[Discussion] Snorlax/Blissey's Place in the OU Meta (Snorlax AND Blissey moved to Ubers)

[Arimanius]

Very selfish for those criticizing the council, in my opinion.
 
I applaud you guys for catering to the community which is constantly asking for representation. I do wonder if a meta without Lax and Bliss would be what we want. Maybe that is what we want to make more pokemon and play-styles viable. I am completely aware this doesn't follow tiering policy, but I think this would be a great test. This is exactly what the community wanted to see. Anything with Snorlax gone is better, and I think I speak for the majority of the community by saying that. Maybe Blissey is the other half of the problem we have. Good job guys!
 
I guess there is no harm in testing really, so OU and UU might have to be chaotic for a while until we can clearly see a direction we want to head.

This^

Actually we're not discussing how they fit in a tiering policy but how better can our OU meta without those two I think it will be really different and funnier than the last two (Blissey and Blissey+Snorlax metas) so I support this decision, We'll see more Venusaurs, Ludicolos, Umbreon and Porygon2, that in my opinion is much better

[SpartacusGD]

We all know sp atkers are very fast and have a very good coverage so other than the fat normal types idk how else can we deal with them, starmie and gengar especially. I dont think this will help the ou meta at all, it will juat make teams be consisted of gyarados, swampert, ludicolo, flygon, metagross and even then there is no guarantee they can deal with the blazing fast sp atkers. More thought to team building? That aint gonna happen, i wasnt in favor of lax ban, but id rather have lax banned than this 2 banned. Right now its a more physical based meta but thats better considering we have bulky physical defs to actually cobtrol the physical beasts, and this will juat shift the meta to special based meta and what bulky special pokes can deal with the special monsters? Yeah basically nothing other than these 2 so its definitely a cray move. Tot its just the uu tiee council who took drugs and got crazy ideas, turns out the ou council did aswell. This is very weird idea. So everyone whos too confident about their team building skills, gl team building 6 pokes than can cover sp atkers and physical atkers all together.
[quote name="Arimanius" post="1075116" timestamp="1433877683" date="Today, 03:21 AM"]
This^

Actually we're not discussing how they fit in a tiering policy but how better can our OU meta without those two I think it will be really different and funnier than the last two (Blissey and Blissey+Snorlax metas) so I support this decision, We'll see more Venusaurs, Ludicolos, Umbreon and Porygon2, that in my opinion is much better[/quote]

Except alalazam and espeon wrecks all those pokes you mentioned combined and maybe even gengar

Edited June 9, 2015 by Noad

[bl0nde]

calm umbreon meta

• Umbreon: I have one and that doesn't work. It's an extreme liability with dugtrio around. Also, signal beam is 2x and umbreon can't stop it (espeon maybe even signal beam starmie). Umbreon can't phaze dugger out, so your only option is to risk it or take out a move slot for the quick attack gimmick.
• Chansey is a safer choice as far as walling special attacks goes. Unforunately it doesn't look like chansey can take out a dugger that freely switches in on it. 0 SpA Chansey Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Dugtrio: 44-54 (40 - 49%)
• Slippery Slope logical fallacy: After the ban, you're looking at #1 ludicolo, #2 umbreon, special D combinations, chansey. Then Heracross is going to try to spam megahorn like crazy on ludicolo and umbreon. Dugger will be right next to hera trying to trap. As a result, dug and hera will probably get banned 2-3 months down the road. All things considered, I guess I would be down with using my umbreon and steelix special D combo again 2-3 months down the road after dug and hera get banned for being too OP. 

Edited June 9, 2015 by bl0nde

[DoctorPBC]

I'm sorry but you look at all teams right now and it's fairly standard to pair either lax or bliss with anywhere from 2-4 phys walls/checks. Remove bliss or lax and we will turn into a full out stall meta. Porygon, Venusaur, Umbreon, Arcanine, Vaporeon, Weezing core OP

[Havsha]

Although I'm no fan of Blissey/Snorlax if we get rid of them both, won't calm mind get too OP? I dunno, I'm no expert in the health of the OU tier, I'll accept either decision without any complaints,

[gbwead]

We'll see more Venusaurs, Ludicolos, Umbreon and Porygon2, that in my opinion is much better

Add also Dusclops, Kingdra, Lapras, all of them have gr8 bulk to deal with special attackers.

