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Pokémon Community Thread 3: "Soon, All of Hoenn Will Be Under Its Withering Glare "
- Thread starter UltimateIke
- Start date
IceDoesntHelp
Banned
Maybe once or twice (;
Yanmega is my second favourite. Holy shit it's just so cool.
Mamoswing being my #1 favourite of Gen IV
Yanmega and Mamoswine are the best ways to show how you don't fuck up a design, and evolutionary line.
ArchedThunder
Banned
Electivire.
Weavile
Leafeon
Glaceon
Gallade
Togekiss
Electivire
Mamoswine
Gliscor
Porygon-Z
Dusknoir
Electivire
Electivire
Aggrotek
Member
Ew Gallade forgot about that one.. ugh.
Favorites are Glaceon, Gliscor, Yanmega, then Weavile.
Gold and fabulous.
Top 5?
1. Leafeon
2. Mismagius
3. Weavile
4. Froslass
5. Yanmega
Yeah, both are pretty neat.
Top 5?
1. Leafeon
2. Mismagius
3. Weavile
4. Froslass
5. Yanmega
Yeah, both are pretty neat.
You forgot Electivire
Yeah, he's one of my all-time favourites. Electabuzz was one of my favourites in Gen I, and then they added Elekid who was equally awesome in an adorable way. Electivire finishes that line perfectly.
I would like Druddigon so much more if he looked like this. He looks like some kind of Rock/Dragon Gargoyle badass.
IceDoesntHelp
Banned
Instead they let some kid colour him.
Aggrotek
Member
I have a shiny Sneasel!Gold and fabulous.
Top 5?
1. Leafeon
2. Mismagius
3. Weavile
4. Froslass
5. Yanmega
Yeah, both are pretty neat.
ArchedThunder
Banned
At least he colored in the lines!
IceDoesntHelp
Banned
oh my god, his shiny is even worse.
Never seen it before.
Never seen it before.
ArchedThunder
Banned
I like Ursaring, but Beartic can shove off.
IceDoesntHelp
Banned
Thats a really cool Pokemon design dad, here let me colour it.
No, I can't let you do that son.
Fine.
2am that night, the son colours in the picture for his dad, this is the result.
ShmeebAlina
Member
Gallade is my favourite of the Gen IV evos, fun to use online too in conjunction with Tailwind. Second place would go to Yanmega.
I used Leafeon and Porygon-Z in my Platinum playthrough. Leafeon grew on me, for some reason it looks more adorable in the Platinum sprite than in DP or the official art.
I used Leafeon and Porygon-Z in my Platinum playthrough. Leafeon grew on me, for some reason it looks more adorable in the Platinum sprite than in DP or the official art.
I believe this was the inspiration:
I think they're called agamas, there's a few species of lizard with blue bodies and red, purple or orange heads. That said, knowing the inspiration behind something doesn't always make it better, I find it quite unappealing compared to other dragon types.
ArchedThunder
Banned
I will forever hate Druddigon because it almost made me lose a Nuzlocke.Gallade is my favourite of the Gen IV evos, fun to use online too in conjunction with Tailwind. Second place would go to Yanmega.
I used Leafeon and Porygon-Z in my Platinum playthrough. Leafeon grew on me, for some reason it looks more adorable in the Platinum sprite than in DP or the official art.
I believe this was the inspiration:
I think they're called agamas, there's a few species of lizard with blue bodies and red, purple or orange heads. That said, knowing the inspiration behind something doesn't always make it better, I find it quite unappealing compared to other dragon types.
IceDoesntHelp
Banned
tiggerkiddo
Member
Leafeon, Ambipom...seriously, Leafeon is really that cool. Didn't think much of his design at first but I fell in love with his ingame sprite. Ambipom was the MVP of the group, the swiss army knife who could handle anything.
Cute Dragon Here
Member
...But I preferred colourful Druddy. He's more cute that way.
Then again, I'm weird when it comes to Pokémon.
PreyingShark
Member
That awkward moment when you realize that you wanted to breed Extreme Speed onto it:
Ewwwwww, I much prefer his actual coloring. :/ I like Druddigon's design quite a lot, colors and all.
Also, the RNG that decides which IVs to pass down is a troll.
Ewwwwww, I much prefer his actual coloring. :/ I like Druddigon's design quite a lot, colors and all.
Cute Dragon Here
Member
The red and blue complements each other well, I think.
(Remind me, what colour was used to represent Dragon in Gen III?)
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
I actually think Druddy is cute.
Not sure, but people speculated that it's its French evolution name.
Not sure, but people speculated that it's its French evolution name.
