The Official Tier Thread

[WaterWizard]

Articuno and Jolteon moved to OU for very good reason and they are both fine there. Moltres to UU is ridiculous.

The tiers are pretty much perfect until someone discovers a metagame-changing strategy that will switch things up.

There have been so many comments and discussions over the last three years supporting Articuno's promotion that it annoys me that you'd bring it up. I am certainly not the only Articuno user.

~

I honestly feel like you're just making that suggestion to get me to be more active here. I'm calling your bluff.

[Zilch]

What would the tier below NU even be called? NEU (Never Ever Used)?

But yeah, theoretically the NU tier could be split. There are a bunch of NUs (Fearow, Abra, Rapidash, Exeggcute, Parasect, etc.) that are very good and can find a place on most teams. Then again, you have your Butterfrees, Beedrills, Golbats, and a whole bunch of NFEs that never see the light of day. I doubt I'd take it as seriously as NU, but it would be nice to try sometime.

[Isa]

We'd call the current NU RU (Rarely Used) and the new tier becomes NU. It'd be fun for metagame discovering.

[jorgen]

I think it'd be cool how far down you have to go before every fully evolved Pokemon is either worth using or banned in some tier or other.

[Dexter]

well here is my opinion:

I think if articuno/jolteon/persian are OU, then a case could be made to move Hypno/Clefable/Dugtrio up as well. Yes that's right, I said dugtrio. Well if not him than at least hypno. Maybe dodrio too but that might be stretching it and then slippery slope...

well anyway that's my own biased opinion.

I also think Mr. Mime sucks. Why does he have to be BL? Has anyone actually used it?

[Zilch]

Clefable is mediocre enough in BL. Why should she be promoted to OU?

I've tried Mr. Mime in BL, and while he's certainly no Kadabra, he's okay enough. Thunderbolt is actually pretty useful against the plentiful Waters, especially Gyarados. It's a shame that he dies to three Seismic Tosses, though. With that being said, he's still too good for UU.

[GGFan]

The problem with Clefable is that he's RBY's jack of all trades: good at several things, but not great at any of them. He's only viable in OU because of his voluminous movepool, but other Pokemon are better at using his moves.

His saving grace is his diversity, which makes him unpredictable to an extent, especially against somebody who has never seen Clefable before. Still, OU is a bit of stretch.

[Dexter]

Well I think we're already stretching with Articuno, which is a good pokemon, but then again I think a lot of the UU's are actually pretty good pokemon if you use them right.

Clefable has STAB normals which is always good, and can support those with a wide special movepool to cover whatever you want. The main selling point, I think, is Thunder Wave/Sing and a high HP counter. You send it out 1 on 1 vs. snorlax and start singing, if it body slams you you can fire off a counter after its put to sleep and then start paralyzing things... if you can go one for one with snorlax or sleep something and do decent damage + leave a para on another pokemon before clefable dies I think you're in great shape.

[GGFan]

Articuno is the prime example of why a tier list based solely on usage doesn't always work (irregardless of the fact that RBY isn't really played regularly anymore). He's simply too powerful to be anywhere else; however, to his credit, he can sweep with a bit of luck on his side. His bulk helps as well.

I used Clefable in my return team which had three consecutive seven-game winning streaks. His strongest asset is his movepool, but he suffers badly from the four-moveslot syndrome. In my opinion, the demarcation between OU and BL can be established, not by usage, but by identifying which Pokemon have something that distinguishes themselves from their outclassed peers. For example, STAB Body Slam + Hyper Beam is nice, but Tauros, Snorlax, Kangaskhan, and even Lickitung do that better. On the special spectrum, Clefable has access to Blizzard and Thunderbolt, but Starmie and Lapras do that better.

Sing is okay, but it's kind of predictable and has horrible accuracy. Lapras can do that too, but with more HP and firepower. Also, Chansey has access to Sing and Thunder Wave as well, but with more overall bulk. As for Counter, a lot of Pokemon can do that too, perhaps a bit more discreetly as well. Clefable, being a fat Normal-type, fits the archetype of conspicuous Counter user; but, given competitive RBY's current climate, it would probably be more useful than it was before.

I guess, however, if these tiers are based on usage, then Clefable ought to be OU: if, like, two people use it more than once, that would make it considerably popular, given that practically nobody plays competitive RBY enough anymore. I've already used Clefable over 30 times this year; that must count for something.

[Dre]

I still think Poliwrath is the best counter user in OU. Being able to take around 50% from a tauros hbeam on the switch then either KOing it with counter or sleep countering is pretty neat. He also beats every standard physical in the game 1 on 1 with submission and surf, and threatens chansey. It's a shame he's scared out by other specials though. Still, he seems like he'd have good synergy with zapdos, taking rslides and scaring out rocks, and zapdos can threaten starmie. In saying that, it'd still be hard to justify having both a niche and a semi-niche pokemon on your team.

