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Senile

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Everything posted by Senile

  1. I agree with basically all of the criticism in this thread, and I already ditched the TC a couple months ago because I don't foresee the TC getting fixed anytime soon (or ever). However, I think a good amount of solutions in this thread are missing the mark to some extent, which is reasonable, since I don't think people realize how deeply fucked the TC currently is. So, let me go into it: First of all, I'm going to go ahead and point out the system is structured in such a way that makes it heavily resistant to change. To be frank, tiering is extra work, and the staff seem significantly more interested in having the formats be literally playable with all pokemon at least theoretically usable than actually making competitive, you know, good. Notice the operative word here is "staff"; for a while, the TC has been basically hammered into complete non-choices, as tiering decisions have been basically made by higher staff. The obvious example is the individual pokemon changes, the first notable one being removing Draco Meteor from Hydreigon's movepool. You could say the TC made that decision, sure, but the answer is not really. A more accurate breakdown is we were told we 100% shouldn't let Hydreigon be banned, and they don't want to remove Draco from Hydreigon later if they add it and it ends up broken. So, we were forced to agree "okay, yeah, don't release draco on it". In a technical manner, we made the judgment call that Draco Meteor Hydreigon would be too much, but in reality, we really had no choice in the matter. The limitations we were handed down basically made it the only possible option, and negotiating other solutions (just ban hydreigon/add it and remove it later if it's a problem) were basically no sold as possible options. This trend of "Yeah, you guys decide, but there is literally only 1 conceivable choice" has resulted in basically every single OU related decision since Unova, and quite frankly, kills any drive to actually care about anything tiering related. If there's only 1 option that's even being considered, why even have a TC to make that decision? This is obviously exacerbated by the fact that banning is something to be avoided whenever possible, and bans are typical placed with the idea that at some point an update/nerf will be released to undo the ban at some point. Of course, this only really addresses the issues plaguing OU tiering, not the rest of the tiers. To go into that, we have to go over the fact the TC is basically unchanged in policies and structure despite being like, half a decade old. The biggest issue is the massive emphasis on forum engagement and participation; discussions take place on the forums, when adding TC members, some level of involvement on the forums is preferred/expected, etc. This might have been fine before, but quite frankly, the forums here are extremely dead. Forums (no, reddit doesn't count) just aren't really used anymore, and making them so integral to the tiering process is a ridiculous oversight. The fact you basically can't get involved in tiering in any meaningful way other than messaging TC members without getting on the forums is absolutely ridiculous in current year. TC and tiering communication in general is awful, and it's caused partially by apathy on the TC's side (massive inactivity btw, but this is an old horse), but also by the fact policies basically push communication to threads in a forum people who play the game don't even use. It's pretty telling that a lot of the people I'm seeing in this thread are people who were using the forums years ago, when it was actually, uh, useful. Even ignoring that, there is basically no meaningful structure to the tiering process itself. The definitions of banworthy are literally irrelevant, since the rules for banning have heavily changed since staff became more involved, and the process of requiring a forum thread for suspects and such is literally laughably pointless. At present, it's just whoever actually cares to say or do anything throwing out a vote on things people are mildly vocal about. The literal 2.13 active TC members scream about something that they want banned ASAP, and bring it up every month until something changes. That's about it. It's not like there's much structure on what to do, and most people just aren't involved enough to generate structure. There's not really any guidelines on what's considered acceptable to ban other than "try not to touch OU", so the discussions quickly turn circular with only 2 or 3 people actively participating to any extent, and none of them really agreeing on the line for banworthy, even if half the time they agree something might be strong. Ultimately, all of these things are only issues as long as they persist. If they can be fixed, there isn't a problem, but as I said originally, the system is heavily resistant to change. Removing old, irrelevant TC members is more work for staff (read: Munya), and quite frankly, from their perspective, isn't even necessary if the TC is still working "fine" (which it isn't). To be fair, I'm sympathetic to Munya & staff in general on this point, since the way the system is structured and the fact staff hide in a brimstone bunker as far away from the playerbase as possible makes picking out new TC members a huge hassle. Not only that, but in all the time TC has been around, it's absolutely been common that someone new is added to the TC to replace an inactive/quit/removed member, and then proceeds to just not participate at all. At a certain point, cycling through TC members can feel pointless, when you end up replacing an inactive player with an active player who doesn't participate, and then turns inactive. However, ignoring this doesn't make it not an issue, it just guarantees it will literally never get fixed. Since TC inevitably ends up clogged with inactives who can't be bothered to do anything, and replacing them with active members is an exercise in futility, nothing meaningful gets changed since the TC itself isn't willing to instigate any change. Not to mention that actually enacting meaningful change requires active discussion and cooperation with higher staff, which effectively