Aggrotek
Member
Hello everyone, the latest episode of my White 2 Chaoslocke is live! Go check it out!
Please "like" and comment! It helps me get more views.
That is Unfortunate...
Please "like" and comment! It helps me get more views.
That is Unfortunate...
Cute Dragon Here
Member
Speaking of Druddy being cute (I liked him in the anime)
What other Pokémon that you find cute that are... unusual?
Okay been a fan of Pokemon for years and bought all the games and shit and fucking love it all
but for the life of me I haven't a clue how competitive battling works
I understand the concept of IVs and EVs but haven't a clue how to train them specifically. I don't get the uber, OU etc tier thingy thats on Smogon. I see that a lot of people use the same Pokemon because they're good at battling but some are Pokemon I hate.
Is there no way of me just picking Pokemon I like the first time round and being decent competitively/against you guys when XY comes out, or would I have to adhere to a specific list and EV train which takes forever and shit? I always mean to join in more here because I fucking love talking Pokeshop but I haven't a bollock what you talk about most the time :lol
but for the life of me I haven't a clue how competitive battling works
I understand the concept of IVs and EVs but haven't a clue how to train them specifically. I don't get the uber, OU etc tier thingy thats on Smogon. I see that a lot of people use the same Pokemon because they're good at battling but some are Pokemon I hate.
Is there no way of me just picking Pokemon I like the first time round and being decent competitively/against you guys when XY comes out, or would I have to adhere to a specific list and EV train which takes forever and shit? I always mean to join in more here because I fucking love talking Pokeshop but I haven't a bollock what you talk about most the time :lol
Aggrotek
Member
We have no clue how the competitive Metagame will change after x/y come out. There could be new gameplay mechanics that change everything.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
For EV's, every Pokemon gives effort points for beating them. Without going into statistics, you find a Pokemon who gives effort points for the stat you want to level, and knock out dozens of them to max out that stat.
Pokemon are separated into tiers because some Pokemon just plain suck compared to others. For example, statistically, Typhlosion has very little on Infernape. So that he isn't constantly getting his ass kicked by Infernape and other Pokemon with similar stats, he gets put into a lower tier with Pokemon whose stats are closer to his. So Pokemon that are "inferior" aren't just completely disregarded and get to have their own metagame, and Pokemon that are excessively strong (legendaries such as Mewtwo, Kyogre, Arceus) get put into a higher tier and all have to fight each other.
Cute Dragon Here
Member
Just find people that battle with a different set of rules if you don't like competitive battling. Someone like me. There's bound to be a lot of others that share the same sentiment, to.
You seem like you want to use you in game team to battle competitively. Don't do this. You're going to want to breed a new team from scratch after you beat the game.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
The aim of tiers is to always have some standard in which a Pokemon will be useable. This means tiers are split in two ways: firstly by centralization, and secondly by useage. Jump back for a moment to RBY, and say you had absolutely no restrictions on what Pokemon could be used. Everyone would always use Mewtwo and 5 Mewtwo counters. It's clear that the presence of Mewtwo causes every single match to revolve around Mewtwo in some respect - either Mewtwo itself, or something that deals with Mewtwo. So, the solution is to ban Mewtwo from the current standard. Mewtwo ends up in the Uber tier.
So, now you no longer have a standard that revolves entirely around one Pokemon. Instead, it revolves around 15 or 16 Pokemon, and the remaining 70 odd don't see any use. Banning one of those 16 doesn't really help. When you banned Mewtwo, the metagame went from revolving around 1 Pokemon to revolving around 16. If you ban one of these 16, it doesn't cause more Pokemon to be viable - you'll just have 15 in use, because the disparity in power between these 15 and the next group is sufficiently large. There's no point in individual Mewtwo style bans, so you just ban by useage - for example, all Pokemon that appear in 1 in 20 matches or more, are banned from the current format. So now, we have an Ubers (with Mewtwo), an "Over-used" with the 16 most-used Pokemon, and an "Under-used" with the rest.
We'll now see a pretty similar problem as before. Dragonite wasn't one of those Pokemon used more than in 1 in 20 teams. However, in this new "Under-used", it is now so powerful in comparison to everything left, teams revolve entirely around bringing Dragonite out, or bringing Dragonite counters out. Dragonite is this banned from the Under-used tiers, and ends up in Border-line.
