BKC, I know you are a very introspective person who like to abstract lessons/heuristics from specific instances. Here is one idea (that you probably know already). People tend to gravitate to simpler and rationalizable things even if it is wrong/imprecise, while rejecting complicated and vague things even thought it fit better with reality. In the case of game balancing, "fun for most people" is complicated and vague but it is actually fundamentally what matters, at least matters the most. Just because it is vague doesn't mean people should prioritize an approximation of fun, ie competitiveness, over fun itself. One can use competitiveness as a better-defined approximation to fun. However, when something is clearly not fun for most people, shown empirically through data like active player count, one should recognize fun in this instance manifests itself outside of the competitiveness approximation, and we should prioritize fun (for most people).
@@yep9462 my favourite tera ban tweet went something like "my partner and I are roleplaying "terastallization", they covered my eyes and now I have to guess a random type out of 18, and if I guess wrong I get beaten, how is this supposed to be fair?". There was a loooot of funny tweets
I think I found the post and it was pretty wild how casually the analogy was dropped and by a player who was/is a really good player too (I won't name them cuz BKC would have done that himself if he wanted that)
Nowhere else on the internet can I find the discussion around nuances of heated Pokémon debates intertwined with references to Dostoevsky and the inconvenience of shaving. And I’m here for it.
I think SS OU looks reminiscent of a traditional chess match, where the players have to find their way to put the opponent in a compromised decision and make a calculated effort to wear down pieces in order to make an effective assault, once the holes are open
Gen 8 OU is a pretty balanced tier, but its just not very interesting. Games play out similarity and they reward the player who plays the safest as possible. More then any other tier it feels like all you see are pokemon use safe moves. Theres so much pivoting and clicking super low risk moves like knock, scald, toxic, wisp and rocks since those are the moves that acutally stick to regenerators (but also pretty much any other mon) instead of being healed off. Its a flaw tiering can have some times, the goal is always to make a balanced tier but sometimes a balanced tier just doesn't turn out very inspiring. Thats why smogon has so many tiers after all, they cannot all be hits so when you don't like one metagame you have hundreds of more to choose from instead. Although having to convincing somebody to play an obscure tier is inconvenient sadly.
The other thing that I think hurts it is variety between tiers. This ties in with it being often uninteresting, but it really has no defining traits. Sure it has a lot of boots, but so does gen 9. Sure it has consistency and low commitment moves with every turn being important, but so does gen 2. It doesn't have megas or z moves, it doesn't have old mechanics that were removed or changed. A lot of people find it hard to find a reason to play the tier when other options are available.
@@tomgorey9294 it was. It had virtually no good switch ins on paper. It had people running stuff like spdef clef and Scizor which were not good sets against the rest of the tier but were the only safe-ish ways to switch in on the ice (freeze dry and/or ice beam)/ground/fighting coverage.
Yeah, the C&C team had a CRAZY backlog and they just couldn’t keep up considering how many analyses needed a lot of work. I’m a C&C mod for SV OU now, and our new approach to the analysis format has generally let us stay ahead of the issues SS OU’s analyses had to deal with.
Last month, 86k G8OU games were played on the ladder, while G7OU’s number is 175k, double popularity That’s how players vote for the meta they enjoy playing
@@hugopereira2241 thats actually an interesting point of view I still think people love gen 7 more, but not by that large a margin, as gen 8 games usually last 33% more than gen 7 (if im not mistaken)
"[...] Like this video is very much about the Gen 8 boots thing" says Kevin, 10 minutes into an hour long video in which hasn't yet brought up the main topic
As annoying as regenerator is, SS OU honestly doesn't need to be touched, its a very balanced tier as is with all its quirks currently (regen being annoying and whatnot, despite knock being prevalent to punish switching.) The OU council did a great job balancing gen 8 OU, and it shows
It's balanced, but a lot of people dislike how the metagame plays so they want to shake things up. It's sort of the opposite of gen 5 OU in that regard.
Exactly, for how seemingly unpopular Gen 8 OU was, I found myself enjoying myself way more with this tier once it finally stabilized than I EVER did playing Gen 7 OU which was honestly atrocious and to this day I'm still baffled by the council of this gen being seemingly this opposed to the idea of a suspect test (ffs, how was Gren never even tested despite being one of the most bullshit mons ever that had such a negative impact around it ? If you needed to limit yourself then at least bring him up, the mind games behind which set it was and how absolutely ruinous getting it wrong could be were disastrous for the tier as a whole)
@@gnomefrompinkerton Personally, what I hate about Gren is this : The answers you have for Protean and Ash are completely different and require heavy reads, and getting it wrong can easily cost you a ton (worst example is definitely switching in AV Mag thinking it's Battle Bond only to get Z Dig. Literally, AV Mag was thought to be the best counter to it until this set popped up and I was certain that this metagame shift was going to bring a Suspect ....... until it just wasn't. Sure the tier can "survive" with Gren inside, but let's not act like it wouldn't be massively better without it, especially since removing Gren would allow for Magearna to be Suspect tested afterwards (as the biggest reason not to ban Mag is that it checks Gren). Don't get me wrong, the Zygarde suspect was a good thing and very appreciated....... but choosing between these 3, I don't think Zygarde was the biggest problem at the time
@@gnomefrompinkerton USUM OU would be massively better without Z Moves yes, that is the underlying issue with the tier, but I know full well that it would never have been banned, instead the biggest abusers of the mechanic should have been banned, and the two biggest abusers are Gren and Mag, notably because they have a lot of good non Z sets and several different Z moves that they could viably use. Gen 7 is a fundamentally broken tier and it's council ensured there was no way to salvage it, it's eerily similar to gen 5
Talking mainly about the unbans of offensive threats the guy at about 2:00 suggests: Spectrier: I don't want to run SBALL Blissey on everu team I build Zygarde: Maybe could be ok, though I could see Bulky DD sets being god awful tk deal with Zamazenta: We tried Crown, it sucked. Hero probably wouldn't be much better. Pheramosa: Literally outruns every non scarfer bar eleki and has the move pool to run practically whatever set it wants. Kyurem: It was banned for a reason, let's not ignore that reason.
I like boots insofar as you can actually run things like Articuno and have them be useful without dedicating one (or sometimes two) mons entirely to hazard removal, but man they really overshot it with boots on things like Cinderace.
One thing about gen 8 is that there are too many things that are riskless. Switching is riskless (due to multiple factors), Knock Off is borderline riskless, scald is riskless. This leads to the same scenerios happening a million times in the same game because both of the players ofc want the low risk high reward play, even if the high reward is then nullified by the opp's high reward play. For the same reason I kinda agree with the guys talking about the luck fishing dynamic with things like ice beam or contact status abilities. Now, I think HDB is a cool item, it bring into the game many pokemon but in combination with regen + teleport + cleric mons it's pretty close to having 3 or 4 mons with magic guard which is insane. Probably an item clause would fix this issue while not taking away tools to play the hazard game (which becomes more important this way) while ensuring progress is made and making decisions more intricate and impactful
@@thearrivalalex450 Yeah people like to pretend running stall regen cores isn't as mindless as hyper offense. You can afford even more mistakes playing stall than offense.
