Prevailing attitudes regarding OU as being the "Best"

My opinions:

We have settled on the idea of the 'standard' metagame. We aim it to be well balanced and have other desirable features, while also being quite 'inclusive'.

In this metagame (and in any) some Pokemon get used more than others. I believe there are two reasons that a Pokemon gets used a lot. Firstly, a Pokemon can excel in one role. Secondly, a Pokemon can have versatility, being good in many roles and fitting well on many teams.

Conversely, a little used Pokemon might be little used because it's lousy, but it also might be little used because it's a niche Pokemon. The former probably should not be used in serious standard play, while the latter most definitely should see usage in standard - but not a lot of it, hence their not being OU.

(In practice, for most Pokemon a mixture of both these factors applies. Think of them as like endmembers.)

In WiFi, there are also practical considerations. A legitimate WishBliss is very hard to come by, while a much more readily obtained Wishfable can fill a similar role quite well.

Ultimately, you should choose what you think are the best Pokemon for your team. If that means running Pory2 to check a wide variety of threat, or running Clefable as a supporter, or Regice alongside Blissey, or whatever, then don't be scared off it because those Pokemon are rarely used.
 
It is a chain reaction IMHO. Overpowered > Overused > Uber, as it the case with Garchomp. One thing leads to another. Some (like Kyogre) are deemed Uber from the start based solely on power, but Garchomp is an exception for that reason.
 
Spenstar said:
It is a chain reaction IMHO. Overpowered > Overused > Uber, as it the case with Garchomp. One thing leads to another. Some (like Kyogre) are deemed Uber from the start based solely on power, but Garchomp is an exception for that reason.
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Take usage out of the equation and it would actually make some sense. Look at Scizor, seen on ~1/3 of all Standard teams, yet, no one would consider making him Uber. Yes, he's really good, but nowhere near overpowered. Heatran, Gyarados, Zapdos, Rotom, Forretress, Skarmory... all perfectly able to make Scizor their bitch and yet, hes gets used more than anything else.
 
domeface said:
Wow, that first quote is from me. I feel important.

Anyway, what I said in that original quote was probably too strong. My point is, I would find it somewhat depressing that if I wanted to use, say, Marowak, but instead of finding a way to realise his potential in OU, I banned every halfway decent 'mon and used it in NU. I remember seeing the log of a battle where someone 6-0'd an all-OU team with Charge Beam Lanturn, and someone mentioning in their sig that they'd swept with Marowak in NU, UU and OU, and were now going for ubers. Those are the kind of things I'd like to use NU/UU 'mon for. Another example of this, is in a Rain Dance team I've been running lately, I use a Floatzel as my lategame cleanup sweeper. On one occasion, I was down 4-1 with floatzel, and I ended up winning. On several occasions I've OHKOd Mences trying to revenge me, outside of rain.
There is a supreme satisfaction of sweeping an OU team with an NU mon.

Basically, what I'm saying is that winning with an NU mon in OU >>>> winning with an NU mon in NU, which is why I dislike all metagames below OU.
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You got it right, man. OP is wrong when he believes that UU/NU are not viable in an OU environment. If I want to play a - say - Marowak, than I can play it in OU and if I put enough effort in it, I can use it well. There VERY FEW Pokemon that are completely outclassed by something else. Marowak is a good example as I've actually seen quite a few in OU TrickRoom.

So, OP is right when he says that you need a special setup to make Marowak work. But that is true for every Pokemon. Nobody ever randomly combined 6 OU Pokemon and had a decent team.

And as someone already mentioned, UU pokemon can be gold in OU when they cover a niche that nobody prepares for. I myself swept whole teams with Lanturn because it fits so good in my team and has a crazy strategy that some enemies are unprepared for. (I can tell that story if someone wants to hear.) It does a unique job in OU at being a true counter of Starmie and most Magnezone, taking literally no damage from Bullet Punches and having access to an electric/water/ice attack combination. If you need that kind of thing, no OU poke is going to help you as much as that fish.

