Legendaries On Competitive Teams

I'm a bit curious as to what people think of this. I've talked to a few people (online and off) about this and most are split into either "Ugh you use those guys? There so cheap" where as others are usually along the lines of "I see no real problem with it and those who say other wise are idiots." Now I am exagerating a little bit here but I think ya'll get the point, though I have to say I've never personally been in a pokemon tournament of any kind, so I don't really know the rules that well, but I think this is more of a personal choice most of the time and that is why I ask.

personally i think it depends on what legendry is being used
some like latias,latios and mewtwo are okay while gartina and arcers are just too much

It depends on which legendary it is, as well as the limits for the match.

It isn't nice to see a legendary pokémon if you were supposed to be having a borderline match.

On random wi-fi it's more or less OK to use everything because most people on it aren't really taking it seriously (trying out new teams, playing around, pwning n00bs (and with that mindset they'll find they get 'pwned' right back when my Arcanine (an under-used pokémon) sweeps their team)).

On random wi-fi tiers just don't really matter as much.

Since I'm no competitive battler, myself... it's all a matter of balance, IMO, at least in the friendly matches I like to do. Like, if each team gets 2 legendaries or something and it's agreed on, then that's fine. But if one person goes out of his way to use NO legendaries, and the other person's team is packed with them, then there's a problem.

There's also a balance among legendaries, anyway; things like the birds and such tend to have high stats offset by poor movepools; the only interesting move between Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres is probably Mind Reader. Then, on the other hand, you have things like Mewtwo, Darkrai, Arceus and such, with excellent stats and diverse movesets. Stuff that's banned from the Battle Tower is on a completely different level from stuff that's not, to put it simply.

Anyways, all legendaries can be beaten with proper strategy; otherwise, it'd be utterly unfair to force you to fight at least one during the main storyline of every game since Crystal. It's merely a matter of making sure everyone involved has the same limits in place on legendaries, main ones being:

1. Are Battle Frontier-banned legendaries allowed?
2. How many legendaries can one team have?

If you wanna be specific, just substitute 'ubers' in there someplace.

I don't play in tournaments, so I really don't follow the rules. in fact, the reason why I got into pokemon wasn't cause of the battling, but to be able to collect them in My Pokemon Ranch... the only rule I say is "1 legendary per team" and use the "lvl 50" option on Pokemon BR since I haven't finished training my team... I got like 2 at lvl100 and the rest at their 60's...

now Im not sure about banning, but I believe that ubers are not allowed in competitive tournaments. that's bawls for me since I use a defense Deoxys on my diamond team. (which is better than an attack Deoxys... already had a few battles with one before... |3)

I personally think that if people are playing competatively, then they should be good enough to handle any situation presented to them, and complaining about certain pokemon being used serves no purpose other than them publicly displaying their lack of ability.

In general, any Pokemon the game considers to be banned in Battle Tower/Frontier I consider to be cheap. Majority of legendary Pokemon are in this category, but that doesn't mean ALL legendaries are cheap. Even some legendaies have a normal tier Pokemon that can possibly counter them.

In normal 2 player battling, I'm okay with one person using legendaries if I'm using legendaires around the same level area. Otherwise, it just proves that they aren't true Pokemon masters and that they just have a lust for power. In reality, I always assume someone who has a whole team of legendaries has some kind of ego thinking that they are unstoppable. HA! Just wait until they meet a person who brings in a whole team of Level 1 Focus Sash holding Rattata who knows Endeavor and Quick Attack.

I'm not really a competitive battler, because I really only pay attention to natures rather than IVs (although I do pay attention to them sometimes).

I dont play tournaments either and I see as a matter of which legend?
Regice in an advrage game is ok whereas lugia should stay at uber battles. Also I just hate itt when someone uses all lengendaries on a team.

On one hand, having teams full of nothing but Legendaries will restrict the pool of playable Pokemon to mostly nothing but those Legendaries.

On the other hand, it's not fair to the fandoms of the Legendary Pokemon in question if they're unable to get any face time due to not being legally playable. (Yes, I'm specifically referring to Mewtwo here, but this could apply to any Uber that is barred.)

I think Nintendo has it right this year with a limit, but not a ban on ubers.

Wait, a limit? That's actually awesome.

Mainly because Kyogre and Groudon are ubers, and yet have the absolute best support abilities. And it's probably much more effective to make a team of Kyogre and some rain-users from OU or something, or Groudon and things that benefit from the sun.

Conversely, it seems much harder to make a team that benefits from a weather condition among ubers, especially since Kyogre and Groudon are both so popular. Besides that, there's a lot more Pokemon outside ubers that could be reasonably packing a weather move to counter either of those abilities; Roserade comes to mind.

Makes things a lot more reasonable to have one uber allowed per team or whatever; allows a lot of flexibility with 'which overpowered Pokemon will fit my team best?' x3

I would have to say the use of legendary (mainly ubers) should be limited like said above. Many times I have taken down teams of full Ubers but I can see how it becomes ridiculous when the ubers are raised with tender loving Ev, nature, Iv care. Also seen many people using teams of full shinys that have higher Iv's than normal Pokemon, should these be limited as well?

Lately I've been working on teams that limits the use of legendaries ( Raikou on one team and Jerachi on another) But there are also normal Pokemon out there that rival ubers, like Slaking who has the same base-stat total as Kyogre and Groundon, though being that Slaking's ability sucks, it can be removed in double battles to destroy everything in it's path. And again there are also the Pseudo-legendaries such as Dragonite, Garchomp, and Metagross they all have high bace-stat totals and are typically stronger than most normal tier pokemon.

I personally, am working with Pokemon I like and taking them to a competitive level including many in the UU and NU tiers.


~Duke

I think like any other pokemon it should be decided on by ability in battle.

All I know is this, I found a Groudon on Wi-fi so i got him and was playing some friends and i had him and like 2 other legendaries (since my team isnt all lvl 100 since it was an lvl 100 fight and the ubers fit) the others were wiped out and my Groudon was like stronger than it should have been since it was shiny but still ownly n00bs do that kind off stuff. When me an my friends play its only one lengedary. Thats how it should be.

