Metagame NP: RU Stage 2.5: Kids (READ POST #265)

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Molk

Molk

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Alright, now that Froslass has finally been banned on the ladder, we're ready to move on to the next suspect test. At first i was gonna let the metagame settle a little bit post Froslass ban, but because of overwhelming demand to start the next suspect test right away this time.....well here we are. The next suspect test has been decided to be Shuckle (never thought i'd say that or see anyone else say that to be honest lol). See the paragraph in hide tags below for the reasoning behind this suspect (as well as the reasoning of suspecting Shuckle itself instead of Sticky Web as a move) if you're curious, although feel free to disagree with the reasoning below as long as you can back your claims with well founded arguments. Like the Froslass suspect before, the suspect ladder should be put up asap, the suspect test will end and voting will begin exactly two weeks after this thread is posted at 11:59 PM. As with last round, the suspect reqs are 2400 coil, These reqs might change in the future if they turn out to be too hard, but thats what they are for now.

So, some questions to be answered during this suspect test? Is Shuckle too effective as a Sticky Web setter for the tier's own good? What are some effective ways to beat Sticky Web teams while still having a viable team otherwise? Would Sticky Web teams still be powerful without Shuckle to consistently set both Sticky Web and Stealth Rock? If so, would they be too powerful in your opinion?

Lastly, heres an import of the most common/effective Sticky Web Shuckle, to help you guys out and make sure you know what you're dealing with when you suggest checks and counters. As well as the blurb about why this suspect is taking place mentioned before.

Shuckle @ Mental Herb
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP / 132 Def / 124 Spd
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Sticky Web
- Encore
- Infestation / Knock Off

Speed evs used here are to make sure you can get both Stealth Rock and Sticky Web against lead Escavalier, who outspeed, 2HKO, and possibly flinch you otherwise

Just like Froslass before it Shuckle isn't being suspected for either its offensive or defensive capabilities, instead Shuckle is being suspected for its ability to greatly support its team. Shuckle's bulk and ability to hold the item Mental Herb while being able to survive pretty much any hit regardless of being sashed let it consistently get up the hazards Stealth Rock and Sticky Web over the course of the game, perhaps even multiple times. Sticky Web is a very powerful hazard in the RU tier, especially considering that RU has not just a large amount of powerful, yet slow wallbreakers that can abuse this hazard being up, but less methods of hazard control compared to the upper tiers. On top of this, Shuckle has all the right tools it needs to do all of punish attempts at removing the hazards it has set, prevent itself from being set up bait, and grant its teammates free switch ins. Encore plays a big part in this, trying to Rapid Spin on Shuckle means you risk getting locked into the move, meanwhile the slow shuckle can just reset its hazards and switch to a spinblocker accordingly, such as Doublade. The reason that Shuckle itself is being suspected and not the move Sticky Web in general is because of how Shuckle is far and away the best user of the move, not only because of how reliable it is at setting it up compared to the other (mostly frail and/or bad otherwise) Pokemon with access to the move, but also being the only Pokemon other than Smeargle that can use both Stealth Rock and Sticky Web, saving teamslots for the user. Assuming a ban comes out of this suspect, if it is shown in the future that Sticky Web itself is or becomes the problem and not merely the quality of the vessel setting it up, then a test on the move itself will ensue and if that ban goes through, Shuckle will immediately be unbanned.

TL;DR

Why Shuckle?

It consistently gets up a hazards thats extremely dangerous in a metagame with limited defog/rapid spin users, has encore to stop opponents from setting up on it and to punish hazard removers for using their move by granting free switches.

Why Shuckle and not webs itself?[

Shuckle is far and away the best Sticky Web user in the tier at the moment, all the other Sticky Web users can't get both Stealth Rock and Sticky Web up nearly as consistently, and cant punish attempts of removing them nearly as well. In fact, the only one thats close to viable is leavanny. If Sticky Web itself is shown to be the problem and not simply whats setting it being too good at its job, then a suspect test on the move itself will begin and Shuckle may be immediately unbanned depending on the result.

Why Shuckle and not the Sticky Web abusers?

