Swift Swim, Exadrill and Chandelure

[Kamina]

Discussion about Swift Swim/ Exadrill and Chand

Read EVERYTHING before you post please : )

I know it has been previously discussed here but after my years of laddering in reborn tiers (and being in the top multiple times) I think it is about time that they go

My reasons for it are simple; they take away originality from competitive battling.

You are probably wondering "how so" (if you don't competitively ladder here)

I will start with Chandelure since it has been discussed here previously

- It has already been stated before but they will always trap and kill a Pokemon and unless you run a pursuit er it will mostly likely not be the only Pokemon that gets trapped and killed

- You can escape chandelure by running shed shell but many walls/sweepers rely on their items to make them more durable like gliscor with toxic orb and fortress with leftovers (only mode of recovery) and they serve a pivotal role in teams and with them down it take away synergy in teams and makes them much easier to beat

- Hail is not viable at all since abomasnow will always die to a chand unless shed shelled in which case it would be almost impossible to set up hail since Abomasnow does not have any mode of recovery besides leach seed and with all its weaknesses it’s almost impossible to set up hail

- non weather abusering sweepers are no longer used because they can easily be revenged killed by scarf chand

- teamed up with rotom-w it has near perfect synergy only being able to be stopped by walls like chansy and blissy

- Yah its weak to hazards but theres a move called rapid spin

Just recently slant posted an RMT in which he got to top with a gimmicky swift swim team that he had made in just five minutes (probably less)

Making it to the top should require making a team with more thought put into it. Heck atm I am also top and I made a sand team in literally 3 minutes and is posted in the bottom with screen shoot of achievement

Ludicolo in the rain counters almost every pokemon (I am assuming the moveset focus blast/giga drain/ice beam/hydro pump

No sweeper can outrun it and will almost always be onhitkoed by its moves and no priority move (expecially if there are hazards) is super effective against it so that it also out of the question. The only pokemon that can successfully stop it in its trail and is OU is Chancy / Blissey

Exadrill in the sand is also OP especially if it is allowed to get up an SD. Assuming the set that I used which was SD/Earthquake/Iron Head/Return it will onehitko any pokemon in the current meta. The only counters to this beast are strong pokemons with mach punch like breloom but they are easily countered by chand and so are most of exadrills counters like skarm and gliscor

You can read up on slants rmt which is below if you want more examples of swift swimmers ruining the Meta game.

http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4699#entry77349

and Slants post which needs to be read by everyone

Sure we can wait until X and Y comes out before discussing the tiers, but I have a strong feeling that we'll be having this discussion again after that. Why don't we just have it now so that everyone knows exactly what the issues are? Even if tiers aren't implemented by then (but seriously I think it will take 5 minutes to implement them if we reach an agreement), if nothing else we'll have a better understanding of what's imbalanced and what isn't moving forward. First off, let's agree on what makes a pokemon inbalanced in the tier. It's not godly stats - look at Kyurem-B. It's the fact that the pokemon will overcentralize the metagame. For instance, if Kyogre were brought down from Ubers, everyone would be running Ferrothorn, Chansey, and Gastrodon on their teams. This is overcentralization. Anyone making a new team would be forced to run at least one of these 3 counters on their team, which essentially means every new team has 5 free slots for pokemon instead of 6. Swift swim does exactly the same thing. There are very few counters to swift swim teams, meaning any team that has a hope of succeeding on the ladder must run these counters. This is overcentralization of the metagame and stifles creativity. Chandelure is a different story altogether, in that it has no counters. Sure, it can be revenge killed easily, but that's not the point. Chandelure's whole job is to eliminate problem pokemon - if it has done that, it has succeeded. Consider if the opponent has a Gliscor that is preventing my Excadrill sweep, all I have to do is trap it with Chandelure and KO it with HP Ice. From there, I don't care that Tyranitar can revenge kill my Chandelure with pursuit, since Chandelure has done its job already and Excadrill is free to sweep. The only viable counter, in the sense of preventing Chandelure from getting its job done, is Shed Shell. Once you have to shed shell everything, this is overcentralization again. Here are some counterarguments which really should not be used: "Why would you ban swift swim but not chlorophyll?" Because no fire pokemon gets chlorophyll, while most swift swimmers are water types. This means that swift swimmers enjoy a boosted stab move from the rain, on top of doubled speed. To put it in perspective, in rain, surf is perfectly accurate and the same base power as draco meteor (not even factoring in the STAB boost), with no special attack drop. Hydro pump's base power, including stab and rain boost, becomes 1.5*1.5*120=270. This is higher than the power of explosion. So essentially you are spamming explosions. At double speed. This is ridiculous. "Chandelure is countered by shed shell." See above, this is overcentralization. If you shed shell every single pokemon then yeah I guess Chandelure will be ok. Plus naming a single counter isn't really a good reason why something is not overpowered - for example (again) I can just say that Gastrodon counters Kyogre. Boom! Kyogre for OU! "If you don't like it go to clear skies." Crazy! What if I want to play a game with weather that just doesn't have broken pokemon? Plus, when was the last time anyone laddered in CS? "Reborn's tiers are what make it unique, we can't change it to Smogon's tiers!" This is ridiculous and implies that people come to Reborn solely for the purpose of abusing broken pokemon that they can't use elsewhere. Yeah I guess if we make these changes then those people will go away, but I like to think people come here for the community or something. Moving forward, if the auth doesn't think that having this discussion is productive, another good use of our time is to discuss exactly how to make tiering changes in the future. From what I can tell there are no set rules in place and everything is done kind of haphazardly; I'd like to see a concrete system put into place. For instance voting system - how often do we get to vote on tier changes? who proposes them? who gets to vote?

