lol I don't think you understand what he's saying. By banning an ability, it's only reasonable that we ban it on all Pokemon with access to said ability as well. Banning Protean means banning Protean on Kecleon, and banning Speed Boost means banning it on Yanmega, as Articuno I said previously. And to ban the use of a single ability on a single pokemon is simply too complex - especially if the Pokemon itself really had no viable use before the ability that made it overpowered. It simply over complicates matters.
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Ladder Monotype [Read post #393 for Tiering Updates]
- Thread starter ryan
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This makes more sense I apologize for that Articuno I
NOTE: This is a quick summary of what I personally think about Genesect, there are NO plans of suspecting or banning it as of this point.
Genesect on Bug allows the type to have access to numerous special attacks that most of the type cannot use or simply cannot use them well, such as Ice Beam and Flamethrower. Mixed sets are popular too, running Iron Head and U-Turn. This solves bug's problem of not being able to hit types such as flying and dragon super-effectively. However, looking at its high stats and Download, is it too much for monotype?
Reasons to suspect / ban
High attacking stats of 120 and an okay speed stat of 99
Decent defensive stats and a great typing, being weak only to fire and having 8 resistances + 1 immunity
Huge movepool
Download makes it have much more offensive capability
Few things can wall it
To sum it up, if Genesect has the right moves, it is very well capable of 2HKOing any Pokemon in the metagame. Also, if preserved with a high amount of HP, revenge killing it is very tough. However:
Reasons not to suspect / ban
Nearly every Genesect is forced to run the Choice Scarf to be able to outspeed common offensive threats such as Garchomp, Latios and certain megas
Predictable moveset
Genesect is mostly used as a revenge killer rather than a wallbreaker, binding it to run the Choice Scarf, forcing it to lock itself into one move. This limits it to using 1 move, and if certain walls have not been taken down, one can switch into their wall, rendering Genesect dealing pitiful damage. This is where another factor comes in: Its predictable moveset. The most common one runs Flamethrower, Ice Beam, U-Turn and a filler move.
This is why Genesect is saved for late-game sweeping, taking down weakened walls and attackers which are slower than it. It can pull this off rather easily for most teams with its coverage. If it needs to be brought in earlier, it can U-Turn against an offensive threat / switch-in and be saved for later.
tl;dr Genesect's capabilities of late-game sweeping are simply too much for monotype. Its ability to pressure hyper-offensive teams is large and it is difficult to revenge kill, despite a few shortcomings.
Genesect on Bug allows the type to have access to numerous special attacks that most of the type cannot use or simply cannot use them well, such as Ice Beam and Flamethrower. Mixed sets are popular too, running Iron Head and U-Turn. This solves bug's problem of not being able to hit types such as flying and dragon super-effectively. However, looking at its high stats and Download, is it too much for monotype?
Reasons to suspect / ban
High attacking stats of 120 and an okay speed stat of 99
Decent defensive stats and a great typing, being weak only to fire and having 8 resistances + 1 immunity
Huge movepool
Download makes it have much more offensive capability
Few things can wall it
To sum it up, if Genesect has the right moves, it is very well capable of 2HKOing any Pokemon in the metagame. Also, if preserved with a high amount of HP, revenge killing it is very tough. However:
Reasons not to suspect / ban
Nearly every Genesect is forced to run the Choice Scarf to be able to outspeed common offensive threats such as Garchomp, Latios and certain megas
Predictable moveset
Genesect is mostly used as a revenge killer rather than a wallbreaker, binding it to run the Choice Scarf, forcing it to lock itself into one move. This limits it to using 1 move, and if certain walls have not been taken down, one can switch into their wall, rendering Genesect dealing pitiful damage. This is where another factor comes in: Its predictable moveset. The most common one runs Flamethrower, Ice Beam, U-Turn and a filler move.
This is why Genesect is saved for late-game sweeping, taking down weakened walls and attackers which are slower than it. It can pull this off rather easily for most teams with its coverage. If it needs to be brought in earlier, it can U-Turn against an offensive threat / switch-in and be saved for later.
tl;dr Genesect's capabilities of late-game sweeping are simply too much for monotype. Its ability to pressure hyper-offensive teams is large and it is difficult to revenge kill, despite a few shortcomings.
I agree with most of what Charizard posted, although there are some points where i would nitpick.NOTE: This is a quick summary of what I personally think about Genesect, there are NO plans of suspecting or banning it as of this point.
Genesect on Bug allows the type to have access to numerous special attacks that most of the type cannot use or simply cannot use them well, such as Ice Beam and Flamethrower. Mixed sets are popular too, running Iron Head and U-Turn. This solves bug's problem of not being able to hit types such as flying and dragon super-effectively. However, looking at its high stats and Download, is it too much for monotype?
