Mike, I think you're missing the point. There is nothing that inherently makes any Pokemon Uber, OU, UU, etc. It's not like GF labels them-- we sort them. There's nothing inherently Uber about Mewtwo unless we define it as such. That's where the issue comes from-- where should the ban list start? Isn't it arbitrary to ban all these pokes that could potentially form a balanced meta?
To me though, the philosophical parallel between Ubers/OU and DPP BL/UU has its major problems. Unlike the initial ADV-based BL and UU mons, there is a HUGE sheer statistical divide in power between most Uber and OU Pokemon.
Between the BL/UU Pokes of DPP, there was only an organic, gradual range of BST and overall power. You could really draw the line anywhere-- there is no clear definable divide.
Between BW Uber and OU Pokemon though, Pokemon like Arceus, Kyogre, and other cover legendaries make a huge jump-- an obvious divide in raw stats that is not anywhere near as arbitrary or ignorable. Philosophically, it's much easier to justify an initial total unban-- but pragmatically, that doesn't make obvious sense.
Christ that survey was long, did not expect that going in.
So here are some opinions I have here and may have looked odd in the survey. I think it may be worth testing everything in XY bar Arceus and Moody. Why? Throughout this generation Ubers has had a more consistent level of balance than OU, with the only thing complained about being Arceus earlier in the generation. Not only does the sheer versatility and power sound broken to me but with a smaller banlist you are probably going to have a quicker ban system and I believe that one ban may cause a chain reaction, which Arceus would easily cause. I would really like to try out this metagame and have Arceus just be the Uber; if the metagame reached a point of "agreed balance" we could even go on to test Arceus in the tier.
People complain enough about weather in ou, i have no idea how would palkia and ho-oh could even be close to healthy in the meta. If we are going to implement a small initial banlist for gen 6 ou we must be a lot more criterious. Im definitely on the fence regarding lugia and maybe giratina but other than that i dont see any of the others base 670+ being acceptable. Giratina-O would be an immortal mixed attacker, reshiram is volcarona on steroids, zekrom, is haxorus on steroids, kyurem-w is kyurem except it is impossible to switch into etc.
Ho-oh has absurd bulk (and regenerator as you mentioned) and crazy power. Giratina-O gets a hold item that boosts its stabs by 20%. Zekrom gets stab bolt strike and outrage, while terravolt lets it ignore sturdies and the like. Rayquaza has 150 base offensive stats and has access to extremespeed and much higher attack than lucario, reshiram has unresisted stab coverage, if alone in ou, lugia would be an unstoppable calm mind sweeper, dialga has 150 spatt and great typing and a ridiculous movepool, giratina doesn't die.And Ho-oh is weak four times to SR (even though Regenerator helps with that some). Giratina-O is restricted to a hold item that only boosts its STAB's by 20%. Zekrom has the same physical move pool as Cube with an ability that does squat for it but minus the SR weakness. Rayquaza is slow and will get revenge killed easily and is SR weak. Reshiram is weak to all hazards and faces the same problems of being too slow thanks to its common base 90 speed. Lugia, Dialga, and Giratina are all defensive pokemon that would be acceptable to try out and might not seem over powered in OU. The only pokemon I am having second thoughts on are Kyu-W because of its perfect 2-move coverage and Palkia because he sits at the 100 base speed spot that is so important to be able to reach.
My idea behind that list is that the Ubers may balance each other out, which I don't believe happens with Arceus, while giving any player a huge amount of options. Sure you have Kyogre but you also have Groudon for weather, along with things that can handle it well like Palkia, Soul Dew Lati@s, Ferrothorn, and more. In my opinion, weather is far more powerful and game changing in BW OU than in BW Ubers because you have Pokemon so strong that they can overcome it. A weather nerf may not even be necessary, something like Kingdra wont carry the same weight. Mewtwo is very strong but you can definitely play around it, especially with a strong offense (Scarf and priority are big helps!). I actually did consider having Deo-S on my initial banlist since its hazard laying ability is still strong to the point of silliness but half of the Deos aren't even good in Ubers and I don't see the point in having Deo-N banned from the get go on a list like this. I agree with MikeDawg that looking at these mons in a vacuum is going to make them seem stronger than they may be so I'll try to avoid that myself.I agree somewhat with this. The part I like is having a very minor ban list and having most pokemon, even cover legendaries, in the beginning of OU. However, I think it should be more than Arceus. Arceus, Mewtwo, Kyogre, Groudon, and the Deo formes should be insta-banned to Ubers. The Deo formes may be questionable, but everything else would just be time wasting. Arceus has already been explained previously by TheFourthChaser, while Kyogre and Groudon completely run the usage of Ubers more so than any mon in any tier has been able to do this generation. If you thought Drizzle and Drought were broken, imagine if pokemon that didn't actually suck and had a purpose also had these abilities. On the topic of Mewtwo, c'mon. It has ZERO counters in Ubers and, unlike Hydreigon, has the speed to not be revenge killed so easily. Psystrike nails the blobs, Aura Sphere and Shadow Ball give perfect coverage and any special attacker would kill for the former if they only had access to Focus Blast. Based on the movesets on this site, it does prefer to run Ice Beam or Fire Blast over Shadow Ball, but still maintains the title of having no counters. Dialga, Palkia, Ho-oh, etc. let them roam from in OU and see how it goes since OU could really use some defensive pivots to help stall out.
