphasis on defense period and not just a full team of heavy hitters).

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    5. Absolutely true. We don't need to go back to gen 2's 200+ turn stallfests though! I think the way the game's math works, whether it's voluntary or not, skews things towards offense a bit too much, hence why I welcomed the nerf of so many special moves with open arms (and even wished they'd do the same on the physical side).

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    6. Gen 7 would need to introduce a lot of very good defensive moves and bulky pokemon with setup moves to try and balance the game away from offence and to a more balance between offence and defence. Re-introducing Curse to be taught to pokemon again would also help.

      On the note of Curse, I recently had the idea that Pokemon Z, or a future game, could feature "Ancient TM's" which would be the TM's of moves which lost their TM status and aren't available as a move tutor move. Just think about how that would change the meta game, as some notable moves lost their TM status. Along with the aforementioned Curse, there was Whirlwind (( Gen 1 )), Submission (( Gen 1 )) and Dragon Pulse (( Gen 4 )), There is also Defog, which was a HM in gen 4 and got a huge buff this generation

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    7. I mention Submission as I think there's a lot of non-fighting type pokemon that would benefit if they were able to learn that move.

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    8. I would assume everything that could learn Submission already knows Brick Break, or better yet, Drain Punch. Heck, Submission is so horrendous I would NEVER use it on anything even if it was the only option.

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    9. I agree that the old stallfests were too much, but I think instead of nerfing moves left and right outside of those that need it, what do you think about adjusting the damage calculation formula? It's not outrageous if you think about it, they already did that to critical hits (half the damage bonus). I've no clue what the best number would be, but personally ideally it should get rid of +1 OHKOs (e.g. choice band) by neutral attacks except for the strongest against the poorest defense/HP, and make most usable non-super-effective moves take 1-2 more hit to KO (depending on base power). It would probably not make stall that much more effective, but it would in theory allow the use of strategies that take time to set up, emphasize better typing match-ups over sheer power and perseverance (which was the issue of dragons, hence the fairy type). At least way I look at it, a Pokemon with a Life Orb shouldn't be able to 2HKO anyone consistently except those with below average defenses without exploiting weaknesses. Nothing set in stone but at least I think it'd be a good starting point of discussion.

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    10. They started nerfing special moves, so to have them take a tumble again would be overkill IMO. Besides, there's not much difference from a statistical standpoint between nerfing moves and changing the damage formula. Heck, the former has the added benefit of moves that weren't nerfed becoming more usable by comparison, making for more variety.

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    11. Well you can also argue that Charizard would be good enough with just mega charizard y. A 2nd mega doesn't hurt and only adds variety to the metagame. As for ancient TMs, don't forget WATER GUN! It was the ultimate TM in gen 1! As for damage calculation, I think we can all agree that having a 4x weakness cripples anything that was meant to have any kind of bulk. Gamefreak is aware of this, they dropped Aggron's rock type and gave it filter to save it's megalution. A nerf there, like toning it down to 3x, or even cutting SE damage by 25% might help those pokes... but it's a delicate road because it's hard to predict how much nerfing is enough and at what point it would cross that it becomes overkill.

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    12. It depends on what the weakness is, really. Rock is the worst because of Stealth Rock, though with the Defog buff it's a lot less of a problem. Heck, as good of an offensive type as Fire is, the likes of Ferrothorn and Forretress still remain very effective, even without rain... to say nothing of Scizor and Genesect. Same with Tyranitar and Fighting.

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  4. Those are some dang good fanmade sprites. It makes me wish even more that X and Y were 2D. *braces for incoming rage against my unpopular opinion*

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    1. Hey, I feel the same way
      My thoughts about Feb in a nutshell:
      Charizard be-dominating
      I would have never thought it was good

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