Reasons to suspect / ban
High attacking stats of 120 and an okay speed stat of 99
Decent defensive stats and a great typing, being weak only to fire and having 8 resistances + 1 immunity
Huge movepool
Download makes it have much more offensive capability
Few things can wall it
To sum it up, if Genesect has the right moves, it is very well capable of 2HKOing any Pokemon in the metagame. Also, if preserved with a high amount of HP, revenge killing it is very tough. However:
Reasons not to suspect / ban
Nearly every Genesect is forced to run the Choice Scarf to be able to outspeed common offensive threats such as Garchomp, Latios and certain megas
Predictable moveset
Genesect is mostly used as a revenge killer rather than a wallbreaker, binding it to run the Choice Scarf, forcing it to lock itself into one move. This limits it to using 1 move, and if certain walls have not been taken down, one can switch into their wall, rendering Genesect dealing pitiful damage. This is where another factor comes in: Its predictable moveset. The most common one runs Flamethrower, Ice Beam, U-Turn and a filler move.
This is why Genesect is saved for late-game sweeping, taking down weakened walls and attackers which are slower than it. It can pull this off rather easily for most teams with its coverage. If it needs to be brought in earlier, it can U-Turn against an offensive threat / switch-in and be saved for later.
tl;dr Genesect's capabilities of late-game sweeping are simply too much for monotype. Its ability to pressure hyper-offensive teams is large and it is difficult to revenge kill, despite a few shortcomings.
First of all, while genesect can theoretically 2hko any one pokemon (except the normal defensive core, spdef bulky charizard-x, etc), it is impossible to run something that would be able to do so against more than 1-3 pokes on a team from, say, half the types, at best. In reality, while scouting what set genesect has will at worst lose you a pokemon (and at best gain you significant momentum), the variety of sets genesect runs are not actually that, well, varied, when it comes to the ladder. Borrowing the help of last month's statistics, let's see how hard it is to figure out what set a genesect is running, in a couple of steps because it's more fun that way.
Step 0: Genesect has Ice Beam
Genesect always has Ice Beam, and if you play assuming he doesn't then you are clearly misunderstanding why he's used on bug. The statistics say that only 83.1% of genesects use ice beam, but they also say greninja had 79.7% ice beam usage. It has ice beam, even if it doesn't.
Step 1: Is the genesect shiny?
This first step may seem ludicrous, but bear with me. Genesect has access to the moves blaze kick, shift gear and extremespeed ONLY on it's event version. That event version coincidentally was shiny. What this means is that, whenever you see a purple genesect, it cannot have any of those moves, and although still possible, is probably not Atk based.
Step 2: Douse/Chill/Shock/Burn
The different drives had usages of: 11.6% for douse; 1.7% for chill, 0.1% for both shock and burn drives, totalling 13.5% genesect who gave away what item they were holding immediately upon entering the field.
Step 3: Shockingly, it wasn't a drive, what now?
This bit relies entirely on your typing, and while i could write a book about how to handle genesect with each variation of team of each type, I won't. Instead, have some easy tips to remember:
If it can't kill your poke it will u-turn if it has the move, unless your poke is also a known scarf user and faster.
If it switches in when you have a mon out giving it a download special attack boost, unless your mon is weak to ice or bug, it's guaranteed to be special based, unless the bug player is inexperienced
Most likely the genesect will deal damage to something, with any luck it will be u-turn (unless you're dark/psy/grass), and based on the damage dealt and what download boost it had, it should be easy to tell if it's attack or SpA based, and if it has an item that boosts its damage rather than a scarf.
Mixed attack genesect is the rarest variant of genesect mostly due to being severely hampered by scarf. Even if mixed would work best against your team, playing under the assumption that your opponent is using a SpA focused genesect will lead you to being right by a clear majority of times.
If your whole team takes super effective damage from a single type of coverage, then you need to work on your team.
While this is not a tip per say, I would also like to note that, the higher on ladder a bug type user reaches, the less of an impact u-turn has as far as momentum goes, due to the increasing amount of switching and doubleswitching that inherently happens.
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In all honesty though, the only people who would have a problem with that solution are the people who arbitrarily claim you shouldn't ban an ability on one mon. I'm making a somewhat big assumption in saying everyone would be okay with a non protean greninja. If protean greninja has to go, ok. If a better solution was banning protean on only greninja so it could be used, I would say you can go pound salt for not wanting to do that.
That is like having a problem where you constantly smash your fingers whenever you open a door and close it. Your options are to either exist smashing your fingers, or removing all the doors in your home so you can't. But you will be very cold during the winters among other problems I'm sure we can imagine. However, there is another, crazy option, in which we simply wear gloves that can stop the damage to our fingers. ArVaDa-, that is convoluted, who in the right mind would want to make gloves like that!? Someone who is tired of bloody fingers, or poor living conditions, I would think.