Would you rather have me ban half the tier simply for being too powerful with Shuckle's support or just test the problem at its core, leaving anything that has the potential to be broken under webs (see: every wallbreaker) alone??????
But Shuckle is Shuckle and it sucked last generation, this suspect is retarded!
thats like saying Mega Kangaskhan shouldn't be ubers because its base form was NU last generation, different metagame, new buffs and nerfs, new generation. Things change, bias because of the Pokemon's species and its performance in past generations and completely different metagames from the current one is simply dumb.

Smogon is dumb because they ban my favorites!
nobody is forcing you to play by smogon's rules .___.

Also, Slurpuff, Tyrantrum, Seperior, and Dragalge have been quickbanned, because they might not be broken now but they might be broken in the futureif you take this seriously...

Antar's edit: as with the previous RU test, the B value for this test is 20.0. To figure out how many battles you'll need to have in order to achieve reqs, first determine your GXE (shown on the ladder and when you type /rating) and plug that into the following formula:

N=20.0/log2(40*GXE/2400)

(Google calculator is awesome for this kind of thing).

Here are some sample values:
Code: 
GXE N
100 28
90 35
85 40
80 49
75 63
70 90
65 174
 
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images

RIP SHUCKLE 2014-2014. Shuckle Web broken, fuck braviary and doublade cores.
 
Most of the valid points were brought in the last np, but I'll still put my thoughts here.

The biggest problem with Shuckle is that you literally cannot stop it from setting up webs unless you have CB Rampardos (unviable) or a high roll Rock Blast on CB Rhyperior (unreliable). Sturdy means it will live one of the few attacks that would kill it anyway, while Mental Herb means you can't Taunt it. Doublade and Braviary put a huge strain on getting rid of it too, considering both already take advantage of Sticky Web - Doublade beats all the spinners and Braviary is impossible to wall after Defiant. Some of the wallbreakers in the tier also get much more threatening as they now won't have to worry about getting outsped since priority is not as common as in other tiers (Zangoose, Exploud, etc.) It's an extremely stale strategy and it pretty much renders other forms of offense useless without precise teambuilding.

Ban plz
 
Ok, I'm not going to go too in-depth with this thing because I think we all know what Shuckle does and why it's being suspected, but here are my two main problems with Shuckle:

  1. Centralization: Shuckle is such a dominating playstyle right now. I mean, it's not hard to see why; the OP even talks about how RU is filled powerful wallbreakers, such as Hitmonlee, Exploud, and others, that while are extremely powerful, don't exactly sit at the best Speed tier. Shuckle not only gives them Sticky Web support to help remedy their average Speed, but also provides them with Stealth Rock to help them more easily wallbreak. With all this, it's really not hard to see why everyone and their mother wants to use Shuckle offense; it's just really, really good. However, the downside of this is like 1/4 games I'm facing Shuckle, probably going to go up now that Froslass is gone. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that Web is everywhere and it's annoying to see it in like every high-ladder game.
  2. Ease of Teambuilding: Ok, this is another thing I really fucking hate about Web: It's extremely easy to build with. Like, all you have to do is slap on Shuckle, Hitmonlee, Exploud, and Doublade, and then add two other mon's of your choice and you're basically done. To me, in a perfect metagame, good teams should come from practice, trial and error, and testing. However, Web makes it so you can literally just take two seconds to build an amazing team and you're done. I don't like that, and I think Shuckle is at the root cause of this problem.
  3. Ability to Set Up Web: Alright, for my final point, I just want to say that Shuckle can set up Web WAY too reliably. With Mental Herb + amazing bulk, Shuckle can easily set up Web on anything. Not only can it set up Web reliably, however, but it can also set up Stealth Rock with ease to help already powerful wallbreakers wallbreak even easier. This just isn't acceptable imo; if you're going to be abusing such a powerful hazard, the Pokemon who is using it should have amazing bulk AND the ability to set up a second hazard. I mean, offensive teams that don't decide to run Web are basically forced to run a Defog / Rapid Spin user if they don't want to lose because you just can't stop Shuckle from setting Web up.
Anyways, those are my thoughts, probably extremely disorganized but whatever. If you couldn't tell from those posts, I'm pro-ban for Shuckle for the reasons stated above.
 