Artemis wrote:I think like any other pokemon it should be decided on by ability in battle.

I'm going to assume you're referring to the following: Wobbufett, Garchomp.

You've got a good point, but the fact is that the vast majority of overpowered Pokemon are indeed legendaries. If you want to be proper and whatnot, just substitute 'ubers' for 'legendaries' wherever you see fit.

Chewya wrote:All I know is this, I found a Groudon on Wi-fi so i got him and was playing some friends and i had him and like 2 other legendaries (since my team isnt all lvl 100 since it was an lvl 100 fight and the ubers fit) the others were wiped out and my Groudon was like stronger than it should have been since it was shiny but still ownly n00bs do that kind off stuff. When me an my friends play its only one lengedary. Thats how it should be.

... First and foremost, shinies aren't better than normal Pokemon. In any way. Except being different-colored. In fact, in gen II they tended to be inferior to normal Pokemon, stat-wise.

So, uhm... what you're saying is, you were battling with a team using three legendaries, including an abnormally strong, probably-hacked Groudon that you got from wi-fi. You then proceed to say only noobs do that. So, are you a noob? I'm bewildered. Is it only one legendary, or isn't it? If it was, why were you using three?

---

On a note completely unrelated to a quoted post, involving the fandom for a particular legendary Pokemon is irrelevant to the topic. If a Pokemon is brokenly overpowered (which Mewtwo in particular undeniably is; 130 base Speed and base Sp. Attack exceeding 160 is ridiculous), no amount of adoration for it is going to make people less infuriated for your using it to sweep their entire team. You have every right to favor what Pokemon you will, of course; conversely, though, in a competitive setting, everyone has the right to have an equal chance to win. Based on skill and of course a good deal of luck, as opposed to how it can deal with:

Worst offensive uber: Mewtwo, the unholy team sweeper

Worst defensive uber: Wobbufett, that infuriating thing that causes Shadow Tag stalemates.

When stuff gets banned, it gets banned for a reason. And the reason for the ban is usually something that holds up in an argument better than "Well, it has a fanbase so it should be allowed."

Houndoomed wrote:When stuff gets banned, it gets banned for a reason. And the reason for the ban is usually something that holds up in an argument better than "Well, it has a fanbase so it should be allowed."

How much you like a pokemon =/= justifcation for that or else vespiquen would not have dirt speed
Alothough it is fun to pwn loser's legendaries on PBR

Houndoomed wrote:When stuff gets banned, it gets banned for a reason. And the reason for the ban is usually something that holds up in an argument better than "Well, it has a fanbase so it should be allowed."

I'm going to respectfully disagree, but on a reason differing from both individual fandoms and the "health" of the competitive game.

I play Yu-Gi-Oh as well, and we see something rather similar going on with that. There are a few cards that are still currently legal in competitive Yu-Gi-Oh that many of the "elite" players would rather see banned; some have "everything except myself dies" effects, others swarm the field with enough monsters to win the game in a single turn (similar to how Mewtwo was early on), others consistency create a defensive lock so ridiculous it's almost impossible to escape (similar to Wobbuffet now.)

However, those cards are still legal, for a few reasons. Some of it is based on whether or not those power cards are still in sets being sold...but in my opinion, more of it comes from the wants of the majority of the players. Let's assume that the "elite" in YGO makes up about 5-10% of its player base, and those who play competitively, but are not at the same competitive level as those who have been playing for years, make up a bit more than half, with the remainder being those that play for fun, are young kids (newbs, rather than noobs), etc. Without those cards, the game ends up becoming much more skill-based. A good thing, right? Wrong - now you have over half of your player base being unable to compete with the 5-10% that has been playing for years and knows every single trick in the book. Unable to play on their level, they'll continually lose in tournaments, and many of those players will end up quitting, or at the very least becoming less interested in the game. By increasing the skill gap between a "good" player and a "great" one, they end up losing business.

Now for the Pokemon equivalent...Smogon doesn't have to worry about money because they don't do anything for money - they're competitiveness for the sake of nothing but skill if they can help it. Nintendo, on the other hand, has a player base to worry about - and if half of the people that go to their video game events either never heard of Smogon, or have heard of it but never joined because they're intimidated by the "elite" there...well, then it becomes a sound business decision to REDUCE the skill gap by allowing ubers, giving a good player a significant chance to take out an elite. By setting up the game to where a great player's advantage over a good one is 60%-40%, rather than 90%-10%, you make a much larger group of people happy, which means a larger group of happy paying customers.

That's one of the other reasons I feel that Nintendo is on the right track with the "limited" list as opposed to the banned list as far as Legendaries.

I do agree, limitation as opposed to banning is probably the way to go, since, as I mentioned, a lot of the banned Pokemon are fantastic as supports; case in point, Kyogre and Groudon's respective weather abilities.

Coming off your Yu-Gi-Oh parallel, there's one important thing to keep in mind about both games; they're luck based. Pokemon uses an RNG to determine hits and misses, status effects, critical hits, et cetera, whereas Yu-Gi-Oh is... well, a card game. Beyond setting up your team to handle any predicted problems and going through the EV training and such, there isn't much skill-wise you can do in battle. If Metal Claw's 95% accuracy fails you in a crucial moment, then I guess it just sucks to be you.

That said, there's one major problem with your reasoning that allowing ubers 'balances the playing field,' and that problem is that, unless they happen to be purists who refuse to use legendaries anyway, the experienced, skilled players are just as allowed to use Mewtwo as the relatively casual gamers.

So, where the 'elite' player gets his Mewtwo, repeatedly retries the capture for a good nature and good IV's, EV trains it, and gives it, say, Psychic, Calm Mind, Substitute and Ice Beam, the casual player (and I say this from experience) catches it, goes "Yay, got my Mewtwo," teaches it this exact moveset: Psychic, Thunderbolt, Flamethrower and Ice Beam, and proceeds to train it by fighting the Elite Four repeatedly, resulting in a complete spread of EVs. In the end, Mewtwo's obscene base stats make the separation between the 'elite' Mewtwo and the 'casual' Mewtwo even more pronounced.