I'm not trying to be silly here, I'm serious. We are preventing a mon from being used because we can't do a ban that complex. What the heck is up with that? I remember drizzle + swift swim being banned somewhere. And I remember some tiers just not allowing weather at all leaving you with a water absorb politoad or flash fire ninetails versus banning them into the upper tiers. You're telling me something as significant as greninja, something that is so annoyingly good we even went and banned it to save our metagame from being "crippled", that it is somehow not completely like a weather ban? I am utterly dumbfounded.
Now this is pokemon, I really don't care that much about our froggy friend, but I care enough about this ban system that I am willing to write a paragraph or so about how silly it is. I know there are plenty of people who would like to try to use a non protean greninja because of its speed and can't because it was "burdened" with having protean. It honestly is kinda like serperior without contrary, yeah who cares it isn't all that great. However, there are people who would like to have this frog as a pet to use in combat, and by golly not letting them have a cheap knock off of it is just evil. Same with blaziken and talonflame, yeah, so what if they're outclassed if they don't have a sweet ability, you should still be allowed to use them to embarrass your friends. I can use arbok on poison if I want to, and I can think of a myriad of things that outclass it too.
tl;dr Something is wrong with you guys arbitrarily saying we can't do one thing or another. I would imagine the only response to this is that this is such an insignificant complex ban there is more work than use in changing the way things are. I would be damned if someone tried to tell me a non protean greninja couldn't do something, outclassed or not. I think EmilyBay had the right idea from the very beginning.
Note: Potentially this system isn't entirely silly. I could imagine a problem occurring where if the pokemon are tiered, like Ubers to PU, that abilities could become very complex in tiering. Yeah protean greninja is uber, but maybe non protean is UU, so can we have greninja in our UU tier and above if we limit the ability? That could be done, but it would be a rats nest. We have one tier, monotype. Something is banned or it isn't, a complex ban here is not nearly as ridiculous as it could be elsewhere (however they have made exceptions with pokemon such as politoad in the lower tiers, so I would say even then this banning system is still not very true to itself).
DoW
formally Death on Wings
Ok, to start with Politoed isn't an exception. Clauses banning an ability is something completely separate to banning one particular ability on one particular pokemon, and even then it was controvercial.
This is a commong argument, allow me to give an unoriginal response.
When we think of the tiering, we have to look at what isn't broken that's already banned, as well as what is broken that isn't banned. So we could unban Torrent Greninja, and all the others, sure. But the problem with this is that tiering is generally based on the pokemon's best set. Mega Rayquaza with the moveset Dragon Dance/Swords Dance/Substitute/Protect clearly isn't broken, and nobody would argue that it's in the slightest bit relevant, so when we decide whether to ban Mega Rayquaza we look at its best set or two, decide if these would overcentralise the metagame, and from there decide whether to ban. Otherwise, it both becomes difficult to understand when something can be used, and difficult to argue against unbanning things with certain conditions added on. For example, should we allow Leftovers Chansey or Cute Charm Sylveon in UU? We know for certain neither would be broken. Equally, would lv.75 Kyogre be broken in OU? It would be easy to stop these pokemon from being broken in the tiers they're banned in, and even if they're next to useless, some people will want to use them, as you say.
Of course, you can answer this slippery slope argument by saying "ok, let's only apply it to Greninja, Talonflame and Blaziken then." Only, why should it only be applied to these pokemon? And why only in this meta? I understand that Monotype is somewhat appart from the standard tiers, but we're Smogon nonetheless, we can't change Smogon policy just for one small metagame for no apparent reason. And it's not even as though there's a good reason for unbanning these pokemon: They're not going to be competitively important, the most you'll get out of them is a Spikes stacking set for Greninja that would see very little usage, outside of that all three of them are pretty much useless. If it were something like Gen 5 Excadrill where had Sand Rush been banned on it then Mold Breaker would still be perfectly viable, that would be a stronger argument. However, we're trying to make as competitive a tier as possible, and that means not complicating things for no reason.
For more information, there's a whole load of threads that discuss this topic, such as this one.
I think you missed my point entirely.
Zarel: "So, why is a move different from an ability? This is my point here. Who actually thinks Confide Arceus with no other moves is Ubers material? Then why ban it? The point is, Blaziken as a whole is broken (and yes, Speed Boost is part of that whole), so Blaziken is banned. That there exist non-broken Blaziken sets is entirely irrelevant, because there exist non-broken sets for every Ubers Pokémon."
I think that is what you were going for but decided to word it differently. You may or may not be shocked that I 100% agree with that. The problem is, other tiers don't (including our own), and thus we should have every liberty to subvert the system if it seems to be better for our metagame.