Molk said:
The reason that Shuckle itself is being suspected and not the move Sticky Web in general is because of how Shuckle is far and away the best user of the move, not only because of how reliable it is at setting it up compared to the other (mostly frail and/or bad otherwise) Pokemon with access to the move, but also being the only Pokemon other than Smeargle that can use both Stealth Rock and Sticky Web, saving teamslots for the user.
Click to expand...

I thought Smeargle was no longer in the tier?
 
this was brought up a ton in the last thread but I'm going to say again, shuckle is terrible for the tier. it is incredibly overcentralizing at the moment, with every other team being some form of shuckle offense, which is simply Shuckle and 5 wallbreakers; there's no need to run the standard offensive mold of lead / sweeper / sweeper / wallbreaker / wallbreaker / speed because it allows you to get all of those roles within a wallbreaker, making it hard for standard offensive teams lacking sticky web to beat sticky web teams. because there are typically around ~8 pokemon that are powerful to make up for their low speed, these pokemon are often present on most standard sticky web teams (see htimonlee, doublade, exploud, zangoose, clawitzer, magneton, etc). this means these teams are typically very similar and because of the fact that shuckle offense beats regular offense, these teams are very common, meaning the you will be facing very similar teams very often which kinda limits the variety and diversity of the tier, and by extension, how fun it is to play in which is fundamentally important for the meta. add on ofc that shuckle will almost always do its job without fail barring rare occasions not present in every game by a longshot then you pass the idea of "this is so good" to "this is so good and realistically possible without fear of this not happening", which is a further comparison to how froslass and ou deo-d do their jobs. im also just going to add that the lack of spinners / defoggers that are reliable and the fact that they are constantly pressured by the wallbreakers on these teams means that sticky web is incredibly difficult to remove barring the use of defoggers on defensive teams such as golbat and gligar, but even defensive teams lose to sticky web teams when played right due to their abundance of wallbreakers. overall a pokemon which isnt desirable for the meta and should definitely be banned imo.
 
Web teams are just so dominant, and Shuckle's defenses allow a pretty much guaranteed Sticky Web. Sure it can be Taunted, but Mental Herb counters even that. With a tier full of mons that would be great offensively if they didn't have such mediocre Speed (ie Exploud), Web patches that right up and allows them to wreak havoc on the opposing team. Shuckle can even set up SR on top of Web to guarantee some OHKOs.

TL;DR: Get this stupid thing out of RU.
 
I already posted about Shuckle in the round one thread, but I'll elaborate a bit more here. To me, Shuckle is an obviously broken Pokemon in RU. Its ability to easily set Sticky Web (and Stealth Rock) in nearly every game at least once, and in some games multiple times, without being stopped or even taken advantage of thanks to its bulk and access to Mental Herb, Encore, and other disruptive options such as Infestation make it far too good for the RU tier. A lot of Shuckle's brokenness stems from the absurd power of the wallbreakers in RU, particularly Exploud, Zangoose, and Hitmonlee, which are nearly impossible to deal with if webs are up. The ability to run multiple slow wallbreakers without having a horrible matchup against offensive teams also makes Shuckle teams able to break through non-tspikes stall with ease in addition to how well they deal with offensive teams. This doesn't even begin to cover the extreme centralization that Shuckle brings to the RU tier, which is another issue altogether. For these reasons, I think Shuckle is very unhealthy for the RU tier and needs to be banned.

nah jk shuckle is balanced because it can't touch steel types get rekt Molk
 
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I posted some stuff about Shuckle as well. Shuckle is just TOO DAMN OP. Being able to use both Stealth Rocks, and Sticky Web. With the variety of speed-based Pokemon in RU, the -1 speed is a huge decrease for those Pokemon. Although Shuckle's sets (viable ones) may not have much variety to it, the sets are still very usable to say the least.
 