Now, of course, when you get down to it, a casual Darkrai could possibly defeat an elite Mewtwo with a little luck; for that matter, paralysis support would let all manner of Dark- and Ghost-types counter Mewtwo. In all honesty, really, it'd just be another 'red-flag' Pokemon that every single team would have to be prepared to deal with. Rather like Blissey is now, really. Since Mewtwo -is- popular, it would indeed end up being the uber for basically every 'limited' team, except teams that use Darkrai to explicitly deal with the Mewtwo threat, or Kyogre and Groudon for weather support. And, of course, the latter two would likely not have much to effectively counter Mewtwo.

So, recap:
Pokemon is based on luck just as much as skill.
Allowing ubers lets experienced players use them just as much as casual players.
Experienced players train better ubers than casual players.
Every team would need to prepare for the popular ubers that could destroy their team if not countered somehow.

Again, everything designated 'uber' is there for a reason; Articuno for that Mind Reader-Sheer Cold thing, Mewtwo for its ludicrous stats, Mew for its insane movepool, Arceus for its ludicrous stats, insane movepool and ability to be whatever type you happen to need, Latios and Latias for the insanity of their stats with Soul Dew. Of course, it's technically fair if everyone gets to have one... however, when everyone already needs to prepare their team for the popular walls, such as Blissey and Snorlax, it's a bit unfair to need to get ready for legendaries too. God, every team would be "Legendary, expected legendary counter, Skarmory counter, Blissey counter, two more Pokemon of choice." Which really kinda kills the whole flexibility aspect of the game. I think Smogon's current tier system is mostly set up so that standard matches are mostly OU, with room to squeeze in one or two UU's that you like and that compliment your team. And you can't be unfair to the fanbases of UU Pokemon, either; they'd be utterly left out if every team had to be ready to fight legendaries.

Yes, I do realize that if Ubers are allowed, your elite will set them up better. The parallel comes that with in Yu-Gi-Oh, two players with "lucksack" decks using all these powerful cards that can end games on their own, one player great and the other average, the great player will win about 60-65% of games instead of 90% with decks being more skill-based. I think this is true in Pokemon as well - if you take a good and great player and they both have Ubers, the casual player has a better chance of "sacking out" and beating the Uber player through luck is higher.

You made a good point - by allowing more Legendaries, the number of choices players have for playable Pokemon shrink a fair bit. Actually, odd as this sounds, it's in line with what Nintendo would want. By reducing the number of playable Pokemon and combinations that a player would have to deal with, this reduces the chance that a situation will come up where an elite player will know what to do but an average player won't. It reduces the skill gap, which in turn pleases more of the player base.

One other thing - you're also assuming that all the casual players are actually training their Pokemon. Even the "average" players nowadays know about things like Action Replay, the hack checks Nintendo has set up to make sure a Pokemon with an illegal moveset or stats isn't used, and how to beat those. It won't be long before your average players aren't worrying about EVs and IVs because they'll just be Pokesaving up a team, 31 IVs in everything that matters and some lower ones in stats that don't matter as to throw off any team checks Nintendo might do. ...truth be told I hope that for Worlds one year, some player who Pokesav'd their team wins their prize, gets it so that Nintendo can't take it back, then publically comes out and says "Hey, I used Pokesav to build my team to avoid the utter bullcrap Nintendo wants its players to go through as far as IVs and natures." But that's a rant for another time.

Houndoomed: So, uhm... what you're saying is, you were battling with a team using three legendaries, including an abnormally strong, probably-hacked Groudon that you got from wi-fi. You then proceed to say only noobs do that. So, are you a noob? I'm bewildered. Is it only one legendary, or isn't it? If it was, why were you using three?

No Houndoomed. What I was trying to say is that I used thiem because we were having a LVL 100 match and I had like 3 normal pokemon on that levela nd I had nothing else so I was forced to do it. Why I said that is because I've played many people not online (i.e My friends) and they did even more n00bish moves such as them like having a team full of level 100 Rayquazas, Lugias, and stuff against my team of bare 100's and 100's. It is overkill (I got creamed) but in some cases you have to do it but only like Mewtwo and Dexoys and some other ridiculously strong Pokemon with good moves should be banned. If its casual play you should make your own rules. If you are like competative and even casual then you can call them n00bs if its on more than one occasion, however if its on only one or very, very few occasions then you can do it.Thats personally what I think
Also in some cases though with like Groudon and Kyogere, what if you set up your team in such a way that i actually gets screwed then that kinda levels the field but it does suck but then it makes the battle more interesting to see if you can overcome your own disadvantage set by you and your opponents advantage also set by you.

I play competetive Pokemon occasionally and most of my OU teams don't have any legendaries on them at all. There are plenty of Pokemon like Lucario and Salamence that can be just as effective as legendaries, if not better. Of course, that excludes the Uber legendary Poekmon and, while I haven't played Ubers much, it seems like it would be fairly easy to make an Ubers team consisting of only non-legendary Pokemon, since things like Darkrai and Kyogre can really only be countered by non-legendary Pokemon (mostly Blissey).

Also, the psuedo-legendary Pokemon are actually better than a lot of legendary Pokemon because they have a higher BST (which is actually a poor way to asses a Pokemon's usability) and most of them are part Dragon. There's no reason to ban things like Regice and Articuno when they suck compared to things like Garchomp and Salamence. Of course, things like Darkrai and Arceus can sweep a team with fairly little effort should still probably be banned.

For me, I would probably play with all of the Pokemon the Battle Tower allows (except maybe Wobuffet) and include the event legendaries besides Mew, Deoxys, Deoxys-A, Darkrai, and Arceus, if I didn't play exclusively on simulators. I've been able to play around things like Garchomp and non-Soul Dew Latias easily enough, even though they're now Uber.

So the point of my post is, the legendaries that aren't immediately broken aren't really any more powerful than the psuedo legendaries or other powerful Pokemon.

