Proposition to move Manaphy to OU 6th Gen

[Kamina]

While the auths have been busy with league and make the next episode of the reborn game, I have been laddering pretty hard over the past three weeks in the new gen 6 competitive scene. I have to say that the new Metagame is a huge improvement to the last one with a lot more versatility in OU and with the diminished role of weather. With that said however I would like to propose a change that would further benefit the ladder experience which is to get Manaphy moved down to OU. Even in 4^th gen I had always been puzzled as to why manaphy had been deemed uber in smogon just because it had gotten access to heart swap. Certainly the people who used it in uber at the time never wasted a move slot to fit heart swap even while researching why there were no real good explanations besides Kyoger getting permanent rain hence making it Uber material. In the advent of gen 5 there was definitely a strong case to keep in Uber. First it now had access to tail glow and second there was now a rain initiator which could make rain last permanently in OU as well. However once we move into the gen 6 meta - which is filled with extremely fast Pokémon and the extinction of perma-weather and near elimination of politoed – Manaphy no longer retains the edge that it had in the previous generations.

Manaphy 4 OU 2013

Movepool

Manaphies offensive move pools consist entirely of Surf/Scald/Hydropump, Ice Beam, Energy ball and Hidden Power. This means that when facing a manaphy the is relatively little to no element of surprise as it will virtually always be a special attacker (in contrast to Jirachi and mew which could be physical or special attackers) and depending on which of those moves a person decides to run it is not hard to find Pokémon that wall it such as grass Pokémon or water Pokémon. This new gen has also brought a lot of special defensive walls such as Florges, Sylveon and Goodra. In addition to all of this there is also an item called assault vest which exclusively boost sp defence making manaphy that much less of a threat. Manaphy also has access to rest but with the huge nerf on rain its ability hydration is no longer that good. Tail glow is good but its speed does not allow it sweep entire teams.

Base Stat

Same base stat as Jirachi, mew, and celebi. 100 in every base stat. Not uber material!

Effects on meta

We might actually see a rain team but they are still way to UP. There is mega-t-tar but no mega politoed and sun and hail have 2 other initiators (hail even gets mega abamasnow) while rain can only be summoned by politoed. No reason to believe that rain will become as dominant as last gen if manaphy is introduced.

Balance

Look at the above.

Anyways I hope you read everything before you comment.

I know there are already a lot of people who do not like the idea of manaphy being lowered to OU but I feel like we should at lest test it out. It would only take 3 minutes to implement and a week at most to decide if OP or not.

Thanks for taking your time to read everything J

[Amethyst]

This seems pretty valid with the current conditions we're expecting, but we're not going to deal with our own tiers until we know the egg moves that everything gets- as currently there's a large chunk of the meta that's completely unknown.

I think when we do sort them out Manaphy has a very good chance of landing back into OU but there's not much point in having this discussion right now.

[Summer]

i support this

Manaphy needs time to set up, offensively or defensively. (unless you're a jerk and decide to run some orthodox set).

Rain lost it's permanent effect, so wasting time to set up is also a big no no in the metagame.

also lol at tags i absolutely hate pokemon

[Kamina]

manaphy doesn't have any egg moves though it's a legendary.... it can breed but phione cant evolve to my understanding. I guess i should not speculate manaphy not getting any additional moves like it did in gen 5 but the big reason why manaphy had been uber was because of its ability which has been nerfed drastically this gen. The purpose of this was to at lest shed some light into that so people will at lest consider moving it down to OU which i am glad that it has done.

Thanks Summah <3

[Amethyst]

Er, no, I get that. But I mean, take Sticky Web for instance- as I understand it's a highly favored move that only a handful of fairly Pokemon get. But suppose something already strong gets it, then that Pokemon's popularity is going to spike, causing other things around it to fluctuate.Statistically strong Pokemon will gain more moves making them increasingly viable. It's not that manaphy is going change- but its climate will, and tiers relate the individual Pokemon to their competitive climate. That's why I feel there's no point in addressing them until we know what that climate is.

[Kamina]

yah you have a fair point i was not aware that the move pool of most Pokemon were still indeterminate and while i cannot see anything like that happen it would be improper to assume otherwise. Still it begs the question as to why manaphy is Uber i mean just because we do not know the egg moves as of now we still have pokemon like jirachi/mew/celebii which are similar to manaphy in OU so than why not manaphy as well? Yah they were OU in the last gen so it makes sense to keep them OU in this gen till we get egg moves but in this gen manaphy is in no way superior and hence should not be uber till we find out egg moves.

[Swimming95]

I feel like we should wait until we actually decide our tiers and also wait for manaphy to be available in XY so we can see its entire movepool. As much as I definitely agree at this point it can be OU, it is way too early to think of a decision

[Tomas Elliot]

Tail Glow. Don't forget Manaphy gets Tail Glow. Instant +3 to already good special attack, all it needs is a bit of rain to support it, and it can be deadly...