Politoad is the exact same case whether you would like to believe that or not. UU and below has been ignoring the system to keep a seemingly useless water absorb politoad in the lower tiers just because. Drizzle ban? Drizzle + swift swim ban? What are these people even thinking? We have a damp rock ban in place on only water teams, an ITEM ban, that is somehow less complex and very beneficial to the monotype tier. Just because it is a weather does not give it some special right to exist in a way that isn't exactly like making some sort of ability clause, or ban, or whatever we would like to call it to help us sleep at night.
In short, we have already subverted the system, but have been defending the system to keep us from subverting it in different ways. We have been deceiving ourselves more than actually addressing a decently important issue.
DoW
formally Death on Wings
I do understand what you're saying, and I already answered it. But in any case, here I go again.
Name one pokemon with drizzle that isn't broken in UU. Answer: You can't. "Ok," you reply, "but that's because only Kyogre and Politoed get drizzle." Yes, this is true, but ignoring Kyogre's Ubers-level statline, it's Drizzle that's broken rather than the pokemon themselves! Say you gave, IDK, Arbok Drizzle. It's PU, it's barely broken by itself, and outside of a more powerful Aqua Tail, it's not gonna be gaining all that much from the ability itself. But suddenly, Kabutops, Kingdra, Mega Swampert, Toxicroak, Tentacruel, Vaporeon, Goodra are all large threats! Hence, even if it's only one pokemon that gets the ability, the ability itself rather than the pokemon gets the ban.
On the other hand, say we gave Arbok Speed Boost or Protean. Great, it's suddenly a threat in NU, maybe even gets to RU. But there's no way it's suddenly broken in Monotype! And we can see this through other pokemon with those abilities that aren't broken, such as Kecleon or Yanmega. That is why the Drizzle ban in UU isn't to be confused with banning a specific poke + ability combo.
Item bans, as well, aren't complex. Nobody's complaining about Soul Dew being banned; it's clearly broken. But there's nothing complex about it. Banning a pokemon, ability, item or move isn't complex. It's when you ban two things together: an ability on a specific pokemon, or two abilities on a team. Monotype works differently to other tiers, as we have type-only bans (which, yes, are somewhat complex but are the only way to make things work). Thus, Damp Rock on Water monos isn't any worse a ban than Aegislash on Steel.
Which brings me to another point: Yes, Aldaron's Proposal (Drizzle + Swift Swim) was complex. It's also probably the most controvercial ban smogon's ever made. Obvious I wasn't around at the time, but from what I've read on it there was a whole load of arguing over it, and it was very much a case of accepting it as the only good option, rather than jumping straight for it despite its complexity. It's a similar situation in Monotype: we're willing to accept complex bans, but only if there's a good reason. For example, Aegislash formed a brutal core in steel so needed a ban, but on ghost it's nowhere near broken and they need the strong pokemon.
tl;dr current bans are occasionally complex, but there needs to be a good reason for complexity. There isn't a good reason to ban Protean Greninja or Gale Wings Talonflame, so we should not change their bans.
Articuno I I promise you, you don't have to reword things for me to understand what you have already said. My problem, is this
Also just making some jokes haha, reassuring that I just want your point driven into my skull or for mine to be driven in yours, I don't care which way it goes but I am still confused.
Soul Dew should be a factor in throwing something in ubers. You are keeping a pokemon in a subpar state because you would like to use it in OU so long as it doesn't have that item, which is against your philosophy. You said eviolite chansey is OU, but leftovers chansey would be below that somewhere, it is the same thing! Then on top of that you want me to see the "obvious" that type banning a pokemon, or type banning an item, is not exactly the same as ability banning a pokemon. You have two things, a pokemon and a type, it is OP on one type but not another, just move it and we are fine. There is a type, with this item it seems to OP so lets get rid of it and it is fine. However, when there is a pokemon with an OP ability and I am asking if we can just ban an ability, you're basically telling me, "ArVaDa-, comon man, I am clearly drawing the line for you, that is just too much complexity man." My vision must be very impaired....
Also just making some jokes haha, reassuring that I just want your point driven into my skull or for mine to be driven in yours, I don't care which way it goes but I am still confused.
DoW
formally Death on Wings
Eviolite Chansey is OU, whereas without Eviolite it'd be below UU. However, Eviolite Dusclops isn't broken in UU, so there's no reason to ban Eviolite in UU rather than simply keeping Chansey OU. (Ok it's the usage stats that keep it OU, but if its usage fell it'd probably be BL rather than UU). The only pokemon that would use Soul Dew competitively are broken when they use it, therefore Soul Dew is broken rather than the latis. This is the difference between Soul Dew and Eviolite. Therefore the Soul Dew ban isn't complex, whereas banning Eviolite on Chansey would be.