Yes simple end statment, thanks DDRMaster. If they are not immediatly broken then they are usable. The legends I used were taken out by really strong pokemon. Groudon was 1 hit ko'd by Surf so. It depends on stats. Mine had high attack power but its defense was horrible.

Mewtwo wrote:Yes, I do realize that if Ubers are allowed, your elite will set them up better. The parallel comes that with in Yu-Gi-Oh, two players with "lucksack" decks using all these powerful cards that can end games on their own, one player great and the other average, the great player will win about 60-65% of games instead of 90% with decks being more skill-based. I think this is true in Pokemon as well - if you take a good and great player and they both have Ubers, the casual player has a better chance of "sacking out" and beating the Uber player through luck is higher.

You made a good point - by allowing more Legendaries, the number of choices players have for playable Pokemon shrink a fair bit. Actually, odd as this sounds, it's in line with what Nintendo would want. By reducing the number of playable Pokemon and combinations that a player would have to deal with, this reduces the chance that a situation will come up where an elite player will know what to do but an average player won't. It reduces the skill gap, which in turn pleases more of the player base.

One other thing - you're also assuming that all the casual players are actually training their Pokemon. Even the "average" players nowadays know about things like Action Replay, the hack checks Nintendo has set up to make sure a Pokemon with an illegal moveset or stats isn't used, and how to beat those. It won't be long before your average players aren't worrying about EVs and IVs because they'll just be Pokesaving up a team, 31 IVs in everything that matters and some lower ones in stats that don't matter as to throw off any team checks Nintendo might do. ...truth be told I hope that for Worlds one year, some player who Pokesav'd their team wins their prize, gets it so that Nintendo can't take it back, then publically comes out and says "Hey, I used Pokesav to build my team to avoid the utter bullcrap Nintendo wants its players to go through as far as IVs and natures." But that's a rant for another time.

Okay; tell me this. If Nintendo wants to have less Pokemon available, why are there almost 500, soon to be significantly more? As they say, variety's the spice of life; a lot of UU Pokemon are very unique for the role they serve within their type; Torkoal, for example, is a physical tank of a Fire type. There aren't a lot of those, so it has a niche.

That said... having less Pokemon would mean there wouldn't be as many things that casual gamers could get confused upon seeing for the first time, eh? Now, you have to keep in mind... most Pokemon have a type to match their appearance, more or less. If it's a fish, it's probably water type. If it looks like a beetle or a moth or something, guess what, Bug type. Matter of fact, only six Pokemon ever really messed me up, on a basis that I'd never seen it before:

Quagsire: I thought it was Water type, so I hit it with Thunderbolt. Too bad it's also Ground type.
Shedinja: You don't even see one on any Trainer throughout R/S/E. I had no clue what Wonder Guard was.
Dialga and Palkia: Dragon: obvious. Other type: ?
Reshiram and Zekrom: Not even released yet, but even more of the Dragon/? problem.

Note that four of the six are uber legendaries; there are many more ubers that don't particularly look like their type than there are 'standard' Pokemon. For that matter, most standards that give confusion are only on the grounds of secondary type conflict; Charizard looks like a mix of Fire, Flying and Dragon. For Gyarados, it's Water, Flying and Dragon. Drapion could be some combination of Bug, Poison and Dark. It's always ambiguous, as opposed to a flat-out mystery. Besides, you learn from your mistakes; if you screw up by trying to hit Gliscor with Thunder once, you aren't going to try it again.

As for cheating... I approve and I disapprove. Some Pokemon have special moves that they can only obtain from events, like the Darkrai with Spacial Rend and Roar of Time. And the IVs and nature are, of course, mostly random, except via special breeding methods. As for EVs, using Pokerus and some items from the Battle Frontier makes that much less painless, since you can get 10-14 points per battle that way. But, hey... if the Pokemon you generate could theoretically be obtained legitimately, the only complaint I can give is laziness. Oh, and it's irritating to hack your entire team to be shiny. Just saying.

DDRMaster wrote:I play competetive Pokemon occasionally and most of my OU teams don't have any legendaries on them at all. There are plenty of Pokemon like Lucario and Salamence that can be just as effective as legendaries, if not better. Of course, that excludes the Uber legendary Poekmon and, while I haven't played Ubers much, it seems like it would be fairly easy to make an Ubers team consisting of only non-legendary Pokemon, since things like Darkrai and Kyogre can really only be countered by non-legendary Pokemon (mostly Blissey).

Also, the psuedo-legendary Pokemon are actually better than a lot of legendary Pokemon because they have a higher BST (which is actually a poor way to asses a Pokemon's usability) and most of them are part Dragon. There's no reason to ban things like Regice and Articuno when they suck compared to things like Garchomp and Salamence. Of course, things like Darkrai and Arceus can sweep a team with fairly little effort should still probably be banned.

For me, I would probably play with all of the Pokemon the Battle Tower allows (except maybe Wobuffet) and include the event legendaries besides Mew, Deoxys, Deoxys-A, Darkrai, and Arceus, if I didn't play exclusively on simulators. I've been able to play around things like Garchomp and non-Soul Dew Latias easily enough, even though they're now Uber.

So the point of my post is, the legendaries that aren't immediately broken aren't really any more powerful than the psuedo legendaries or other powerful Pokemon.

Articuno still has Mind Reader + Sheer Cold. Never-missing OHKO is broken. Case closed.

Also, being part Dragon doesn't make a Pokemon superior. In fact, it's a weakness, since virtually all teams pack a good special attacker with Ice Beam to deal with Dragonite, Flygon, Salamence, Garchomp... to a lesser extent, Gliscor. In fact, Ice is one of the best offense types, simply for beating Dragons so badly.

As for beating an uber team with basically no ubers... have fun with that. Blissey is your tank, pack a lot of fast Pokemon with Thunder Wave, and may God save you. I remember, back in the day, N64 Pokemon Stadium had a 'boss' fight with Mewtwo. Of course, Psychic had basically no weaknesses in Gen I, what with the lack of good Bug types, the resistance to the nonexistant Ghost moves, and the lack of Dark types. Wanna know something? That game gave you six Gen I Pokemon, of your choice, to fight this Mewtwo. It was faster than -everything-, and killed everything in one shot. The only way to win was a Chansey with Seismic Toss.