 

Except alalazam and espeon wrecks all those pokes you mentioned combined and maybe even gengar

Without Blissey and Snorlax, Dusclops can spam shadow punch to deal with Zam et Espeon.

0 Atk Dusclops Shadow Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Alakazam: 96-114 (73.2 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Ursaring could be a problem, but since torment is gonna be fixed i dont think it is the end of the world.

 

[Gunthug]

So the basic theme of the last several posts has been this: A lot of things will start to see more use as special sponges, but there are special attackers that still give them trouble.

 

In other words, with bliss/lax gone we'll no longer have a 100% surefire way to deal w/special attackers. I see this as a healthy thing.

[ThinkNice]

A lot of people are forgetting how incredibly frail special attackers are. Full physical offense will still be incredible viable as special attackers will generally not have a way of OHKO'ing them. Think of Pokémon like Rhydon, Ursaring, Metagross or things like CB Pert.

[codylramey]

Ultimately im for the test. Imo it never hurts to test things when they make sense. At the very least we get to play in a meta that is different for a month. Although there is some srs concern about calm mind pokes. The biggest things keeping them at bay was in this meta lax and toxic bliss, and in the laxless meta toxic bliss. With that being said I had those same concerns about the meta w/o lax and CM didnt seem all that more prevalent, although that could be because of the short duration of the test because CM deff did seem more powerful imo.

Not only are CM pokes powerful we cant forget that Jolt and Starmie also poses great spcl atks and speeds. They both have acess to recovery moves and have respectable bulk (especially starmie) for a powerful fast attacker. But im sure everyone already knows this.

I am still under the opinion that just banning lax may still be enough, and that there wasnt enough time to really determine that. I worry that since you guys are proposing the same amount of time for the test that we may still have that problem. Although banning both bliss and lax would prolly force ppl to adapt faster.

I can see this meta being interesting, one where you will have to predict what the spcl attacker is gonna do in order to survive instead of switching to a wall. But i can see a srs chance of this failing due to the power and coverage spcl attackers hold in this game.

Has there been any thought into asking the mods to hold a tourny or two w/o these two in it to get a taste of what it would look like?

[DoctorPBC]

Inb4 Alakazam shits on all

[gbwead]

Inb4 Alakazam shits on all

I think exeggutor would be worse.

[BurntZebra]

Has there been any thought into asking the mods to hold a tourny or two w/o these two in it to get a taste of what it would look like?

That's why the proposed change is a 1 month test to see how things turn out. 

[NikhilR]

One question I'd like to ask the council is, how are they going to determine the healthiness of the meta after the one month suspect ban? Would it be based entirely on usage or players' opinions? If by usage, then I'm sure that pokemon like jolteon, aerodactyl, starmie will see a rise in usage. I am not sure if Gengar will see much usage because the staller set of Gengar has always been more useful compared to the all out special attacker set since it could break/stall Snorlax/Blissey out. 

 

Looking forward to this meta nonetheless. gj OU tier council.

[Senile]

One question I'd like to ask the council is, how are they going to determine the healthiness of the meta after the one month suspect ban? Would it be based entirely on usage or players' opinions? If by usage, then I'm sure that pokemon like jolteon, aerodactyl, starmie will see a rise in usage. I am not sure if Gengar will see much usage because the staller set of Gengar has always been more useful compared to the all out special attacker set since it could break/stall Snorlax/Blissey out. 

 

Looking forward to this meta nonetheless. gj OU tier council

I mean, I'm not sure how Zebra/Robo would look at it, but I'd see if the variety in special walls has actually been affected, as opposed to people moving to use Umbreon or something kek. Beyond that, obviously people's opinions will be accounted for.

[xilias]

0 SpA Chansey Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Flygon: 148-176 (49.1 - 58.4%) -- 95.3% chance to 2HKO

0 SpA Blissey Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Flygon: 260-308 (86.3 - 102.3%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

change poks level to 50,it changes some stuff :

0 SpA Chansey Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Flygon: 80-96 (51.6 - 61.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Blissey Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Flygon: 136-164 (87.7 - 105.8%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO

[DrCraig]

IMO this still follows the tiering policy. The possible banning of snorlax and blissey would be under the unhealthy characteristic as pretty much any sane player runs one or both of them on any OU team, meaning that players always have to prepare their teams for snorlax and blissey, which limits what people can run in general. With a meta without blissey or snorlax, players have a bit more freedom in what they run to handle special attackers, whether it be ludicolo, umbreon, arcanine, or whatever else people think of, and none of these are unstoppable walls, which will lead to special attackers becoming viable again, and hopefully an overall healthier meta. 

