[UU Discussion] Umbreon and the Health of the UU Meta (Banned to BL)

[DrCraig]

First of all I want to ask why are discussion threads locked, or am I supposed to ask for an unlock to discuss a topic. Is it a tier council decision? Please don't lock this I simply want to address a question and make a proposal of sorts.

 

Now I am not making a tl;dr and I would like everybody reading this to come in with an open mind and read the meaning behind my points.

 

 

 

Ok. Umbreon is the best wall in the UU and you should not think otherwise. It completely walls the special side of the whole tier. Now, I do not view that as reason to move it to BL. I do not think its defensive or support characteristics make it deserving of a being uber. There is no denying its strength in defense in support though. However, I want to ask: Are the defensive and support capabilities of Umbreon unhealthy for the UU meta.

Keep reading.

 

I'm going to list the special attackers right now which Umbreon walls, traps, stalls, and kills below:

Slowking

Manectric

Clefable

Exeggutor

Jynx

Lanturn

Porygon2

Pikachu

Xatu

Girafarig

Grumpig

Hypno

Mr Mime

Claydol

Golduck

 

Ok. Hear Craig out. Umbreon has the ability to taunt, pursuit, bite, status, stall, wall and kill the pokemon above due to its amazing defense and support capabilities unless dealt with through sleep, substitute(in certain cases), swagger, and other gimmicks. Now. Look at the special attackers in the UU tier, and which ones you would actually consider using. In my opinion, due to Umbreon's ability to wall the whole special spectrum of the tier, I believe it is unhealthy. Umbreon completely discourages the use of special attackers, namely sweepers. Either physical attackers are just too good, or special attackers are being completely discouraged. I don't think UU has a lack of Special Attackers, but they are discouraged. From a health of the metagame perspective, I believe Umbreon is keeping the special spectrum of the tier stagnant and if it was moved to BL it would promote the special spectrum of UU to develop and change, rather than be discouraged. Yes, Umbreon can be dealt with and is set up bait in some cases, but think about where I'm coming from.

 

Is Umbreon unhealthy for the UU meta because of its defensive and support ability which discourage specially offensive play?

Am I defining the health of the metagame wrong?

Are physical attackers just too good that special attackers are out shined?

 

 

[spoiler]I am not just trying to make a thread for the sake of making a thread. I am not sitting behind my computer screaming "BAN UMBY IT WALLS EVRYTHING." I am acknowledging it is a top tier wall, in my opinion the best. I am proposing a different way to look at Umbreon and asking if is reason to be moved to BL. I believe Umbreon is unhealthy for the specially offensive meta of UU. Before you litter my thread, read my argument, my questions and decipher the meaning.[/spoiler]

Edited April 17, 2015 by DrCraig

[BurntZebra]

I'm going to list the pokemon that stall or force out umbreon right now below:

Blastoise

Fearow

Arbok

Sandslash

Nidoqueen

Nidoking

Ninetales (will o wisp)

Vileplume

Diglett

Golduck

Primeape

Poliwrath

Tentacruel

Golem

Muk

Kingler

Hitmonlee

Kangaskhan

Seaking

Scyther 

Pinsir

Lapras

Flareon

Kabutops

Ariados

Crobat

Lanturn

Ampharos

Azumarill

Jumpluff

Misdreavus (perish trap set, only if umbreon lacks taunt)

Gligar

Steelix

Granbull

Scizor

Shuckle

Sneasel

Piloswine

Houndoom

Donphan

Stantler

Hitmontop

Shiftry

Swellow

Breloom

Vigoroth

Ninjask (maybe?)

Mawile

Aggron

Swalot

Sharpedo

Camerupt

Trapinch (arena trap+superpower op)

Cacturne

Altaria

Zangoose

Whiscash

Crawdaunt

Cradily

Armaldo

Absol

Glalie

Walrein

Relicanth

....