And because someone said: "How can you not be prepared for Floatzel?"
I can tell you: It's not the attacks you have to be prepared for, it's the setup opportunities. I don't know about the strategy of the guy who suggested it, but I can easily imagine some unique strategies:
Floatzel's niche is kinda clear: Physical Swift Swim Sweeper. (Say that 10 times in a row!)
So, what other Pokemon are there? Kingdra and Kabutops. Empoleon is kinda threatening to both of them. Also, Tyranitar coming in to bring the sandstorm.
Floatzel can use SubPunch to counter them both. Floatzel is also the only Swift Swimmer to have Bulk Up (+ Aqua Jet), which could be dangerous as you can threaten Rotom with Crunch.
So these ideas probably have flaws but it is just what I imagined from one look at Floatzel. It has its niches of things no other pokemon can. Surely, many teams won't need these things, if you happen to have 5 Pokemon that do need them, Floatzel will do the job regardless of its tier.
 
Some Pokemon aren't good but their descriptions are so degrading. They make them sound worse than they really are (or even worthless). Look at Spinda's page. It's not a good Pokemon but it's not worthless. It can knock a couple things out in a match but a lot of things do what it does better. The descriptions make it sound like it's totally useless to the point that it feels insulting just to read them. These kinds of things are like propaganda to the players that most of them develop a tunnel vision.
 
Proboscidea said:
Some Pokemon aren't good but their descriptions are so degrading. They make them sound worse than they really are (or even worthless). Look at Spinda's page. It's not a good Pokemon but it's not worthless. It can knock a couple things out in a match but a lot of things do what it does better. The descriptions make it sound like it's totally useless to the point that it feels insulting just to read them. These kinds of things are like propaganda to the players that most of them develop a tunnel vision.
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Well I in fact enjoy that writing style of Smogon. We probably just need a better introduction for new battlers...
On the other hand, since I read the Smogon page on Parasect (especially the UberSect section), I see it in a whole new light. =)
 
Proboscidea said:
Some Pokemon aren't good but their descriptions are so degrading. They make them sound worse than they really are (or even worthless). Look at Spinda's page. It's not a good Pokemon but it's not worthless. It can knock a couple things out in a match but a lot of things do what it does better. The descriptions make it sound like it's totally useless to the point that it feels insulting just to read them. These kinds of things are like propaganda to the players that most of them develop a tunnel vision.
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So many other Pokemon do what Spinda does, only ten times better.

Spinda is a useless Pokemon unless you are looking to handicap yourself.
 
Exactly. The tunnel vision you get from all this makes you see things only one way. You forget about the fun of battling. It becomes a chore. There are bad Pokemon but there are no useless ones. The style of writing is promoting using only certain Pokemon so that's why you see the same teams over and over.
 
cantab said:
My opinions:

We have settled on the idea of the 'standard' metagame. We aim it to be well balanced and have other desirable features, while also being quite 'inclusive'.

In this metagame (and in any) some Pokemon get used more than others. I believe there are two reasons that a Pokemon gets used a lot. Firstly, a Pokemon can excel in one role. Secondly, a Pokemon can have versatility, being good in many roles and fitting well on many teams.

Conversely, a little used Pokemon might be little used because it's lousy, but it also might be little used because it's a niche Pokemon. The former probably should not be used in serious standard play, while the latter most definitely should see usage in standard - but not a lot of it, hence their not being OU.

(In practice, for most Pokemon a mixture of both these factors applies. Think of them as like endmembers.)

In WiFi, there are also practical considerations. A legitimate WishBliss is very hard to come by, while a much more readily obtained Wishfable can fill a similar role quite well.

Ultimately, you should choose what you think are the best Pokemon for your team. If that means running Pory2 to check a wide variety of threat, or running Clefable as a supporter, or Regice alongside Blissey, or whatever, then don't be scared off it because those Pokemon are rarely used.
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Agreed, so hard. While there are obvious outliers in terms of power (any dragon besides Altaria and Flygon), most overused Pokemon are overused because of the number of roles they can fill in different. If a Pokemon can fill many different roles in many different teams - from offensive to defensive teams, and many between - its usage stats are going to reflect that. If a Pokemon can only do one thing well in the standard metagame - such as Skuntank the explosion team supporter - then its usage stats are going to be pathetic.

Obsessed said:
So many other Pokemon do what Spinda does, only ten times better.

Spinda is a useless Pokemon unless you are looking to handicap yourself.
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Spinda's not totally useless: it supplies infinite cool points while destroying higher-tiered Pokemon at the end of a Baton Pass chain.
 