Thank you for taking your time and I would like to see other peoples take on getting rid of swiftswim/ exadrill and Chandelure so feel free to post below but please be respectable in your post :]

Thank you

[Amethyst]

As well said as that all may be, I also want to throw this out there--

Is having a discussion as historically volatile as this worth it when we're only going to be using these tiers for ~2 more months?

[Bowser]

I totally side with the fact that this may only be occuring until X & Y's release. So until then we can bear witht this nuisance for 2 more months. But if it persists even after the meta changes then it'll be a real problem then Q~Q

I'm confident Ame and the others will come up with something if that occurs

But what makes this place unique is the fact that its tier listings are different from that of Showdown and the official league. Such as no team is allowed to have Swift Swim and Drizzle on the same team. This forces one to be more creative with their team if they want to use Drizzle or a Rain Team on a whole.

Like I said before Ame will think of something

[Noivy]

I am going to back Amethyst and wait for the introduction of X&Y before I even bother to think about tiers.

[Cowtao]

Realistically this nuisance, as far as I know, has been in the reborn server for awhile. Banning Swift Swim would then lead to banning Genesect, then Landorus-I, then Thundurus, then Blaziken, then basically every other pokemon that every smogonite would shout evil and blasphemy to. This steps in all will probably take 2 months to process and by then X & Y will be out. Banning Swift Swim would be nice though as practically everyone is running rampant with Swift Swim Ludicolo, Mantine, and Kingdra. >.>

Edited August 5, 2013 by Cowtao

[Godot]

Personally, I am agaisnt banning anything... but if we run it in a separate tier... then maybe...

It would also make moderating laddering better if we ever decide to do something with it...

Then again... clear skies exists for a reason...

I also agree with the point that if we ban one thing... it will cause a chain of reation that will lead us to banning other things

[Godot]

However... if we ban shandy from clear skies... we might as well get rid of Genosect too...

I doubt x and y will do anything to them to make them less powerful...

If anything, they might get stronger

[Kamina]

Bad godot

you double posted

as for slipery slope i think its actually worth it because ss and exadrill are really ruining the meta game.

but i really dont see how banning weather leads to banning landorus-i or banning genesect dx its not like weather countered either one of them (rock polish landorus outspeeds exadrill and the swift swimmers and genesect can be dealt with prediction tho chandy did doo a nice job countering it

2 more months 2 long i cant take des overpowder pokes ;(

were unique in a bad way which is my main point @ bowser

i mean if people can just build teams in 3-5 min and make it to top what does that say about the tiers here?

[Joker]

Pretty much agree with Ame about waiting for X&Y. Who knows, Gen 6 might bring so much OP shit that those 3 might be needed to balance it out, doubtful, but it could happen.

That aside, and just talking about those 3 in general. While it can be argued that they can be dealt with, the checks and counters are very limited in terms of ones that work 100%. Examples being Ferrothorn for Kingdra, Skarmory for Excadrill, and Tyranitar for Chandelure. The latter requires something to die, or the best case scenario something has a shed shell, like if you have a Skarmory or Ferrothorn to bait it. While I can't really defend Kingdra and Excadrill, and I really hate Chandelure with ST. I can at least think of one good way to keep ST Chandy in Reborn without a ton of complaining. That would be Team Preview, or making Wi-fi battles on Ladder, maybe both. If people know the opponent have a ST Chandy, which on Reborn, everyone would, then they would be much more careful with the things on their team that Chandy can easily trap and kill. I think the main reason ST Chandy is so OP is because no one knows when someone is running it, and it makes it very easy to trap and kill. Regardless of any of that, I do think these 3 make the meta game overcentralized, and prevents creativity because if you're not trying to defend against it, you're abusing it. However, we also have Clear Skies, which Wolf up there mentioned. That was the solution to SS and SR abusers. People begged and pleaded for it, and yet no one battles in that tier. It was literally active for a solid week at best.

