Extending this notion, it is desirable that we start with an Uber definition that has as little subjectivity as possible.X-Act said:It is obvious that we require an OU definition that has no subjectivity whatsoever.
That is stupid. SD Rayquaza and DD rayquaza can be easily countered and last I checked SD Rayquaza doas not run a choice Item. If nothing is counterable in ubers then it would not be a metagame where people play since there would be no players since its would be pretty much random who won first. Sure some pokemon can be deemed uncounterabe (Mew due to the rediculous number of sets it can run) but this does not affect the uber metagame as a whole. Also who the hell uses Quagsire to counter Kyogre. It becomes a dead weght if your opponient does not carry Kyogre and it cannot do much back to Kyogre anyway. I use something like Latias or Palkia to help me against threats to my team like maybe a Kyogre.That's kinda the problem with most ubers. Something not named choiced ------ cannot really be countered. (choiced kyogre comes to mind ludicolo, mantine, quagsire, toxicroak,parasect, you get it)
The idea has come up before. There are two problems.Why shouldn't we make balanced Ubers our standard tier?
Yay!! Someone knows what I'm talking about. "Ubers" is such a relative term anyway. Basically, why do we have an Ubers tier?? Because those Pokemon are too good for OU. What is OU?? Most of you would say "Overused Pokemon who are used in the Standard metagame". However, you can also say OU is "Pokemon that are too good for UU play" and so on and so forth. You say Rotom-A would never be able to compete with stuff like Giratina, but you can easily apply the same argument on something else. Banette is never going to be able to compete with Rotom-A. The nature of the game implies that some Pokemon would be better than others, so the "Ubers" tier having "Pokemon who are too good for OU" seems like a paradox. Basically, we'd explain to the newbies saying "This is Standard, OU Pokemon are considered the best, but there is a tier of even better Pokemon that we don't use and don't talk about because they're too good". It's kind of like saying well "1,000,000 is the biggest number" and then going "Well, what about 1,000,000+1??"smart guy, whoever said that. Obviously, I don't actually reccomend banning everything OU and up, I'm just pointing out that because of the way the game was designed, we'll always have balancing issues. I actually agree that the existence of an 'Ubers' tier is silly, because as we're seeing now with Garchomp and Latias and Mence, it doesn't fix anything, since we'll just keep sending stuff there.The problem is that we're trying to implement an arbitrary tiering system to 'balance' a game which wasn't created with balance in mind.
As soon as we define what can be allowed where, people will experiment and eventually come up with 'the best' sets. This means that very quickly in every metagame, you start to see certain pokemon rising to predominance. (Scizor, Blissey, I'm looking at you >_>)
The thing that I find funny is that if there was no tiering/banning system at all, and people were free to play any and all pokemon with any and all legal moves, of COURSE people would be using the more powerful pokemon that we've banned to the Ubers, and we'd see a lot less use from the pokemon which aren't quite on par with them.
The problem then is that the top 10 or 20 pokemon in ANY metagame become the pillar around which the metagame functions. They set the standard for teams and will appear on most of them.
Banning them or handicapping their movesets doesn't change this phenomena. It just means that the 'next rung down' become the new elites and centralise the metagame. Sure, the metagame changes dramatically, but it doesn't fix the problem, just replaces old pokemon which were the most powerful in the metagame with new ones.
As we look further down the ladder of power scaling, we see that the power differences become smaller and smaller, until down in the UU tier we've created, we see a much MORE balanced metagame, owing simply to the fact that the pokemon in it are largely of comparable ability. You still have the metagame centralisation factor, but it is greatly reduced because the pool of 'top' pokemon is that much wider, spreading from 10 to 20 that see frequent use, to 30 or 40 that see frequent use. This lends itself to a more diverse metagame and greater potential for balance.
It is STILL imperfect, however. Obviously we can never HAVE a perfect system since a caterpie is never going to be able to compete with TTar or Scizor. Just not gonna happen. I think in terms of finding the most diverse 'top' set of pokemon (which is all a tiering system can really do) Banning everything OU and up is the way forwards.
So wait. Is this all semantics then? That seems an awfully poor reason to destroy all the tiers.Yay!! Someone knows what I'm talking about. "Ubers" is such a relative term anyway. Basically, why do we have an Ubers tier?? Because those Pokemon are too good for OU. What is OU?? Most of you would say "Overused Pokemon who are used in the Standard metagame". However, you can also say OU is "Pokemon that are too good for UU play" and so on and so forth. You say Rotom-A would never be able to compete with stuff like Giratina, but you can easily apply the same argument on something else. Banette is never going to be able to compete with Rotom-A. The nature of the game implies that some Pokemon would be better than others, so the "Ubers" tier having "Pokemon who are too good for OU" seems like a paradox. Basically, we'd explain to the newbies saying "This is Standard, OU Pokemon are considered the best, but there is a tier of even better Pokemon that we don't use and don't talk about because they're too good". It's kind of like saying well "1,000,000 is the biggest number" and then going "Well, what about 1,000,000+1??"
I would like to point out that I asked that question purely for philosophical reasons; though, BW also made me think of asking this as well. I would just like an answer to this question that I have yet to see. From what I have seen so far, people have been claiming that a diverse and balancedThe idea has come up before. There are two problems.
One is can we make a desirable metagame with the 680 BSTs around. Balance shouldn't be too hard, but diversity is. With 680 BSTs around, you've gotta have at least 600 BST or else be something pretty special to compete.
Secondly, we're hardly going to do this for DPPt because it means throwing away the last nearly three years of work on tiering. You want to try and make a balanced metagame with the 680 BSTs, you're going to have to do it yourself. Set up a Shoddy server and invite people to take part in the testing process.
BW is another matter. We'll have more powerful 680 and 600 BSTs, so a metagame full of them could have good diversity. Though I'm still not sure it will be quite enough.
most "newbies" actually understand our tiering system though. nobody maintains that OU pokemon are the best—perhaps that they comprise the best metagame, because it's the first actually balanced metagame and the one from which all the rest of the tiers are derived. ubers as a metagame isnt popular or talked about because it's not balanced at all, because it's not supposed to beBasically, we'd explain to the newbies saying "This is Standard, OU Pokemon are considered the best, but there is a tier of even better Pokemon that we don't use and don't talk about because they're too good". It's kind of like saying well "1,000,000 is the biggest number" and then going "Well, what about 1,000,000+1??