The notion that boots are the "problem" in SS OU is genuinely insane. Sure the tier isn't the most fun, but damn I can't understand why people would begin gesturing to ban it, or worse yet, unban stuff as a "countermeasure" like Magearna and Spectrier
@@DarthFhenix55Boots are nowhere near centralizing in gen 8 OU It sure is a good item, but it is far from a gen 9 situation, where bootspam is really common
I'd wager it's more centralizing in Gen 9 due to less knock off and less hazard removal, and even then arguing boots to be the problem in that tier compared to stuff like Valiant or Tera is insane
@@serifAizawa Boots being too good in gen 9 isnt even only them being centralizing, but more like hazards being centralizing, since they are too easy to maintain on the field due to samurott and gholdengo, making bootspam almost mandatory for more deffensive teams The low distribution of knock off sure helps too
I like drawn out, tactical games too. But the fact that two balanced teams, each with heavy hitting pokemon like Melmetal, Blacephalon, and Dragapult, are always at risk to run a 100+ turn game because there are no reliable ways to make progress in gen 8 is completely unacceptable and also not true of other generations. "It's boring" may not be competitively minded but its gotta count for something. I mean
I question the premise that SS OU is a thing that needs to be saved. I mean, certainly, if there is credible evidence that the existing playerbase really wants it and won't be irrevocably split, then sure, go for it. But it's a miracle in the first place that Pokemon has so many older generations with an active playerbase that are still passionate about it. It's way more normal for the players to completely move on when the next game, except for when 1-2 of the older entries have something really special that keep that playerbase around (Starcraft, Melee, GunZ, 3rd Strike, etc.). Even in the case of SF, where IV and V are - on average - well liked enough, I'd be surprised if there will ever be a major movement to revive them, because the new gens are also good enough. Subjectively in my head for Pokemon, Gen 1 is peak nostalgia, Gens 2-3 are some of the most highly regarded metagames and also have nostalgia going for them, and Gen 4-5 are peak nostalgia for competitive scene. For me, I'm partial to ORAS because I love the dynamic that megas and it's "queen-piece" / broken-actually-checking-broken gameplay provides (and also talonflame), but even I'm not sure how long gen 6 will have people really interested in it way into the future. Especially in regards to gimmicks, even if I can agree that competitiveness should be more important than how subjectively "boring" it is, then I can't imagine how you'll ever get too many new players passionate about that metagame the older it gets when there isn't anything special about it. Which again, should be fine, but only if you can accept that the metagame can be moved on from.
I feel like watching gen 8 ou high ladder gameplay was when i started to learn how to really play singles and when to take risks, joey was a huge part of that
BKC, I know you are a very introspective person who like to abstract lessons/heuristics from specific instances. Here is one idea (that you probably know already). People tend to gravitate to simpler and rationalizable things even if it is wrong/imprecise, while rejecting complicated and vague things even thought it fit better with reality. In the case of game balancing, "fun for most people" is complicated and vague but it is actually fundamentally what matters, at least matters the most. Just because it is vague doesn't mean people should prioritize an approximation of fun, ie competitiveness, over fun itself. One can use competitiveness as a better-defined approximation to fun. However, when something is clearly not fun for most people, shown empirically through data like active player count, one should recognize fun in this instance manifest itself outside of the competitiveness approximation, and we should prioritize fun (for most people).
With every new generation, it's understandable that certain generations get thinner fanbases. Gen8ou doesn't offer much that Gen7ou, Gen9ou, and NatDex already offers. Banning boots will shake up the meta a little but will probably result with Gen8ou resembling Gen7ou minus z-moves and megas
Gen8ou kinda killed its long term viability because they had to ban their gens gimmick. At that point Natdex and the next gen would automatically just be more interesting.
Most concise BKC video: title about gen 8 Pokémon but we’ve talked about Malaria, Beards and Russian Literature before the 10 min mark. Only you could do this king 👑
Gen 8 OU isn't "bad" per say, it's just....sterile. The big gimmick of the generation being a complete non-factor probably has something to do with that. Going from megas to Z-moves _+_ _megas_ to boots(?) is kind of tough to take. I understand the necessity of dynamax being banned, but it really does take away from the "wow" factor compared to the metagames before it as well as the one after it.
I think he means more that its hard to draw any new players without the gimmick. People who want hardcore no gimmicks pure skill metagames are gonna go to adv
Pretty much. As someone who got into competitive during the DPP era and the bygone days of friendcodes, the more vanilla takes on the metagame will always have a special place in my heart. That being said, I don't see SS OU as it is really clicking for players with a more contemporary standpoint. @@WTH1music
You mentioned fun being subjective, but I don’t 100% agree. Obviously people enjoy different things, but if a majority of tournament players say that a metagame is boring there’s definitely a problem with it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there’s a single person on Earth who thinks playing against Shaymin-Sky is fun. I could be wrong though plenty of people like bad things. I like bad things, I like the movie Snakes on a Plane, that’s one of the worst movies ever and I love it. The point is that there are things that make a metagame “fun”. We all want to be engaged in what were doing that’s what makes us human beings. Anyway, SS OU is one of my least played gens so I could be wrong, but I’m not so sure that boots itself is the problem. I say this after playing SV OU, which is a meta where boots are not only not complained about, but people often say it makes the meta better. Part of it is due to there being much worse hazard removal and much better hazard setters, but there’s also less knock off too (that could change though with the dlc bringing back mons like Gliscor and Crawdaunt in like a week lmao). Overall I still think its a “too early to tell” situation for boots in SS OU. It has only been a past gen for what, less than a year? Removing boots would change the meta a LOT and that can’t be overstated, so it may be better to wait for the meta to develop before concluding that boots are indeed the problem.
I think the thing that's getting to me in this discussion is how a lot of the discussion seems less focused on whether boots are causing the problem, but rather on whether banning boots is the solution to the ACTUAL problem of a slow and fairly safe metagame. I respect the discussion, and can understand both why people might feel that there's a problem with the tier, and how some people arrive at the problem being Boots, but I question those who basically want the tier to change for changes sake simply because they don't like how things are currently.
Honestly GSC and SS are valuable litmus tests as far as OU metagames go, if you can appreciate them it tells me I don't have to ignore your opinion. The idea of beating an opponent being a genuine team effort and matches being similar in scope to chess in that the victor slowly removes their opponent's options from them is honestly a GREAT dynamic. That all said- I still find GSC to be more enjoyable to watch, and that's mainly because it feels so much easier to make progress- and this is compared to a metagame that has multiple layers of spikes, stealth rocks, sand, viable toxic, corrected sleep talk, and so on. To be fair to SS though, GSC also had explosion, pursuit (even if its most viable user was a UUBL mon) and the most powerful OU pokemon to ever exist. Guess it just goes to suggest how much boots can warp and slow down a metagame.
i have literally zero clue what this is, what its about, but i found it while searching for something else, and i think ill end up watching it sometime at 3am
I loved the idea of item clause for Gen 8. Mostly because it eliminates “the vortex.” It’s also in line with VGC which is what the game devs balance around the most. That puts less work on tier balancing and more choice into players hands. Although a full item clause might cause an unnecessary ruckus. To me it’s the most reasonable attempt. I think this makes mons particularly weak to hazards have an easier time still and the removal makes a bigger deal. It makes you ask the question which team member needs boots MORE
On the topic of people comparing tiering debates to much more real and serious topics, i DISTINCTLY remember back in the smash 4 smashboards days, when people were talking about custom moves and whether they should be legal or not, someone invoked one of the final paragraphs of To Kill a Mockingbird as a comparison. That post got, like, 74 likes too.
God i remember reading a smogon thread i involving some wanna be lawyer wanting to sue smogon because they hurt his feelings lol and ended up getting trolled by somebody pretending to be smogons legal team iirc lol.
the only thing i might change about ssou is static and flame body, because it’s the one of the only things balancing some mons, which i see as a bandaid solution
I don't play the tier, so I hope you see this as a question - not an attack. But aren't Zapdos, Volcarona, and possibly Heatran the users of those abilities? If so, isn't boots removal is an indirect nerf to mons with those abilities?