Monotype is different to the standard metagames, so we have separate banlists for each type. However, that is where the difference between our banlists and the standard tier banlists ends. Banning a pokemon only with a certain ability would be highly complex, so would need a very good reason for us to do so. Banning only for one type is also highly complex, and also needs a very good reason for us to do so, however those reasons have been provided: Giving steel a different banlist to Ghost means that Aegislash isn't used on steel yet is very helpful in the metagame in terms of helping Ghost. Thus, there is a very definite and well-defined difference between allowing Blaze Blaziken and allowing Aegislash on Ghost.
I am talking about greninja, and the fact that it is faster than starmie, can rockslide a charizard-y, and may be beneficial, like aegislash, to the monotype metagame. All you have been telling me is no, not that there is an actual problem with what I have suggested.
Also (not directed at dow, but everyone for that matter), I do not like receiving thoughts from people like kaiser (who I am told is close to the council) saying that this council just does whatever it wants regardless of what I, or what a few people may think. This forum just looks like a riot net now, and that I'm just wasting my time writing words. If that is the case, just send me a conversation in an inbox and say yes arvada, that is the truth, do not waste your time, and I can leave while keeping this charade going. Someone needs to keep order, but I honestly wouldn't trust even the smartest, saintliest men and women in the world deciding things behind closed doors, and then just coming out and saying this is how it is to the masses. Once again this is pokemon, it isn't that big of a deal, but we also could not contribute and just leave you guys to make your own monotype metagame that you guys can play by yourselves (less than 10 probably) while other people make their own.
http://pastebin.com/S0tfpKHm
DoW
formally Death on Wings
This thread is one of the most important parts in deciding whether or not something's banned, and Kaiser's opinion shouldn't be underestimated given that everyone knows he's a great monotype battler. Just because someone's salty about their opinions not being taken as absolutely correct the whole time doesn't mean they're not listened to <_<
Back to the point at hand, if there's a legitimate set for Torrent Greninja then that would be something to discuss (although it would still have to be very strong to overcome the complexity of the ban). However, I'm not certain it would have a particularly strong niche: Pokemon such as Politoed or Gyarados would appear to be better answers to Zard Y, or even Sap Sipper Azu. As I've said before, a spikes stacking set would appear (from what I can see, at least) to be its main niche, doing its job somewhat like Froslass. I don't think this would be a large enough niche to warrant a ban of that complexiy.
Not to be 100% off topic but ArVaDa- you agreed with me ;; I thank you. But anyway Articuno I I honestly don't think I have seen any proof of the Monotype Council paying any sort of attention to this thread besides you and the Occasional Nani Man
Articuno I I am fully aware, and I felt bad when I wrote that, but I am utterly disappointed that we don't get to listen to you guys. Where are the pastebins of people talking about zapdos? That was not here, and all I get is that "it has been discussed over a long period of time". Yeah, in a rather informal fashion within pms that very few of us can read. I just really, really, REALLY, want to see what is going on behind these closed doors. This is not the cold war where there is danger for me knowing top secret information, it is not much to ask for me to see the pastebins between scp, nani, ant, sae, and whoever else is apart of the decision making. Who cares if I don't agree with you? I should be allowed to at least see what is happening, why you guys are making these decisions WHILE THEY ARE BEING TALKED ABOUT, NOT AFTER, and be allowed to provide input. This is like a one way mirror it should be going both ways, especially with you guys claiming you are bad all the time haha. Even more seriously though, I would want to see them even if within the pastebins someone calls me the dumbest person on the planet.
Also, to the point at hand. Many of us have been pretesting water teams without greninja, and almost all are dissatisfied with the lack of having a fast revenge killer. It still has water and dark STAB, which is a boon for many. Also, while somethings may take hits better, greninja is on the other spectrum dishing hits out better and applying pressure. There is a lot of health in having both, and I think it REALLY should be considered to have a complex ban in this case, because a non protean greninja certainly is not overpowered and potentially can enhance the metagame.
Early suggested set:
Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Rock Slide
- Ice Beam
I'm sure there are many ways to go with this, but I feel this is a good starting point.
Also, to the point at hand. Many of us have been pretesting water teams without greninja, and almost all are dissatisfied with the lack of having a fast revenge killer. It still has water and dark STAB, which is a boon for many. Also, while somethings may take hits better, greninja is on the other spectrum dishing hits out better and applying pressure. There is a lot of health in having both, and I think it REALLY should be considered to have a complex ban in this case, because a non protean greninja certainly is not overpowered and potentially can enhance the metagame.
Early suggested set:
Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Dark Pulse
- Rock Slide
- Ice Beam
I'm sure there are many ways to go with this, but I feel this is a good starting point.
I primarily agree with ArVaDa- in that it would be REALLY nice to at least get updates throughout the forum thread about what you guys are currently thinking at a certain time during a ban discussion process, like a halfway point and a three quarter way point of "Hey guys, don't be alarmed, but right now it's looking like this is going to be banned, so if you have more points to make AGAINST the ban, please speak up" or something, just so people wouldn't be so surprised. Needless to say, the Zapdos ban was REALLY, REALLY sudden, and it's probably the most controversial ban in the Monotype meta at the moment.