We've still not solved the problem though, because this new Under-used revolves around only another new set of 15 or 16 Pokemon, and the remaining 40 not in Ubers, OU, BL or in the top of UU still don't see any use and aren't really viable choices. So, we have to repeat the process of banning the Pokemon which are most used in UU. So, take out the Pokemon which are used in more than 1 in 20 UU teams, and you have yourself a NU tier. Again, as before, there may be some Pokemon (or even a few) that centralizes this tier, and they'll be removed to Borderline 2. This is how the tiers develop:
Ubers
OU
BL1
UU
BL2
RU
BL3
NU
...and so on. The names are a little confusing because they evolved organically as terms. A better convention might be something like:
Ban List 1
Tier 1 Useage
Ban List 2
Tier 2 Useage
Ban List 3
Tier 3 Useage
Ban List 4
Tier 4 Useage
...and so on.
The result is that no matter which Pokemon is your favourite, you should be able to find some metagame where they can be viable. You love Walrein, but everyone else is using Garchomp and stomping all over you? No problem! You can play UU, where Walrein can Hailstall everything to the bitter end. You love Beautifly, but everyone else is using Walrein and freezing your dreams? No problem! You can play NU, where Beautifly can be a surprisingly good sweeper/sleeper. That's ultimately what tiers are for. You don't have to pick from a specific list of Pokemon at all. It's just a way of "moderating" fights - preventing people from bringing guns to a knife-fight. If you play Over-used, it's pretty no holds barred except for the super-legendaries being removed, so you don't really have to worry about your choices apart from whether they're likely to net you the win or not.
Most of the bitching from tiers comes from the fact that while it's quite easy to tell whether a Pokemon is Tier 1 Useage or Tier 2 Useage (we can just measure useage from server stats), it's much more difficult to separate between Tier X Useage and Ban List X. You can't really measure it very easily. It is technically possible to do (ban a Pokemon, then see if the number of Pokemon being used in more than 1 in 20 teams is higher or lower than before. If higher, it wasn't centralizing and can be unbanned, if not, retain the ban) but that can be a very difficult and arduous process because you have to allow some time to allow everything to settle after something is banned, and even then there are useage trends which change over time, and it can be difficult to separate changes in useage trends from changes as a result of a ban.
The result is that most of the argument about whether something should be sent to a Ban List revolves around how personal experience of how powerful that Pokemon is and how much you bear it in mind when designing a team - after all, the more you think about it and build your team about, presumably the more freedom you'd have in team-building were it not there. That invites personal anecdotes rather than statistical data into the process, which with a strong and passionate community is obviously where things are going to get messy.
It gets particularly messy with regard to Tier 1 Useage (Over-used, or OU) and Ban List 1 (Ubers), because of the fact the tiering process was until recently rather more organic and has only become a more structured and (arguably) accurate process lately. Ubers for Gen 1, Gen 2 and arguably Gen 3 was truthfully only a ban-list, occupied by a few Pokemon that would have dominated any larger pool into which they were released. Since Gen 4, Ubers has arguably become a largely balanced metagame in its own right. There are so many super-legendaries that they all balance each other out so to speak. However, people associate the tier title "Ubers" with these super-legendaries such as Mewtwo, and thus "Ubers" remains the top ban list.
As such, at the start of each generation, Smogon isn't doing the process described above: starting with everything unbanned, and then proceeding step by step from there. Instead, certain assumptions are made straight off the bat based on these preconceptions of what the Ubers and Overused tiers should look like. The result is that there are many different ideas of what should lead a Pokemon to be put in either Ubers or Overused. Some people view it from this "Ubers is the tier that contains Mewtwo and the other super-legendaries by default" perspective, the more evolutionary perspective. Others view it in the more procedural manners, which is "Ubers it the tier that contains only those Pokemon which cannot possibly exist in a balanced metagame".
Given Overused is the most played standard, and given there is a need to sort Pokemon into categories, but with insufficiently clear criteria and a heavy basis on personal anecdotes, it's inevitable there will be a bit of turbulence. Personally, I lean more towards the procedural system. For X and Y's metagame, I'd prefer to see a "first 6 months have everything unbanned", and move on from there. However, the evolutionary perspective is not wrong per se, it's just a different way of approaching the issue. Typically, the procedural approach tends to be rather liberal about banlists, aiming for minimalism, and the evolutionary approach tends to build on banlists previously established in past generations, so they expand over time.
Anyway, probably went slightly too into depth there and I'm "retired" from the scene so particular examples may be dated/wrong (no idea what tier Walrein is these days, just guessing), but that's how tiers work and why there's a fuss about them. They're important things to have, but given how complex Pokemon is, they're rather hard to get right.