makes doing anything a million times more difficult and frustrating. It's not uncommon that we had to force Munya to float an idea higher up the river, just to get told a flat "no" with little else. I'm also gonna throw a disclaimer here; it's not that higher staff never engage or discuss with the TC. For example, Kyu would frequently show up whenever we had to discuss something related to an ingame change he'd have to push (ie, modifying how an ability/move works) that had relevant competitive impact. However, normally these discussions are instigated by the higher staff themselves, and things as vague and open ended as "The TC is completely broken and needs to be changed completely" isn't going to garner much traction. So, what are we left with? A system that, as is, is broken in the following ways: Communicates through an irrelevant channel (Forums) for announcements, community engagement, and identifying potential members. Ends up clogged with inactive users without any failsafes to handle them, so that even when they are replaced, the issue quickly repeats. Has rules and guidelines, but basically none of them are followed due to being some combination of outdated, wrong, or bad. Is extremely resistant to change, due to being comprised of inactive users, the difficulty of pushing forth actual change, and lack of receptiveness/attentiveness to these problems by staff. Is left with extremely little freedom in making independent decisions, due to constant (generally poorly defined & understood by the TC) restrictions imposed by higher staff. Lacks any drive, ability, or function with which to push back and address any of these issues. Ultimately, splitting up the TC into subdivisions of ideally more informed/active players won't fix anything in the long term. Even if it temporarily helps address the stagnant state of the TC, it doesn't fix any of the other fundamental problems. While something like the activity checker ThinkNice mentioned would ideally help combat the inevitable stagnation issue, in practice, I see it requiring too much staff involvement/effort, since any member purged by this system must then be replaced by someone staff deems "acceptable" and meets stringent activity requirements. There's just like 0% chance something like that would really get enforced long term, if at all; it's just too much of a hassle for them to upkeep. So, in order for a proposed TC rework to be viable imo, it would need to meet these requirements: Deal with not only the current TC stagnation of inactive users, but provide a method of cycling out inactive ones in the future. The system needs to be flexible enough to not just remove inactive users, but easily be able to replace them. The second part is both extremely important to actually making it feasible long term, and also probably the most difficult required change tbh. Actually allow/give the TC more meaningful/varied options for dealing with tiering policies independently. I legitimately don't think there's much point in having a TC if a lot of decisions end up being made half by default due to restrictions imposed on how we can/can't handle potential or currently problematic pokemon. Stuff like "Suspect Tests" as done in PokeMMO where someone throws up a thread and says "we might ban this, discuss" are so pointless that I can't even fathom why we still bother, a far cry from suspects performed by Smogon. This doesn't just have to mean being more open to just banning pokemon (since I sincerely doubt anyone high up will change their mind on this for some reason), but having actual tools to make better tiering decisions would be a significant boon. Completely rework the currently written/codified TC guidelines. And by "rework" I mean literally delete every tiering policy thread I've ever written, they're like half a decade old and nobody follows them anymore, write something else ffs. Especially regarding the vague guidelines brought down by higher staff, since even looking back I'm still not 100% sure on what we were/weren't allowed to do. SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVE COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT AND INTERACTION. This is literally the most important thing, and I wouldn't really give a shit about anything else if this could get fixed. The forums are not a good way of involving the community in tiering anymore, because the game playing community largely doesn't give a shit about this place. I am 100% convinced the best way of handling this would be having Smogon style Suspect Tests where players who meet specific requirements could vote on proposed suspects, but the last time this was suggested, I was hit with a pretty fat "no". I don't expect this to ever be compromised on, but it is such a fucking good idea holy shit just do it already ffs. If staff is still insistent on being against this, then come up with something else, but the current system of sitting in a shitty chat on the PokeMMO discord and memeing once a month before writing up garbage and posting it in a thread nobody cares about is terrible for getting people to actually care about tiering. Some of these have some proposed solutions already in the thread (and in the bullet points themselves), but not all solutions are perfect. Either way, these are all major, fundamental flaws with the TC that need to be addressed to have any hope of it not being completely worthless garbage. I probably missed some stuff in writing out this post, but I think these four bullet points succinctly cover the current issues that need to be addressed. If you get nothing else out of this post, at least read those four bullets. Frankly, I don't have super high hopes for most of this, but I saw this thread and figured I should probably comment on the issue, since the sad state of the TC has been apparent for a while, and I don't see anyone from the TC saying or doing much about it. Also, I'm gonna throw out a disclaimer. I left the TC a few months ago, and it's entirely possible some of this has been addressed since I've been gone. I HEAVILY doubt it, especially given the existence of this thread, but it's worth mentioning before I get dogpiled for outdated information. tl;dr: haha no, read it. alternatively, read everything starting from the sentence above the last set of bullet points.