Of course, Mewtwo's been balanced a bit since then, but anything that can rip through an entire team that easily is... yeah, a little bit broken, sorry.

And pseudolegendaries VS legendaries... yeah, I have to agree. But pseudolegendaries VS uber legendaries... sure Salamence can obliterate Moltres, but Salamence would be nothing against Mewtwo or Arceus or Darkrai. This is why I'm okay with basically anything that the Battle Tower doesn't ban. Except Wobbufett, that spawn of evil.

Its all stat based. Even legendaries have moves that will just kill them, so it does add mix. But what if you legend like Groudon screws up your team's moves. Only makes the battle harder and more interesting. As long as they can't OHKO then they are OK

Not much to add here except that I was not insinuating doing any actual cheating with Pokesav - my intent in encouraging Pokesav is only to create Pokemon that could be achieved through normal gameplay, and just saving the player the hours upon hours to breed, catch, whatever a Pokemon with maxed-out IVs, the proper moves, EVs in the right places, and so on.

I support EVs - it rewards you for grinding in a certain way, but it's something that can be controlled directly by the player.

I abhor IVs - it's rolling the dice in character creation over and over just for the sake of adding additional steps before the player has their desired team.

Natures would be good if they could be changed by in-game actions rather than set in stone. If you want an Adamant creature, there should be something you can have your Pokemon go through to become adamant. As it is, nothing more than another roll of a 25-sided die that you are looking to land on but one or two out of those 25 when initially catching them.

Bypassing what I honestly feel is a bullshit system should not only have all stigma removed from it but be encouraged by the Pokemon community as a whole, both casual and competitive. There are times where the company that created or is developing for a game no longer knows what's best for the game and should be taken out of the equation - Mr. Takahashi (Yu-Gi-Oh's creator) banning the rollout of cash prizes at tournaments, Blizzard's RealID system...the community needs to stand up and say "you're doing it wrong", and the same should be happening regarding Pokemon's transformation from a completable game to an endless time sink.

Mewtwo wrote:I abhor IVs - it's rolling the dice in character creation over and over just for the sake of adding additional steps before the player has their desired team.

And THIS...

this is why I dont competitively battle... I need to breed a lot of pokemon and simply find out all their IV's suck...

Mewtwo wrote:Natures would be good if they could be changed by in-game actions rather than set in stone. If you want an Adamant creature, there should be something you can have your Pokemon go through to become adamant. As it is, nothing more than another roll of a 25-sided die that you are looking to land on but one or two out of those 25 when initially catching them.

If you're breeding, put an ditto with an everstone and the nature you want in along with another pokemon of the species you want. Soon the 25 sided dice becomes a 2-sided coin flip!

You're still going to have to waste a bit of time finding a Ditto with the wanted nature though. :/

I don't care much for EVs or IVs because it's very time consuming, but I do focus on them only for Pokemon I absolutely adore. I happen to have a few Pokemon with Pokerus, but the EV gain doesn't seem as different as I hoped it would when I put in action.

Thus, whenever I have the need to enter the Battle Frontier, I only focus on these things:

- Nature
- Ability
- Moveset
- Held Item

Of course I can't get very far by olny looking at these four things, but I did manage to get all the Silver Prints. And no, I didn't use any legendaries to get the prints.

One more thing, Smeargle is a very useful Pokemon if you know which moves to sketch. >3

Zielregen wrote:You're still going to have to waste a bit of time finding a Ditto with the wanted nature though. :/

True, true. But it's way less time than hatching a pokemon with the wanted nature, and you need to waste that time only once.

Plus, there's the added bonus that... even if it's the wrong nature of Ditto, keep it anyway. Maybe you'll need it eventually.

Conversely, if you're like me and you have no attention span so you just make sweepers, you'd only collect four Ditto: Adamant, Modest, Timid and Hasty. Or whatever -Sp. Attack +Speed is.

If you're catching rather than breeding: Pokemon with the ability Synchronize make you tend to encounter wild Pokemon of the same nature when they lead your party.

Another Ditto thing: go on Ditto hunts. Catch a ton of them. Like, at least 10. Check the natures when you get back. It'll save lots of time.

Without IV's and natures, one sweeper-trained Charizard would be identical to every other sweeper-trained Charizard. Same goes for hacking for superior IV's. Face it, the game wouldn't be interesting if every Pokemon you found was the most powerful of its kind. For that matter, they don't encourage grinding to find that perfect Pokemon... didn't they kinda demonize that process via Paul in the anime?

Also, Mewtwo... you glorify luck as something that balances battles, then complain about it for making it take longer to find a good Pokemon. You have to either take it or leave it. Let's face it: the odds things give you options. Even on moves; you can take Thunderbolt for reliability, or Thunder for power. Or if you're counting on rain to be in effect. But if Thunder fails you, that's your tradeoff. The odds in catching and breeding are kinda likewise; if it's a common, relatively weak Pokemon, it's easy to get a ton of them in a short amount of time, therefore more likely to find a statistically superior individual. As for rare, stronger Pokemon, they have lower encounter rates and longer hatching times. Ergo, it's more difficult to mass-produce them in hopes of finding one that's superior. It's the same tradeoff as with moves; higher power, lower accuracy. Stronger Pokemon, lower encounter rate, slower hatching.

Matter of fact... this is a good reason I'm not into hacking for superior-but-legal Pokemon. Back to the subject of legendaries... they're hard to catch, and they're generally one-off encounters. The only way to 'grind' for a good legendary is to save in front of it and catch it over and over again. I dunno about you people, but I'm not that patient. I'll grind until I find the nature I want, but after that, I'm done. Point is... legit legendaries will tend to have lower IV's that normal Pokemon, simply because they can't be bred or caught repeatedly to find that perfect individual. This means that, against LEGIT ubers, OU and even UU Pokemon have more of a chance of victory.