@@jersefrenzer1265 it is an indirect nerf to mons with those abilities, but when you consider all the OTHER mons that use boots, it’s basically using a nuke to fix a roadblock
i put on this video and didn't start paying attention until kev spent 2 minutes stragiht talking about his beard and i thought a new video had started autoplaying
People are insane for wanting to unban Spectrier or Magearna. Those mons are broken as all hell. Uncommon opinion but they should try out Giagantimax Pokémon specifically. Dynamax is absolutely terrible but if limited among who gets it it becomes a lot more manageable tiering.
I still haven't adapted to the gen 9 meta after what gen 8 did to me. Gen 9 OU plays more like Gen 7 AG(probably my favorite tier of all time). Big change of game type, more like Yu-Gi-Oh match up fishing vs gen 8's go style long game.
Honestly if SS and SV OU shows anything is how difficult it is to balance switching in Comp Singles. If switching is to free, thanks to Hazard Removal/Ignoring Hazards and Regenerator, then certain offensive mons can become very stupid and defensive playstyles like Balance/Stall can lead to a boring metagame with drawn out games. Meanwhile, if hazards are to strong as seen in SV OU or BW, that also can make offensive mons super stupid and hurt the metagame. It's def a tough line to walk, and a issue unique to Singles imo.
Too add on to what I think was well said, I agree switching is specifically important to 6v6 singles meta because that’s where majority of the skill comes from. It’s worth extensive analysis+discussion.
@@newjumpcityjosh9333 Def agree. Also think trapping is another good example, as very broad trapping abilities(Arena Trap and Shadow Tag) are usually seen as broken + enable degen HO/Stall Play but limited trapping like Pursuit and Magnet Pull, Magma Storm are a lot more tolerated in 6v6 singles.
@@theimpersonator7086 I suppose the reason those are seen as healthier is that, for pursuit and trapping moves, good prediction is still required, whether that be the prediction needed to land a trapping move on the right target, or predicting whether the opponent will attempt to switch out or stay in. Magnet pull is more straightforward, but the thing is that steel is a type with a massive target on its back due to its defensive profile, so the opponent using "steel hate" (such as magnet pull or anti-steel coverage like earthquake) should be almost taken as a given.
me when I am uu because of boots I would enjoy boots at 0 but understand certain pokemon would completely fall off a cliff with boots to 0. boots to 1, that would be interesting, because then it's ok we're not stuffing fire/bug (etc) with rocks, while not "removing" an entire mechanic like gen 5's complex ban of no speed boost weather ability with weather (like locking out regenerator and boots together could be)
I'm still angry they took away Gen 8 anything goes. Loved that tier for the crazy power levels and dynamaxing and obviously the strategies to counteract it i.e. Grapploct, focus sash, topsy turvy
I had a tradition when making an alt to play a round of Gen 7 AG for my ladder game req. Recently made a new alt and had my soul crushed because it's not a ladder meta anymore :(
SS is boring to watch, debatable on boring to play, but definitely decently balanced. I think the tier is fine. As for low player count, just wait for a decade and it'll see a resurgence as some of the zoomers grow up and rediscover it lul
I feel like now that SS OU is a past gen, there really isn't any reason to ban anything that you could feasibly ban (a boots ban would probably make the meta better but it would be completely insane and goes against any precedent for bans). Nobody is forced to play SS OU, and it's a balanced tier with appeal to a certain kind of player. The tier is fair and has quirks that will ensure at least a few people want to play it, and if you don't like it then now that gen 9 is out nobody is forcing you to queue up for an SS game. It's like that time when someone made a policy review thread asking for tauros, snorlax and chansey to be banned from gen 1 to open things up and hopefully bring in new players and revitalize rby. Anyone who plays rby right now does so because they like its quirks, and trying to fundamentally change it will just make things worse.
I always loved the 3 gens everyone dislikes, 1, 5 and 8, but 8 was always very interesting because it is the only generation people hate for being too defensive and slow. I honestly feel like gen 8 is extremely balanced and you can for sure speed up games by running hyper offense teams if you really want to complain about battle duration. That being said, there is no strong argument for boots ban. It is a good item, but it is not better than leftovers overall and it does not enable a particularly broken strategy, so we can not really justify banning it under the idea that "it is too good" or the idea of "it enables broken stuff", unless you consider weavile broken.
I stopped playing singles draft in gen 8 because I felt boots removed all sense of impact from skilful decision making. Makes it feel very boring to me.
If you build a team of UUs that dies to one Pokémon spamming non-STAB ESpeed, even if that ESpeed is off 180 base Attack, that's a teambuilding issue lmao
Back then, almost everyone agreed that dynamax was broke as opposed to when people were concerned about Tera (much closer to a 50/50 split). I only play Random Battles and even I think Dynamax is broke.
Gen 8 is just so boring. It's essentially just a metagame where both players tiptoe around eachother taking inches where they can. It's a meta where it's very hard to make progress thanks to regenerator, heavy duty boots etc. And this just makes games so slow and boring. Theres a lot of fat mons in the meta which can switch in and never be at risk of being 2HKO'd so everything in a battle is just creeping forward trying to get predictions right and even if tou predic oerfectly oh well ill just switch my toxapex out or my slowking and get regenerator and switch it back in. Such a slow meta and just overall not fun at all. There's just so much switching and positioning and it overtakes the entire meta itself. There's a lot of powerhouses in the tier such as tapu lele, rillaboom etc. And other hard hitters but the amount of fat mons which stay in, fish for scald burns, knock off mons etc. Just makes the game so 2D
While I will concede that megas probably aren't healthy for pokemon's "official" formats, I do feel like they are handled very elegantly by smogon's tiering system, since any mega that's "too strong" can simply be individually banned either by banning the form, or by implementing it as an item ban (which functionally have the same result) without having to decide on blanket banning or not-banning the mechanic as a whole (as is the case for dynamax and tera.) Mega kangaskhan was too much for OU, so it got banned, but mega pinsir isn't too much, so it isn't banned, and the ban doesn't need to be any more complex than "you can't bring kangasknanite to an OU match." The main upside I see from removing megas is the possibility of giving new evolutions to 1- or 2-stage pokemon that previously had a mega, but so far I don't believe that we've had any new evolutions to pokemon that lost a mega yet. Also, for pokemon that were already 3-stagers, like beedrill and aggron, mega evolution really was the only way to give them a meaningful buff without breaking the rule of "no more than 3 stages in an evolutionary line."
My guess is great tusk ends up being a pretty strong choice band pokemon. There is no body press or close combat so it would be using brick break as it's stab. I am guessing the set would be pretty similar to a normal donphan set with EQ, rapid spin, HP rock/bug/Ghost, brick break. It certainly hits hard, and is able to 2HKO swampert with EQ and does about 50% to Skarmory with brick break making it super hard to switch into. It could have some problems with Gengar though, particularly if not running HP ghost, but also if it just gets choice locked into a bad move. It has decent lead matchups with HP rock as it is able to beat TTar, Zapdos, and Hariyama, though Salamence comfortably lives HP rock and 2HKOs with HP grass. Ferrothorn has a strong chance to be the best pokemon in the tier. My quick assumption set is 252 HP / 128 attack / 128 Sp Def with Spikes, Leech Seed, HP Ground, Protect/Toxic/Explosion. The EV spread lets it OHKO Magneton 75% of the time, and it comfortably lives HP fire, making it it much harder to trap than Skarmory. Additionally, it's iron barbs ability means that spinners have to take chip damage to clear its hazards, and it's slow speed means even foretress can't go after it and thus you can get a new layer of spikes down after they spin. However, without roar, it is very vulnerable to substitute. There is no gyro ball or power whip in this game to give it a hard hitting move to be less passive. Explosion can remedy this a bit, but you are still just losing your ferrothorn to pop a sub. Still, it shares a lot of traits with Skarmory but has better stats, access to leech seed, and beats Magneton, and Skarmory is already the 2nd best pokemon in the tier.
anyway after watching the video, my thoughts are simple: the main point OP brought up is that players of gen 8 like it, but spectators and non-players don't. And I do not think this is a bad thing. You don't have to watch/play anything you think is boring, this is true, but it doesn't mean the boring thing needs to change to accommodate people who don't like it and therefore don't play it. smogon isn't a corporation funded off spectators anyway. if they were, they'd have higher production values for tournament coverage. it's literally just a bunch of people playing mons. idk why the thread OP even brings up "it's boring to watch," smogon isn't about viewer engagement metrics the way VGC is.