  2. uhhh me, right now, I am saying that. we were definitely told about the change prior to the update, however, it wasn't "should we change BP", it was "we're unbanning BP next update because we changed it, unless somebody objects to the unban".
  3. Eh, I don't really think banning Diglett will solve all of LC's problems, but Diglett is definitely a super potent trapper, and trapping is pretty uncompetitive. I'm voting for the test ban, but if LC doesn't see some improvements pretty soon after, we should probably take a closer look at the other threats as opposed to our supporting little mole buddy.
  4. I'm honestly completely bamboozled by this whole post. You state Arceus as by far the least balanced Uber, but that's not even true. It's probably the most versatile pokemon that exists, sure, but it's definitely not the best. I'm not even sure that Arceus is considered the strongest Uber threat in any gen, it's just considered an Uber staple because of how good it is at filling roles in your team, giving Arceus pretty good usage. However, the best pokemon? Not really. In reality, Kyogre was the defacto king of ubers until ~gen 6, since it's water STABs (especially Water Spout) are so absurdly strong that the number of things that can come on it are extremely limited, especially when coupled with how unbearable Drizzle is. Having some stats that are lower isn't a weakness, specialization is valuable, and every extra point in speed or attack/sp.att is the difference between "Easily counterable/checkable" and "Unstoppable killing machine that shreds lives". Stuff like Deoxys-A is the pinnacle of this; It has such obvious, glaring weaknesses, but it's so effective at doing the thing it's good at that it doesn't matter. Naturally, it hasn't seen too much relevance in Ubers in quite a while despite this, because Uber threats are that strong. Hell, Genesect is considered the best Scarfer in Gen 5 Ubers, and one of the top threats in that metagame. This probably wouldn't be super intuitive if you're basing the threat of a pokemon based on their stats/typing alone, but there's a lot more to pokemon than that, and you're vastly underestimating the Ubers if you can say stuff like "oh, Mewtwo has bad defenses, but good attack". Not only is this reasoning shallow, it's also straight up false; Mewtwo is kind of fragile compared to other Ubers, sure, but it's not fragile at all compared to normal pokemon. Mewtwo has 106/90/90 defenses. For perspective, Dragonite has 91/95/100. Mewtwo has more bulk than Dragonite does, and Dragonite is definitely not fragile. Not only is Mewtwo not actually fragile, Sableye walling Mewtwo is also straight up not true. Being immune to Psystrike/Psychic and Aura Sphere/Focus Blast is neat and all, but Sableye straight up just doesn't have enough bulk for even neutral, non-STAB attacks to not be threatening: 252 SpA Life Orb Mewtwo Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sableye: 71-84 (45.2 - 53.5%) -- 91.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery Being straight up 2HKO'd, even at full HP, if there's any hazards up is pretty far from being a counter, much less completely walling it. Even if we assume we're talking about Prankster Sableye (for some reason) so that it can spam Recover for Life Orb chip, it's still more likely to get Frozen and lose the 1v1 than successfully stall it out. Of course, if it's not LO and is like, Specs or something, LO chip isn't even an out. In the case of a Specs set, that also means Mewtwo straight up wins basically all the time. The Froslass example is pretty ridiculous too. Yeah, things that outspeed a threat and can hit it with a 4x effective move probably kill it, what's your point? Rayquaza has Dragon Dance and is very good at using it, and Froslass can't switch in, like, at all. Just because something can outspeed and KO something doesn't mean that it's a good answer, by that logic, anything slow and with a 4x weakness is atrocious, but Ferrothorn's been amazing since the day it was conceived. The fact a straight up regular Charizard can come on Ferrothorn and OHKO doesn't make Ferro bad, just like how Froslass outspeeding and KOing Rayquaza doesn't mean Rayquaza is easily answered by non-uber pokemon. Generally speaking, a lot of the iconic legendaries aren't balanced. They aren't even balanced in respect to each other, much less most regular Pokemon. Are there a few lower tier pokemon that can kind of check/counter some Uber pokemon? Sure. Shedinja can come in on most Kyogres, and Kyogre is completely ridiculous. Does that mean they're balanced? jajaja no. What are you gonna do, run a team of low-tier pokemon that can answer very specific uber threats? Of course you're not gonna do that, you have 6 team slots, you don't have room to run your Shedinja/Sableye/Froslass core. Maybe you'll answer 1 or 2 ubers, but your opponent has opted to run a full team of actual threats, and you've just run a few pokemon that can kind of sort of maybe answer a pokemon they may or may not even be running. You're just going to get steamrolled, and there's not much to do about it. The fact of the matter is, you are greatly underestimating the vast difference in strength between your average Uber and your average OU pokemon, not even counting UU/NU/Not even worthU Pokemon. If all ubers were released and legal at once, there's so many dangerous threats that even if a low tier pokemon can answer 1 or 2 Ubers, role compression is so vital that it still won't be worth using. Because of this if a pokemon isn't Uber itself, it probably isn't worth using in Ubers, unless it fills an incredibly specific and useful niche that an Uber can't fill. I could go on about this basically forever, but the point is that your analysis of the strengths/weaknesses of various Ubers is fundamentally wrong, and the way you're justifying the fact that these pokemon aren't all powerful is also fundamentally wrong. Sure, maybe a few specific "low tiers" could answer a single uber, but we're not talking about a single uber, we're talking about ~20, each of which you probably need some kind of answer for. tl;dr: kyogre strong???? large if factual
  5. Usage movements are fine, no problem there. If anything is a problem, it can just get banned later. I'm going to vote for Mamoswine to be dropped from UU; Finally GB can get his wish, and we can end this Mamoswine bit.