Conversely, and hear me out... the roll of the dice only does so much. >.> A legit Mewtwo could probably wipe the floor with a whole party of hacked UU Pokemon. And maxed-IV Pokemon aren't necessarily perfect, either. I have a Metagross that just happened to hatch with apparently 31 IVs in every stat, and I still can't beat the Battle Hall with it. The difference between 0 and 31 IV's is crippling, I know... but the variation between average really isn't that much. If it's around 16 IV's, it's average; and what they were going for was "IV's are normally distributed about a mean of 16, with a standard deviation of god-knows-what. If your Pokemon happens to be superior, good for you. If it's not, too bad. But everyone has the same odds, so any matches should still be balanced."

In other words... assuming you're not cheating or being a complete perfectionist, four of your Pokemon are roughly average. One is notably above average, and one is notably below average. Who cares? If your tank happens to have bad IV's, against your opponents high-IV sweeper, that's just luck of the draw. Same as having Heat Wave miss, or getting paralyzed by Thunderbolt, or getting frozen by Ice Beam. Or being immobilized by confusion or paralysis, or ending up with five-turn sleep.

Pokemon's a very luck-based game, by nature. If every Pokemon is going to have the exact same potential, may as well give every attack 100% accuracy. Get rid of all the different Pokeballs too. There's just the normal one, and it'll have a 100% catch rate on every single Pokemon, as long as their health bar is red or they're paralyzed. See how it gets really boring really fast, if you start pulling out the luck things?

Addendum: I really don't mind the grinding. Not because I have a ton of time on my hands, but because I tend to multitask and play while doing other things. It's a nice distraction... but if nothing on it took any time, it wouldn't be a good distraction at all. That's just my two cents, but... the game is -supposed- to take a long time. It's taken a long time since the first generation. If you want a game where every character has predetermined stats that you can check online to avoid bothering with inferior ones, go try Fire Emblem.

Zielregen wrote:
One more thing, Smeargle is a very useful Pokemon if you know which moves to sketch. >3

I love you...

Houndoomed wrote:
Also, Mewtwo... you glorify luck as something that balances battles,
then complain about it for making it take longer to find a good Pokemon. You have to either take it or leave it.

Actually, in Yu-Gi-Oh I have the same stance as I do here about luck being acceptable ins ome places and something that should be avoided in other places.

For example, I praise luck and power cards for giving a lower-tier player a chance to beat a higher caliber one. However, when it comes to acquiring cards, I feel the system is flawed. They increase rarities of the cards they know will be sought-after as opposed to the Japanese rarities; certain cards that are still $30 here are released as commons in structure decks. Therefore, if I'm buying packs, I only do so when I can use a pocket scale and weigh the packs pre-purchase, as to tilt the odds in my favor as far as getting holos.

Luck has its place in competitive YGO but can and should be minimized in acquiring cards because of a flawed system. Likewise, luck has its place in competitive Pokemon battles but should be minimized in the acquisition of a competitive Pokemon team, as that system is flawed as well.

When it comes to rarity, it's entirely different for a TCG than it is within a video game. When powerful cards are harder to come by in any particular TCG, whether it's Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon or Magic or whatever, it's purely as a means to make money. They want people to buy more packs in hopes of finding the rare, powerful cards. That's that.

In a video game, on the other hand, it's a matter of playability. Nintendo, of course, isn't in the habit of making competitive-friendly games, as any veteran of Smash Brothers Melee vs Brawl debates can tell you. Pokemon wasn't designed with competitive gaming in mind, it was designed primarily for purposes of going through the main storyline on your own, and playing with a group of friends. The development of a competitive community is merely a side effect of making a popular game that has multiplayer battling.

The point in making stronger Pokemon difficult to come by is fairly clear from the single-player story standpoint; the game wouldn't be interesting if you could grab yourself a bunch of overpowered Pokemon right from the start and smash through the entire game. Nope; early in the game, it's impossible to get the funds to mass-capture Pokemon, and there's no daycare for mass breeding, so you can't be choosy with natures and IV's. Likewise, there's no way to EV train early in the game, since there is not a good selection of wild Pokemon to fight. This is simply to make the game more challenging. Hardcore team-building is more of a post-game thing, when you theoretically have plenty of time on your hands anyway. Battle Frontier teams, on the more recent games.

Now, here's the thing... they really have done quite a bit to foster that competitive team-building process. For example...

Breeding as a means to pass down the otherwise one-use TMs.
The Everstone and Synchronize methods to control natures.
Pokerus, Macho Brace, and Power Lens, Bracer, etc. for faster EV training.
Specific-stat EV items to pass down IV's.

As for that last one, specifically... you can pass down the IV a parent has in a stat to the 'child' Pokemon. For example, if one Pokemon has a 20 IV in Attack, and you have it hold the Power Bracer and breed it, all children will have an IV of 20 for Attack. Or half of them. I can't quite remember.

In other words, if you're willing to give up the ability to control the nature of the Pokemon you can hatch, you can guarantee two different stats to have maxed IVs, as long as you can find a parent with that maxed IV. The one-in-25 chance for a given nature looks pretty good when every Bagon you hatch already happens to have a 31 IV in Attack and Speed, for example. The problem, of course, is getting something with that maxed IV to breed with in the first place, but that's a small price to pay for the ability to hatch out all the perfect-sweeper Bagons you want, to hand out to your friends or whatever.

Think of it like this; most role-playing games, if they don't require some level limit on the stronger weapons to begin with, either require them to be unlocked somehow (like how earning badges makes stores on Pokemon move up to carry better items), or give it a high price so you can't get it until you get far enough that you can actually get that much money. And Pokemon's an RPG just as much as it is a competitive game. RPG's are luck based, competitive games are skill based. It's a difficult pair of worlds to meld; Nintendo chose to focus on it as an RPG.

Simple.... Strength is in the eye of the beholder. Whatever a person sees as strong is up to them, not for anyone esle to change. It makes sense. Someone could say Eevee sucks and they should evolve it but the person who likes Eevee wants to keep it normal. Two different points of veiw. Understandable. Lets agree to disagree. It is all random. It is as random as finding a shiny.