I didn't ask for this, but I don't see how it falls under policy. Senile even stated that it doesn't. It's more of a 'here, we can try this, and see if things will be how you want them.'

Edited June 9, 2015 by DrCraig

[codylramey]

I didn't ask for this, but I don't see how it falls under policy. Senile even stated that it doesn't. It's more of a 'here, we can try this, and see if things will be how you want them.'

OHHH SLIPPERY SLOPE! BAN CURSE ON SNORLAX 2015!!!

Srs tho idea of banning pokes for stagnating the meta, or being unhealthy, isnt against tiering policy. Maybe the way of which we are doing it is tho (testing 2 pokes with the thought that a third may have to go instead of just banning one). Edited June 9, 2015 by codylramey

[Senile]

I didn't ask for this, but I don't see how it falls under policy. Senile even stated that it doesn't. It's more of a 'here, we can try this, and see if things will be how you want them.'

Naw, I didn't state that it doesn't. The way I see it, it does; Snorlax meta is unhealthy, but banning it doesn't produce a significantly better metagame, because the new metagame is still super centralized around a fat special wall, Blissey. So the way I see it, banning both Snorlax + Blissey for unhealthily constricting the tier does fall under policy.

[bl0nde]

Dusclops deal with Zam et Espeon.

Definitely a no. It would need a partner, probably a wish passer or cleric because when it gets beat down (it does get beat down quickly) it has to rest and is dead weight. Pain split is not a depednable option for the role of a dependable special wall because a smart player plays around it like repeaedly switching in something that is low on health when you try to recover. This pokemon also most likely outspeeds dusclops for the kill at the end when you can't pain split recover.

 

Besides all that - shadow ball. Besides all that, pursuit heracross that laughs at W-o-W. Just not dependable at all.

[gbwead]

Definitely a no. It would need a partner, probably a wish passer or cleric because when it gets beat down (it does get beat down quickly) it has to rest and is dead weight. Pain split is not a depednable option for the role of a dependable special wall because a smart player plays around it like repeaedly switching in something that is low on health when you try to recover. This pokemon also most likely outspeeds dusclops for the kill at the end when you can't pain split recover.

 

Besides all that - shadow ball. Besides all that, pursuit heracross that laughs at W-o-W. Just not dependable at all.

1.Dusclops is one of the best spin blockers in the game, so there is a good chance the opponent will be beat down before you.

2.Dusclops also have significantly low hp so pain split is not that bad at all. Saying a smart player can play around it is not accurate; weezing uses pain split quite effectively and even though he has more hp.

3. Like i said, torment > w-o-w. Heracross is not gonna like switching on dusclops since his 2 stab are uneffective, he wont get guts activated and he wont be able to set up proprely if dusclops have haze.

[Robofiend]

To chime in:

 

Also supporting for a few reasons:  

 

1. This is Senile's point, but Blissey is centralizing to a degree, despite not being as unhealthy as Snorlax. Special walls like Ludicolo, Porygon2, Umbreon, Swampert and Chansey just don't stand a chance - and all have traits that make them much riskier to use than just slapping a Blissey on the team and calling it good. Blissey's also insanely good for stall teams, basically allowing you to build a team of physical/mixed walls and throw it in for fun without fear of getting rekt.