  6. Listen, it's not that simple. Sure, the TC is "dictated" by staff, but the goal of the government isn't to keep staff in check, it is to ensure mutual cooperation with them. In that sense, the TC is an important branch of the government.
  7. Well obviously the TC is the Supreme Court.
  8. While we're on the topic of speaking "without proof", I don't mean to alarm you, but you're the one bringing up Togekiss for a potential ban. The TC has already looked at Togekiss, made a discussion thread about it, and decided not to ban it. If you want serious discussion about banning it, it's on you to provide arguments and reasoning as to why it should be banned. So far, you haven't made much of an effort to explain why it should be banned, and basically everything you have said is stuff that's already been talked about before. If you seriously expect a good discussion on this, you need to start it yourself with some decent points. This isn't exactly a new issue, and we already know all the basic points/problems with togekiss, don't expect us to reiterate everything or change our minds just by saying "hey ban toge >: (". Additionally, I'm echoing gb's thoughts on Scraggy. I'd be interested in hearing why Gallade is so busted as well, but for now, I don't have much of an opinion on it.
  9. Sorry Bestfriends, but I think you're taking this far too personally. Dusty doesn't seem to have any ill intent in this at all. First of all, you can't just say "2020 is an election year". I don't know how to tell you this, but there are countries other than the US, I have no idea why you were expecting the election to specifically be on 2020. PokeMMO democracy works differently. If you had publicly stated that you were planning on having another set of elections in 2020 in advance, people would have felt more secure in the legitimacy of PokeMMO's democratic systems, and maybe this thread wouldn't have been made. However, stating that you were planning on the election happening in 2020 after a thread for a new election is posted feels like you're stalling for time. I don't think this was your intent, but you have to consider how people look at it. Frankly, the PokeMMO playerbase has changed quite a bit since your last election. You were elected before the massive surge of Chinese players entered the game, and the people who voted for you and the majority of the active playerbase in the game now are quite different. With that in mind, I think a new election is justified, and even reasonable. As the Chief Justice of the PokeMMO Supreme Court, I am publicly upholding the call for a reelection. If you don't trust Dusty, then I think a neutral party to run the election can easily be arranged.
  10. This month will be the first month of a new usage cycle. As such, the cutoff points for usage will be 1.7/6.7% for drops/rises. Moving up from NU to UU: Lanturn Lanturn rose above the 6.7% cutoff for usage in UU. Moving up from NU to BL2: Absol After a prolonged stay in NU, Absol is finally banned from NU. With a base 130 Attack, good move options in Night Slash, Psycho Cut, Superpower, Swords Dance and most importantly, Sucker Punch to clean up faster threats, Absol has always been a top offensive threat. Most importantly however, Absol is in a unique position to exploit critical hits, due to having Super Luck and useful high critical hit rate moves, notably Night Slash & Psycho Cut. Combining those attributes with Scope Lens means that Absol can hit ridiculously hard, making defensive answers to it very difficult to find. This issue is exacerbated by a powerful STAB Sucker Punch, which can adequately threaten most potential faster, offensive answers. The critical hits also have other tertiary utility, such as cutting through any potential defensive boosts, or allowing Absol to ignore an attack drop from Intimidate or using Superpower. Ultimately, it has stayed in NU for long enough and continued to be a top tier problematic threat. Additionally, we do not think Lanturn leaving the tier will significantly impact Absols role in the tier. With that in mind, it has been banned from NU. Scraggy banned from LC: Although it was stated that we would keep a close eye on Misdreavus in the last tier changes, with the removal of Murkrow, Scraggy quickly rose in strength. Scraggy is notable for being able to effectively set up on a lot of the tier, and once ready, run through most of the pokemon unimpeded. While there are certainly pokemon such as Vullaby, Timburr, and certain Mienfoo that can potentially handle a boosted Scraggy, the options are still fairly limited. This is exacerbated by the potential for Scraggy to pull victories out against pokemon that "should" beat it, like the Fighters, through Zen Headbutt flinches. This means that even a cornered Scraggy user who should lose the game can still beat supposed counters through sheer luck if they have no other options. While we are still concerned about Misdreavus, we don't think it warrants banning at this exact moment. However, with that in mind, we are banning Scraggy from LC.