So, now you no longer have a standard that revolves entirely around one Pokemon. Instead, it revolves around 15 or 16 Pokemon, and the remaining 70 odd don't see any use. Banning one of those 16 doesn't really help. When you banned Mewtwo, the metagame went from revolving around 1 Pokemon to revolving around 16. If you ban one of these 16, it doesn't cause more Pokemon to be viable - you'll just have 15 in use, because the disparity in power between these 15 and the next group is sufficiently large. There's no point in individual Mewtwo style bans, so you just ban by useage - for example, all Pokemon that appear in 1 in 20 matches or more, are banned from the current format. So now, we have an Ubers (with Mewtwo), an "Over-used" with the 16 most-used Pokemon, and an "Under-used" with the rest.
We'll now see a pretty similar problem as before. Dragonite wasn't one of those Pokemon used more than in 1 in 20 teams. However, in this new "Under-used", it is now so powerful in comparison to everything left, teams revolve entirely around bringing Dragonite out, or bringing Dragonite counters out. Dragonite is this banned from the Under-used tiers, and ends up in Border-line.
We've still not solved the problem though, because this new Under-used revolves around only another new set of 15 or 16 Pokemon, and the remaining 40 not in Ubers, OU, BL or in the top of UU still don't see any use and aren't really viable choices. So, we have to repeat the process of banning the Pokemon which are most used in UU. So, take out the Pokemon which are used in more than 1 in 20 UU teams, and you have yourself a NU tier. Again, as before, there may be some Pokemon (or even a few) that centralizes this tier, and they'll be removed to Borderline 2. This is how the tiers develop:
Ubers
OU
BL1
UU
BL2
RU
BL3
NU
...and so on. The names are a little confusing because they evolved organically as terms. A better convention might be something like:
Ban List 1
Tier 1 Useage
Ban List 2
Tier 2 Useage
Ban List 3
Tier 3 Useage
Ban List 4
Tier 4 Useage
...and so on.
The result is that no matter which Pokemon is your favourite, you should be able to find some metagame where they can be viable. You love Walrein, but everyone else is using Garchomp and stomping all over you? No problem! You can play UU, where Walrein can Hailstall everything to the bitter end. You love Beautifly, but everyone else is using Walrein and freezing your dreams? No problem! You can play NU, where Beautifly can be a surprisingly good sweeper/sleeper. That's ultimately what tiers are for. You don't have to pick from a specific list of Pokemon at all. It's just a way of "moderating" fights - preventing people from bringing guns to a knife-fight. If you play Over-used, it's pretty no holds barred except for the super-legendaries being removed, so you don't really have to worry about your choices apart from whether they're likely to net you the win or not.
Most of the bitching from tiers comes from the fact that while it's quite easy to tell whether a Pokemon is Tier 1 Useage or Tier 2 Useage (we can just measure useage from server stats), it's much more difficult to separate between Tier X Useage and Ban List X. You can't really measure it very easily. It is technically possible to do (ban a Pokemon, then see if the number of Pokemon being used in more than 1 in 20 teams is higher or lower than before. If higher, it wasn't centralizing and can be unbanned, if not, retain the ban) but that can be a very difficult and arduous process because you have to allow some time to allow everything to settle after something is banned, and even then there are useage trends which change over time, and it can be difficult to separate changes in useage trends from changes as a result of a ban.
The result is that most of the argument about whether something should be sent to a Ban List revolves around how personal experience of how powerful that Pokemon is and how much you bear it in mind when designing a team - after all, the more you think about it and build your team about, presumably the more freedom you'd have in team-building were it not there. That invites personal anecdotes rather than statistical data into the process, which with a strong and passionate community is obviously where things are going to get messy.
It gets particularly messy with regard to Tier 1 Useage (Over-used, or OU) and Ban List 1 (Ubers), because of the fact the tiering process was until recently rather more organic and has only become a more structured and (arguably) accurate process lately. Ubers for Gen 1, Gen 2 and arguably Gen 3 was truthfully only a ban-list, occupied by a few Pokemon that would have dominated any larger pool into which they were released. Since Gen 4, Ubers has arguably become a largely balanced metagame in its own right. There are so many super-legendaries that they all balance each other out so to speak. However, people associate the tier title "Ubers" with these super-legendaries such as Mewtwo, and thus "Ubers" remains the top ban list.
As such, at the start of each generation, Smogon isn't doing the process described above: starting with everything unbanned, and then proceeding step by step from there. Instead, certain assumptions are made straight off the bat based on these preconceptions of what the Ubers and Overused tiers should look like. The result is that there are many different ideas of what should lead a Pokemon to be put in either Ubers or Overused. Some people view it from this "Ubers is the tier that contains Mewtwo and the other super-legendaries by default" perspective, the more evolutionary perspective. Others view it in the more procedural manners, which is "Ubers it the tier that contains only those Pokemon which cannot possibly exist in a balanced metagame".