I think its very revealing that in the game you chose to showcase one team didn't have rocks and the other team could never keep rocks up. The problem with evaluating gen 8 ou is basically summarised there. The "boring" teams and games everyone complains about are as much a result of the way people choose to play as anything else, and banning boots doesn't limit defensive teams at all. The actual argument seems to be that there are several pokemon who are incredibly hard to answer defensively, who are now not kept in check by hazards, and if you banned boots you would open up more offensive structures, and people would feel less pressured to run the types of do nothing stall teams that lead to the tier being incredibly boring to watch sometime, and you can even throw the fat balances in the mix. I can't speak as much for ou but from a uu perspective I know that having that one defensive piece on offense which isn't affected by hazards as well as maybe 1-2 other mons with boots does far more to open up the builder than removing boots does. The point is, defensive teams don't have a problem with hazards, and offensive teams do, so removing boots seems to exacerbate the problems most people have with ssou, and even if it leads to a more competitive tier I don't see it being more interesting to watch.
It's funny because most would agree that swsh ou is a pretty balanced tier, and yet it's a tier barely anybody wants to play because of how boring it is. Stats should that 100+ turn games are not the average, but everything just feels so drawn out because a lot of pokemon are just never punished for anything they do besides taking a super effective hit. I admit I'm not a great player, but I played every tier before way, WAY more than swsh ou because it was just soul draining. Either way, I suppose I don't have a horse in this race because I don't even play the tier, so what happens to it is of no consequence to me. I will say that I've seen a few argue about how "people will adapt" but idk how that's gonna happen if nobody wants to even play the damn thing in the first place. Conclusion: knock off buff, regenerator and magic guard are the worst ideas maybe ever
Honestly, a Kyurem/Cinderace suspect doesn't seem like a bad idea. I'm looking at this from the lens of an esport since that's kinda what Pokemon is anyway. While game balance is an esport's top priority, many game companies who develop these games make it very clear that overall game feel and fun aren't too far behind. And sometimes, that means you gotta leave some stuff in that might be considered a bit OP. The vast majority of people will always gravitate towards an offensive metagame because it gives a more direct reward for their time spent playing and/or watching any given game. While this flies directly in the face of game balance, it is an important fact to consider should you want to build an audience for any given game/tier
Would be interested to hear a video about Revival Blessing and how it can be used in games. Remember seeing a video where it was paired in National Dex with Mega Banette, punishing the very act of koing something. Something like that just changes the game so much.
If instead of "fun" Ben Gay says, "the better player wins," I don't see how he's wrong. I may get flamed, but boots put me over the edge and was part of the reason I left. I think a more competitive metagame is for the better, and I think banning boots is a step in that direction. We ban stuff like ohko moves in the spirit of uncompetitiveness, why cant we extend the argument to boots?
? How are boots and ohko moves are comparable? Boots have counterplay in knock off (which is everywhere),ohko moves counterplay is praying that it won't hit.
Ok sorry for comparing ohko moves to boots. Ohko is vastly more uncompetitive. I'm trying to say that it's not unheard of to ban something for being uncompetitive. Perhaps a more appropriate comparison would be brightpowder.
Again brightpowder is still way less competitive than boots. But if boots are removing a skill component to mons, I think there's a point to be had about suspecting them.
It kind of reminds me of super smash Bros brawl where while the game is slow and there are some broken aspects, there is also a lit if skill in the game and landing hits and sometimes combos takes some skill... the issue is that the game is very slow and boring to watch
people on the internet these days are so fragile. They wouldn't have survived a minute on the good old days of the internet without having a mental breakdown
www.smogon.com/forums/threads/current-state-of-ss-ou.3726411/
BKC, I know you are a very introspective person who like to abstract lessons/heuristics from specific instances. Here is one idea (that you probably know already). People tend to gravitate to simpler and rationalizable things even if it is wrong/imprecise, while rejecting complicated and vague things even thought it fit better with reality.
In the case of game balancing, "fun for most people" is complicated and vague but it is actually fundamentally what matters, at least matters the most. Just because it is vague doesn't mean people should prioritize an approximation of fun, ie competitiveness, over fun itself. One can use competitiveness as a better-defined approximation to fun. However, when something is clearly not fun for most people, shown empirically through data like active player count, one should recognize fun in this instance manifests itself outside of the competitiveness approximation, and we should prioritize fun (for most people).
video length is a tribute to length of average SS OU match
Comparing bp to malaria is actually insane
Yea bp is way worse
It's always funny when the current gen OU discussion thread inevitably makes a tone deaf comparison to modern politics
Shoutouts to Pro Tera ban people comparing Tera to slavery
@@yep9462 my favourite tera ban tweet went something like "my partner and I are roleplaying "terastallization", they covered my eyes and now I have to guess a random type out of 18, and if I guess wrong I get beaten, how is this supposed to be fair?". There was a loooot of funny tweets
I think I found the post and it was pretty wild how casually the analogy was dropped and by a player who was/is a really good player too (I won't name them cuz BKC would have done that himself if he wanted that)
Nowhere else on the internet can I find the discussion around nuances of heated Pokémon debates intertwined with references to Dostoevsky and the inconvenience of shaving. And I’m here for it.
And same for me
NPC comment
@@GIR177 for sure
Wait when does the dostoevsky thing happen?
starts around 9:17 @@neversparky
it’s still so unfathomably based that one of the few times you actually cared to play gen 8 was to get reqs for the mag suspect
I think SS OU looks reminiscent of a traditional chess match, where the players have to find their way to put the opponent in a compromised decision and make a calculated effort to wear down pieces in order to make an effective assault, once the holes are open
Thats gen 2 more accurately, SS OU has much more clickable buttons so it is not as difficult to make decisions.
@@fdaa3154 I agree heavily on that, I have never played any multiplayer game with more blatantly flowchart gameplay frfr.
@@sablesalttbf chess on a high level is just smacking two flow charts against each other
If you want a real chess experience you need to play gen 1 Ubers
Except that Chess has offensive momentum that isn't 0 or 100.
Gen 8 OU is a pretty balanced tier, but its just not very interesting.
Games play out similarity and they reward the player who plays the safest as possible. More then any other tier it feels like all you see are pokemon use safe moves. Theres so much pivoting and clicking super low risk moves like knock, scald, toxic, wisp and rocks since those are the moves that acutally stick to regenerators (but also pretty much any other mon) instead of being healed off.
Its a flaw tiering can have some times, the goal is always to make a balanced tier but sometimes a balanced tier just doesn't turn out very inspiring. Thats why smogon has so many tiers after all, they cannot all be hits so when you don't like one metagame you have hundreds of more to choose from instead. Although having to convincing somebody to play an obscure tier is inconvenient sadly.
The other thing that I think hurts it is variety between tiers. This ties in with it being often uninteresting, but it really has no defining traits. Sure it has a lot of boots, but so does gen 9. Sure it has consistency and low commitment moves with every turn being important, but so does gen 2. It doesn't have megas or z moves, it doesn't have old mechanics that were removed or changed. A lot of people find it hard to find a reason to play the tier when other options are available.