Also, rewording again what ArVaDa said, where is the line between what is feasible and what is too complex to be viable? Type bans are ok, item bans are ok, global ability bans are ok, type-specific item bans are ok, so why not pokemon-specific ability bans? I'm not really arguing for or against bringing Greninja back, though some people do dearly miss the movepool and the speed, but I would also like to know what defines "too complex". It just seems to be a very vague term people are tossing around.
Haha I feel so incompetent writing such a short post after reading all these great (long ;-;) arguments. (Also, lmao at this line in the pastebin --> YourKouhai: Just be like Kaiser and complain about it here but don't write anything on the forums about it!)
Also, rewording again what ArVaDa said, where is the line between what is feasible and what is too complex to be viable? Type bans are ok, item bans are ok, global ability bans are ok, type-specific item bans are ok, so why not pokemon-specific ability bans? I'm not really arguing for or against bringing Greninja back, though some people do dearly miss the movepool and the speed, but I would also like to know what defines "too complex". It just seems to be a very vague term people are tossing around.
Haha I feel so incompetent writing such a short post after reading all these great (long ;-;) arguments. (Also, lmao at this line in the pastebin --> YourKouhai: Just be like Kaiser and complain about it here but don't write anything on the forums about it!)
I'm sorry if I'm missing something here (definitely did not read all those giant posts before this) but why would one ever want to use that Greninja set over something like Keldeo (For a speedy revenge killer/cleaner) or Manaphy (destroys the types that are hurt by "Greninja's Dark STAB") or even Starmie? Considering that without Protean its non stabs are so weak, that set looks awfully situational with Rock Slide only hitting one or two relevant and not the most common Pokemon. I mean if you really wanted to, you could add a random hidden power rock on Keldeo to OHKO Charizard Y as that pretty much seems akin to your torrent set with Rock Slide. Greninja needed Protean to do its job effectively at all, as now it can't OHKO half the things it could have before, and with its terrible bulk it would just get bopped by anything that can tank its now predictable STAB and weak coverage.
Water just has way too many options to resort to using this subpar Pokemon; I could understand a little better if you said the same about Dark monotypes, but even still they have a much better wallbreaker in Hydreigon and I would argue that even Zoroark would be much more useful than torrent Greninja. If you're that desperate for Water STAB, you can also use Crawdaunt which kills ground perhaps even more than Greninja.
I can see why you're frustrated about the sketchy, unexplained nature of complex bans, but I just think that complex banning Greninja wouldn't be worth the trouble.
Water just has way too many options to resort to using this subpar Pokemon; I could understand a little better if you said the same about Dark monotypes, but even still they have a much better wallbreaker in Hydreigon and I would argue that even Zoroark would be much more useful than torrent Greninja. If you're that desperate for Water STAB, you can also use Crawdaunt which kills ground perhaps even more than Greninja.
I can see why you're frustrated about the sketchy, unexplained nature of complex bans, but I just think that complex banning Greninja wouldn't be worth the trouble.
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I'm more so arguing for the principle. Its really only being argued because there was no heads up for some of the bans *COUGH* ZAPDOS *Cough* Sorry I have cold. But thats really why we are trying to argue this all falls down if that makes any sense
Frankly, I believe the source of all this uprising is the fact that Other Metagames (the section of tiering in which Monotype lies) has, traditionally, never participated in suspect tests. This is mainly because the tier itself usually doesn't have a large enough following to bother with such a thing. I mean, all of the bans in Monotype are similar to how it was done with Pokemon like Mega-Salamence - aka quick banning. In OU, quick bans usually don't give much warning either, although there is discussion on the subject on forums such as these. In other words, I don't believe the fault directly lies in the "higher powers" (namely Nani Man) in this matter. The issue is that the mitigation of this tier is being done through discussion on this forum, and a final decision by the moderators. I mean, Monotype is grouped with tiers like CAP, Challenge Cup, Hackmons, 1v1, Tier Shift, PU, and STABmons - so I think it's understandable as to why banning has been done this way up to this point. However, now Monotype has a larger following than even some of the official Smogon tiers, such as RU and NU; and we can see that simply by our forum activity and also by the standings of the mono room on the chat list on Showdown. Heck, we even have our own Premier League going on right now. All in all, I think the next step is discussing actually suspect testing these bans before they happen, and maybe even going as far as a vote as well. In my opinion, Monotype has become popular enough to earn that right, and it seems like that's the root of the debate that's going on right now - people are sick of quick bans.