[jorgen]

"I'm gimmicking"

There's your justification

[Dre]

But counter is pretty much always a gimmick because it won't work if the opponent expects it. You don't really associate counter with poli, or just poli with OU in general, that's what makes it so unexpected.

Chansey is probably the best pokemon in the game that gets counter, and gets the best reward of counter, but probably isn't the best at landing the move because it is expected to a degree. Tauros' will EQ first to scout for it.

Poliwrath is in that area where he's gimmicky enough for it to be unexpected, but still a good enough pokemon to do some form of damage aside from counter (eg. sleep and beat every standard physical 1v1).

I never said he's viable, just that he's one of, if not the best counter users in the game.

[Crystal_]

i think counter poliwrath could work because if you switch it into snorlax's body slam your opponent is probably switching to starmie/alakazam and counter is the only way poliwrath is beating starmie.

But really, the best counter user in OU? This is a combination of being good at using counter AND being good in OU. Anyway, what you don't expect from Poliwrath is... Poliwrath itself, but you probably expect counter from him more than you expect it from chansey. You expect more tbolt tauros/snorlaxes than tbolt electrodes, does this make electrode's thunderbolt more unperdictable?

Sing is okay, but it's kind of predictable and has horrible accuracy. Lapras can do that too, but with more HP and firepower. Also, Chansey has access to Sing and Thunder Wave as well, but with more overall bulk.

We can make similar claims for every Clefable move actually. Chansey does tbolt/sing/twave/counter/blizzard better, and tauros/snorlax does Slam/Beam better. But nothing can use four of these moves at the same time as good as Clefable. I don't really think Sing on Clefable is predictable, or more predictable that any of the other moves are imo. And anytime Clefable is predictable, it sucks.

[Dre]

I don't think you really expect counter from poli. He's viewed more as an amnesia sweeper.

I said he's the best at using counter in OU, not the best OU pokemon that uses counter.

His counter is pretty versatile. As you said he can switch into snorlax bslams, and if he switches into a tauros hbeam he takes around 50% and KOs tauros back with counter, or can be more risky and sleep tauros then counter switch in.

I think he's also an underrated switch into rocks. If your eggy is still alive, trainers often like to bslam instead of equake to try and para eggy, and so poli can come in on that, and counter the switch in. He can take an equake (although rhydon's does 3HKO) and resists rslide.

Poli's counter is different to chansey's. Chansey just hopes they don't scout for it first then catches them by surprise. Poli can actually switch in on dangerous physicals, and scare them out due to the threat of submission/surf or hypnosis/counter depending on the mon. He also has sleep, which can make his counter game pretty nasty.

I'm not saying this justifies a slot on a team. But keeping poli hidden until late game then coming in on hbeams and getting sleeps on physicals that don't normally like getting slept is pretty satisfying.

Of course, no one who reads this will probably ever get counter-caught by me if they battle me now.

[piexplode]

Does the site contain a similar list for a wrap-based metagame [that's played a lot of the time nowadays] and it would be useful for with reference to Actaeon's book.

Also imo within that environment Cloyster and probably victreebell/dragonite would be OU as well, and I could see persian dropping and maybe articuno? I've never seen those two used seriously. Do persian/articuno merit OU in a non-wrap metagame?

[Dre]

There's no wrap list on this site because 2K10 is anti-wrap.

In terms of a tier list, the only changes list wise are that nite cloy and bel all move to ou. That's pretty much indisputable. Honestly I'd say cloy has a case for lower OU in non-wrap anyway, because I'd say it's articuno-jolteon level. It doesn't matter too much anyway because they're both inferior laprases, just that cloy can boom.

Viability-wise though, most of BL becomes a lot more viable with wrap legal. Wrap just makes more pokemon viable in general because the switching mechanics allow pokemon to get in without taking hits, which is what holds a lot of pokemon back in non-wrap. Not saying that you should start throwing 3 BLs on your team, but they'll be better in the wrap meta than the non-wrap meta.

As for persian and cuno, it depends on what u mean by 'OU'. As the name suggests, the tiers were traditionally based on usage. On usage alone I wouldn't be able to tell you if they're OU or not. However, because the RBY era is over and usage doesn't really mean anything anymore because 90% of players on the ladders are rookies, most people just make assessments based in viability now. In terms of viabilty, cuno and persian are probably both viable (although id question how viable cuno really is), it's just that they're outclassed by other pokemon (lapras and tauros respectively). Then again, golem is generally thought to be inferior to rhydon now by top players but he's still OU.

[Isa]

All tiers prior to DPP were made based on what people believed to be the appropriate power level simply because usage statistics were unavailable back then. You could see only a few years ago (2012 or 2013?) where Porygon2 got OU status in ADV.