SS OU will never be as controversial as Iron Mugulis though
Iron Mugulis isn't controversial, it's simply universally despised as the ultimate villain that it is
Iron Mogulis causes M-Ray and Zacian-C nightmares.
Ah, but not as controversial as iron chugulus though at the moment.
8:00 this is Bloo's legacy in the competitive scene
Ever since Keyrum was banned from the tier SS ou has been a very balanced tier in my experience. It doesn't need to be touched at all.
kyurem didnt need to be banned imo
@@ArchChrono I didn't think so either but I sure didn't miss it when it was banned.
@@14fluffiesto be fair it was very oppressive in the builder
@@tomgorey9294 it was. It had virtually no good switch ins on paper. It had people running stuff like spdef clef and Scizor which were not good sets against the rest of the tier but were the only safe-ish ways to switch in on the ice (freeze dry and/or ice beam)/ground/fighting coverage.
Say what you want about kyurem, but the fact that Scizor rose from uu just because it was the only way to deal with it definitely says something.
SS OU lacks resources like alot of them is quite ironic melmeltan not having analysis on ss ou when it does have on natdex or lgpe lmao
Yeah, the C&C team had a CRAZY backlog and they just couldn’t keep up considering how many analyses needed a lot of work.
I’m a C&C mod for SV OU now, and our new approach to the analysis format has generally let us stay ahead of the issues SS OU’s analyses had to deal with.
BKC ranting about shaving during a pokemon video is peak content
Ah, yes, my favourite parasocial relationship
Last month, 86k G8OU games were played on the ladder, while G7OU’s number is 175k, double popularity
That’s how players vote for the meta they enjoy playing
No? Perhaps SS games just last way longer. If you count how many hours they actually spent playing both it would probably be equal
@@hugopereira2241 thats actually an interesting point of view
I still think people love gen 7 more, but not by that large a margin, as gen 8 games usually last 33% more than gen 7 (if im not mistaken)
Seems like Heavy Duty Boots continues to step on single’s players toes.
"[...] Like this video is very much about the Gen 8 boots thing" says Kevin, 10 minutes into an hour long video in which hasn't yet brought up the main topic
As annoying as regenerator is, SS OU honestly doesn't need to be touched, its a very balanced tier as is with all its quirks currently (regen being annoying and whatnot, despite knock being prevalent to punish switching.)
The OU council did a great job balancing gen 8 OU, and it shows
It's balanced, but a lot of people dislike how the metagame plays so they want to shake things up. It's sort of the opposite of gen 5 OU in that regard.
Exactly, for how seemingly unpopular Gen 8 OU was, I found myself enjoying myself way more with this tier once it finally stabilized than I EVER did playing Gen 7 OU which was honestly atrocious and to this day I'm still baffled by the council of this gen being seemingly this opposed to the idea of a suspect test (ffs, how was Gren never even tested despite being one of the most bullshit mons ever that had such a negative impact around it ? If you needed to limit yourself then at least bring him up, the mind games behind which set it was and how absolutely ruinous getting it wrong could be were disastrous for the tier as a whole)
@@gnomefrompinkerton Personally, what I hate about Gren is this :
The answers you have for Protean and Ash are completely different and require heavy reads, and getting it wrong can easily cost you a ton (worst example is definitely switching in AV Mag thinking it's Battle Bond only to get Z Dig. Literally, AV Mag was thought to be the best counter to it until this set popped up and I was certain that this metagame shift was going to bring a Suspect ....... until it just wasn't.
Sure the tier can "survive" with Gren inside, but let's not act like it wouldn't be massively better without it, especially since removing Gren would allow for Magearna to be Suspect tested afterwards (as the biggest reason not to ban Mag is that it checks Gren).
Don't get me wrong, the Zygarde suspect was a good thing and very appreciated....... but choosing between these 3, I don't think Zygarde was the biggest problem at the time
@@gnomefrompinkerton USUM OU would be massively better without Z Moves yes, that is the underlying issue with the tier, but I know full well that it would never have been banned, instead the biggest abusers of the mechanic should have been banned, and the two biggest abusers are Gren and Mag, notably because they have a lot of good non Z sets and several different Z moves that they could viably use.
Gen 7 is a fundamentally broken tier and it's council ensured there was no way to salvage it, it's eerily similar to gen 5
@@sephikong8323 I think one of the main reasons people dislike this tier is the fact that it stayed for 3 years as the current gen
Talking mainly about the unbans of offensive threats the guy at about 2:00 suggests:
Spectrier: I don't want to run SBALL Blissey on everu team I build
Zygarde: Maybe could be ok, though I could see Bulky DD sets being god awful tk deal with
Zamazenta: We tried Crown, it sucked. Hero probably wouldn't be much better.
Pheramosa: Literally outruns every non scarfer bar eleki and has the move pool to run practically whatever set it wants.
Kyurem: It was banned for a reason, let's not ignore that reason.
Policy Review is fantastic entertainment. I always check in regularly.
I have never seen someone get so distracted from a topic that they went from Pokemon to Malaria to shaving habits back to pokemon
I'm not even 10 minutes in yet!!
I like boots insofar as you can actually run things like Articuno and have them be useful without dedicating one (or sometimes two) mons entirely to hazard removal, but man they really overshot it with boots on things like Cinderace.
One thing about gen 8 is that there are too many things that are riskless. Switching is riskless (due to multiple factors), Knock Off is borderline riskless, scald is riskless. This leads to the same scenerios happening a million times in the same game because both of the players ofc want the low risk high reward play, even if the high reward is then nullified by the opp's high reward play. For the same reason I kinda agree with the guys talking about the luck fishing dynamic with things like ice beam or contact status abilities. Now, I think HDB is a cool item, it bring into the game many pokemon but in combination with regen + teleport + cleric mons it's pretty close to having 3 or 4 mons with magic guard which is insane. Probably an item clause would fix this issue while not taking away tools to play the hazard game (which becomes more important this way) while ensuring progress is made and making decisions more intricate and impactful
The best Gen 8 teams don't even run much HDB. In fact the best stall team only runs one HDB, the rest are other items. Balance usually runs 1 or 2.
@internetguy7319 Even one pokemon immune to hazards is broken. Which is all stall needs to play safely.
@@FenShen-us9tv Pair that with clef and wish and you've got the ultimate core for not making progress
@@thearrivalalex450 Yeah people like to pretend running stall regen cores isn't as mindless as hyper offense. You can afford even more mistakes playing stall than offense.
The notion that boots are the "problem" in SS OU is genuinely insane. Sure the tier isn't the most fun, but damn I can't understand why people would begin gesturing to ban it, or worse yet, unban stuff as a "countermeasure" like Magearna and Spectrier
Boots themselves aren't the problem, but how they centralize the metagame. They should be limited to just 1 or 2 mon per team IMO
@@DarthFhenix55Boots are nowhere near centralizing in gen 8 OU
It sure is a good item, but it is far from a gen 9 situation, where bootspam is really common
I'd wager it's more centralizing in Gen 9 due to less knock off and less hazard removal, and even then arguing boots to be the problem in that tier compared to stuff like Valiant or Tera is insane
@@serifAizawa Boots being too good in gen 9 isnt even only them being centralizing, but more like hazards being centralizing, since they are too easy to maintain on the field due to samurott and gholdengo, making bootspam almost mandatory for more deffensive teams
The low distribution of knock off sure helps too
@@walterbardelli523 wishing item clause was a thing to cripple leftovers spam
Gen 8 VGC: [having a party in the next yard]
Gen 8 OU: [trying to sleep at 3 am]
I like drawn out, tactical games too. But the fact that two balanced teams, each with heavy hitting pokemon like Melmetal, Blacephalon, and Dragapult, are always at risk to run a 100+ turn game because there are no reliable ways to make progress in gen 8 is completely unacceptable and also not true of other generations.