Given Overused is the most played standard, and given there is a need to sort Pokemon into categories, but with insufficiently clear criteria and a heavy basis on personal anecdotes, it's inevitable there will be a bit of turbulence. Personally, I lean more towards the procedural system. For X and Y's metagame, I'd prefer to see a "first 6 months have everything unbanned", and move on from there. However, the evolutionary perspective is not wrong per se, it's just a different way of approaching the issue. Typically, the procedural approach tends to be rather liberal about banlists, aiming for minimalism, and the evolutionary approach tends to build on banlists previously established in past generations, so they expand over time.
Anyway, probably went slightly too into depth there and I'm "retired" from the scene so particular examples may be dated/wrong (no idea what tier Walrein is these days, just guessing), but that's how tiers work and why there's a fuss about them. They're important things to have, but given how complex Pokemon is, they're rather hard to get right.
haunted_taco
Member
I recently lost my 3ds plus a bunch of games with it.
The financial hit sucked but gamewise losing my pokemon save sucked the worst, I had EV trained guys on there I've had through like 3 games now
anyway I have a new 3DS and bought another copy of White 2 if maybe some of you would mind helping me get stocked back up with some new mons at some point.
The financial hit sucked but gamewise losing my pokemon save sucked the worst, I had EV trained guys on there I've had through like 3 games now
anyway I have a new 3DS and bought another copy of White 2 if maybe some of you would mind helping me get stocked back up with some new mons at some point.
With X & Y, there's a special mode that really helps EV training, so don't fret
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Oh, and for the Gen 4 evolutions:
Good
Dusknoir
Froslass
Gliscor
Honchkrow
Mismagius
Roserade
Weavile
Meh
Electivire
Gallade
Glaceon
Leafeon
Porygon-Z
Togekiss
Terrible
Ambipom
Magmortar
Magnezone
Mamoswine
Rhyperior
Tangrowth
Yanmega
So-Terrible-It's-Actually-Amazing,-Better-Than-All-Yours-Faves
Lickilicky
Probopass
Good
Dusknoir
Froslass
Gliscor
Honchkrow
Mismagius
Roserade
Weavile
Meh
Electivire
Gallade
Glaceon
Leafeon
Porygon-Z
Togekiss
Terrible
Ambipom
Magmortar
Magnezone
Mamoswine
Rhyperior
Tangrowth
Yanmega
So-Terrible-It's-Actually-Amazing,-Better-Than-All-Yours-Faves
Lickilicky
Probopass
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Tiers function differently (sorta) in Poke-metagame since it allows people to use their favorite mons without fear of having stronger ones go over them. And if you think you can go for it, use weaker mons on high tier play.
tiggerkiddo
Member
That aside, I give them credit for trying to give some love to some older Pokemon who either didn't have evolutions or only had one.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Also wut? Why is Yanmega terribad? It made an awful pokemon actually useful and finally it looked like a killer dragonfly!
The only bad gen IV evo I can think of are Magmortar and Lickitung and only because they were bad looking to begin with with their pre-evo.
The only bad gen IV evo I can think of are Magmortar and Lickitung and only because they were bad looking to begin with with their pre-evo.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
-shrugs- I think what gets me with Yanmega is the difference between Yanma and Yanmega. They barely look like part of the same evolutionary line. I think Yanmega is a fine design, but it just doesn't feel like what Yanma deserved. It's the eyes particularly that bug (heh) me, I think.
Ah okay
Weavile, Gallade, Electivire, Magmortar and Magnezone are all awesome
I also like froslass, rhyperior (no shitstorm plzz) and yanmega
I dont really like any of the gen IV eeveelutions (glaceon is boring and leafeon looks a bit odd I believe) tangrowth is also pretty lame and lickilicky has a terrible name and a ugly design, I used to think lickitung was cute tho
Also probopass fucking stinks wtf they thinking, that someone would actually like this pokemon? I didnt like nosepass either, they're both pretty useless IMO
Red and blue if im not mistaken
YAAY!
that other guy on your show, sexy robotnik i believe his name was, do you know him IRL? He's hilarious and I was just curious
Aggrotek
Member
YAAY!
No, he's just a really good YT friend. He's a cool dude.
PreyingShark
Member
Oh? Looking forward to that, then.
I like RSE until about the 8th gym, too much Water near the end. I agree that in some aspects, it felt rushed.