  11. Due to this being the first "real" movement change since the update fully implementing most moves/abilities/items, there are a lot of tier shifts this month, including a few quickbans. With that in mind, here are the shifts: Moving up from UU to OU: Breloom Cofagrigus Moving up from BL to OU: Kingdra Haxorus Chansey All of these pokemon were above the 4.36% cutoff for usage in OU. Moving up from NU to UU: Houndoom Sigilyph Moving up from BL2 to UU: Gligar Venomoth All of these pokemon were above the 4.36% cutoff for usage in UU. Moving up from UU to BL: Bisharp Bisharp was already a prominent UU threat before the update, but now that Defiant works properly, it has become outright absurd. It punishes Defog absurdly hard, and without Team Preview, the opponent doesn't even know if they should play around it until it's too late. This was already a cause for concern, however, the usage movements mean that its best offensive check, Breloom, is getting moved up to OU. This pretty easily pushed it over the top; Where there might have been room for deliberation beforehand, its already insane presence along with the loss of one of its most highly used and effective answers makes it obviously too good. With that in mind, Bisharp is banned from UU. Moving down from OU to UU: Snorlax Snorlax dropped below the 4.36% cutoff for usage in OU. Moving down from OU to BL: Mamoswine Mamoswine dropped to UU by usage, however, the TC decided to quickban it from UU. Ultimately, it is likely far too effective to be allowed in UU. Although its oldest and most reliable counter Bronzong is in the tier, that's the most UU can easily do to handle it. It is fast, strong, has good STABs, and Ice Shard as priority. Other than Bronzong, defensive answers struggle with Mamoswine, and offensive checks are similarly sparse due to speed + priority. Things like Heracross and Typhlosion can outspeed and kill it easily, but they can't really afford to switch in a majority of the time. Most EQ immune pokemon that would be able to punish reckless EQ usage also have trouble with Ice Shard/Icicle Crash, with things like Flygon & Crobat not really being able to do much, despite an immunity to his main STAB. Beyond that, the most reliable answer, Bronzong, is both easily trapped by Magneton & easily worn down due to a lack of easy and reliable healing, such as Recover. Beyond that, most other answers suffer from either being unreliable in some way or leaning really hard on predictions, meaning any time Mamoswine comes in he'll force a hard 50/50 situation. Ultimately, due to Mamoswine's strength in dealing with both defensive threats with his raw power, and offensive threats with decent speed & Ice Shard, Mamoswine has been quickbanned from UU. Moving down from UU to BL2: Blaziken Blaziken dropped to NU by usage, but it has been quickbanned from NU. Even just using its 2 main Physical STABs, Superpower/HJK & Flare Blitz, it can easily tear apart most of the tier while also outspeeding a large majority of threats. The few things that aren't torn apart by those 2 moves can easily be handled by one of the many coverage options Blaziken has, between options like any Hidden Power, Night Slash/Shadow Claw, Tpunch, Stone Edge, etc., all of which it can easily afford to slot in due to the coverage Fire/Fighting provides. This isn't even acknowledging the base 110 special attack Blaziken has available to it, as we're only discussing the Physical set; It's simply too strong, and more importantly, versatile on top of that. With that in mind, Blaziken is quickbanned from NU. Murkrow banned from LC: One of the most contentious LC pokemon as the metagame has developed is Murkrow. Although Misdreavus stood out at first to many players, and it still remains an insanely versatile and splashable threat, the sheer strength Murkrow has is unrivaled. Base 91 speed is enough to match/outspeed almost the entire tier, while having some of the highest mixed offenses available. Not only that, but it has a good typing and an absurd movepool, being capable of doing basically anything that it wants. Even without Prankster, it can just run through most of the tier, while being very difficult to predict/scout. At the end of the day, it does too much & it does it too well. With that in mind, Murkrow is banned from LC. Additionally, although Misdreavus is still in LC, the TC will be looking at it following this ban.