"It's boring" may not be competitively minded but its gotta count for something. I mean
15:22 “When specs lele is coming OVER AND OVER”
I question the premise that SS OU is a thing that needs to be saved. I mean, certainly, if there is credible evidence that the existing playerbase really wants it and won't be irrevocably split, then sure, go for it. But it's a miracle in the first place that Pokemon has so many older generations with an active playerbase that are still passionate about it. It's way more normal for the players to completely move on when the next game, except for when 1-2 of the older entries have something really special that keep that playerbase around (Starcraft, Melee, GunZ, 3rd Strike, etc.). Even in the case of SF, where IV and V are - on average - well liked enough, I'd be surprised if there will ever be a major movement to revive them, because the new gens are also good enough.
Subjectively in my head for Pokemon, Gen 1 is peak nostalgia, Gens 2-3 are some of the most highly regarded metagames and also have nostalgia going for them, and Gen 4-5 are peak nostalgia for competitive scene. For me, I'm partial to ORAS because I love the dynamic that megas and it's "queen-piece" / broken-actually-checking-broken gameplay provides (and also talonflame), but even I'm not sure how long gen 6 will have people really interested in it way into the future. Especially in regards to gimmicks, even if I can agree that competitiveness should be more important than how subjectively "boring" it is, then I can't imagine how you'll ever get too many new players passionate about that metagame the older it gets when there isn't anything special about it. Which again, should be fine, but only if you can accept that the metagame can be moved on from.
BKC is such a profesional yapper. Bro could yap abbout anything and I will watch it.
BP COMPARISON IS INSANE
You know by minute 3 of the shaving rant i really have to ask myself if I watch these videos because they're about pokemon or not
I feel like watching gen 8 ou high ladder gameplay was when i started to learn how to really play singles and when to take risks, joey was a huge part of that
BKC, I know you are a very introspective person who like to abstract lessons/heuristics from specific instances. Here is one idea (that you probably know already). People tend to gravitate to simpler and rationalizable things even if it is wrong/imprecise, while rejecting complicated and vague things even thought it fit better with reality.
In the case of game balancing, "fun for most people" is complicated and vague but it is actually fundamentally what matters, at least matters the most. Just because it is vague doesn't mean people should prioritize an approximation of fun, ie competitiveness, over fun itself. One can use competitiveness as a better-defined approximation to fun. However, when something is clearly not fun for most people, shown empirically through data like active player count, one should recognize fun in this instance manifest itself outside of the competitiveness approximation, and we should prioritize fun (for most people).
Have you tried shaving during your shower? In my experience it makes the whole process faster, and reduces the rate of shaving cream-induced incidents
With every new generation, it's understandable that certain generations get thinner fanbases. Gen8ou doesn't offer much that Gen7ou, Gen9ou, and NatDex already offers. Banning boots will shake up the meta a little but will probably result with Gen8ou resembling Gen7ou minus z-moves and megas
Gen8ou kinda killed its long term viability because they had to ban their gens gimmick. At that point Natdex and the next gen would automatically just be more interesting.
Most concise BKC video: title about gen 8 Pokémon but we’ve talked about Malaria, Beards and Russian Literature before the 10 min mark. Only you could do this king 👑
Who could have thought that putting some doc martens on your mons would change the way the game was played
Gen 8 OU isn't "bad" per say, it's just....sterile. The big gimmick of the generation being a complete non-factor probably has something to do with that. Going from megas to Z-moves _+_ _megas_ to boots(?) is kind of tough to take. I understand the necessity of dynamax being banned, but it really does take away from the "wow" factor compared to the metagames before it as well as the one after it.
It is a good tier for all kinds of players.
shit take lol you need a big shiny win button to enjoy a tier?
@@marcorossi2854A little something for everyone
I think he means more that its hard to draw any new players without the gimmick. People who want hardcore no gimmicks pure skill metagames are gonna go to adv
Pretty much. As someone who got into competitive during the DPP era and the bygone days of friendcodes, the more vanilla takes on the metagame will always have a special place in my heart. That being said, I don't see SS OU as it is really clicking for players with a more contemporary standpoint. @@WTH1music
You mentioned fun being subjective, but I don’t 100% agree. Obviously people enjoy different things, but if a majority of tournament players say that a metagame is boring there’s definitely a problem with it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there’s a single person on Earth who thinks playing against Shaymin-Sky is fun. I could be wrong though plenty of people like bad things. I like bad things, I like the movie Snakes on a Plane, that’s one of the worst movies ever and I love it. The point is that there are things that make a metagame “fun”. We all want to be engaged in what were doing that’s what makes us human beings.
Anyway, SS OU is one of my least played gens so I could be wrong, but I’m not so sure that boots itself is the problem. I say this after playing SV OU, which is a meta where boots are not only not complained about, but people often say it makes the meta better. Part of it is due to there being much worse hazard removal and much better hazard setters, but there’s also less knock off too (that could change though with the dlc bringing back mons like Gliscor and Crawdaunt in like a week lmao).
Overall I still think its a “too early to tell” situation for boots in SS OU. It has only been a past gen for what, less than a year? Removing boots would change the meta a LOT and that can’t be overstated, so it may be better to wait for the meta to develop before concluding that boots are indeed the problem.
You do NOT disrespect snakes on a plane like that in front of me.
I think the thing that's getting to me in this discussion is how a lot of the discussion seems less focused on whether boots are causing the problem, but rather on whether banning boots is the solution to the ACTUAL problem of a slow and fairly safe metagame. I respect the discussion, and can understand both why people might feel that there's a problem with the tier, and how some people arrive at the problem being Boots, but I question those who basically want the tier to change for changes sake simply because they don't like how things are currently.
We should not ban the boots.
Honestly GSC and SS are valuable litmus tests as far as OU metagames go, if you can appreciate them it tells me I don't have to ignore your opinion. The idea of beating an opponent being a genuine team effort and matches being similar in scope to chess in that the victor slowly removes their opponent's options from them is honestly a GREAT dynamic. That all said- I still find GSC to be more enjoyable to watch, and that's mainly because it feels so much easier to make progress- and this is compared to a metagame that has multiple layers of spikes, stealth rocks, sand, viable toxic, corrected sleep talk, and so on. To be fair to SS though, GSC also had explosion, pursuit (even if its most viable user was a UUBL mon) and the most powerful OU pokemon to ever exist. Guess it just goes to suggest how much boots can warp and slow down a metagame.
i have literally zero clue what this is, what its about, but i found it while searching for something else, and i think ill end up watching it sometime at 3am
I loved the idea of item clause for Gen 8. Mostly because it eliminates “the vortex.” It’s also in line with VGC which is what the game devs balance around the most. That puts less work on tier balancing and more choice into players hands. Although a full item clause might cause an unnecessary ruckus. To me it’s the most reasonable attempt. I think this makes mons particularly weak to hazards have an easier time still and the removal makes a bigger deal. It makes you ask the question which team member needs boots MORE
I swear in the begining I swear I thought there was a manscape sponsor coming up.
Could we be looking at the makings of a high stakes BKC x Manscaped brand partnership???
Was anyone expecting a manscaped advertisement when he started talking about shaving?
On the topic of people comparing tiering debates to much more real and serious topics, i DISTINCTLY remember back in the smash 4 smashboards days, when people were talking about custom moves and whether they should be legal or not, someone invoked one of the final paragraphs of To Kill a Mockingbird as a comparison. That post got, like, 74 likes too.
Wasn’t expecting Dostoevsky to come up in a video about Pokémon
God i remember reading a smogon thread i involving some wanna be lawyer wanting to sue smogon because they hurt his feelings lol and ended up getting trolled by somebody pretending to be smogons legal team iirc lol.
