Tiering and You

[Senile]

What is tiering?

Tiering is the system used for the regulation of pokemon and all aspects relating to them, including moves, items, abilities, and more.

 

What is the purpose/goal of tiering?

The goal of tiering is to create the most competitive battling environment possible. As pokemon is a game which is inherently full of aspects which are not conducive in the goal of creating a competitive game, such as heavily RNG based features, certain pokemon, abilities, or moves which have little to no real ways of being answered, and other such problematic qualities, tiering is necessary in order to prevent the game from being too heavily reliant on factors which aren't related to the skills of either player.

 

If the purpose of tiering is to remove elements which make the game less competitive, how do you determine what these elements are?

There are 3 main categories which can result in a pokemon or other aspect being banned from a tier. These typically apply to Pokemon, but in special cases, can apply to moves or even abilities as well.

 

The main categories are as follows:

 

The First Category: The Characteristics of an Uber: (Credit to schmawgawn for the wording, concept, etc.)

[spoiler]Offensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.

Defensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is able to wall and stall out a significant portion of the metagame.

Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep.[/spoiler]

 

These characteristics define what makes a certain pokemon too powerful for a tier, or "overpowered". A pokemon which is overpowered naturally meets one of these characteristics, if not more. The amount of characteristics met is not relevant to whether or not it is moved up, if it meets any of them, it is considered uber-worthy.

 

An example of an Offensive Characteristic pokemon would be Tyranitar, which was banned for being too potent of a sweeper. It could sweep through the majority of the metagame with little to no trouble, with only a select handful of pokemon being capable of stopping it. As a result, all it needed was some spikes support, or simply the natural widdling down of the opponent's pokemon in order to be able to fully sweep. It's ability, Sand Stream, meant that even Leftovers wouldn't help pokemon survive against it. Claydol, Skarmory, and Vaporeon were the best switch in options against a Tyranitar, and all of them could still be beaten. (Skarmory is beaten by Taunt if it tries to go for Whirlwind; Even if tries to kill with Steel Wing, it loses a majority of the time due to Rock Slide flinches. Claydol is beaten by HP Bug, and Vaporeon is beaten if it has been whittled down, even if not, Tyranitar is able to Rock Slide out a victory). 

 

Even pokemon which outspeed a boosted Tyranitar are not able to take it down in one shot, and risk taking massive damage if they come in on any attack other than Dragon Dance. Ultimately, the most reliable answer to Tyranitar were offensive fighting types such as Breloom and Machamp, but their susceptibility to being whittled down very easily, lack of good recovery or bulk meant that getting them out of the way still require minimal work.

 

Because of these traits, Tyranitar was capable of sweeping with minimal effort. All it needed to potentially sweep was some weakened pokemon on the opponents side, which is facilitated by both sandstorm and the natural course of battle and a Dragon Dance, which it's excellent bulk provided. It's raw power, excellent options, bulk and ease of setup meant it required minimal effort to arrange a sweep. This meant it met the Offensive Characteristic.

 

An example of a Defensive Characteristic pokemon is Lugia in 3rd generation. It's stat spread of 106/130/154 defenses meant that it was easily one of the bulkiest pokemon available. In addition to this, it had defensive options such as Recover/Rest, Calm Mind, and Reflect, as well as base 110 speed, meaning it naturally outsped a majority of pokemon before they could stop it from healing or setting up.

 

Lugia was a pokemon which could naturally outstall every relevant attacker through sheer base stats, the addition of defense boosting moves such as Reflect and Calm Mind meant that even set up pokemon wouldn't be able to break it. Toxic wouldn't be able to stop it either if it ran Rest, and attackers couldn't hope to beat any set with Recover as outdamaging the healing was a pointless endeavor. Naturally, decent offensive stats and high speed meant that Taunt wasn't a viable option either. 

 

Because of how unbreakable Lugia was, it was capable of stalling out any pokemon it was matched up against. As a result, it met the Defensive Characteristic and was banished to Ubers.