Shuckle has the same problem as Froslass in that it has so many tools at its disposal which allow it to do its job every time. Froslass was the fastest taunt user in the tier, and the Focus Sash + Destiny Bond combination allowed it to trade 1 for 1 most of the time, as well as getting spikes up. However, if you take away any one of these three things, Froslass becomes completely useless.

Shuckle is strong for a similar reason. Even if Shuckle was not as bulky as it is, the combination of Mental Herb + Sturdy guarantees that it gets Sticky web up no matter what. However, unlike Froslass, Shuckle is not a completely useless Pokemon without these tools. In fact, the Shuckle I have been using since the introduction of the RU tier uses none of these tools (no Sticky Web, no Sturdy, no Mental Herb), and it has still helped me climb to the top of the ladder (Most of the time I'm in the top 10, and at the last point that I checked the ladder for the suspect test yesterday, I was second behind only Molk).

If you take away its Mental Herb, Shuckle now has to actually play around taunt users if it wants to get its hazards up, meaning both players can now have a meaningful mindgame battle around the setup of the hazards. If you ban Shuckle from using Sticky Web, its most common use case goes out the door, but there are other niches it can fulfill. I would be very sad to see an interesting Pokemon banned out entirely simply because one set it can run is considered broken.
 
Do you want to easily get reqs? Ask nicely for TRC's team (he's shared it before).

It shows off how broken Shuckle is pretty well imo. It worked best in the Froslass meta that was more offensive and not all teams mind Sticky Web anymore, but it's still a really good team. Shuckle is absurdly good at supporting sweepers and wall breakers.
 
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I also want to make a quick point about the 3:1 win ratio requirement - you may be blocking off some of the highest level players. As you play more games, it becomes harder to maintain such a high win ratio, since the matchmaking system puts you up against stronger opponents. As an example, when I last checked the ladder the only players who had broken 3000 COIL were myself and Tehy, since we both had several hundred matches under our belt while being near the top of the ladder. My final win ratio was 169:56, one win above a 3:1 ratio, while Tehy's was 134:45, one win below the 3:1 ratio.

I would imagine that there are other players with a COIL rating well above 2400 and a fairly high ELO rating, but who have fallen below a 3:1 win ratio due to continuing to play and being matched against the strongest players on the ladder. I feel this is worth keeping in mind when considering these requirements.
 
Ok so Shuckle is being suspected at last. Good.
Lemme just say what my vision is about shuckle and it's influence on the meta right now.

Before Froslass was banned, the ladder was filled with Webs Offense. I tried to run Balance and Defensive, since those two are my preferred playstyles. However they couldn't handle the likes of Exploud and friends outspeeding and severely denting my team members. I had to run either Spikes/Webs HO, Full stall or TR to atcually be able to win vs Webs Offense. I kinda stopped playing there because the meta was shit then.

But yes, you get my point. Webs Offense in itself makes certain playstyles almost unviable, and I believe that is not optimal at all for a meta, especially since some of those are really common archetypes.
 
Okay going to hold off on actually giving my opinion on Shuckle and Sticky Web in general until you know.. the ladder goes up and we actually see what is going to be common this round lol. People need to stop basing their opinion off last round, yes sticky web was disgusting etc all the that shit you all posted about but if the metagame actually shifts a little more to defensive based teams you will definitely see less Shuckle having a huge impact on the tier.

Give it some time js :]

also to that 3:1 wl ratio being unfair idk i guess if u play like 300 battles that happens cause i did last reqs at a 6:1 ratio with a joke team so if ur rly that worried get reqs (40 battles or so) on one alt and top the ladder on another, if ur playing 300 battles that quickly i assume time isnt a huge issue lol.
 
Invisi said:
I also want to make a quick point about the 3:1 win ratio requirement - you may be blocking off some of the highest level players. As you play more games, it becomes harder to maintain such a high win ratio, since the matchmaking system puts you up against stronger opponents. As an example, when I last checked the ladder the only players who had broken 3000 COIL were myself and Tehy, since we both had several hundred matches under our belt while being near the top of the ladder. My final win ratio was 169:56, one win above a 3:1 ratio, while Tehy's was 134:45, one win below the 3:1 ratio.