 

Basically what I'm getting at is umbreon is weak vs so many things and doesn't really have any offense to back up its ability to wall special attackers that aren't frail psychic types. Umbreon is similar to shuckle in some regards. Shuckle walls some pokemon with its massive defense/special defense stats but it doesn't really do that much in return. Umbreon gives free switch ins to many of the pokemon I listed above and can't really damage them with a 40 base power pursuit either. 

[Archinix]

Don't forget it's ability, Synchronize.

[DrCraig]

.

Wow this has nothing to do with health at all

[Robofiend]

Not to mention Charm makes for really tough switch ins. I'm not sure if I think it's unhealthy, all it really can do for your offense is Toxic and Pursuit, but being a Cleric, Wish passer and staller is usually enough.

 

Honestly its stall capabilities are on par with Vaporeon's, especially when it comes to Wish/Protect sets that allow it to switch in against basically any special threat (not that UU has many) and heal a wall teammate the next turn. Synchonize is also underhyped because you can run Sync/Healbell to ruin anti-stall tactics like Toxic. 

 

Also, Pikachu can hurt it with one of its fighting moves, sending in Umbreon against it might totally rekt you. 

 

I'm not sure if it's unhealthy, it might just be defensively Uber, especially because it doesn't need a lot of Spdef investment to shit on Exegg, Slowking, Haunter, Xatu, Manectric, etc. It can be built to survive weaker physical attacks while still sponging most special attacks with its 95/130 special defense, making it pretty tough to break.

[BurntZebra]

Wow this has nothing to do with health at all

Well it kind of does. I mean I just listed off all of the UU pokemon that can handle umbreon very easily. I'm no mathematician but let's say my list of pokemon is 85% of the UU tier and the other 15% are walled by umbreon. If a pokemon walls 15% of the UU tier, it's not really "unhealthy" necessarily. Does umbreon limit team building? Not really, people are still running slowking a lot, even though you say it "stalls" it. Hypno and misdreavus still see usage as well, similar to that of umbreon's usage actually. 

[Robofiend]

Well it kind of does. I mean I just listed off all of the UU pokemon that can handle umbreon very easily. I'm no mathematician but let's say my list of pokemon is 85% of the UU tier and the other 15% are walled by umbreon. If a pokemon walls 15% of the UU tier, it's not really "unhealthy" necessarily. Does umbreon limit team building? Not really, people are still running slowking a lot, even though you say it "stalls" it. Hypno and misdreavus still see usage as well, similar to that of umbreon's usage actually. 

 

I'd say your numbers are a little flawed there, you should be taking into account usage, not just actual percent of pokemon it walls. Sure, it doesn't wall Scyther, Relicanth, Tentacruel, Muk, Nidoking, Swalot or Aggron, but when was the last time any of these pokemon saw any more than 0% usage? You're making an arguement similar to the "overly specific counter argument": Claiming that something isn't Uber because there's a pokemon out there that stops it isn't valid unless you actually have a compelling reason to use that pokemon to deal with the rest of the meta. Everyone knows Muk, Ninjask, Arbok and Camerupt, Vigoroth, Scyther and Seaking just aren't used, and even if they were awesome counters for Umbreon (even though most of them die to Toxic stall) that wouldn't be a good argument for keeping Umbreon around because they're worthless against pretty much every other major threat we have.

 

Also, if Craig's arguing that it's unhealthy it doesn't need to wall anything necessarily, it just needs to be really centralizing and prevent the meta from developing. I think there's a moderately good argument for that point of view too.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Robofiend

[DrCraig]

Well it kind of does. I mean I just listed off all of the UU pokemon that can handle umbreon very easily. I'm no mathematician but let's say my list of pokemon is 85% of the UU tier and the other 15% are walled by umbreon. If a pokemon walls 15% of the UU tier, it's not really "unhealthy" necessarily. Does umbreon limit team building? Not really, people are still running slowking a lot, even though you say it "stalls" it. Hypno and misdreavus still see usage as well, similar to that of umbreon's usage actually. 

 

Is Umbreon unhealthy for the UU meta because of its defensive and support ability which discourage specially offensive play?