 

2. I don't think it's likely that we'll end up with an "X-meta" where X is some pokemon name (e.g. "Calm Umbreon meta"). All of our available walls have big downsides that need to be accounted for, meaning they'll actually have to fit on a team, not just get copypasta'd in. To summarize

• Umbreon: weak to fighting, weak to CM Zam, unable to break substitutes on bulkier attackers or provide any offensive support. Basically, just a really reliable way to stop Starmie or Sweeper Gengar. Its reliance on Toxic makes it total Heracross bait, but its ability to heal teammates of status is going to be important.
• Porygon2: great mixed wall that suffers from marginal damage output and dies to status. It tends to rely on Toxic stall, making it total Heracross bait. In some ways, this lil bugger is so versatile that it ends up getting killed too early from over-exposure.
• Ludicolo: can't take Gengar, and struggles to work as a mixed wall, which is often necessary when it comes to stalling out Gyarados, Metagross, CB EQ locked Flygon or Blaziken.
• Metagross: gets run over by status Gengar, can't repeatedly take hits from Jolteon, Starmie or Gengar throughout the match.
• Chansey: great at stopping special spam, but totally inferior to its evolution, both because it has bottom-of-the-barrel defense and because it can't threaten anything with its mediocre SpA stat.
• Swampert: less viable given that HP grass is the preferred coverage move in OU without Dragons around, but still decent at stopping a slew of other attacks that might harm it and actually threatens sweepers with a good physical movepool 
• Kangaskhan: mysteriously un-mentioned yet, but access to Wish, great bulk, Early Bird, and a good physical movepool make this thing a less scary Curselax replacement suffers from lower specially defensive presence.

3. This proposal is a little slippery on our usual policy, but bear with us. It seems like most of the community is on board with the idea that Snorlax is a problem, so we're cool on that front. What's less clear is whether we could make OU even more competitive and healthy by banning Blissey+Snorlax and in doing so, finally allow special sweepers a chance to... well.. sweep. Blissey doesn't stifle the metagame as much as Snorlax, but we saw that with Blissey around pokemon like Jolteon, Starmie and Alakazam weren't much more viable than they were with Snorlax.

 

TL;DR - let the theorymonning begin, but please don't complain with your (bad) predictions about how much this is going to break the metagame. OU's already at rock bottom- there's little we could do to actually make it worse. We all know that this move might result in even more bans (looking at you, Kingdra+Gengar), but the goal is a healthy, diverse, game, and it might take some work to actually get there. 

Edited June 10, 2015 by Robofiend

[BurntZebra]

 

• Kangaskhan: mysteriously un-mentioned yet, but access to Wish, great bulk, Early Bird, Bulk-Up and a good physical movepool make this thing a less scary Curselax replacement suffers from lower specially defensive presence.

robo pls

[Robofiend]

robo pls

 

jesus this is a new low of not knowing wtf I'm talking about 

[SpartacusGD]

Just how are you going to build a def core and sp def core using 6 pokes and that is possible if you gonna play all 6 bulky pokes. Its just too risky. Idk it sucks

[Robofiend]

Just how are you going to build a def core and sp def core using 6 pokes and that is possible if you gonna play all 6 bulky pokes. Its just too risky. Idk it sucks

 

Well this just illustrates how limited PokeMMO has been when it comes to playstyle: you don't *need* a defensive core to win matches if stall/bulky offense/balance/hyper offense are all equally represented: in fact, a team of Walls might end up getting rekt by a single Umbreon that can heal status and pass wishes to the right pokemon. Similarly, you can beat bulkier offense teams by running Spikes, a spinblocker and some nuclear attackers like Aerodactyl who can plow through weakened, slower pokemon without fear. Basically, offensive cores are a real thing in most metagames, and it's really likely that we could have them here.

 

For instance, Flygon+bulky Metagross+Gyarados+Blaziken is a pretty cool combo because you can abuse type resistances to beat the common special sweepers that check these pokemon without sending in a wall. Gyarados kills all the special sweepers at+1, Metagross traps Starmie, Flygon dodges Quake/Slide and stops non-Ice Jolteon (HP Grass is a 4HKO), Gyarados counters Heracross and Blaziken can switch in on Weezing's Will-O-Wisp and proceed to break walls with its solid coverage attacks. You could pair them with Houndoom/Umbreon to keep Gengar/Weezing/Gardevoir/Zam from shitting on you with Psychic/Wisp and Ludicolo or to provide support against bulky waters and Starmie, while adding some anti-stall capability with Toxic, Leech Seed, Protect etc.

 

In a healthy metagame it's more likely that you're going to lose from being unprepared, but that's just part of what makes the game interesting. If you know everything your opponent might run and can cover it by using the same 6 pokemon, you'd end up with a metagame that looks a lot like OU does right now.