  12. I can't even comprehend how you can say things like this unironically. Maybe you and I have been reading different threads, or participating in different discussions, but even amongst the people arguing for a complex ban on Conkeldurr you're the only person I've seen advocating for the ban of the EPunches on it. I've seen people say to get rid of Drain Punch, so it'll have less survivability. I've seen people argue to ban some combination of Guts + Orb, because that was what pushed it over the edge. I've even seen talks of banning Mach Punch, so it doesn't have a strong priority option and is stuck as a slow, bulky threat. It's very obvious that, no, this specific opinion that you have is not something everyone can agree on, and the fact that there's so much division on what would even be banned on Conkeldurr is itself a good reason to stray away from it. This thread is not to discuss potential Conkeldurr complex bans, or anything equally absurd. This is to discuss whether Conkeldurr deserves any kind of action. How that is implemented, whether it's a flat ban, or even the unlikely circumstance it somehow is a complex ban is not what is up for discussion here, that would be a decision for the TC. The discussion is should something be done at all about Conkeldurr? Is it that big of a problem?
  13. So, I'm gonna go ahead and beat a dead horse, because it seems really obvious that these Gen 5-based arguments regarding the Sheer Force LO Set vs. Guts FO are comically out of place, even aside from the reasons people have mentioned. So, first of all, yes, as everyone has already said, there are tons of pokemon in Gen 5 that we don't have in PokeMMO that contribute to LO SF being better. However, more specifically, it isn't just the greater amount of things that can switch in on Conkel and handle it defensively that matter, but the diversity of such things, and how much harder the average Gen 5 threat hits. The lost coverage the Bulk Up set has and the fact that it relies much more on setting up is a lot worse in Gen 5's meta, where things hit insanely hard, with everything outspeeding you. In that environment, Conkel really needs to make the turns it comes in count, so it's obvious the more immediately impactful set with better coverage is better. With that being said, there's 2 other significant differences between PokeMMO and 5th gen. First of all, in gen 5, Burn does full 12.5% chip instead of 6.25%, making the drawback of being burnt significantly larger than it is in PokeMMO. Taking literally double the chip damage, especially on a set that can't run leftovers and is outsped by basically everything, is a pretty big deal. Not only that, but Gen 5 relied exclusively on Rapid Spin for hazard removal, as new Defog mechanics weren't until Gen 6, making hazard stacking a powerful tactic. Sure, Conkel resists SR, but in a metagame where spikestacking was deadly and common, Conkel got massively chipped out. Then throw in the popularity of sand teams and perma-sand frequently chipping Conkel down even further limiting it's usage, giving the Guts set heavy anti-synergy with most Sand based teams. So, Conkel was stuck in a meta where most threats hit way harder than they do in PokeMMO while still being outsped by basically everything, and where it takes massive chip damage constantly. Since it's so slow it has to rely on bulk to survive, it's no surprise that the Flame Orb set, which exacerbates the massive weakness to chip damage it has while also wanting a turn of setup it can't afford to get, was less popular than the Sheer Force set. It really couldn't afford to stick around too long, it needed to come in and provide immediate impact on the game, because it simply takes too much damage from too many sources constantly, and you can't rely just on Drain Punch; You're gonna have to use your coverage moves, or you'll just get walled, chipped out, and die without doing anything.
  14. Moving up from UU to BL: Kingdra With the most recent update, Kingdra has gained Draco Meteor. This in combination with Focus Energy & Scope Lens allows it to, after 1 boost, constantly fire off massively powerful, no drawback Draco Meteors, making it almost impossible to effectively defensively answer in UU. Not only that, but with it's good bulk, speed, and typing, it can easily find chances to setup and run through teams without much support or work needed. As a result, it has been quickbanned from UU.
  15. As most of you should have noticed by now, the Tier Council made some changes to the tiers shortly after the update this month launched. For the sake of clarity, here are the changes & the reasoning behind them: Moving up from UU to BL: Chansey Darmanitan With Eviolite working, Chansey is now effectively better than Blissey in most scenarios, a pokemon which is easily OU. Because of this, it is inevitable that Chansey will become OU by usage, and as a result, we have quickbanned it from UU. Darmanitan is simply too powerful of a threat in UU now that Sheer Force is working. It was already one of the top UU pokemon despite effectively not having an ability, and getting a massive damage boost to pretty much all of it's best options is more than we think UU is capable of handling. As such, it was quickbanned from UU. Moving up from NU to BL2: Porygon2 Gligar With Eviolite working, Porygon2 is an absurd defensive behemoth. 85/90/95 Bulk backed by Recover and Eviolite make it almost unkillable, while base 105 Special Attack and a broad movepool mean it isn't just a sitting duck. The mono-normal typing also means that the only thing that can reliably do 50%+ are especially strong fighting attacks. Anything other than the premier fighting types in NU effectively have no options to offensively break through Porygon2, and even then, threats like Primeape and Sawk can't really freely switchin on Porygon2's attacks. With all of this in mind, Porygon2 was quickbanned from NU. Gligar was quickbanned from NU for reasons similar to Chansey was from UU. Not necessarily because of it's insane powerlevel in NU, although it would certainly be a respectable threat in NU, but moreso because of the expectation that it will inevitably go up to UU by usage. With this in mind, we would rather that it not warp the NU metagame around it in the meantime, and decided to quickban it from NU.