The lack of specially offense play is more what I'm concerned with:

Is it discouraging special sweepers to be used and such? (Yea, broad statement)

 

 

 

Not to mention Charm makes for really tough switch ins. I'm not sure if I think it's unhealthy, all it really can do for your offense is Toxic and Pursuit, but being a Cleric, Wish passer and staller is usually enough.

 

Honestly its stall capabilities are on par with Vaporeon's, especially when it comes to Wish/Protect sets that allow it to switch in against basically any special threat (not that UU has many) and heal a wall teammate the next turn. Synchonize is also underhyped because you can run Sync/Healbell to ruin anti-stall tactics like Toxic. 

 

Also, Pikachu can hurt it with one of its fighting moves, sending in Umbreon against it might totally rekt you. 

Yea I just was implying Espeed/Surf/Tbolt/HP, but yea fighting moves are there

 

I'm not sure if it's unhealthy, it might just be defensively Uber, especially because it doesn't need a lot of Spdef investment to shit on Exegg, Slowking, Haunter, Xatu, Manectric, etc. It can be built to survive weaker physical attacks while still sponging most special attacks with its 95/130 special defense, making it pretty tough to break.

[BurntZebra]

I don't really think its fair to just point and umbreon and say its the cause of not many special attackers in the UU tier. I mean we have chansey, a god tier special wall that never dies to special attacks. Even though chansey doesn't really get a lot of use in UU, not completely sure why, it also discourages people from running multiple special attackers, as a surprise chansey can really put a halt to your special sweeping. Then there are other UU pokemon that have high usage that prevent special attackers from working to their fullest extent. Kangaskhan has great special bulk and some what reliable recovery with early bird rest, and has the physical pressure to take on most special attackers. Steelix also deserves a mention as it stops most of the calm minders you listed before, with a resistance to psychic+bug+ghost, the three common attacking types on psychic type calm minders. 

 

The other thing I see happening in UU is that special attackers are just inferior to physical attackers in most cases. Base powers of special attacks are lower on average than physical attacks, special attackers have lower base special attack than physical attackers  do with attack, and physical attackers have multiple options in increasing their damage output. Bulk up, swords dance, belly drum, curse, dragon dance, and choice band can all boost your attack to very high levels, compared to the special attacking side where you're basically left with calm mind or petaya to boost your special attack, neither of which are really on the same magnitude as the physical options. 

 

It's still possible that the uu tier will shift again to special attackers to take on the many physical attackers that can easily get ko'ed by a petaya'ed manectric or whatever other special sweeper that might be the new flavor of the month. 

[Robofiend]

I don't really think its fair to just point and umbreon and say its the cause of not many special attackers in the UU tier. I mean we have chansey, a god tier special wall that never dies to special attacks. Even though chansey doesn't really get a lot of use in UU, not completely sure why, it also discourages people from running multiple special attackers, as a surprise chansey can really put a halt to your special sweeping. Then there are other UU pokemon that have high usage that prevent special attackers from working to their fullest extent. Kangaskhan has great special bulk and some what reliable recovery with early bird rest, and has the physical pressure to take on most special attackers. Steelix also deserves a mention as it stops most of the calm minders you listed before, with a resistance to psychic+bug+ghost, the three common attacking types on psychic type calm minders. 

 

The other thing I see happening in UU is that special attackers are just inferior to physical attackers in most cases. Base powers of special attacks are lower on average than physical attacks, special attackers have lower base special attack than physical attackers  do with attack, and physical attackers have multiple options in increasing their damage output. Bulk up, swords dance, belly drum, curse, dragon dance, and choice band can all boost your attack to very high levels, compared to the special attacking side where you're basically left with calm mind or petaya to boost your special attack, neither of which are really on the same magnitude as the physical options. 

 

It's still possible that the uu tier will shift again to special attackers to take on the many physical attackers that can easily get ko'ed by a petaya'ed manectric or whatever other special sweeper that might be the new flavor of the month. 