Chewya wrote:Simple.... Strength is in the eye of the beholder. Whatever a person sees as strong is up to them, not for anyone esle to change. It makes sense. Someone could say Eevee sucks and they should evolve it but the person who likes Eevee wants to keep it normal.

Eevee's stats.
Glaceon's stats.

Eevee's special attack can range from 113 to 207. Glaceon's special attack ranges from 266 to 394.

...I don't know what absurd maths can make 207, eevee's highest, higher than 266, glaceon's lowest. Strength is NOT in the eye of the beholder in this case. There may be some exceptions, but in general, strength is pre-defined by stats, moveset and types, and will vary from pokemon to pokemon.

But it is based on what that person likes and they should not be slammed for it.

However, that is not "strength". A glaceon and an eevee, both Lv100 IV 31 EV 255 +SpAtk nature... The glaceon will always be stronger.

There are some Pokemon that can work just fine in standard but are simply outclassed by others. For example, there is no reason to use Rattata over Raticate because it completely outclasses it (besides a FEAR strategy and things like Smeargle can pull that strategy off much better). At one point, Espeon dropped down to UU and Alakazam stayed in OU. Espeon worked fine in UU but at one point, Alakazam dropped to UU and pushed Espeon down to NU because Alakazam outclasses Espeon in every way besides defenses (which are still pretty terrible) and Baton Pass, which wasn't used very much.

There are plenty of Pokemon that are usuable in standard play, especially if you use them with a specific strategy like using Kabutops and Ludicullo in a Rain team, but if they can't find a niche, they won't get used in Standard. Roserade and Tentacruel were UU for the longest time until someone realized that they make good Toxic Spikers to pair with Agility Sub Pataya and Stallrein, respectively. I've also been using Umbreon as Scizor lure and it reliably puts Scizor to sleep with a combination of Yawn and Protect (they can't switch out if U-turn doesn't connect).

So in short, Pokemon that aren't normally used often can work well on a team as long as find its niche.

I never thought of it like that OU is THE BEST wile a GOOD poke can be used as well.
EDIT: Sweet 400th post!

i believe if your going to use a legendary, make it one of the unbanned ones as if your challenging the Battle Frontier...

Loko Mocho wrote:I never thought of it like that OU is THE BEST wile a GOOD poke can be used as well.

Strictly speaking, OU -isn't- the best. It's simply the collection of Pokemon that are deemed above-average but not overpowered, and are therefore pretty much guaranteed to be on competitive teams.

A lot of the weaker legendaries, a lot of Dragon types, Skarmory and Blissey and Aerodactyl...

OU stands for "OverUsed." There's a reason they're overused; they're popular. A lot of UU Pokemon are just about as strong as OU Pokemon, but are limited by movepool. Or ability, in the cases of Slaking and Regigigas. Besides, those last two are vastly stronger than most OU Pokemon, but for their abilities. The problem is finding a niche; for example, many Eevee forms have some fantastic stats. Each has two above-average, and they're usually a great combination; both Espeon and Jolteon have high Sp. Attack and Speed, for instance, while both of Umbreon's defenses are high. The problem is movepool; every Eeveelution is generally limited to moves of its own type, and very few out of it; Dig, Shadow Ball, Signal Beam, and Hidden Power seem to be all. Thus, seven otherwise powerful, OU-canditate statwise Pokemon are relegated to UU or NU due to a lack of moves. This doesn't make them -bad-, per se; but they lack flexibility.

Not being in OU doesn't necessarily make a Pokemon weak. It just means it's not used as much as the popular sweepers and tanks and such; and of course, there's a reason for it. Maybe it's stats, like Luvdisc and Farfetch'd, for example. Maybe it's moves, like the Eeveelutions. Maybe it's poor typing, like the many Bug/Flying, Rock/Ground, Rock/Steel Pokemon with their numerous weaknesses, and at least one 4x weakness each. Or poor abilities, such as Slow Start and Truant. Many of these can indeed be put to good use- except perhaps the very low end of the statistic ladder; you aren't winning anything with a Sunkern- they are simply more difficult to wield, in practice, than reliable tanks and fast, overused sweepers.

That said, every Uber is either an amazing tank or an overpowered sweeper. That's why they're Ubers.

I don't get why something as simple as a title can get a pokemon banned. What makes a legendary automatically better than any other pokemon? I question whether some of them could even make it into OU if it wasn't for their "Legendary" status.

Taking that from a Philisophical point you make sense Artemis. A word, Uber bans like 15 kool pokmemon. because they think they are overpowered. People have different battling styles and veiw each strenghts differently. I mean they could have like Groundon or something and fuck up his moveset. Then what, now he's terrible. Does that mean he's still an Uber?

Artemis wrote:I don't get why something as simple as a title can get a pokemon banned. What makes a legendary automatically better than any other pokemon? I question whether some of them could even make it into OU if it wasn't for their "Legendary" status.

Not all legendaries are ubers. Not all ubers are legendaries.

Quite a lot of legendaries- the Gen I birds and the Gen II beasts, for instance- are in OU, or even UU, because of poor movepools.

On the other hand, Garchomp is considered uber for its insane stats and movepool, while Wobbufett is somewhere between uber and just flat-out banned, due to Shadow Tag.

LEGENDARY IS NOT EQUAL TO UBER. Fact of the matter is, legendaries aren't -automatically- better than standard Pokemon, per se; some non-legendary Pokemon, notably things like Salamence and Garchomp, have comparable power. Slaking, for example, not only has identical Attack to Regigigas,but also the same base stat total, typing, and a hindering ability. But the majority of legendaries are designed to be mythical creatures, if not outright deities; thus, it follows that they're programmed to be relatively superior overall.

Using the statistical lower-end selection of OU Pokemon in an environment with Ubers involved is something like using lower-stage evolutions against regular OU Pokemon. Do you think a Charmander is going to have a chance against a Salamence? Because that same Salamence has a snowball's chance in hell fighting a Mewtwo.