Another problem with banning in Monotype is that if we do allow the community to directly participate through use of a suspect test or voting, many people will simply vote for what is beneficial for their main type instead of considering the health of the entire meta-- like Grass users wanting to keep Shaymin-Sky. A small point, but something to consider for sure.
That may be true but to me that makes as much sense as a HO player playing with Deo-D or Deo-S. Some want to keep it in order to continue playing as they were playing, other understand by playing it that's it's too much for the metagame. the Monotype tiers is not an exception concerning biased or well-thought opinions.
Most of me fighting was more that I'm expressing my dissatisfaction for the way bans work and I was using greninja as a stepping stone to get some answers. I don't actually care at all what happens to the frog, but I think we can draw a few good points from this.
We generally like a fun metagame:
Everyone likes diversity, and I would think we would all want the metagame for all types to be rather balanced. What I would like to say though, is that we are a tad picky about what we are willing to do to change what the metagame is like for the better.
Unban, Ban, or why Bother?
Generally we stick to the OU tiering and ban all ubers from play. However we have gone against this by banning metagrossite, galladite and slowbronite, and even talonflame. Why? They force matchups in a way that the game is heavily favors some types over others, and that really isn't all that fun.
There are also ubers among us though. Pokemon like aegislash and genesect were brought down to help types. Why? At a point in time it was easier to bring something down to help types play against others, and more evenly disperse fairness versus banning all the problems for other types. That is all fine and dandy, but here is the problem.
Even though a torrent greninja is usable, why should we unban it like an arceus with 2 moves, or something like that? If you read the previous posts, we have ventured in this realm before. So it would seem if something is deemed overpowered, we would like to keep it from existing in any arena no matter what the circumstance, because we could call for other things (like an arceus with fewer moves) and add unnecessary complexity. So what truly is allowed to be brought down?
We would like to believe that when we bring something down, it is balancing the metagame. However, who really knows that? We saw that shaymin-s and kyurem-w forced a lot of matchups, we did not like that so we rebanned them. What is aegislash doing for the meta? Ghost definitely has a chance now, but is it because aegislash has balanced it, or is it just carrying enough weight (made an impact)? That is a rhetorical question, please don't answer that with replies. It leads us to our next question though!
Which Poop Sandwhich would you like to eat?
Sounds gross, but really what can you put up with? A greninja metagame seems to not work, ok. What else is standing in the way of a complaint free meta? Sadly, I don't think anyone can find the answer to that question. We can say however, that a metagame can be rather fair at some point. So, what can we do to get there? Would a monotype where all ubers are banned work? That may leave us with few types that are actually competitive. Would you like it if zard - x was banned? Why? Is it actually balancing anything (18 matchups to consider)? Should types be allowed to get steamrolled by a single poke? There are many more questions you can ask or have an answer to, but I'm not creative enough at the moment to come up with any more.
Thanks for Stating the Obvious!
It is maybe human nature to already know we want the most fun, competitive metagame there is. Many of us like to check each others thoughts and say yay or nay, and that is what it should be, a community effort. I was very brick wall like to many a person today with this greninja thing really to just get an answer of why you guys like type bans so much, but not other types of bans (like ability bans). To me, it would seem if you're that open to a type ban, you're open to other things that really shouldn't exist to make the game more balanced and fun. If zekrom with 2 moves, along with many other poke rules added into the mix, made a perfect metagame, I was really astounded nobody was okay with doing that. Greninja would be the same pokemon but only has an ability ban, really the same principle, but the notions against it were overwhelming. Too complex this that and whatever (don't wanna deal with a zekrom case, didn't make a big enough impact). It would seem many are looking for the ultimate monotype metagame, but we are only looking for certain ways to get there, not all of the ways. More than likely it is probably better to not call upon zekrom, but the limitations as to how far we can go to having a perfect metagame is rather abysmal, I would say trying to fix the metagame is harder than just spouting ban this or that. In fact, we may be at the pinnacle of how good it can actually be already.
tl;dr Do we really know what we want?
We generally like a fun metagame:
Everyone likes diversity, and I would think we would all want the metagame for all types to be rather balanced. What I would like to say though, is that we are a tad picky about what we are willing to do to change what the metagame is like for the better.
Unban, Ban, or why Bother?
Generally we stick to the OU tiering and ban all ubers from play. However we have gone against this by banning metagrossite, galladite and slowbronite, and even talonflame. Why? They force matchups in a way that the game is heavily favors some types over others, and that really isn't all that fun.
There are also ubers among us though. Pokemon like aegislash and genesect were brought down to help types. Why? At a point in time it was easier to bring something down to help types play against others, and more evenly disperse fairness versus banning all the problems for other types. That is all fine and dandy, but here is the problem.
Even though a torrent greninja is usable, why should we unban it like an arceus with 2 moves, or something like that? If you read the previous posts, we have ventured in this realm before. So it would seem if something is deemed overpowered, we would like to keep it from existing in any arena no matter what the circumstance, because we could call for other things (like an arceus with fewer moves) and add unnecessary complexity. So what truly is allowed to be brought down?