 

I think the point you're missing is that it's pretty unlikely that the meta will shift to special attackers if Umbreon poops on them so badly. Chansey and Kangaskhan are good special sponges, but neither of them can wall and then kill you off with Pursuit. Umbreon's pretty much a failsafe way to prevent a Manetric/Xatu/etc. sweep, unlike Chansey who can get worn down, killed by mixed attackers, or allow for lots of free switch ins.

 

Also, I agree that it's a mystery why Chansey doesn't see more usage. I guess it's more vulnerable to being setup bait than Umbreon and Pursuit is an advantage that can't really be overstated.

[DrCraig]

Where Umbreon discourages special attackers, it arises from its typing, taunt, STAB pursuit, STAb bite, and charm which Chansey, Steelix and Kanga do not have at all. The special attackers we have access to get haulted from setting up, pounded on exit, or cannot break Umbreon the way a physical attacker could. And if it is the fact that our special offense is too weak, then it suggests Umbreon is too strong and is walking them out with its defensive characteristics. Umbreons defense and support discourages out special sweepers. Yea it doesn't have the highest usage, but it is certainly used a lot. I see a lack of strong special attackers because of, in my opinoon, Umbreos pressure through defense and support.

Edited April 17, 2015 by DrCraig

[PandaJJ]

Are physical attackers just too good that special attackers are out shined?

 

Clearly, yes. There are many reasons why:

-There are plenty of pokemon with an insanely high atk stat. There is a total of five pokemon with an atk stat of 130, namely flareon, kingler, breloom, scizor and absol. On the other hand, there are only two pokemon with a spatk stat of 120 or higher, namely exeggutor (125) and kadabra (120).

-There are more strong physical moves, and they have less drawbacks than strong special moves. The viable special moves of 100+ base power are overheat, solar beam, hydro pump, blizzard, fire blast and thunder, most of which have considerable drawbacks. On the physical side you have double edge, superpower, megahorn, outrage, earthquake, low kick and crabhammer, just to mention some.

-There are more and better ways of boosting physical attacks than special attacks, most notable choice band, curse, swords dance and dragon dance, as opposed to pretty much only calm mind.

 

These things alone make physical attackers superior to special attackers.

 

However, even if special attackers and physical attackers were just as viable, there is no point in making it a goal that they will see the same usage. That would be just as stupid as trying to make every typing see the same usage. The question of whether umbreon is affecting the health of our meta in a bad way can only be answered by how centralizing it is.

[Robofiend]

However, even if special attackers and physical attackers were just as viable, there is no point in making it a goal that they will see the same usage. That would be just as stupid as trying to make every typing see the same usage. The question of whether umbreon is affecting the health of our meta in a bad way can only be answered by how centralizing it is.

 

No one's saying they have to have the same usage, we're saying that you should be able to use them period. Right now Umbreon makes it pretty foolish to even consider running Haunter, Kadabra, Manectric or Xatu because of how easily they can get picked off. Also, something that drastically limits your teambuilding/playstyle options is centralizing almost by definition, so saying that Umbreon makes it impossible to use the few good special attackers we have access to is an argument that it is centralizing.

 

Also, the thing that differentiates special sweepers from physical sweepers is their coverage and speed. While Fire/Fighting or Water/Fighting are good combos, they can still be walled really easily. Xatu on the other hand can outspeed Kingler, Hitmonlee, Zangoose, and pretty much every other physical attacker in the tier and hit them hard with coverage moves. That means that instead of having to run walls that cover every brutal physical attacker you could choose to run a more offense team that uses something like Manectric or Xatu to revenge kill rampaging attackers like Hitmonlee or Kingler. It also can hit pretty much every common wall for SE damage, so it's not like it's totally useless just because Physical attackers are good. Part of the reason Bulk Up, Swords Dance, etc. are so overused is because we don't have faster special sweepers who can take advantage of their lower speed and lack of special defense, thus forcing them out of play.

[DrCraig]

I think Robo is my second half.