Yo I need a link
brothers karamazov mentioned
What if Zacian-Crowned was in adv OU?
😭
the only thing i might change about ssou is static and flame body, because it’s the one of the only things balancing some mons, which i see as a bandaid solution
I don't play the tier, so I hope you see this as a question - not an attack. But aren't Zapdos, Volcarona, and possibly Heatran the users of those abilities? If so, isn't boots removal is an indirect nerf to mons with those abilities?
@@jersefrenzer1265 it is an indirect nerf to mons with those abilities, but when you consider all the OTHER mons that use boots, it’s basically using a nuke to fix a roadblock
@@midnightemerald Gotcha - thanks
video starts at 13:44
i put on this video and didn't start paying attention until kev spent 2 minutes stragiht talking about his beard and i thought a new video had started autoplaying
People are insane for wanting to unban Spectrier or Magearna. Those mons are broken as all hell.
Uncommon opinion but they should try out Giagantimax Pokémon specifically. Dynamax is absolutely terrible but if limited among who gets it it becomes a lot more manageable tiering.
I'm honestly surprised you're even covering a post gen 6 pokemon gen
If complex bans weren’t such a taboo, they could just ban HDB on mons that aren’t weak to rocks
Thank god they will never take such a stupid decision
Sleep Clause next, please.
that shaving story was a little too relatable
The problem with gen 8 OU is that it's just too good actually
VGC too
I still haven't adapted to the gen 9 meta after what gen 8 did to me. Gen 9 OU plays more like Gen 7 AG(probably my favorite tier of all time). Big change of game type, more like Yu-Gi-Oh match up fishing vs gen 8's go style long game.
Honestly if SS and SV OU shows anything is how difficult it is to balance switching in Comp Singles. If switching is to free, thanks to Hazard Removal/Ignoring Hazards and Regenerator, then certain offensive mons can become very stupid and defensive playstyles like Balance/Stall can lead to a boring metagame with drawn out games. Meanwhile, if hazards are to strong as seen in SV OU or BW, that also can make offensive mons super stupid and hurt the metagame. It's def a tough line to walk, and a issue unique to Singles imo.
Too add on to what I think was well said, I agree switching is specifically important to 6v6 singles meta because that’s where majority of the skill comes from. It’s worth extensive analysis+discussion.
@@newjumpcityjosh9333 Def agree. Also think trapping is another good example, as very broad trapping abilities(Arena Trap and Shadow Tag) are usually seen as broken + enable degen HO/Stall Play but limited trapping like Pursuit and Magnet Pull, Magma Storm are a lot more tolerated in 6v6 singles.
@@theimpersonator7086 I suppose the reason those are seen as healthier is that, for pursuit and trapping moves, good prediction is still required, whether that be the prediction needed to land a trapping move on the right target, or predicting whether the opponent will attempt to switch out or stay in. Magnet pull is more straightforward, but the thing is that steel is a type with a massive target on its back due to its defensive profile, so the opponent using "steel hate" (such as magnet pull or anti-steel coverage like earthquake) should be almost taken as a given.
I mean that replay definitely doesn’t do Regenerator any favors.
Even without boots it’s just endless switching
I thought I was watching GSC meta 😂
Dynamax is the Xfactor of pokemon. Xfactor made ultimate marvel vs capcom 3 incredibly hype. I miss dynamax
me when I am uu because of boots
I would enjoy boots at 0 but understand certain pokemon would completely fall off a cliff with boots to 0.
boots to 1, that would be interesting, because then it's ok we're not stuffing fire/bug (etc) with rocks, while not "removing" an entire mechanic like gen 5's complex ban of no speed boost weather ability with weather (like locking out regenerator and boots together could be)
I'm still angry they took away Gen 8 anything goes. Loved that tier for the crazy power levels and dynamaxing and obviously the strategies to counteract it i.e. Grapploct, focus sash, topsy turvy
I love gen 8 nat dex ag too it was just so fun lol all the mechanics together
I had a tradition when making an alt to play a round of Gen 7 AG for my ladder game req. Recently made a new alt and had my soul crushed because it's not a ladder meta anymore :(
This kinda reminds me of the jigglypuff situation in smash melee
Not saying they are one to one but the fun over competitive thing was still there
hello boots, you giving us the correct opinion on this matter got me thinking; what is your opinion on claydol in adv ou?
SS is boring to watch, debatable on boring to play, but definitely decently balanced. I think the tier is fine.
As for low player count, just wait for a decade and it'll see a resurgence as some of the zoomers grow up and rediscover it lul
And yet Saltcure Protect recover body press Granacl is legal somehow
I feel like now that SS OU is a past gen, there really isn't any reason to ban anything that you could feasibly ban (a boots ban would probably make the meta better but it would be completely insane and goes against any precedent for bans). Nobody is forced to play SS OU, and it's a balanced tier with appeal to a certain kind of player. The tier is fair and has quirks that will ensure at least a few people want to play it, and if you don't like it then now that gen 9 is out nobody is forcing you to queue up for an SS game. It's like that time when someone made a policy review thread asking for tauros, snorlax and chansey to be banned from gen 1 to open things up and hopefully bring in new players and revitalize rby. Anyone who plays rby right now does so because they like its quirks, and trying to fundamentally change it will just make things worse.
I always loved the 3 gens everyone dislikes, 1, 5 and 8, but 8 was always very interesting because it is the only generation people hate for being too defensive and slow. I honestly feel like gen 8 is extremely balanced and you can for sure speed up games by running hyper offense teams if you really want to complain about battle duration. That being said, there is no strong argument for boots ban. It is a good item, but it is not better than leftovers overall and it does not enable a particularly broken strategy, so we can not really justify banning it under the idea that "it is too good" or the idea of "it enables broken stuff", unless you consider weavile broken.
gen 8 is the new gen 2
@@fulltimeslackerii8229Gen 8 is Gen 2 but Snorlax just has 1 popular set.
Pretty sure gen 1 is a really beloved metagame lol
You heard from Kev, RBY OU and ORAS OU are indistinguishable
I stopped playing singles draft in gen 8 because I felt boots removed all sense of impact from skilful decision making. Makes it feel very boring to me.
Regen spam is iconic
If you build a team of UUs that dies to one Pokémon spamming non-STAB ESpeed, even if that ESpeed is off 180 base Attack, that's a teambuilding issue lmao
Considering it can also use Dragon ascent, draco meteor and overheat id say its pretty justifiable
@@walterbardelli523don't forget V-Create and EQ
@@matthewadams1674 Oh i put overheat instead of V create
The fake stab flare blitz
the biggest shame about gen 8 was not treating gigantamax like megas and having a suspect for it.
Back then, almost everyone agreed that dynamax was broke as opposed to when people were concerned about Tera (much closer to a 50/50 split). I only play Random Battles and even I think Dynamax is broke.
You clearly didn’t play the gen 8 OU beta where ditto was far and away the best Pokémon and gyarados was the second best pokemon
It be cool if Regenerator got nerfed to only heal half as much as it does now.
How can it be demonstrated that RBY is less luck dependent than other generations??
the same people win over and over (though that could be in part due to smogon "hierarchy" "nepotism" or whatever people call it)
Gen 8 is just so boring. It's essentially just a metagame where both players tiptoe around eachother taking inches where they can. It's a meta where it's very hard to make progress thanks to regenerator, heavy duty boots etc. And this just makes games so slow and boring.
Theres a lot of fat mons in the meta which can switch in and never be at risk of being 2HKO'd so everything in a battle is just creeping forward trying to get predictions right and even if tou predic oerfectly oh well ill just switch my toxapex out or my slowking and get regenerator and switch it back in. Such a slow meta and just overall not fun at all.
