[LC Discussion] Gastly

[gbwead]

In the LC tier where speed is key, Gastly was the ultimate weapon as it could outspeed and threathen nearly the entire metagame while being immune to priority damage moves. The crazy usage of this seemingly untouchable glass canon didn’t come at a surprise and ultimately the TC felt it had to be removed from LC so that the tier could evolve with less centralisation and restrictions.

 

However, the Gastly ban didn’t come without consequences since players lost a pokemon that could punish ground and normal spam better than any other. The TC acknowledges that the decision may have been premature, as we didn't garner any community input regarding gastly's presence in the metagame. For this reason, we would like to know if you think Gastly fits or not in LC and why.

 

Gaslty ban announcement in January:

 

Quote

 

 

Nothing defines LC more than Gastly; as a valuable asset for any team and a terrifying threat to face, this pokemon is the focus of all LC players.

 

Just like many other LC pokemons, Gastly is unwallable. However, unlike other unwallable pokemons, Gastly is much more difficult to revenge kill. Gastly can reach a 18 speed stat with a Timid nature which mean only Poliwag, Abra, Meowth, Ponyta, Voltorb, Staryu, Elekid, Magby and Taillow can outspeed it. Out of those only Abra, Ponyta (if full spatk), Staryu, Elekid and Magby can OHKO a Gastly for sure. Some of those can only OHKO Gastly with Life Ball which mean they will lose to Salac Berry Gastly.

 

Unlike other LC pokemons, Gastly also has an easier time getting in play thanks to its really good typing and ability. Its Poison/Ghost coverage and its remarkable spatk stat allows Gastly to become a sweeping force as soon as it comes in play. It can also be quite unpredictable with its three main movesets: Life Ball set, Swift Choice Band set and Endure Salac set.

 

For these reasons, the TC believes Gastly, unlike other LC pokemons that could be labeled as Offensive Uber, has a significant negative impact on the LC tier and limits teambuilding severely.  

 

 

Edited March 2, 2017 by gbwead

[Mike]

Hmmm I guess I will start this off, do keep in mind I have hardly any experience into the tier so please do say any flaws in my arguments.

 

I talked to Sweet about the gastly ban around a month ago and how it would effect the tier. From what we agreed on is pokemon like dratini and meowth getting way more space even to the point of: why wouldn't you use it. Dratini already was a very solid LC mon, but gastly being there to outspeed it and block that fearsome extreme speed was nice. Now dratini can run through the tier even more easily than before. Same for meowth tbh, I haven't seen alot of them. But water pulse/fake out/return/bite meowth really packs a punch in the tier in my opinion. Again gastly just did a goodjob at keeping it at bay. And while gastly did have a pretty solid usage iirc, being above 55%, it really didn't feel that centralizing. Pokemon like porygon were able to deal with it and also onix if they still had sturdy (which if you let it lose sturdy early on you're honestly using it wrong).

On the other hand many games were decided by a speedtie of gastlies. Whether it be scarf or endure. It always ended up a speedtie or a 50/50 on endure etc. 

 

Rather than it being a centralizing mon I think it was just a very good LC mon to check huge threats in the tier.

[LifeStyle]

Playing around Gastly was one of the very few moments in LC where you actually needed to make predicts like "Is it scarf?" "Is it going to Shadow Ball?" "Is it going to Sludge Bomb?" and usually the choices were either go to your own Gastly or something like Aron/Onix on a predicted Sludge Bomb or go to Porygon/Pursuit Doduo/Pursuit Taillow on a predicted Shadow Ball. It was fun making that decision. Now all you get is priority normal spam everywhere, fucking Fake Out Meowth shuts down anything that sets up speed and attempts a sweep, Extremespeed Dratini is gay, so far seen nobody try a mixed Extremespeed Zigzagoon but I bet it could be gay as well.

So yeah, unban Gastly, LC needs it, smd smh.