[DoubleJ]

Maybe we should discuss unbanning Alakazam to provide another option of applying pressure on the tier. Its speed is unrivaled as well as its power. Sure Umbreon can stop it in a 1v1 setting, but skilled play, spikes damage, toxic stall, and anything else in conjunction with any of our physical attackers can wear it down. We choose not to use special sweepers simply because they are frail and lack punching power. Extremespeed pika damn near ohko's most of them.

Also, Umbreon will likely be moved up with increased usage. It is a reliable answer to CM users in OU and that will likely be expressed in usage.

Just my thoughts. I appreciate your efforts though and I am not against anything you are saying. Discussion can help present a potential solution.

Edited April 17, 2015 by DoubleJ

[Kizhaz]

Honestly I dont see why Zebras arguments got shot down so drastically, im inclined to agree with him. I questioned Umbreon as being and S rank but to see it as unhealthy? I have not once thought to myself "I can't use this pokemon because of umbreon". In reguards to on of Robo's earlier posts you said pokemon like tenta, aggron, scyther and something see 0% usage, in every UU tournament I have entered this yeah I have used an aggron amd have no plans to stop, and tentacruel is an amazing pokemon I plan to use in the future. To say that because they don't see usage so they are irrelevant to the unhealthiness of Umbreon is a bit much aa well imo. If the option is there to stop something you see aa threatening, fucking use it. As for Umbreon being unhealthy, I jist cant see it. Xatu I could see taking it on with eb rest and cm, in fact anything that can avoid the toxic spam of Umbreon and calm minds can beat it. Umbreon CAN taunt but its slow asf so you wont pull it off untill after. The biggest argument to warrent a ban is that there should be no 1 pokemon to wall them all, in Umbreons case to wall every special sweeper.

[bl0nde]

Alakazam

Sure Umbreon can stop it in a 1v1 setting

substitute/signal beam

[PandaJJ]

No one's saying they have to have the same usage, we're saying that you should be able to use them period. Right now Umbreon makes it pretty foolish to even consider running Haunter, Kadabra, Manectric or Xatu because of how easily they can get picked off. Also, something that drastically limits your teambuilding/playstyle options is centralizing almost by definition, so saying that Umbreon makes it impossible to use the few good special attackers we have access to is an argument that it is centralizing.

 

Also, the thing that differentiates special sweepers from physical sweepers is their coverage and speed. While Fire/Fighting or Water/Fighting are good combos, they can still be walled really easily. Xatu on the other hand can outspeed Kingler, Hitmonlee, Zangoose, and pretty much every other physical attacker in the tier and hit them hard with coverage moves. That means that instead of having to run walls that cover every brutal physical attacker you could choose to run a more offense team that uses something like Manectric or Xatu to revenge kill rampaging attackers like Hitmonlee or Kingler. It also can hit pretty much every common wall for SE damage, so it's not like it's totally useless just because Physical attackers are good. Part of the reason Bulk Up, Swords Dance, etc. are so overused is because we don't have faster special sweepers who can take advantage of their lower speed and lack of special defense, thus forcing them out of play.

 

Umbreon is not the sole reason why haunter and kadabra see no use, I would be reluctant to use either even if umbreon was banned. To be bold, another pokemon that sees no use is delibird - does that mean that the pokemon that prevent delibird from seeing play are unhealthy for the meta? There is no reason why the pokemon you mentioned should see high usage other than the fact that they did before the special/physical split, which is not a valid reason. Some pokemon will simply never be used, because they are not good in the meta. My point was that the lack of special attackers is not necessarily caused by the presence of umbreon, because special attackers are inferior by default. This is not saying that umbreon is not centralizing, but I don't agree with the argument presented here.

 

Also, I don't buy your argument that special attackers are faster and have better coverage. The fastest viable pokemon in UU is swellow, which is physical. Following that is sneasel, and after that scyther, which speed ties the likes of kadabra and manectric. The coverage is also just wrong. Sure, xatu gets psychic, giga drain, heat wave, shadow ball and signal beam, but all of those moves are comparatively weak to crabhammer, double edge and superpower from kingler, and kingler has more than perfect coverage. The only move that special attackers have that physical attackers can't best is psychic, which honestly doesn't have very good coverage anyways. And to your last point - there are plenty of boosting physical attackers that utilize salac berry to prevent being revenged killed.

