Tauros is Uber

[Consumptus]

Today, subsmoke and I were playing, and Tauros just absolutely dominated. In the hands of a sufficiently lucky player, Tauros is Uber.
This lead to this thread, and our thoughts on Tauros to Uber tier.

First of all, yes, Tauros is certainly not as dominant as Mewtwo, or the king of everything Mew. However, I believe our current tier thread has some pokemon moved up because they just dominate the tier below them.

The only remotely safe switch-ins into Tauros are Cloyster and Articuno. Perhaps Exeggutor can threaten with sleep or Explosion. Starmie and Snorlax can be seen as counters too, though they risk the paralyzing Body Slam. Snorlax has to blow up or lose to Tauros unless you run Counter.

However. All of these counters are rendered useless by the amazing power of RBY. RNG plays a critical role that pushes Tauros above such things as counters. I don't want to go into the maths because quite frankly I'm not qualified, but the sheer amount of rape to an entire team Tauros can deliver is breaking OU.

With amazing coverage and the ability to inflict Freeze, Paralyze and STAB Criticals, Tauros dominates OU and should be moved to Ubers.

[subsmoke]

Yeah I agree with consumptus. Look at what Lutra did with Tauros, he got 5 or 6 critical hits in a row and almost ran through this guy's whole team. Then just today I froze his Alakazam and beat his Jynx in one hit with a critical body slam. Even Cloyster and Articuno aint safe from Tauros once it starts dishing out that paralysis and critical hits body slams. Tauros deserves to be up there with Mewtwo and Mew.

[yellow]

Hmm

I somewhat agree. Obviously he's not Mew/Mewtwo level but he's easily the best Pokemon otherwise. Tauros kind of makes the game a little stale as it sort of just adds the element of what I think of as the "healthy Tauros" battle.

Basically, both players just try to keep their Tauros as healthy as possible for the end, as everyone knows countering him is a little iffy and against a week team, he can easily pull of a series of good BS/Hyper Beam/Blizzard all the way to victory. So you try to keep your Tauros hidden while trying to draw the others out. Even a simple paralyze will do. Now your Tauros is faster than theirs, as are all the rest of your Pokemon not paralyzed. It puts the player with the healthier Tauros in a snug, safe advantage.

However I only somewhat agree because of the mere fact that he obviously is not Mewtwo/Mew. I don't look at him as unfair. Very good, perhaps to the point of needing him on a team? Maybe, and that could be reason enough to start banning him, but you gotta be careful with something like this. Tauros has always been an integral part of the game, while it may be stale seeing him all the time, it adds a very real threat to every match that you must be aware of. And if you're playing well, and are aware of the ever -hidden healthy Tauros battle, you can counter him and come out on top. Unless they end up winning the lucky Tauros battles anyway... but many other Pokemon can do that too, albeit not as well/devastatingly. Facing a team with Mew/Mewtwo though, is something else entirely. Counters take the form of entire teams instead of just having a few choice pokes to deal with Tauros.

I don't know what side of the fence I sit on when it comes to this. I'd say there'd be no harm in trying matches where he's not allowed though, just to see what it does to the metagame. See how much it spruces it up a bit.

I've been getting a friend of mine into RBY, and after paralyzing/criting/and finally freezing his Pokemon with Tauros, he was quite flabbergasted by his power and it's not hard to see why. He's one of the best with a very stale/rarely changing but ultimately extremely effective move set.

It'd be pretty cool with Tauros not there. It'd open up his position for many other Pokemon. I know I've wanted to try out different sweepers in the past... but why pick anything other than Tauros, aside from fun? He's simply too great to pass up unless you've got some unorthodox strategy planned and it shouldn't take an unorthodox strategy to finally make Tauros give up his spot on a team.

But still, in my head he's not necessarily "OP." He's more stale than anything else.

[t3h Icy]

looooool

Well if you want never-ending stall wars...

EDIT: Also if you're complaining because Tauros CH'd 5 times in a row, that's called bad luck. That won't be consistently happening.

Also Counter helps take care of Tauros and takes Hyper Beam away.

[posthuman]

Tauros can't switch into anything.

And he's pretty crappy when paralyzed. Like a low-health and less powerful Snorlax. That can't explode. Yeah.

[t3h Icy]

Many Pokemon can do well against Tauros too, just not as well when paralyzed. Snorlax, Alakazam, Counter Chansey, Exeggutor, most anything with Explosion, etc.

Just because no solid counter exists doesn't mean the Pokemon is broken. Snorlax isn't broken, Exeggutor isn't broken, etc.

Also in my opinion, Exeggutor and Chansey are better than Tauros. Alakazam and Gengar trail him.

[Crystal_]

The key against Tauros is to avoid a worse thing than a 1on1 trade. It is often better to stay with the poke you have already instead of switching to for example Starmie or another Tauros. Or switch to a no longer useful poke (like a 30% para poke or sth) to get your Starmie / Egg / Zap / Lap / whatever in the field in perfect conditions. Otherwise your Starmie will have to rely on the <60% chance it has for avoiding a hit that does more than the standard ~35%.