Now, currently Politoed is the only rain inducer, but what if a new Mega comes out with Drizzle, as an answer to Charizard and Drought?

I say we wait and put A LOT of thinking into that. We already do illogic stuff like discussing about indiscriminate ban for all Megas while Blaziken (the regular one, broken in itself mega or not mega) is still freely running around (incidentally, Showdown already banned it...), the last thing we need is another potentially deadly sweeper in town...

Edited November 16, 2013 by Tomas Elliot

[Kamina]

My position on this has evolved in that despite not knowing what kind of changes we will come about in the future we should still be able to make adjustments to the tier to balance it out in the here and now (as many other servers have started to do). If another drizzle mega were to show up than yah we can decide to maybe move back manaphy to uber if it does become too much of a problem but as of now it should not be as mentioned as a means to discourage talk about meta. A lot of thinking has been put into manaphy in my part and of course we can theory craft all we want but unless we actually implement it we will never know if it was actually something that was OP or something that really needed to be moved to OU. Also no one was for the banning of megas into uber except for maybe 2-3 auths who spoke out of line.

I did briefly mention tail glow but did not go into munch detail. First if it does run tail-glow and rest than it only has access to Surf/Scald/Hydropump, Ice Beam, Energy ball and Hidden Power. Most will opt for the water/ice combo but is walled by water types most notably rotom. Now if it went for the water/grass combo than it is countered by dragon and grass type pokemon. If it decides to get rid of rest that it will easily be finished of by sweepers and stronger priorites of this gen. Manaphies speed is laughable compared to other sweepers in this gen and the fact that you have to have a politoed which probably holding a damp rock (which makes the longevity of politoed that much shorter) or another pokemon wasting a move slot on rain dance to allow it to be effective is just that much more of a hassle. Also mentioned in my topic was the introduction of assault vest that any offensive pokemon can hold and deal out a lot of damage to manaphy while also tanking its moves.

With all this said, it could still turn out to be op when we test it but if we do not try it out than how will we ever know? Certainly moving a pokemon to OU requires a lot of thought but there comes a point where you have to actually test it out and not create subjective hypothetical situation and I believe manaphy has reached that point.

[Joker]

I have no real issues with Manaphy being OU after some testing, but I do think it best we wait. I can't really see Rotom-W "walling" it, however I can see Goodra walling it assuming it doesn't run Ice Beam. Regarding speed, you're forgetting Sticky Web, and while there aren't many good abusers of this aside from Smeargle and Galvantula, it is still viable. Honestly, I hope we test out more Ubers than just Manaphy in the future.

Darkrai anyone? Chill, just joking... One day, my Dark Prince... One day.

edit: Noticed Ame mentioned Sticky Web before me. Carry on.

[Kamina]

I don’t understand the sticky web arguments because it’s assuming the opponent cannot defog/rapidspin/set up their own sticky web, In which case almost all bulky offensive pokemon would be considered Uber. As for rotom-w I meant if manaphy decided to only run a water and ice move than rotom-w could tank its moves dx. But yah it would be nice to see if more ubers could potentially make it to OU.

[Ikaru]

For lack of anything informative to say at the moment, I will at least remind everyone that it can be undone later should it prove to be a mistake.

What Nature/EV spreads does Manaphy frequently use? Modest/Timid 252 Sp.Atk and Speed? or HP? Or something more specific? I can't think of much of a reason that it would get out of hand with only 100 base stats...

[Fezzdog]

What Nature/EV spreads does Manaphy frequently use? Modest/Timid 252 Sp.Atk and Speed? or HP? Or something more specific? I can't think of much of a reason that it would get out of hand with only 100 base stats...

That's the thing about 100 base stats, it's versatile enough to do anything it wants really, it's up to the user what role they want Manaphy in and what EVs they stick in.

About the whole discussion, I'm going to have to agree with Kamina. Manaphy imo was Ubers because of permanent Rest-Hydration coupled with the ability to bring on offensive pressure through Calm Mind/Tail Glow and 101 HP substitutes. All of these capabilities allowed it to completely counter Stall teams and Balanced teams who didn't have the power or coverage to get through Manaphy's bulk. Rain nerfs got rid of Hydration's reliability recently considering Politoed's averageness outside of perma-rain. Tail Glow is still around, but it's no longer backed by a reliable instant Full Restore anymore, and it doesn't have the speed stats to sweep full competitive teams.

[The Fush]

Regarding sticky web; even if you remove it, you'll still be slowed by it before you did so; just something I thought I'd point out, doesn't change too much though.

I'm on the yes side for this too; the new threats in gen 6 combined with the nerfs to rain weather are enough of a reason to move it down to OU (though there it still has the capabilities of hydration and tail glow (but not rest, in my opinion, since it can waste the amount turns you have with drizzle left pretty quickly)).

[Kamina]

it should also be noteworthy that manaphy is already OU in smogon and they have and they have had no trouble with it. Also so is Zygrade so maybe we should also discuss if it should be moved down you OU aswell