  16. I think your argument is ignoring something pretty important; If there is no trades and you buy a player who plays like shit for you all season, you just shafted yourself. Sure, it may not be fair if they'd play way better for another manager, but that also means that that player has a lot of value for other managers, that you might be able to use to get a player who will actually work a lot better on your team. If the argument is "some players will play worse for some managers regardless and we can't do anything about that", wouldn't trades, so that the manager isn't stuck with a sandbagging player the whole season, a better resolution than making sure they stay together?
  17. I mean, that's what happens when you draft the guy who literally hates you as a joke. No offense, but regardless of trades, if you draft someone you know hates you and will likely play worse on your team than on someone else's, you have made a mistake. This isn't problematic, this is the natural consequence of an obvious sequence of events. It's not unfair to doc at all, because he could have just not drafted someone who would very obviously do basically nothing on his team.
  18. I don't see what's so suspicious about the lifestyle trade, wasn't he like 4-1 before being traded? Far from trying to force a trade because you don't like your manager or whatever. The fred example is also pretty bad. Sure, fred didn't give a shit because he didn't like doc, but do you honestly believe he would have given a shit if trades weren't allowed? Whether trades were allowed or not, the outcome would have been the same. That's not a case of trying to force a trade to get on a team you want, that's just fred and doc having doing their usual bits. You say a player's performance shouldn't be determined by who their manager is, but realistically, this won't be the case, especially as long as their exist the docs of the world who buy fred for a giggle. However, we're not talking about player performance being affected by their manager, we're talking about player performance being affected specifically because they want to get traded to a different manager, which is very different. You could argue that, as long as trades exist, players have a larger incentive to play shitty to get traded off, but I think this is nowhere near as large of a factor as you're making it out to be. Fred would have played shitty on Doc's team regardless of trades, so that example is pretty nonsensical imo.
  19. There's no usage movements this month, however, there will be some bans in lower tiers: Moving up from UU to BL: Haxorus dropped from OU to UU by usage last month, and the tier council opted to not ban it. Unsurprisingly, it's been tearing up UU ever since. Although we were well aware of the sheer physical strength this thing brought to the table, we decided it's better to test it and see how it goes rather than insta-quickbanning it. Ultimately though, we quickly realized that it isn't just insanely strong, it's also really, really fast. Base 97 speed is excellent in a tier like UU, outspeeding a large amount of the tier, meaning that even checking this thing is difficult, let alone actually countering it. Even a good amount of the "counters"/"checks" that would handle this thing lacked good recovery or staying power, meaning that they would quickly be broken apart even if you dedicated them to just switching in on Haxorus. With all this in mind, Haxorus is banned from UU. Moving up from NU to BL2: Venomoth has probably been the most contentious pokemon in current NU since it came into existence with the new update. Quiver Dance/Sleep Powder is already a pretty potent combination that severely limits the number and quality of things that can actually reliably switch in and handle Venomoth, however, it also has an amazing abilities in Tinted Lens. This makes losing 2 moveslots for QD/Sleep Powder, something that would normally result in very limited coverage and, by extension, many more options for switchins, nowhere near as bad. With Tinted Lens, Bug Buzz becomes a 1 move wrecking ball, capable of tearing through pokemon that might otherwise be able to handle a simple combination of Bug STAB + Coverage move. Ultimately, although we've been holding off on touching NU for a while, we feel that Venomoth is very safe ban that's been coming for a while. Despite being dominant for quite a while, it isn't as if NU has adapted in significant ways to curtail it's strength. As such, Venomoth is banned from NU. https://forums.pokemmo.eu/index.php?/topic/63603-pokemmo-official-tier-lists-and-usage-statistics/&do=findComment&comment=1463692
  20. so a snipped the bits I'm not gonna reply to or were mostly filler. First of all, some of your main points for these formats are that they're easier/cheaper to enter due to requiring less pokemon, and that they're faster. However, you also acknowledge in "Disadvantages" that these formats actually DO require 6 pokemon, as you bring a team of 6 and then select the pokemon you'll use, and that formats like these are typically Best of 3, so it doesn't make matches TOO much faster, since you're playing more games to compensate. So, based on this, you're already aware that a good half of the points in favor of these formats aren't really true. You still need 6 pokemon to play them, and although the games are faster, you have to play more of them. Plus, people will probably push the timer a lot further in these shorter games, since they have less turns to worry about timer management. Ultimately, I wouldn't be surprised if it Bo3 sets were faster on average, especially because of the 2-0 blowouts, but it shouldn't actually be insanely significant. Ultimately, though, aside from all that, not wanting to divide the PvP Playerbase is a pretty big deal. It's why the TC doesn't want to add RU; NU is already struggling with relevancy & support, why add another format? Adding alternative OU formats would make the problem even worse. There's already a pretty decent variety of tier options in the game, and sometimes there's even gimmick tournaments, more official, major formats aren't really necessary right now.