I think many of you just hit the nail on the head. While dropping a plethora of currently uber Pokemon might give us a balanced metagame (the Ubers meta is definitely a balanced one, bar Arceus) but that metagame would end up being a mini-uber one. The Pokemon that would have, with an initial banlist, been OU would become UU etc. Basically we'd just make Ubers our premier metagame. That said I'm all in favor of starting with some currently Uber Pokemon (Manaphy, Shaymin-S for example) unbanned in OU.
I don't think it's 'balance" I think it could very well be actual balance, the Ubers meta being in a better condition imo than the OU meta is interesting and worth looking into (again imo). What is 'normal' Pokemon? Normal is nothing more than what you are used to. If we had always allowed things like Mewtwo your entire perception of normal would be different and to not be willing to try something because it isn't normal is silly to me. We create what normal is.My thoughts exactly.
There is no need to bring the ubers down so they can 'balance' each other out, they are uber for a reason. OU is a metagame that's shifting around the 'normal' pokémon, not those that are so powerful that one will have to rely on other absurdly powerful pokémon to beat them. It'll become a vicious cycle that will be even worse than the start of BW OU. The fact that powerful pokémon and 'playing around' those powerful pokémon make sure that the powerful pokémon stay in check is not a healthy metagame, and in my opinion, should not be the premier metagame: OU.
lol dammit manDrop an uber or two into OU once the meta stabilized and when we have good reasons to believe that the dropped uber wont destroy OU (see Kyurem-Black in BW2).
I think many of you just hit the nail on the head. While dropping a plethora of currently uber Pokemon might give us a balanced metagame (the Ubers meta is definitely a balanced one, bar Arceus) but that metagame would end up being a mini-uber one. The Pokemon that would have, with an initial banlist, been OU would become UU etc. Basically we'd just make Ubers our premier metagame. That said I'm all in favor of starting with some currently Uber Pokemon (Manaphy, Shaymin-S for example) unbanned in OU.
And that's why Kyurem is BL and Kyurem-B is OU? I'm sorry, but the base stat total of a mon doesn't really cut it as an argument: there are a lot of other things to be considered as well.660 BST legendaries have no business in OU.
Just saying, if you ban Arceus in current BW2 Ubers you get a metagame very similar to BW2 OU. One of the major reasons why Stall is so flexible in Ubers (something I'm really coming to appreciate after learning lower tiers for GSlam) and even why it can continue to survive is because you have an excellent wall who's typing can be shifted to glue together a defensive team. (as well as wall very unique groups of threats) On the other hand, Arceus is one of Stall's least worries as it is by no means exceptionally strong and often times you cover a vast majority of the formes with a single wall, like SpDef Ogre. (who is used for much more than just Arceus) There's going to be some exceptions, like Steelceus, who are designed to fair well against Stall but they are mostly afterthoughts and very easy to adjust for. (Gliscor is a bigger pain for Stall) Offense only uses Arceus in the case where they need a specific type to switch into specific threats (much like Stall) and to help their match-up against other offense. (since it's not so easy for Offense to brute force their way around an Arceus, much like how Stall can't simply stall out a Gliscor.)So here are some opinions I have here and may have looked odd in the survey. I think it may be worth testing everything in XY bar Arceus and Moody. Why? Throughout this generation Ubers has had a more consistent level of balance than OU, with the only thing complained about being Arceus earlier in the generation. Not only does the sheer versatility and power sound broken to me but with a smaller banlist you are probably going to have a quicker ban system and I believe that one ban may cause a chain reaction, which Arceus would easily cause. I would really like to try out this metagame and have Arceus just be the Uber; if the metagame reached a point of "agreed balance" we could even go on to test Arceus in the tier.