We would like to believe that when we bring something down, it is balancing the metagame. However, who really knows that? We saw that shaymin-s and kyurem-w forced a lot of matchups, we did not like that so we rebanned them. What is aegislash doing for the meta? Ghost definitely has a chance now, but is it because aegislash has balanced it, or is it just carrying enough weight (made an impact)? That is a rhetorical question, please don't answer that with replies. It leads us to our next question though!
Which Poop Sandwhich would you like to eat?
Sounds gross, but really what can you put up with? A greninja metagame seems to not work, ok. What else is standing in the way of a complaint free meta? Sadly, I don't think anyone can find the answer to that question. We can say however, that a metagame can be rather fair at some point. So, what can we do to get there? Would a monotype where all ubers are banned work? That may leave us with few types that are actually competitive. Would you like it if zard - x was banned? Why? Is it actually balancing anything (18 matchups to consider)? Should types be allowed to get steamrolled by a single poke? There are many more questions you can ask or have an answer to, but I'm not creative enough at the moment to come up with any more.
Thanks for Stating the Obvious!
It is maybe human nature to already know we want the most fun, competitive metagame there is. Many of us like to check each others thoughts and say yay or nay, and that is what it should be, a community effort. I was very brick wall like to many a person today with this greninja thing really to just get an answer of why you guys like type bans so much, but not other types of bans (like ability bans). To me, it would seem if you're that open to a type ban, you're open to other things that really shouldn't exist to make the game more balanced and fun. If zekrom with 2 moves, along with many other poke rules added into the mix, made a perfect metagame, I was really astounded nobody was okay with doing that. Greninja would be the same pokemon but only has an ability ban, really the same principle, but the notions against it were overwhelming. Too complex this that and whatever (don't wanna deal with a zekrom case, didn't make a big enough impact). It would seem many are looking for the ultimate monotype metagame, but we are only looking for certain ways to get there, not all of the ways. More than likely it is probably better to not call upon zekrom, but the limitations as to how far we can go to having a perfect metagame is rather abysmal, I would say trying to fix the metagame is harder than just spouting ban this or that. In fact, we may be at the pinnacle of how good it can actually be already.
tl;dr Do we really know what we want?
I'm primarily a Grass user and even I could see that Shaymin-Sky was broken. I think most people would rather ban a broken mon and adapt to a new play style rather than hold onto something just because it was their favourite, especially if suspect tests only allow users at a certain level to ban/unban something.
This may be taking things a bit far, but does anyone thing that Monotype has a critical mass for a subforum (like PU) rather than just a thread, plus a core and viability thread?
To be honest, all I really want is to come to the monotype metagame, be able pick a type, build a team and be able to play a fair game for a bit of fun, without having to remember a heap of complex bans.
Personally, I feel like complex bans could be a bit of a slippery slope; once one happens, what's to stop others and and then you get a metagame where you have to sift through a page full of clauses for each type just to build a team, as well as counter another type. I don't necessarily think this would happen but just something to be wary of I guess.
DoW
formally Death on Wings
Well, to begin with we want our meta to be relatively simple, and to be in roughly the same place as OU given that's the standard tier for strong-but-not-OP mons. Honestly, alongside this post, I think that covers pretty much everything.
Next I should mention that suspect tests have been discussed, and while there's some obstacles in the way it's the reason that nothing's been done about such threats as M-Sab or M-Gallade on fighting. Stay tuned for more info.
Yes ArVaDa-, and I think the true step in accomplishing this is suspect testing. One of the primary differences between our metagame and those like OU and UU is that we don't take advantage of this option. Albeit, OU is not a perfect tier either, but it definitely helps a hell of a lot more if you can at least test out a metagame without a presence such as Zapdos rather than choosing to outright ban it based simply upon personal experience and what is said on these forums. What we really want, as you said before, is to balance the 18 types so that there is less of these "oh you have steel I lose" scenarios that we are coming across more and more nowadays (of course, we don't want to "overbalance" the types, as I believe was mentioned by Nani Man in an earlier post). And how do we accomplish this "metagame nirvana?" By considering, testing out, and voting upon ban decisions before actually banning the Pokemon itself. This is done in at least 6 other tiers, so why not us? Banning Pokemon (or items or abilities) without due trials is like NASA launching the Apollo 11 to the moon without having testing rocket boosters first. It's like heading into a semester final without ever actually studying the material, and expecting to get an A. With an ever-growing, popular metagame such as Monotype, I think that suspect testing needs to be seriously considered within the very near future. Because although we may never achieve a perfect metagame, we'll never get close if we continue to just toss around bans and hope they have a positive impact rather than a negative one.
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