I would imagine that there are other players with a COIL rating well above 2400 and a fairly high ELO rating, but who have fallen below a 3:1 win ratio due to continuing to play and being matched against the strongest players on the ladder. I feel this is worth keeping in mind when considering these requirements.
Click to expand...
You can easily just make a screencap once you get reqs and then continue to play, all that matters is the moment you took the screenshot so even if you fall to a w-l below 3:1 afterwards, you still have reqs because of the screenshot, so this point is obsolete.
 
So let me say stuff bout broken ass Shuckle.

Sticky Web is a really good move in RU right now. Sticky Web can turn wallbreakers like Exploud and Druddigon into sweepers and RU has enough wallbreakers to make effective use of Sticky Web. With most Pokemon being affected by Sticky Web in RU unlike in other tiers also really helps. Defog and Rapid Spin also aren't as common in RU as in something like OU which again really helps. However the thing that makes Shuckle so broken and not Sticky Web is because Shuckle doesn't suck unlike other Sticky Web setters. Leavanny, Masquerain, Kricketune and all the likes are more a liability than anything while Shuckle isn't. Shuckle can also set up Stealth Rock unlike the other Sticky Web setters in RU and has some useful annoying moves like Infestation, Encore and Knock Off. Due to the fact that Shuckle makes one of the best playing styles even better and isn't a liability on it's own I think it's banworthy.

But then again I am a nub so what do I know :)
 
Adding a w:l ratio requirement seems to go against the purpose of COIL and the way the ladder works (where the longer good players play, the lower their w:l ratios will become). It would make more sense if you wanted to exclude people with lower GXEs, in which case increasing the required COIL and decreasing the suspect ladder's B value would be the way to go. For example, B=8 and a requirement of 2850 COIL would make it impossible to get reqs if your GXE is 71 or lower, but it would still take the same 48 battles as the current reqs if your GXE is 80.

I don't think it's a good idea to set a requirement that discourages good players from continuing to play after they get the minimum for reqs, and encourages people to try to play at times of the day/week when the ladder is weakest and wins are cheaper.
 
Worldtour said:
The biggest problem with Shuckle is that you literally cannot stop it from setting up webs unless you have CB Rampardos (unviable) or a high roll Rock Blast on CB Rhyperior (unreliable).
Click to expand...
Actually, even if Shuckle is running 252 HP/252 Defense and Impish nature, there's a 56.3% chance to OHKO with a Rampardos Head Smash, so you don't really need the CB.

As for Shuckle, I think the problem stems more from the Sticky Web usage than anything else. As mentioned, it turns a lot of slow, strong pokes into absolute sweepers. While banning Shuckle would probably reduce the usage of Sticky Web, it wouldn't surprise me to see Sash'd Levanny/Ariados take over that role and generally get the same results. Without Web, Shuckle retains his position as a decent lead/rock setter, is still capable of taking a couple hits for his team, just without being the intense threat he is seen to be nowadays.
 
A Random Scrub said:
Actually, even if Shuckle is running 252 HP/252 Defense and Impish nature, there's a 56.3% chance to OHKO with a Rampardos Head Smash, so you don't really need the CB.

As for Shuckle, I think the problem stems more from the Sticky Web usage than anything else. As mentioned, it turns a lot of slow, strong pokes into absolute sweepers. While banning Shuckle would probably reduce the usage of Sticky Web, it wouldn't surprise me to see Sash'd Levanny/Ariados take over that role and generally get the same results. Without Web, Shuckle retains his position as a decent lead/rock setter, is still capable of taking a couple hits for his team, just without being the intense threat he is seen to be nowadays.
Click to expand...
The thing with Leavanny is that unlike Shuckle it doesn't guarantee sticky web, doesn't have stealth rock and most importantly, can't set them up consistently throughout the match and instead only sets SW once (assuming not taunted), goes down to sash and then it's as good as death fodder. Ariados has the same issue. They both don't have Shuckle's bulk, consistency, or utility.

Either way, we'll see how things go after Shuckle is (hopefully) banned. I expect stall will be on the rise, but who knows.
 
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