It's a bit early to say how many set up opportunities Manaphy will have in Gen VI, considering that we know almost nothing about it. As far as we know, Tail Glow's mechanic might be changed again, so yeah don't make silly assumptions please. Also don't assume that it will be able to abuse hydro-rest since we don't even know if Drizzle Toed will still be available in X\Y. I think it's perfectly reasonable to start with controversial currently Uber Pokemon unbanned (probably Skymin would still be too powerful but I would not say the same for stuff like Thundurus).What could possibly be brought down that wouldn't be considered broken? Skymin? seriously? You have a truckload of people saying jirachi's paraflinch is broken and you want something even more powerful to be brought to ou? Mana is much bulkier in ou than it is in ubers and allow hydrarest be actually considered a threat since precious few things in ou can cleanly ohko it and absolutely nothing wants to switch in on a +3 mana and it has setup oppurtunities against the likes of -2 SpA dragons, jelli, etc. If you were going to list examples of ubers being brought down at down at least do something that's semi reasonable. I have no idea why ou is the most popular/favored tier though, anyone mind explaining this to me? :X
I don't think it's 'balance" I think it could very well be actual balance, the Ubers meta being in a better condition imo than the OU meta is interesting and worth looking into (again imo). What is 'normal' Pokemon? Normal is nothing more than what you are used to. If we had always allowed things like Mewtwo your entire perception of normal would be different and to not be willing to try something because it isn't normal is silly to me. We create what normal is.
Sure they're powerful but this power allows us to overcome commonly complained about problems in Standard like U-Turn/Volt Switch, weather, lack of defensive options, and more. What you've summed up is that powerful pokemon are checking others and from what I've seen in BW Ubers I think it is fair to call this balance on a higher level. If there is any problem for a metagame with this idea I think it may become stagnant and see little change throughout a generation, which would be pretty lame.
lol dammit man
Just out of curiosity, without saying that I'd condone it, but why isn't ubers actually our standard meta? Perhaps my 2-3 years of competitive pokemon aren't enough to know this but I just never understood why exactly all the powerful mons are instabanned. Is it to create more diversity or sth.? After all, the ubers meta of today is as much of a challenge and competitive as OU. At least in my opinion.
Mechanics changing? Very possible and I can concede that argument but being unable to transfer your mons from BW/2 or d/p/pt/Hg/ss over to x and y is a terrible assumption, and will not happen guaranteed.It's a bit early to say how many set up opportunities Manaphy will have in Gen VI, considering that we know almost nothing about it. As far as we know, Tail Glow's mechanic might be changed again, so yeah don't make silly assumptions please. Also don't assume that it will be able to abuse hydro-rest since we don't even know if Drizzle Toed will still be available in X\Y. I think it's perfectly reasonable to start with controversial currently Uber Pokemon unbanned (probably Skymin would still be too powerful but I would not say the same for stuff like Thundurus).
Uhhh you realize that ou was only intended to be standard for the first two gens right? Since the uber choices were virtually nonexistent or whatnot and they were for Pokemon deemed too powerful for normal play but after r/s/e übers became more than a ban list and didn't have less members than party slots. Then in d/p/pt it really expanded with the introduction of stealth rock, the creation trio, etc. However Ou was the most popular then (post chomp ban) since you were allowed to run pretty much any strategy and be successful. This gen is where Ou became absolutely mindless and it still bewilders me how people can consider it as a balanced tier under the pretense of banning broken stuff that checks other broken stuff.Because a metagame should rely on usage and a tieringsystem to function, allowing changes, adaptability, etc. to florious. Ubers instead is a banlist first, tier second. I honestly believe it's just either coincidence or the lack of stability in the OU tier that has made ubers into such a stable tier as is claimed.
Not to mention it would be impossible to achieve tiers based on usage, because it wouldn't be called 'ubers' anymore. Also OU is called Over Used for a reason: it's the standard tier because it was intended and created to be the standard tier, unlike ubers.
Mechanics changing? Very possible
Exactly
and I can concede that argument but being unable to transfer your mons from BW/2 or d/p/pt/Hg/ss over to x and y is a terrible assumption, and will not happen guaranteed.
As long as it's not certain, nothing is guaranteed. We are close to the reveal of an entire new generation, we can't do anything but speculate at what will come: get used to it. Also, not being able to transfer over happened between the transition from G/S/C to R/S/E, and with the change from DS to 3DS, it may be very well possible that transfering over isn't possible, WHO KNOWS?!