[OldKeith]

Oh wow, a special wall makes special attackers unviable? What surprise factor, how shock, much heartbreak.

 

So then let's ban Blissey in OU just because it shits on any special attacker by that logic?

[DrCraig]

Maybe we should discuss unbanning Alakazam to provide another option of applying pressure on the tier. Its speed is unrivaled as well as its power. Sure Umbreon can stop it in a 1v1 setting, but skilled play, spikes damage, toxic stall, and anything else in conjunction with any of our physical attackers can wear it down. We choose not to use special sweepers simply because they are frail and lack punching power. Extremespeed pika damn near ohko's most of them.

Also, Umbreon will likely be moved up with increased usage. It is a reliable answer to CM users in OU and that will likely be expressed in usage.

Just my thoughts. I appreciate your efforts though and I am not against anything you are saying. Discussion can help present a potential solution.

I see Zam as just promoting Umbreon to be used more in order to pursuit trap zam as well as the rest of the specially offensive side of the tier. I would like to see Special Sweepers be able to be used effectively in UU without being late-game sweepers. Would be nice to see them do work at any time in a match and not have to fear being walled and trapped.

 

Honestly I dont see why Zebras arguments got shot down so drastically, im inclined to agree with him. I questioned Umbreon as being and S rank but to see it as unhealthy? I have not once thought to myself "I can't use this pokemon because of umbreon". In reguards to on of Robo's earlier posts you said pokemon like tenta, aggron, scyther and something see 0% usage, in every UU tournament I have entered this yeah I have used an aggron amd have no plans to stop, and tentacruel is an amazing pokemon I plan to use in the future. To say that because they don't see usage so they are irrelevant to the unhealthiness of Umbreon is a bit much aa well imo. If the option is there to stop something you see aa threatening, fucking use it. As for Umbreon being unhealthy, I jist cant see it. Xatu I could see taking it on with eb rest and cm, in fact anything that can avoid the toxic spam of Umbreon and calm minds can beat it. Umbreon CAN taunt but its slow asf so you wont pull it off untill after. The biggest argument to warrent a ban is that there should be no 1 pokemon to wall them all, in Umbreons case to wall every special sweeper.

I'm pretty sure when anybody makes a team including a sweeper such as Xatu and Manectric they consider Umbreon. Obviously people have been considering avoiding psychics in general and that is partly because of Umbreon and its wall/support. Yea, you can use Aggron. Yea, you can use Tentacruel. Two pokemon that can come in after Umbreon pursuit traps your sweeper. And what does your using Aggron hold weight at all? Xatu eb/rest is a gimmick, which yes, can take on a non-taunt Umbreon, but otherwise it is destroyed. Running bulky Xatu for Umby, centralizing. And what is so bad about taunting after? If your Xatu is bulky, it will tickle. If your Xatu is satk heavy, it will get shit on by bite/pursuit.

 

Umbreon does wall the vast majority of special sweepers and encourages them to not be used in fear of being stalled or trapped.

[Pedrr]

time to speak about this

[DrCraig]

time to speak about this

Steelix is used a lot. It's like a snake made of metal. Unfortunately its name isn't Umbreon though.

[Pedrr]

Steelix is used a lot. It's like a snake made of metal. Unfortunately its name isn't Umbreon though.

was just shocked by that statistic x)

 

and for speak about umbreon ; yeah it can wall too much specials attackers (i see only signal beam x2). and that's why we are seeing all those physical attackers like kiklee cause umbreon can't do anything on it.

i personaly think the actually UU meta contains too much walls (just have to see the usage statistics).

[PandaJJ]

and for speak about umbreon ; yeah it can wall too much specials attackers (i see only signal beam x2). and that's why we are seeing all those physical attackers like kiklee cause umbreon can't do anything on it.

 

How can you be so sure about that? I already argued that even without umbreon, physical attackers are far superior to special attackers. It seems like a pretty far off assumption, given that umbreon doesn't even see much usage.