TL;DR: ST Chandy can be nerfed with Team Preview and Wifi battles, and if you battle in CS, the weather abusers aren't a problem either. Chandy is nerfed, no OP weather, everyone wins and nothing gets banned!

Anyway, that's my say on it. Maybe once X&Y rolls around things will be better. Who knows. Peace.

[slant]

Sure we can wait until X and Y comes out before discussing the tiers, but I have a strong feeling that we'll be having this discussion again after that. Why don't we just have it now so that everyone knows exactly what the issues are? Even if tiers aren't implemented by then (but seriously I think it will take 5 minutes to implement them if we reach an agreement), if nothing else we'll have a better understanding of what's imbalanced and what isn't moving forward.

First off, let's agree on what makes a pokemon inbalanced in the tier. It's not godly stats - look at Kyurem-B. It's the fact that the pokemon will overcentralize the metagame. For instance, if Kyogre were brought down from Ubers, everyone would be running Ferrothorn, Chansey, and Gastrodon on their teams. This is overcentralization. Anyone making a new team would be forced to run at least one of these 3 counters on their team, which essentially means every new team has 5 free slots for pokemon instead of 6. Swift swim does exactly the same thing. There are very few counters to swift swim teams, meaning any team that has a hope of succeeding on the ladder must run these counters. This is overcentralization of the metagame and stifles creativity.

Chandelure is a different story altogether, in that it has no counters. Sure, it can be revenge killed easily, but that's not the point. Chandelure's whole job is to eliminate problem pokemon - if it has done that, it has succeeded. Consider if the opponent has a Gliscor that is preventing my Excadrill sweep, all I have to do is trap it with Chandelure and KO it with HP Ice. From there, I don't care that Tyranitar can revenge kill my Chandelure with pursuit, since Chandelure has done its job already and Excadrill is free to sweep. The only viable counter, in the sense of preventing Chandelure from getting its job done, is Shed Shell. Once you have to shed shell everything, this is overcentralization again.

Here are some counterarguments which really should not be used:

• "Why would you ban swift swim but not chlorophyll?"

Because no fire pokemon gets chlorophyll, while most swift swimmers are water types. This means that swift swimmers enjoy a boosted stab move from the rain, on top of doubled speed. To put it in perspective, in rain, surf is perfectly accurate and the same base power as draco meteor (not even factoring in the STAB boost), with no special attack drop. Hydro pump's base power, including stab and rain boost, becomes 1.5*1.5*120=270. This is higher than the power of explosion. So essentially you are spamming explosions. At double speed. This is ridiculous.

• "Chandelure is countered by shed shell."

See above, this is overcentralization. If you shed shell every single pokemon then yeah I guess Chandelure will be ok. Plus naming a single counter isn't really a good reason why something is not overpowered - for example (again) I can just say that Gastrodon counters Kyogre. Boom! Kyogre for OU!

• "If you don't like it go to clear skies."

Crazy! What if I want to play a game with weather that just doesn't have broken pokemon? Plus, when was the last time anyone laddered in CS?

• "Reborn's tiers are what make it unique, we can't change it to Smogon's tiers!"

This is ridiculous and implies that people come to Reborn solely for the purpose of abusing broken pokemon that they can't use elsewhere. Yeah I guess if we make these changes then those people will go away, but I like to think people come here for the community or something.

Moving forward, if the auth doesn't think that having this discussion is productive, another good use of our time is to discuss exactly how to make tiering changes in the future. From what I can tell there are no set rules in place and everything is done kind of haphazardly; I'd like to see a concrete system put into place. For instance voting system - how often do we get to vote on tier changes? who proposes them? who gets to vote?

[Godot]

You guys can discuss it I just don't think we should make any changes to our core tier...

My question is... will Gen 6 really make any serious changes to the Metagame?

I don't think Fairy and Topsy Turvy will do anything game breaking

[Jory]

I agree completely with Kamina and Slant. As someone who started using Scarf Chandy the moment I realized it had Shadow Tag, I can honestly say that thing is grossly overpowered and needs more checks than Choice Band Spiritomb.