Exeggutor / Snolax switches are still okay, as they can get this trade by explosion though you will just have -2 turns to do that and thus you will be hard pressed to predict it quickly (at least Egg common switches are [nearly] KOed by it as well should you mispredict). I usually demand Lax more than a 1-1 trade but if we are talking about opposing Laxes / Tauroses it's still fine.

That is only my opinion. I am using a offense + trades + explosion mindset in my RBY battles as you see.

I however defend Mew addition to the RBY metagame as it will give RBY a more clear separation between stall and offense, and hence will provide stability. The SD version is likely to be a mounstruosity though (I suppose Mew can be compared with GSC Snorlax [but RBY SD Mew is about = 5*LK GSC Lax to give a example] ).

But again, TIOMO. lol tiomo.

[Inf]

Begin Turn #53
Consumptus[RBY]'s Alakazam used Reflect!
Consumptus[RBY]'s team's Reflect raised Defense!
---------------------------------
Inf''rnum's Tauros used Hyper Beam!
(70% damage)
A critical hit!
Consumptus[RBY]'s Alakazam fainted!
Inf''rnum: =/
Consumptus[RBY] sent out Tauros (Lv.100 Tauros)!
---------------------------------
End of turn #53
Inf''rnum's Tauros: 353 HP (Par)
Consumptus[RBY]'s Tauros: 100% HP

Begin Turn #54
Consumptus[RBY]'s Tauros used Body Slam!
(99 damage)
---------------------------------
Inf''rnum's Tauros used Body Slam!
(55% damage)
A critical hit!
---------------------------------
End of turn #54
Inf''rnum's Tauros: 254 HP (Par)
Consumptus[RBY]'s Tauros: 45% HP

Begin Turn #55
Consumptus[RBY]'s Tauros used Body Slam!
(97 damage)
---------------------------------
Inf''rnum's Tauros used Hyper Beam!
(45% damage)
Consumptus[RBY]'s Tauros fainted!
Consumptus[RBY] sent out Chansey (Lv.100 Chansey)!
---------------------------------
End of turn #55
Inf''rnum's Tauros: 157 HP (Par)
Consumptus[RBY]'s Chansey: 100% HP (Par)


Even a fresh Tauros doesn't beat a paralyzed Tauros.
Uber.

[WaterWizard]

gentlemen...

so many ways to argue this...

1) Tauros can't switch in on any attack. He has to revenge kill.
2) Tauros uses Body Slam from 298 attack. This is far weaker than any stab EQ (on the physical spectrum) and quite impotent compared to any stabbed special attack.
3) Tauros has a lower critical hit rate than Starmie, Persian, Alakazam, Dugtrio, and Jolteon...
4) Counter via Chansey and especially Snorlax completely shuts Tauros down.
5) Cloyster/Golem can switch in and explode for 1 to 1.

And perhaps most importantly:

6. Gengar/Golem/Rhydon... These pokemon can switch in on Tauros, and then chain switch to one of the following common pokemon:
Exeggutor/Lapras/Articuno/Zapdos/Slowbro/Dragonite/Gyarados/Venusaur, etc...

The fact is...

Tauros requires prep to sweep effectively. So do MANY other pokemon. Tauros is perhaps the best at what he does (provide quick, strong physical pressure), but that doesn't make him broken.

Snorlax/Exeggutor usually take out 1-2 pokemon each round. Should we ban them? No.

You'll find that several of the more experienced players value other pokemon more than Tauros (for instance rby2k10.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=gd&action=display&thread=276 lol).

Also, consider this...

Dodrio is stronger than Tauros, and is only one (viable) speed tier lower than Tauros... Dodrio can also dodge explosions and can hit with a stabbed attack that hits Ghosts, birds, and cannot be countered.

My suggestion is to play around with sans-Tauros teams (Zilch and I used to do this) and see if you like some of the other psychical sweepers (Persian, Dodrio, Kang, grounds, dancers). You'll find that Tauros' job can be nearly duplicated with the proper setup.

Perhaps we can do a sans-Tauros mini tournament some day...

[Inf]

A 6 Tauros team tournament would be better.

(My previous post was just a jk, I also did put Tauros 3rd a while ago on the previous topic)

Uber.

[posthuman]

A 6 Alakazam team would beat a 6 Tauros team.

[Inf]

Tauros is funnier.
(Some other pokés would also beat a Tauros team (as well as a 6 Slowbro team > 6 Alakazam))

[posthuman]

Oh, I'm just saying that Tauros isn't uber.

[brookman]

6 tauros was decidedly not that great.

[brookman]

Dec 4, 2010 6:42:27 GMT -8 brookman said:

6 tauros was decidedly not that great.

However, I still believe tauros is uber.

[t3h Icy]

Uber at being OU.

[yellow]

Dec 3, 2010 20:08:48 GMT -8 WaterWizard said:

Perhaps we can do a sans-Tauros mini tournament some day...

This is as far as I was thinking honestly.

[Zilch]

I'd like to see a tourney where no normal types are allowed at all, though I suppose Normal/Flying stuff like Dodrio would still be okay.

[WaterWizard]

It's funny, I was JUST thinking last night it'd be fun to do a mini-tournament where you could only have one of each type.

zilch, we are brilliant

[t3h Icy]

I'll host a mini once you get the OU and Nea finished.