  21. With the upcoming update, most, if not all currently obtainable moves/abilities/items are expected to function. This includes the implementation of Draco Meteor, and by extension, Draco Meteor on Hydreigon. Due to the shift in Tiering Policy to avoid banning pokemon to Uber, and instead make ingame changes or tweaks, a proposition has been made to simply remove Draco Meteor from it's movepool before it is added, similar to the preemptive Outrage nerf. Although we strongly believe this will ensure that Hydreigon won't be banworthy anytime soon, we would still like community feedback on whether this measure would be necessary or preferred. Part of the reason Draco Meteor is specifically being chosen for omission is because it has not been added to the game yet, and so removing it from Hydreigon's movepool would be least disruptive way to alter Hydreigon. Additionally, if we do remove it, Draco Meteor can be added to Hydreigons movepool at a later point, if we think it won't be problematic. The reason Draco Meteor on Hydreigon is a concern specifically comes from the following factors: It is already a dominant offensive threat, between its strong coverage options, high offenses, & other tertiary options that make it more difficult to deal with, such as Taunt or Roost. Draco Meteor specifically is strong enough to turn KOs that Hydreigon previously could not get into guaranteed/probable 2HKOs, making the list of more "reliable" answers to Hydreigon very small. The addition of the newly functioning moves/abilities/items aren't really expected to impede Hydreigon's viability significantly, so no significantly good tools for dealing with Hydreigon are expected to show up with the update. The pokemon that would best be able to check & suppress it would be powerful, faster offensive threats that would heavily punish Hydreigon users on a revenge kill. This would include pokemon such as Garchomp, Terrakion, Keldeo, Latis, etc.; However, for various reasons, adding these pokemon is not an immediate option. Either because they themselves would likely end up being just as problematic & banworthy if not moreso than Hydreigon, because they're Legendary pokemon slated for implementation in Legendary dungeons which cannot just be done as a throwaway addition, or in most cases, both. With that in mind, we would still like feedback on this matter. When participating in the discussion, keep in mind & attempt to answer these questions: Is it likely Hydreigon with Draco Meteor would end up being obviously banworthy after the update? If not, what new options would be able to reliably deal with or pressure it? If it is likely banworthy, are there practical, alternative solutions for mitigating Hydreigon's impact on the metagame other than removing Draco Meteor from it's movepool? If neither of these have good answers, at what point would you consider adding Draco Meteor to Hydreigon to be reasonable? Discuss.
  22. Yes, I am aware of how speed boost works, both normally & in PokeMMO. No, it being better than it normally is in the games is not automatically grounds for banning it. A lot of things aren't implemented 100% correctly in MMO, and that can include implementing things in a way that makes them better than they should be (see: Rage Powder), but that isn't automatically grounds for banning it. They have to be problematic in order to actually deserve a ban. Yes, this bug makes it so that there are less things that can come in and answer a Speed Boost Yanmega offensively. With that being said, Yanmega isn't running over UU right now, so obviously, having less checks isn't making Yanmega an insane god level threat. If Yanmega isn't problematic even with this bug, it's clear that it still has enough answers to be reasonable, even with less answers available. Until the bug is fixed, if you consider Yanmega to be a problem, you should use some of the alternative answers.
  23. It might make Yanmega better than normal, but even with this, Yanmega isn't doing enough in UU to be super problematic anyway, so a ban's not warranted. It's also worth mentioning that AFAIK this bug has been around since Speed Boost was implemented, so it's probably just something we're gonna have to live with until they get around to it.
  24. are we just going to ignore how hilariously wrong this is? No, hidden abilities did not exist in gen 1 & 2. And I can see this with certainty, because, you know, no abilities existed in gen 1 and 2, abilities were added in gen 3. More importantly, actual hidden abilities weren't added until Gen 5, the generation PokeMMO is currently on. In gen 5, Hidden Abilities were not all released at once. In fact, similar to the plan for dungeons releasing them in PokeMMO, hidden abilities in gen 5 were essentially drip-fed to players over time. Some Hidden Abilities were straight up never released in gen 5, only being released later, or in some cases (Shadow Tag Chandelure), having their HA changed in gen 6+ after never being released in gen 5. A lot of your arguments seem to hinge on an appeal to "Well, HA's were always a thing, so they should be in the game", but that's just obviously not true at all.
  25. You do know pokemon in the cartridge games only disobeyed you if they didn't originate from your game and were instead traded in, right?
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