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[OU Suspect Test] Draco Meteor Hydreigon


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4 hours ago, gbwead said:

If a pokemon is a problem and fits some ban criteria, the Tier Council can ban this pokemon to Ubers. Once this pokemon is banned, staff/devs will most likely look at complex bans, disables or addition/removal of features in order to nerf the banned pokemon in order to get it unbanned. During that nerf process,  the Tier Council might get asked to give their input on the different nerfs options, but ultimately we will not decide which nerf we will get.

 

With that being said, I understand the need to propose complex ban ideas, but it's kind of premature because the pokemons mentioned are not banned yet. 

Okay that makes sense, thanks for clearing that up. I also think it's important to keep talking about complex bans because it opens up the discussion. It feels like we're actually getting somewhere in this thread. I think it also allows people to see beyond 'a ban'. Because talking about a complete ban incites a more aggressive reaction than 'hey this Pokemon is a problem and I think x and y are at the root of it'. Large amount of input from the community will probably also quicken the dev response, so we can get Pokemon back in the metagame quicker.

 

1 hour ago, pachima said:

Conkeldurr, on the other hand, falls in the categori of: "extremely good pokemon, but not a broken one". It has way less speed than the 2 dragons, heavily restricting the amount of viable styles it can perform. It doesn't have any immunity, and its resistances aren't that amazing either. Furthermore, it is heavily punishable with items like rocky helmet, and has a exploitable spdef stat that none of the dragons possess. Don't get me wrong, it's a great pokemon, but nowhere as close as where the 2 dragons currently sit, and that states a lot about those.

I think Scizor falls into the category of 'extremely good pokemon but not broken'. Conkeldurr is a bit better than Scizor and goes over that line IMO. Conkeldurr brought Cofagrigus to OU, which in itself should tell you how centralizing it is. It is also not a coincidence that so many defensive Pokémon opt for Rocky Helmet in stead of items like Leftovers. Its because people need to counteract the recovery from Conk. That it is slower doesn't matter much when it has the strongest priority move in the game (I'm talking about raw power output here). Just like Hydreigon is massively centralizing and a threat to balance teams. I think the same applies to Conkeldurr, overly centralizing and can single handedly break HO teams.

 

Conk is such a problem for HO teams that they are forced to run 1 or 2 defensive options that can deal with Conk alone, because offensive resists mostly die to drain punch + mach punch. I don't know if restricting F.Orb on it even does anything for HO teams, but it limits the staying power of Conks a lot, so there are options like substitute abuse.

1 minute ago, Gunthug said:

We could probably argue for hours and hours about the merits of flat bans v. complex bans in the context of different competitive games, and I don't think we'd get anywhere. Suffice it to say, as you've admitted, the golden standard for competitive pokemon has always been a preference towards flat bans. For this community to overturn years and years of precedent in the way we handle bans would be, I think, incredibly foolish and naive.

You posted while I was typing so huzzah '\o/. Let us get rid of this notion that Smogon is the gold standard for comp Pokémon. Smogon shits over itself so many times in past generations that it's clear that they make plenty of mistakes. Smogon is also not a stranger to bending over backwards to keep certain things in the meta. Baton Pass was a huge fiasco for Smogon over the years until they complex banned it. BW got a super complex ban of disallowing Drizzle/Draught + Swift Swim/Chlorophyll. The whole Speed Boost thing was a big drama event, etc etc.

 

You can't just point to Doubles and say that Pokemon are still usable there. Doubles is a completely different format to single battles and many players will never play it. So yes banning Pokemon effectively will delete a Pokemon for many players.

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1 hour ago, ThinkNicer said:

Conkeldurr brought Cofagrigus to OU, which in itself should tell you how centralizing it is.