 

An example of a Support Chracteristic pokemon is Wobbuffet/Dugtrio. These are tricky examples, because while it is true they both handily meet the Support Characteristic, they also fall under the category of being "Uncompetitive", another category for which pokemon can be banned that will be covered later. With that being said, the Support Characteristic and uncompetitive traits are not mutually exclusive, it just so happens that these pokemon are capable of using their uncompetitive abilities in order to be excellent supporters.

 

Wobbuffet was an excellent supporter in two ways, it could pick off pokemon which prevented a sweep by trapping them with it's ability, Shadow Tag, and then using Counter, Mirror Coat, or sometimes even Destiny Bond in order to KO them. This allowed the user to tear a hole in the opponent's team, giving their win condition a much easier time in assuring victory. Alternatively, Wobbuffet could use Encore to trap the opposing pokemon into one move. This also allowed sweepers a much easier time in sweeping, as trapping the opponent in a non-attacking or otherwise useless move would guarantee one of your pokemon a free turn to setup, which makes it much easier to sweep.

 

Dugtrio was an excellent supporter in that if it managed to get a free switch in on the main special walls of it's original home tier, Snorlax or Blissey, it would be able to guarantee a KO on either of them. This was excellent for support, as it allowed specially based teams to dominate the moment their special wall was out of the way, making a sweep an almost inevitability once Dugtrio managed to get in.

 

The Second Category: Uncompetitive Pokemon, Moves, Abilities, etc.:

 

Something which is "Uncompetitive" is defined as this: (Credit to schmawgawn for the wording, concept, etc.)

 

[spoiler]Uncompetitive game aspects (or strategies) are those that take away autonomy (control of the game's events), take it out of the hand's of player's decisions-- and do so to a degree that can be considered uncompetitive.

This can be luck-based, but doesn't have to be (see: 4th gen Wobb, who was effective enough then to remove the ability to "do anything about it" largely from the enemy player, and was banned for uncompetitive-ness); but most uncompetitive strategies that are banned usually have a high appeal to luck.

While there is always luck involved in Pokemon, the problem is the degree to which control is taken away from the player. Removal of autonomy is the key to an uncompetitive tiering decision or clause.

Note: the word "degree" as there are many game aspects that remove autonomy, but the problem is degree of removal (Moody / Double Team remove more autonomy than Quick Claw or fast U-Turn/Volt Switch).

Whether the "degree" of autonomy removal is uncompetitive is debatable, and is subjective (based off of player experience).
 

Note: Individual Pokemon can be banned for a combination of "overpowered" and "uncompetitive" characteristics-- see 4th Gen Deoxys-S and 4th Gen Shaymin-S bans[/spoiler]

In other words, something that takes away options from the player, creating a lack of options which are unfavorable for a competitive game. This could fall from anywhere from RNG based aspects to aspects which simply remove or invalidate certain key elements of gameplay. With that being said, not everything which is uncompetitive is banworthy. Ultimately, there are too many aspects which do, in some capacity, remove options from the player, and attempting to remove all of them would simply cause the game to cease being Pokemon, in addition to some aspects which simply cannot be controlled (Freeze).

 

An example of an RNG based aspect would be Evasion Clause. Evasion Clause bans the usage of moves which exclusively increase the evasion of your pokemon, such as Minimize and Double Team. This is uncompetitive in that the opponent has no control over these moves, they are left to do nothing but hope that the luck sways to their favor. This significantly detracts from skill, as there are little to no viable methods of playing around it. All moves that don't miss have very low base power, (typically 60), and a majority either have poor distribution or are simply outclassed by other moves. Phazing moves such as Roar and Whirlwind can miss evasion boosted pokemon, meaning that those are not viable strategies to counter evasion either. The only foolproof answer is using Haze, a move which is generally disfavored over Roar/Whirlwind and has even worse distribution than both of the other moves, with few pokemon who learn it being able to give up a slot for it. Not only that, but even if you carry it, there is no guarantee you'll be able to use it, as a Haze Vaporeon obviously can't do anything about a Double Team Jolteon. This removal of options is what makes Double Team uncompetitive, as you cannot realistically play around it.