I would also like to add that many Swift Swim and Sand Rush abusers, such as Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Excadrill, are bulky Pokemon in addition to having good if not phenomenal attacking stats. Ludicolo is really the only thing that counters Ludicolo and Kingdra at this point. Just think about that for a second:

In order to counter Ludicolo, YOU HAVE TO RUN IT.

That's some real time bullshit right there. I shouldn't have to have something already set up or feel obligated to run a specific Pokemon just to prevent myself from being swept by it. As Slant said earlier, this is simply overcentralization and is something that needs to be avoided. The painful thing about laddering here is seeing a distinct lack of originality begin to show up on the ladder. Every time I see a lead T-Tar or Hippowdon, I literally sigh in disappointment. This is because before I changed my team to include a Breloom, which we've already established is the only really reliable counter to Excadrill, I found myself being swept by it entirely too often.

And as much as we love to demonize Smogon for having strict tiers, there is in fact a reason for those tiers. It is because the Pokemon who have been banned to Ubers have been empirically proven to be game-breaking. There is statistical evidence suggesting just how broken things like Swift Swim Kingdra/Ludicolo and Sand Rush Excadrill are. To toss this evidence by the wayside and continue stumbling blindly around our tier lists is not simply ignorant, but frustrating to the point that those who dislike the overt dominance of weather in the metagame have to take action because our authority (who are rarely actually seen on the ladder themselves) refuse to acknowledge the fact that different does not necessarily mean better.

[Bowser]

Bad godot

you double posted

as for slipery slope i think its actually worth it because ss and exadrill are really ruining the meta game.

but i really dont see how banning weather leads to banning landorus-i or banning genesect dx its not like weather countered either one of them (rock polish landorus outspeeds exadrill and the swift swimmers and genesect can be dealt with prediction tho chandy did doo a nice job countering it

2 more months 2 long i cant take des overpowder pokes ;(

were unique in a bad way which is my main point @ bowser

i mean if people can just build teams in 3-5 min and make it to top what does that say about the tiers here?

I see your point, but maybe if we emphasize 'Clear Skies' as our OU then, push OU into a side tier to help settle the issue. I'm wondering how this affects the Reborn League though. Don't the fire, water, ground, rock and ice gyms use the weather?

However, this will benefit us in the long run as we are then forced to be more creative in making our teams and not relying on the weather to do our work.

I myself love to use the rain to ladder, but evetually the fun of doing it disappears and I started to ladder without swift swimmers. Seeing others struggle to outspeed a pokemon w/ double spd is just.... cruel. Its sad to see others haven't realised this yet.

[Neo]

I can see where each and every one of you is coming from.

However, If I may, let me explain you a thing. Reborn, in the last two and a half years, inflated from a small community of 10-15 max to the mega server we see today. Aside from League, there was little to no battling, aside from the occasional tournament. This meant that the ladder was nonexistent.

"> Laddering

> Reborn

Choose one"

We were lax on tiers, because, well battling was for fun. We did it almost exclusively for pleasure.With the exception of Bullet's ridiculous stall, we didn't really gravitate towards the "broken Pokemon". Everyone used whatever they felt like using.

Now here we are 2 1/2 years later. We're a legit powerhouse server with a game gaining us popularity by the minute. Suddenly laddering has importance other than a cynical comment to be made every once-in-a-while. Naturally, we want to hold onto what we identified Reborn with for so long. A small community that's lax on battling.

I think it may be possible to find a happy medium. However, this would require both sides to respect the other's feelings. Laddering has already left a bad taste in many of our mouths due to unsavory users taking advantage of the system to win some nonexistent rupees.

I'll touch on more things in another post.

[anethia]

I can see where each and every one of you is coming from.

However, If I may, let me explain you a thing. Reborn, in the last two and a half years, inflated from a small community of 10-15 max to the mega server we see today. Aside from League, there was little to no battling, aside from the occasional tournament. This meant that the ladder was nonexistent.

"> Laddering

> Reborn

Choose one"

We were lax on tiers, because, well battling was for fun. We did it almost exclusively for pleasure.With the exception of Bullet's ridiculous stall, we didn't really gravitate towards the "broken Pokemon". Everyone used whatever they felt like using.

Now here we are 2 1/2 years later. We're a legit powerhouse server with a game gaining us popularity by the minute. Suddenly laddering has importance other than a cynical comment to be made every once-in-a-while. Naturally, we want to hold onto what we identified Reborn with for so long. A small community that's lax on battling.