I agree with every single word, except this. Cofagrigus didn't rise up to OU to stop Conkeldurr. Cofagrigus rose up to OU as soon as it gained Mummy which was not implemented when Unova came out. Cofagrigus is extremely viable outside of checking Conkeldurr, especially against things like Scizor and Mienshao, as a general spin blocker and more. Cofagrigus is good against Conkeldurr ofc, but Conkeldurr doesn't force people to play Cofagrigus because people would still want to play Cofagrigus even if Conkeldurr wasn't around. 

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1 hour ago, ThinkNicer said:

.

You posted while I was typing so huzzah '\o/. Let us get rid of this notion that Smogon is the gold standard for comp Pokémon. Smogon shits over itself so many times in past generations that it's clear that they make plenty of mistakes. Smogon is also not a stranger to bending over backwards to keep certain things in the meta. Baton Pass was a huge fiasco for Smogon over the years until they complex banned it. BW got a super complex ban of disallowing Drizzle/Draught + Swift Swim/Chlorophyll. The whole Speed Boost thing was a big drama event, etc etc.

 

You can't just point to Doubles and say that Pokemon are still usable there. Doubles is a completely different format to single battles and many players will never play it. So yes banning Pokemon effectively will delete a Pokemon for many players.

I would argue that the root of a TON of smogon's mistakes is their propensity to stray from the "flat ban" formula. Regardless, I'm not saying Smogon is the gold standard - I'm saying that the propensity for flat bans is the gold standard, and Smogon is the best example we have of an entity adhering to that standard (albeit, not as much as they should have). I'm also not saying that complex bans are never appropriate - there are absolutely times where a complex ban may be necessary. But they should be used sparingly, as a creative solution, when a strict flat ban is impossible or unhealthy for whatever reason. The devs stated reasoning is not sufficient for me, nor should it be for anyone with any working knowledge of tiering. And honestly, given GB's post, it doesn't even sound like the dev's policy is all that different from traditional tiering policy - flat ban first, and in extraordinary circumstances, complex bans could be an option. The main difference seems to be that for the devs, a complex ban will always follow a flat ban - this hasn't been shown in practice, though, so it's really just speculation.

 

I can absolutely point to Doubles and say that pokemon are still usable there - I would argue that the difference between OU and Doubles is only SLIGHTLY larger than the difference between OU and a more complete Ubers tier - Ubers is a wild, wild format with broken "checking" broken and/or just bowling over everything. The likelihood of an OU player also playing Ubers is probably similar to an OU player also playing Doubles - this is just my theory, hard to test it in practice. If we did have all the legendaries and Ubers was a tier that was actually played, flat banning an OU mon would still render that pokemon "deleted" for many players, specifically those who don't want to play in a metagame filled with broken elements. So the argument of "well we don't have a fully functioning ubers so you're deleting these mons by banning them" is not a strong one at all, IMO

 

 

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44 minutes ago, gbwead said:

I agree with every single word, except this. Cofagrigus didn't rise up to OU to stop Conkeldurr. Cofagrigus rose up to OU as soon as it gained Mummy which was not implemented when Unova came out. Cofagrigus is extremely viable outside of checking Conkeldurr, especially against things like Scizor and Mienshao, as a general spin blocker and more. Cofagrigus is good against Conkeldurr ofc, but Conkeldurr doesn't force people to play Cofagrigus because people would still want to play Cofagrigus even if Conkeldurr wasn't around. 

Fair enough, the rest still stands.

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49 minutes ago, Gunthug said:

The main difference seems to be that for the devs, a complex ban will always follow a flat ban - this hasn't been shown in practice, though, so it's really just speculation.

Wobbuffet disagrees.

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4 minutes ago, gbwead said:

Wobbuffet disagrees.

Good point

 

e: but honestly if the protocol will be that TC flat bans something, and then Devs get around to "complex banning it" instead when the next update comes out....that should buy us plenty of time lol

Edited by Gunthug
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5 minutes ago, ThinkNicer said:

4 failed checks of 2 minute rounds first smartass ;p

It seems based on your team chat that the server had also gone down recently?