[OrangeManiac]

Gastly is the one Pokemon that currently forces you out of choice locked items. Choice Scarf is the most common item on current LC Mons and the easiness of spamming it isn't what it should be. Gastly at least somewhat punishes the Scarf EQ spam from Onix, scarf Fight-move spam from especially Elekid (Tpunch is covered by Chinchou) and like mentioned above Espeed Dratini and Meowth spam are very strong as well. If usage is main factor of healthy tier then the LC tier clearly got worse which is evident by the insanely high usage of Onix, which is higher than Gastly ever had. LC is one of those metas that even though you don't keep "broken shit to check other broken shit", the bans should be used very sparsely. I argued before that if you think Gastly fits to Offensive Uber Criteria then you should take at least 8 other Pokemon with it to look at least somewhat consistent. The scariest Gastly set is the EndureSalac because it's the only Pokemon priority doesn't touch. However, if you think of it it's not really an impossible set to shut down with faster Pokemon even when you're scarfless. Protect or even better - Substitute - can really abuse Gastly's attempt to get in the Salac range. At worst Gastly can be tanked its Endure one turn down and its faster opponent now has a Substitute. I think the metagame has needed to adjust to something like Onix or current Dratini more than it should adjust with Gastly. In addition, Gastly promotes the one thing LC completely lacks and make it quite unplayable format and that is the lack of having any possible switches to some Pokemon making sacking your Pokemon the only possible outcome in lots of cases. Gastly's defensive typing allows there to be some predictions, risky but still.

Edited March 3, 2017 by OrangeManiac

[gbwead]

On 03/03/2017 at 0:08 AM, OrangeManiac said:

you don't keep "broken shit to check other broken shit"

For me, that is what justifies the ban today.

 

Gastly helps stop Normal and Ground spam, but these problems are nothing compared to what Gastly was doing in LC. It was untouchable and the salac berry set was guaranteed to get a kill. It is also inconsistent imo to say that we need Gastly to punish normal and ground spam and then claim Onix, Meowth and Taillow are valid Gastly checks. 

 

As for Onix getting high usage, I think we need to put everything in perspective and consider that it might not have this kind of usage if Rock Blast was not broken and doing 1.6 times the damage it should be doing.

[OrangeManiac]

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

For me, that is what justifies the ban today.

So you're gonna disregard everything I just said and just use this. Wonderful.

 

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

Gastly helps stop Normal and Ground spam, but these problems are nothing compared to what Gastly was doing in LC. It was untouchable and the salac berry set was guaranteed to get a kill. It is also inconsistent imo to say that we need Gastly to punish normal and ground spam and then claim Onix, Meowth and Taillow are valid Gastly checks. 

Untouchable? How?

Guaranteed to get a kill? Against scarfers? Against users with Substitute or Protect?

And the last is not even close what I said.

 

1 hour ago, gbwead said:

As for Onix getting high usage, I think we need to put everything in perspective and consider that it might not have this kind of usage if Rock Blast was not broken and doing 1.6 times the damage it should be doing.

I'm still looking forward to hear the evidence of this, I've heard you being so sure about Rock Blast being broken in LC but I would assume by this time someone would have researched about it and did something about it. (LF Munya)

 

Edit: Oh, I didn't see the announcement thread of rock blast ban

Edited March 12, 2017 by OrangeManiac

[gbwead]

1 hour ago, OrangeManiac said:

So you're gonna disregard everything I just said and just use this. Wonderful.

 

Untouchable? How?

Guaranteed to get a kill? Against scarfers? Against users with Substitute or Protect?

And the last is not even close what I said.

 

I'm still looking forward to hear the evidence of this, I've heard you being so sure about Rock Blast being broken in LC but I would assume by this time someone would have researched about it and did something about it. (LF Munya)

 

Edit: Oh, I didn't see the announcement thread of rock blast ban

I just wanted to post something on this thread before the week was over and I did not have the time to address everything you, lifestyle and others said. I did not mean to disregard anything, but I do disagree with some elements of your analysis. For instance, scarfers can't really use protect or substitute. Also, iirc, a check might not be able to switch safely on a pokemon, but still win in a 1v1 scenario. If your so called checks need to predict a potential endure when they use substitute, that does not make them checks imo. 

[LifeStyle]

So, unban? Si senor, pls unbano

[LifeStyle]

Still not unbanned huh? smh.