Chewya wrote:Taking that from a Philisophical point you make sense Artemis. A word, Uber bans like 15 kool pokmemon. because they think they are overpowered. People have different battling styles and veiw each strenghts differently. I mean they could have like Groundon or something and fuck up his moveset. Then what, now he's terrible. Does that mean he's still an Uber?

Pokemon aren't grouped into the 'uber' category at a whim. Pokemon aren't just banned from standard play because somebody was like "Derp, this thing's cheap and overpowered, get rid of it." Pokemon in the uber category tend to be statistically superior, often have unique and beneficial typings, and usually have a vast movepool to choose from. The exception is Wobbufett; as mentioned, Shadow Tag makes any matchup of Wobbufetts an absolute stalemate, and the fact that other Pokemon can't switch to escape it makes it undeniably cheap.

As for that question... yes, yes it does. Let's say somebody has that Groudon. And let's say they just pack it with really strong moves. "Awesome!" they say. "I can teach it Earthquake, Fire Blast AND Solarbeam!" Three strong moves; one with STAB, and two benefitting from Groudon's eternal sun condition. Of course, it's a mixed sweeper... problem being that most people who make a mixed sweeper and pack it with moves like that are the sort that just judge moves based on power. And, of course, don't do the whole EV thing or anything. And so the last move likely ends up Focus Punch or something.

Does this particular Groudon probably suck? Yeah. You have to keep one thing in mind, though- imagine the Groudon was obtained in Pokemon Ruby. Level 40, just before the Pokemon League. I'm sure everyone here, at one point, played a Pokemon game, got that pre-League legendary, and just... used it. No clue about IVs or any of that nonsense.

And, of course, it gives a major boost when fighting the League, and tends to rip through most opposing Pokemon like tissue. Even if it happens to suck.

"Okay, so a subpar uber can beat NPCs easily. So?" The Champions' Pokemon always have perfect 31s, across the board, every stat. Thus... a single uber that happens to be non-ideal, IV- and nature- and moveset- and EV-wise, slightly overleveled, can fairly easily rip through a team of max-stat OUs and high-end UUs.

Still don't think a poorly raised uber isn't still overpowered? They always give you one right before the Pokemon League for a reason: it's a handicap. It's something that's there to help you fight five consecutive teams of above-average Pokemon that are probably above the levels of most of yours. And that handicap is one single Pokemon. Ho-oh and Lugia, Kyogre, Groudon and Rayquaza, Dialga, Palkia and Giratina... all of these are Pokemon that can change your team from being destroyed by the first Elite Four member to a force that can rip through the whole League with relative ease. Overleveled a bit and provided with healing items (especially PP), and party support for their few weaknesses, they can reasonably beat the League singlehanded. I'm saying this from experience. That's overpowered.

Hey I had Groudon in my party for my first run of Ruby and I still sucked ass. It depends on how you use him. I mean I was more likely to beat the Elite 4 with my Level 65 pokemon alone (took a while to do). That elite 5 has atleast one move that can seeiously hurt them. Just depends on the pokemon (though all the legends I get excel at one stat and fail at another) Balance is sometimes given to legendaries and they usually have some good stat then a horrible one. Even i couldnt do what you said Houndoomed. Even when I was vast levels ahead Glacia would still take you out. When they have a balente type weakness used by that type you can essentially remove them from battle. (Glacica did that to my Rayquaza on Lvl 70- OHKO) If used correctly Surf can OHKO Growndon. Atleast every legend has its weakness and finding it is to up to you but once you know how to take them out, they dont seem like ubers if you knnow your basic type table.

Yes. Every legend has its weakness. That's why I said party support. It's fairly obvious that Rayquaza or Groudon wouldn't fare well against ice types; that's why I included that along with a supply of items. The Elite 4 each use a different type specialization mainly so that you -need- to have a varied party; unlike Gym Leaders, who use the same type as their entire Gym; thus, with a good counter, a single Pokemon can often sweep an entire Gym.

Ubers are the Pokemon that can sweep entire teams, regardless of having the type advantage; a good Ground type could defeat an entire Electric type gym, or at least do the majority of the fighting on its own. Uber Pokemon are just so statistically superior that they can do the same thing with no advantage, so long as they don't have a disadvantage; that is, Rayquaza has the attack stats and Speed to rip through most anything with relative ease; however, its typing still leaves it with a gaping weakness to Ice. Still, anything without Ice moves (or, to a lesser extent, Dragon or Rock moves) has little hope of beating it, unless it's another uber.

Actually my Raquaza had speed problems he was as slow as a Walreighn There is a chance of beating it. If the levels are the same then it is possible. My Blaziken took out a Rayquaza with OverHeat, Blaze kick, Sky Uppercut, and Double Kick. It is possible if you know what your doing. Its just overly hard depending on you type. I was at a double disadvange. It knew Water pulse and Fly. Some of the elite four, even with out type help can take out some legends too.Though they should definately didive the system allowing people who want to use certain pokemon and those who dont. I will appease both sides.

Houndoomed wrote:Do you think a Charmander is going to have a chance against a Salamence? Because that same Salamence has a snowball's chance in hell fighting a Mewtwo.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't some Legendaries banned because they sorta are overpowered? If a legendary is overpowered, sure, go ahead and do what is done to any other overpowered pokemon, y'know?

I don't exactly keep up to date with the tiers.

This is the same situation with Super Smash Bros. Some fighter/Pokemon are deemed better/worst by the tiers and it affects usually who uses them in competeative play. Some pokemon are actually better than the tier they belong in. The tier system is unfair and unjust. If you know how to use them you'll understand the tier system is a load of crap. Im sorry but its true. I checked.

Weeell, I wouldn't agree with that Chewya. I think that Brawl and Pokemon are very different games with an extremely different styles of gameplay and that the tier list works differently for them.

I know but pokemon are put into teirs though. Often lots of lists are put out about the top# of pokemon. Often they are just the same pokemon. I mean you don't even see Blissey who has one of the highest health gains and defense in the game.