There's just so much switching and positioning and it overtakes the entire meta itself. There's a lot of powerhouses in the tier such as tapu lele, rillaboom etc. And other hard hitters but the amount of fat mons which stay in, fish for scald burns, knock off mons etc. Just makes the game so 2D
Thank you for this insightful discussion #TeamAlexeiK
If you want quick games play vgc it’s always been quick and explosive
god damn i miss megas man. i'm still bitter they took them out
While I will concede that megas probably aren't healthy for pokemon's "official" formats, I do feel like they are handled very elegantly by smogon's tiering system, since any mega that's "too strong" can simply be individually banned either by banning the form, or by implementing it as an item ban (which functionally have the same result) without having to decide on blanket banning or not-banning the mechanic as a whole (as is the case for dynamax and tera.) Mega kangaskhan was too much for OU, so it got banned, but mega pinsir isn't too much, so it isn't banned, and the ban doesn't need to be any more complex than "you can't bring kangasknanite to an OU match."
The main upside I see from removing megas is the possibility of giving new evolutions to 1- or 2-stage pokemon that previously had a mega, but so far I don't believe that we've had any new evolutions to pokemon that lost a mega yet. Also, for pokemon that were already 3-stagers, like beedrill and aggron, mega evolution really was the only way to give them a meaningful buff without breaking the rule of "no more than 3 stages in an evolutionary line."
Gen 8 OU is just modern Gen 2 OU amirite
I always found ss unbearably boring but I understand why some people like it
Need more Gen 3 ""What ifs?"". Like, what if Great Tusk was in Gen 3 OU. Or what if Ferrothorn was in Gen 3 OU.
My guess is great tusk ends up being a pretty strong choice band pokemon. There is no body press or close combat so it would be using brick break as it's stab. I am guessing the set would be pretty similar to a normal donphan set with EQ, rapid spin, HP rock/bug/Ghost, brick break. It certainly hits hard, and is able to 2HKO swampert with EQ and does about 50% to Skarmory with brick break making it super hard to switch into. It could have some problems with Gengar though, particularly if not running HP ghost, but also if it just gets choice locked into a bad move. It has decent lead matchups with HP rock as it is able to beat TTar, Zapdos, and Hariyama, though Salamence comfortably lives HP rock and 2HKOs with HP grass.
Ferrothorn has a strong chance to be the best pokemon in the tier. My quick assumption set is 252 HP / 128 attack / 128 Sp Def with Spikes, Leech Seed, HP Ground, Protect/Toxic/Explosion. The EV spread lets it OHKO Magneton 75% of the time, and it comfortably lives HP fire, making it it much harder to trap than Skarmory. Additionally, it's iron barbs ability means that spinners have to take chip damage to clear its hazards, and it's slow speed means even foretress can't go after it and thus you can get a new layer of spikes down after they spin. However, without roar, it is very vulnerable to substitute. There is no gyro ball or power whip in this game to give it a hard hitting move to be less passive. Explosion can remedy this a bit, but you are still just losing your ferrothorn to pop a sub. Still, it shares a lot of traits with Skarmory but has better stats, access to leech seed, and beats Magneton, and Skarmory is already the 2nd best pokemon in the tier.
anyway after watching the video, my thoughts are simple: the main point OP brought up is that players of gen 8 like it, but spectators and non-players don't. And I do not think this is a bad thing. You don't have to watch/play anything you think is boring, this is true, but it doesn't mean the boring thing needs to change to accommodate people who don't like it and therefore don't play it.
smogon isn't a corporation funded off spectators anyway. if they were, they'd have higher production values for tournament coverage. it's literally just a bunch of people playing mons. idk why the thread OP even brings up "it's boring to watch," smogon isn't about viewer engagement metrics the way VGC is.
I think its very revealing that in the game you chose to showcase one team didn't have rocks and the other team could never keep rocks up. The problem with evaluating gen 8 ou is basically summarised there. The "boring" teams and games everyone complains about are as much a result of the way people choose to play as anything else, and banning boots doesn't limit defensive teams at all. The actual argument seems to be that there are several pokemon who are incredibly hard to answer defensively, who are now not kept in check by hazards, and if you banned boots you would open up more offensive structures, and people would feel less pressured to run the types of do nothing stall teams that lead to the tier being incredibly boring to watch sometime, and you can even throw the fat balances in the mix. I can't speak as much for ou but from a uu perspective I know that having that one defensive piece on offense which isn't affected by hazards as well as maybe 1-2 other mons with boots does far more to open up the builder than removing boots does. The point is, defensive teams don't have a problem with hazards, and offensive teams do, so removing boots seems to exacerbate the problems most people have with ssou, and even if it leads to a more competitive tier I don't see it being more interesting to watch.
Gen 5 OU is really balanced and fun the way it is, no reason to change just to shake things up just for the sake of it
It's funny because most would agree that swsh ou is a pretty balanced tier, and yet it's a tier barely anybody wants to play because of how boring it is. Stats should that 100+ turn games are not the average, but everything just feels so drawn out because a lot of pokemon are just never punished for anything they do besides taking a super effective hit. I admit I'm not a great player, but I played every tier before way, WAY more than swsh ou because it was just soul draining.
Either way, I suppose I don't have a horse in this race because I don't even play the tier, so what happens to it is of no consequence to me. I will say that I've seen a few argue about how "people will adapt" but idk how that's gonna happen if nobody wants to even play the damn thing in the first place.
Conclusion: knock off buff, regenerator and magic guard are the worst ideas maybe ever
Honestly, a Kyurem/Cinderace suspect doesn't seem like a bad idea. I'm looking at this from the lens of an esport since that's kinda what Pokemon is anyway. While game balance is an esport's top priority, many game companies who develop these games make it very clear that overall game feel and fun aren't too far behind. And sometimes, that means you gotta leave some stuff in that might be considered a bit OP.
The vast majority of people will always gravitate towards an offensive metagame because it gives a more direct reward for their time spent playing and/or watching any given game. While this flies directly in the face of game balance, it is an important fact to consider should you want to build an audience for any given game/tier
I need bearded Kev
talks about sword and shield but puts the game category under pokemon x
TH-cam automatically does that I'm p sure
Would be interested to hear a video about Revival Blessing and how it can be used in games. Remember seeing a video where it was paired in National Dex with Mega Banette, punishing the very act of koing something.
Something like that just changes the game so much.
I am the one gen8ou fan
If instead of "fun" Ben Gay says, "the better player wins," I don't see how he's wrong. I may get flamed, but boots put me over the edge and was part of the reason I left. I think a more competitive metagame is for the better, and I think banning boots is a step in that direction. We ban stuff like ohko moves in the spirit of uncompetitiveness, why cant we extend the argument to boots?
I don’t disagree with the overall sentiment but I’d like to know how you think ohko moves and boots are at all comparable
?
How are boots and ohko moves are comparable? Boots have counterplay in knock off (which is everywhere),ohko moves counterplay is praying that it won't hit.
Ok sorry for comparing ohko moves to boots. Ohko is vastly more uncompetitive. I'm trying to say that it's not unheard of to ban something for being uncompetitive. Perhaps a more appropriate comparison would be brightpowder.
Again brightpowder is still way less competitive than boots. But if boots are removing a skill component to mons, I think there's a point to be had about suspecting them.
Gen 9 has way more boots spam than gen 8. Boots in SS OU are good but not that overcentralizing
It kind of reminds me of super smash Bros brawl where while the game is slow and there are some broken aspects, there is also a lit if skill in the game and landing hits and sometimes combos takes some skill... the issue is that the game is very slow and boring to watch
Of course Sword & Shield had drama.
people on the internet these days are so fragile. They wouldn't have survived a minute on the good old days of the internet without having a mental breakdown
Ban boots straight up, it was clear as day the problem when it was the current gen.
ok but mega sableye is fine :v