 

Regardless I get that the MMO doubles scene could use a shot in the arm. Looking elsewhere though just for a point of reference, Showdown's VGC and Doubles rooms (edit: combined) dwarf the Ubers room as far as current active users. We also have no idea how much participation there'd be in an MMO Ubers tier, and if we actually got the mons to beef up the Ubers tier that would also invariably beef up the doubles tier, too. It's a lot of speculation, but my overall point is that "lacking an ubers tier" isn't a real strong argument against flat-bans, since even with an Ubers tier you'd still be rendering a flat-banned pokemon "unusable" to traditional OU players who may or may not play Ubers (just like they may or may not play Doubles)

 

e: also grats on the magikarp sale

Edited by Gunthug
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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I guess the question after this ban is whether we want to add Nasty Plot back to Hydreigon's moveset. I'm all for it. Thing is slow as balls, has no reliable priority, suffers 4mss, and can get rk'd by several threats.

 

Biggest issue was Draco Meteor, especially with a possible NP boost. Take away Draco and NP should be given a chance in my opinion. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

So it seems we are stuck on this topic for unknown reasons (glances at zombified Tier Council members). One thing I will say is that while we have proven Hydreigon broken in a number of different ways above, given its access to a 130 Base Power Stab, we did just introduce another Pokemon back into OU (Garchomp) that can apply pressure on Hydreigon by at the very least, forcing it to switch out.

 

Are we waiting on a decision to see how Garchomp settles back into OU? Or are we simply just hung up by poor involvement by supposedly active TC members? Or is this just an example of disconnect between the TC and overseeing staff?

 

#makethecouncilgreatagain

 

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The only thing that Garchomp does is make specs hydra a bit less desirable. Chomp would needs its own scarf to reliable deal with hydreigon and i found scarf chomp a bit meh when i used it. Other than that chomp doesnt do anything to discourage scarf dracos. 

 

If we're talking about revenge killing hydra then... idk what to say. Firstly there is no way to reliable revenge kill it cauz it even resists pursuit. Secondly we already had plenty of viable pokemon that could come in after a draco to pressure hydra. So adding chomp to the list of revenge killers shouldn't do anything for the metagame.

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1 hour ago, ThinkNicer said:

The only thing that Garchomp does is make specs hydra a bit less desirable. Chomp would needs its own scarf to reliable deal with hydreigon and i found scarf chomp a bit meh when i used it. Other than that chomp doesnt do anything to discourage scarf dracos. 

 

If we're talking about revenge killing hydra then... idk what to say. Firstly there is no way to reliable revenge kill it cauz it even resists pursuit. Secondly we already had plenty of viable pokemon that could come in after a draco to pressure hydra. So adding chomp to the list of revenge killers shouldn't do anything for the metagame.

tl;dr Draco Meteor (130 BP) on Hydreigon (STAB + 125 Base SpAtt) is brokety broke

 

*in a meta without Fairy-types or Heatran.

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It's pretty clear that the lack of fairy types in MMO is the main reason why we have overly powerful dragons. Some of those are getting nerfed/banned, others are being looked at as problematic (Hydreigon in OU / Kingdra in Dubs) and all of them are affected by general mechanic choices (Outrage 90 BP over 120 BP). We can certainly continue to do what we are doing now by micromanaging each dragon problem one at a time or we can also consider more drastic overall nerfs. 

 

What's really worse/better?

90 BP Outrage + Garchomp without SD + Hydreigon without Draco Meteor and Nasty plot + Kingdra banned from dubs + maybe more

or

No Dragon Stab, but 120 BP Outrage + Garchomp with SD + Hydreigon with Draco Meteor and Nasty Plot + Kingdra being completely fine in dubs

 

I don't mind the complex nerfs/bans we are doing, I'm just wondering if it's really the best solution for our problems.

 

Edited by gbwead
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