 

i personaly think the actually UU meta contains too much walls (just have to see the usage statistics).

 

Did you even look at the statistics yourself? I assume you are refering to this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X_9ZnFq6IMshvA4HxQNfqySwjc2lv-4eWDEKfP7_eqI/edit
If you just look at the top of the usage, you can't really say anything about the meta as a whole. If you take the time look at the entirety of the usage list, you will find that about 55-60% of the raw usage are walls/tanks, and about 40-45% of the raw usage are sweepers/attackers (depending on how you classify them). This does not seem like a heavy overuse of walls. The main difference here is that the amount of unique sweepers/attackers is about twice as many as unique walls/tanks, which rather suggests that the amount of viable walls/tanks are far fewer than the amount of viable sweepers/attackers. This is why the top of the list gives such a bad impression, because the amount of viable walls/tanks are so few, each of them has very high usage.

[Robofiend]

Did you even look at the statistics yourself? I assume you are refering to this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X_9ZnFq6IMshvA4HxQNfqySwjc2lv-4eWDEKfP7_eqI/edit

If you just look at the top of the usage, you can't really say anything about the meta as a whole. If you take the time look at the entirety of the usage list, you will find that about 55-60% of the raw usage are walls/tanks, and about 40-45% of the raw usage are sweepers/attackers (depending on how you classify them). This does not seem like a heavy overuse of walls. The main difference here is that the amount of unique sweepers/attackers is about twice as many as unique walls/tanks, which rather suggests that the amount of viable walls/tanks are far fewer than the amount of viable sweepers/attackers. This is why the top of the list gives such a bad impression, because the amount of viable walls/tanks are so few, each of them has very high usage.

 

 

Steelix wall 61.20%

Slowking wall 33.80%

Scizor tank 30.60%

Vileplume wall 30.60%

Altaria wall 29%

Hitmonlee sweeper 25.80%

Lanturn tank 24.10%

Claydol wall 19.30%

Clefable wall 19.30%

Umbreon wall 19.30%

Exeggutor wall/sweeper 17.70%

Crawdaunt sweeper 14.50%

Donphan tank 14.50%

Hypno wall 14.50%

Misdreavus tank 14.50%

Breloom sweeper 9.60%

Houndoom sweeper 9.60%

Jynx sweeper 9.60%

Kingler sweeper 9.60%

Mantine wall 9.60%

Miltank tank 9.60%

Porygon2 tank 9.60%

 

Actual counts:

Total pokemon - 23 (Exegg double counted because it can be a wall or a sweeper but not both)

Walls - 10

Tanks - 6

Sweepers - 7

(Special sweepers marked in red - 2)

 

Percentages:

Walls - 44%

Tanks - 26%

Sweepers - 30%

(Special sweepers - 8%)

 

So actually walls+tanks make up about 70% of the metagame and sweepers make up 30%. I didn't include pokemon below because if you look at them

 

Flareon Ninetales Sharpedo Tentacruel Absol Granbull Haunter Omastar Victreebel Zangoose Cacturne Kangaskhan Lapras Manectric Walrein Whiscash Xatu

 

(5 special sweepers, marked in red)

 

You'll see that very few of them are highly viable in the standard UU metagame.

 

To me it seems like walls/tanks are a little too common in UU - offensive teams are just not usable in the same way that they are in OU because of the prevalence of really strong walls like Vileplume, Umbreon, Slowking and Steelix. If you look at special sweepers, Jynx and Exeggutor are the only two in the top 23. Even if we included all of the pokemon here (list contains everything > 3% usage) we'd have 7 special sweepers out of 39 available pokemon.

 

I'd say that the problem is we don't have enough viable pokemon to break Vileplume, Slowking and Steelix, not that we don't have enough walls. If you look at UU team building, bulky offense accounts for almost all of the teams - there's little diversity when it comes to having balanced or offensive playstyles represented.

 

EDIT: mfw excel data takes a big shit going into this form

Edited April 19, 2015 by Robofiend