 

So, why are Evasion moves banned but not accuracy lowering moves like Sand Attack or Muddy Water, and why is Confusion not banned? The reason is that it is possible to realistically play around these. If your accuracy is lowered or you are confused, you can switch out to remove this effect, allowing an easy and readily available method of stopping these RNG based elements from affecting you.

 

Meanwhile, an example of an aspect which invalidates certain elements of play would be trapping abilities such as Shadow Tag or Arena Trap. These abilities take away the opponent's capability to switch, removing one of the most important mechanics in competitive pokemon. They are abilities which are inherently heavily uncompetitive, and two of the most potent abusers of them, Dugtrio and Wobbuffet, are currently banned. However, Wynaut and Diglett, pokemon with Shadow Tag and Arena Trap respectively, are still allowed in the game despite having these abilities. The reason for this is that they are not capable of abusing their ability quite as effectively as their older twins, meaning that despite being uncompetitive, they are not necessarily relevant enough to be banworthy.

 

So, why aren't the moves Mean Look/Block banned even though they trap as well? The reason for this is that they are not instantaneous trapping like Shadow Tag and Arena Trap, the opponent still has a turn before they become incapable of switching. Due to this one turn "Grace Period", in addition to the fact they take up an entire moveslot and require 1 turn to actually use, the opponent is still very capable of playing around these moves. This means that their ability to remove an aspect of gameplay is crippled, and by extension makes them much, much more difficult to abuse.

 

The Third Category: Unhealthy Aspects of Gameplay

 

The third category is the one which is to be used the most sparingly, the one which is most subjective, and the reasoning for banning which 100% of the time results in the most controversial bans. This concerns pokemon or other aspects of gameplay which are unhealthy for the metagame, currently defined as "Things which restrict the metagame in ways which are unfavorable for an evolving competitive metagame". In other words, a pokemon which is unhealthy is something which heavily stagnates or centralizes the metagame in a way which is problematic for a healthy metagame. Note that it has to be in a way which is problematic for a healthy metagame. This is important to note, as being centralizing is not necessarily an indicator of a pokemon being unhealthy for the metagame.

 

An unhealthy pokemon is one which makes the metagame worse with it's presence, by stagnating the metagame in a large, negative way. Most pokemon which are overpowered or uncompetitive are typically also unhealthy, but they are not entirely mutually exclusive. In general, the only time that the unhealthiness of a pokemon is evaluated is when a pokemon seems to be problematic, but simply does not fit in either of the other two categories for Ubers.

 

Banning Types: Flat Bans and Complex Bans

 

There are two types of bans, Flat Bans and Complex Bans. Flat bans are used for general situations, when a pokemon, move, ability, etc. meet some sort of banning criteria, at which point, they are banned in their entirety. However, in complex situations where a flat ban would be either ineffective or heavily unfavorable for some reason, complex bans can be used. Typically, these are used for a situation where one specific issue cannot be sorted out, such as with the Shell Smash + Baton Pass ban which took place in Generation 5 within lower tiers. In this case, there were multiple pokemon which could abuse this combination, meaning a flat ban on all of these pokemon was excessive. Likewise, Shell Smash itself wasn't a problem, as there were many legitimate users of it, and the same applied to Baton Pass. As this was a complex situation in which no Flat Ban method was ideal, a Complex Ban was used.

 

Anything else?

Nothing in particular. In case it wasn't obvious, credit to Smogon University for a majority, if not all of the concepts, principles, and ideas for which this tiering system and this guide are based on.

[Noad]

Nice guide Senile, this will be a lot of help for people who want to contribute to tier discussions. If this is complete already let me know and I will move it and add it to the index. Just a reminder that people should only be posting in the Guide Tavern if they have constructive feedback about the the guide itself.

[DrCraig]

Maybe we will have less dumbasses on the discussion threads, noice! :D

[drpdrp97]

Tiering NU.

[Noad]

Moved to the main guide forum and added to the index because it is completed.

[GymLeaderGreen]

Maybe we will have less dumbasses on the discussion threads, noice! :D

Let's not get too hasty.