I think it may be possible to find a happy medium. However, this would require both sides to respect the other's feelings. Laddering has already left a bad taste in many of our mouths due to unsavory users taking advantage of the system to win some nonexistent rupees.

I'll touch on more things in another post.

Can I just say. This. All of this. 100% this. What I wanted to say, just with more depth and coverage. All of this.

[Joker]

Isn't there a league tier? I don't think the banning of anything would effect league as long as that's a thing. As for making CS OU main over regular OU, I think it would be a good idea. You see, the thing with weather is that it's not that creative either. So even banning those Pokemon wouldn't really change much aside from getting rid of really strong Pokemon. You would eventually see the same rain and sand teams here that you see on Showdown, and we would be back to square one all over again. However, if you make CS reign over Overused, that would generate more creativity since people wouldn't be inclined to make teams consisting of the standard rain and sand teams. But what we have to realize is that the metagame is gonna get stale eventually, no matter what we do. It's unavoidable. There isn't a good way to do this and make everyone happy, because where there are players that are happy they are banned, there will also be others that are mad about it.

[Kamina]

If you want to battle for fun and use whatever Pokémon you want you can still challenge other people and do so and nothing would stop you.

League and ladder need not be tied together especially when they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. I don’t see why we have to modify league just because we shifted some Pokémon to uber in ladder. League never cared about uber or non uber it only cared about legendary and non-legendary and it will still stay the same way regardless of what happened to the tiers.

Ladder competition cheaters leaving a bad taste have nothing to do with the actual tiers themselves so that should not be a reason to just ignore it.

If you don’t want to be a competitive battler no one is going to force you to. But if you do you are forced to run OP pokemon and become less creative which does not seem fair at all.

@Renzo i love that idea!

a majority of people in showdown that i played dont actually run weather in OU though

[Mashew]

The thing is Erick isn't talking about League, he's talking about the server and the community as a whole. I think his point is that our tiers is a staple thing in Reborn and allowing stuff like Chandy/SS/Excadrill and genesect and everything. It makes us different from other communities and servers and we've had people stay because of it. He's not saying it's either ladders or league. He's saying stay true to how we are or change for the ladders. And you can't say the ladder goes unignroed, we made the CS tier that no one seems to use, we but Kyurem-B in OU and every so often we have tier discussions and votes.

[Kamina]

In my year and a half stay in reborn i never found the tiers to be a staple thing in reborn. tbh when new people come here i usually hear them say "these tiers suck" and leave than "omg i love these tiers im going to stay" but who knows i maybe wrong. sorry if i was unclear at first but what i meant to say to Neo was that we should not ignore tiers just because of something that had occurred in a ladder competition.

[Dominator]

These tiers could use some work..

[Nyrias]

"These tiers could use some work."

No, they couldn't. The tiers are fine where they are, just because a group of people ladder competitively doesn't mean that you should start a discussion about them overall because you consider these tiers to be ruining competitive battling.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.

Ladder = numbers. Numbers don't matter. We don't have a ladder competition anymore so what's the point in caring about ladder rank?

Basically, until X and Y are released, I don't see any need of reviewing the tiers or changing anything about them. We've already given Kyurem-B to OverUsed, and made a Clear Skies tier. That, as previously stated, no one uses even after it was so widely wanted.

[Ikaru]

Oh no we're not about to do this auth against user ordeal for a second day in a row so before it turns into that again-

Kami do you know how to add a poll to the topic? We could use that as an indicator of how many people feel a change is necessary as opposed to those who don't. I think it would be a good start should this be pursued further. If more people think the tiers are fine as is, then they might be; if the opposite ends up being the case, it's a good sign maybe something actually is an issue.

Once that's decided, if nothing else, we can use it for any discussions that happen with the advent of X and Y later on.

On the topic of getting to #1 so easily, it could be argued that the team makes it too easy, but at the same time I would venture to say that player skill is actually the biggest factor here. I personally would probably perform miserably if you were to give me the team that was used here, if only until I got used to it, anyway, and even then I'd get stomped by the people who know what they're doing. My point is, I think it's more than just the auto-pilot factor of the team(s) in question.

[Kamina]

i dont know how to add a poll D:

can you do it for me?

[Ikaru]

I'm not necessarily going to vote myself, but there's a pretty simple question for you.

[Amethyst]

I'm all for looking at it, I'd just rather do it after we know where it's going to be settling for the foreseeable future, rather than for just a few weeks.

I don't feel that keeping it has it has been for a couple more months is going to be a majorly devastating thing.

Also, I have some other questions to ask from a game-design standpoint if we do go through with anything but I think maybe it's best if I don't get into them yet...