I think that the differences between OU and UU are a bit like the differences between checkers and chess. OU focuses on a very small number of pokemon, with very similar movesets. Sure there are people that purposefully mix up an OU pokemon to add an element of surprise into the formula, but most of the time you know what a pokemon is capable of in OU.
UU+NU is completely different. Often, you have no idea what a pokemon is going to do when it comes out of its ball. Take a look at Arbok for example, the smogon page would have you believe it can't do anything:
"Arbok is really a one trick pony ... snake. Use the listed movesets or use another Pokémon."
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But did you know that Arbok is one of three pokemon that can learn switcheroo and disable? Sure, that doesn't sound like an awesome strategy on a pokemon with 69 def and 60 hp, but I've used it and when it works you can't help but laugh.

The real interesting thing about pokemon is what happens when you bring your chess pieces to a checkers game. I find that the best matches are the ones between good all round players with UU/NU teams and solely OU/Uber players.

'Course all this is purely speculative, think what you want.
 
Proboscidea said:
Exactly. The tunnel vision you get from all this makes you see things only one way. You forget about the fun of battling. It becomes a chore. There are bad Pokemon but there are no useless ones. The style of writing is promoting using only certain Pokemon so that's why you see the same teams over and over.
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No I haven't. No it doesn't.

There are bad Pokemon. They are essentially useless unless you want to give yourself a handicap. You are essentially arguing over what the definition of useless is. My definition includes Pokemon like Spinda, or any Pokemon that exists that does a shitty job compared to other Pokemon.

We see the same teams over and over because this is a fucking competitive battling site, and not serebii. We play to win, because we find that battles are fun when we win. We use the best available tools to win. This makes some Pokemon deemed useless.

If you don't find playing to win fun then you are on the wrong site.
 
As I mainly do wifi, a lot of people I'm around regard OU as "cheap" or something because everyone uses the same pokemon. It's silly though, because other tiers are exactly the same. "Every" UU team uses Venasaur just like something scizor in OU and Skuntank in NU. Also people tend to think novelty is better than standard. While I agree in some cases, things are standard for a reason- they're good. But I do think originality is important. Using stuff like specs weedle because no one uses it is stupid, though.
 
Spenstar said:
Oh.

Um... maybe... there's got to be at least one useless pokemon out there... Trygoue? Does he get TMs?
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Tyrogue gives moves from one Hitmon to another. Like...Rapid Spin is a Hitmontop thing but breeding gives Tyrogue that move which lets Rapid Spin go to Chan or Lee which doesn't really make sense but it's like ok... Technician Hitmontop relies a lot on Mach Punch and Tyrogue gives it to him through a Hitmonchan dad. If he got a pass boost like that Magikarp he could do even more damage from moves like Fake Out, Hi Jump Kick, Rock Slide, and Earthquake.

I'm pretty sure you can find a sweep by any Pokemon on youtube.

haha. I just found a Weedle sweep now that you mention it. The title is hilarious.
 
Proboscidea said:
Tyrogue gives moves from one Hitmon to another. Like...Rapid Spin is a Hitmontop thing but breeding gives Tyrogue that move which lets Rapid Spin go to Chan or Lee which doesn't really make sense but it's like ok... Technician Hitmontop relies a lot on Mach Punch and Tyrogue gives it to him through a Hitmonchan dad. If he got a pass boost like that Magikarp he could do even more damage from moves like Fake Out, Hi Jump Kick, Rock Slide, and Earthquake.

I'm pretty sure you can find a sweep by any Pokemon on youtube.
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Darnit...

Though we both know that any priority move would have murdered that Karp, so, yeah

edit: I'll think of a useless pokemon eventually, just you wait... LOL. Feebass? Abra perhaps? Caterpie? Yes, Caterpie? Useless ability, no flail, stopped cold by ghosts... Caterpie wins!

Or weedle, but he can poison the foe so, yeah
 
The names "Overused" and "Underused" are misleading and are part of the reason many battlers use UUs in OU for "cool points." the name "Overused" implies that OU Pokemon are used too much, and that it is unoriginal and unsatisfying to use them. The name "Underused" implies that UU Pokemon are used too little and should be used more. To prevent this misconception, the tiers should have been given different names, such as "Often Used" and "Rarely Used."
 
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