Discussion on any aspect of competitive Pixelmon.
User avatar
By Allianths
#178769 Hey guys, this is just me wondering if anyone has actually made a tier system (Uber, OU, UU) for just pixelmon, considering the fact that not every pokemon has been added into the mod yet?

I understand that smogon rules exist, but since there are some poke counters that aren't in the game yet, some pokemon have been a tad overpowered.

Note: if there is an existing tier system in the forums, I apologize, since I am not an avid reader xd

User avatar
By CritsAreFair
#178824 I do agree that viability in Pixelmon is drastically different than viability in gen 5 OU for a number of reasons, enough to warrant certain Pokemon being outright banned as being too centralizing, but there's a few inherent problems with this.

First of all, let's look at my go-to example for this sort of discussion, Serperior. Serperior was an obscure NU calm mind user for all of B2/W2, dreaming of the day its HA would be released, allowing it to wreak terror upon the higher tiers with a 140 base power STAB Nasty Plot, backed by passable bulk and a fantastic Speed tier. This would have been truly devastating had B2/W2 OU ever faced it, however as fate would have it Serperior never got his HA released until gen 6 rolled around, introducing things such as Talonflame, Mega Venusaur, Mega Latias, etc. that can handle it. The only common threat Serperior would have trouble with in gen 5 is Heatran.

However, you'll notice none of his usual counters are actually in Pixelmon currently. No Heatran, no Talonflame, no Mega Venusaur. In order to check Serperior you need to use very niche checks such as specially defensive regular Venusaur, Occa Berry Scizor, Infiltrator Crobat, and lure Mantine. These Pokemon can be hard to fit onto teams and often come with their own flaws (Scizor can be trapped+killed by Magnezone and loses to Serperior in the sun, Crobat is set-up bait for Serperior's Steel or Rock-typed teammates, Venusaur has poor coverage and little offensive presence outside of checking Serperior, etc), which greatly restricts teambuilding. This is a classic example of a threat that would ordinarily be banned not because of high base stats or ridiculous immediate power, but to promote an overall healthy metagame.

The issue lies in determining what should or shouldn't be banned, and who makes those decisions. To be brutally honest there isn't a single vocal person in the Pixelmon community that I regard as a fantastic enough battler to be a one man judge, jury, and executioner in this matter (and I include myself in that). Under Smogon's rules, NU-OU are determined by usage, with Pokemon who see enough usage moving to the next tier. This would be damn near impossible to measure in Pixelmon, and would result in a lot of non-viable fan favorites like Charizard and Pikachu being in high tiers due to the overall casual nature of most Pixelmon players. Furthermore, this doesn't address the really important part of the issue: banlist tiers. Tiers like Ubers, BL, BL2, etc are not usage based but are instead banlists for the tier below them. Pokemon banned to Ubers are done so via suspect tests, where a certain rating threshold on a simulator must be acquired to ensure the voter actually knows what they're talking about and isn't some noob that insists that cherizerd is da bst poke evar.

No similar simulator or rating system exists for Pixelmon, and the Pixelmon community is overall vastly inferior at competitive play than the Smogon community, which would make getting quality tests basically impossible. In other words, there is no reasonable way to decide what to ban and what not to ban, or what should be in what tier in Pixelmon. While I'm certainly a fan of servers making their own banlists for tournaments and whatnot, I do not support a universal tier list or banlist because it would be nearly impossible to create.
User avatar
By Shadowkirby
#178959
However, you'll notice none of his usual counters are actually in Pixelmon currently. No Heatran, no Talonflame, no Mega Venusaur. In order to check Serperior you need to use very niche checks such as specially defensive regular Venusaur, Occa Berry Scizor, Infiltrator Crobat, and lure Mantine. These Pokemon can be hard to fit onto teams and often come with their own flaws (Scizor can be trapped+killed by Magnezone and loses to Serperior in the sun, Crobat is set-up bait for Serperior's Steel or Rock-typed teammates, Venusaur has poor coverage and little offensive presence outside of checking Serperior, etc), which greatly restricts teambuilding. This is a classic example of a threat that would ordinarily be banned not because of high base stats or ridiculous immediate power, but to promote an overall healthy metagame.


While a part of this is true, I disagree with Serperior having no checks/counters at all.
There's alot of checks and counters for Serperior. To name a few:
Charizard (switches into Leaf Storm and lives dragon pulse after)
Arcanine (same as charizard)
Snorlax (Lives 2 Leaf Storms)
Dragonite (completely walls if it doesn't have Dragon Pulse)
Salamence (If scarf: It outspeeds and 1 shots, also walls if there's no Dragon Pulse)
Zapdos (Might be hard to aquire, but it walls Serp pretty easily too and kills with Heat Wave)
Weavile (Is faster than Serp, so it can switch in after something died or w/e and revenge-kill or Pursuit Serp)
Yanmega (Speed boost is faster)
Scizor (Hidden Power Fire is kinda rare, because of how hard Hidden Power is to get)
Forretress (Same as Scizor)
Volcarona (Hidden Power Rock is a thing (I've seen it) though, it's rare and not really seen much)
Scarf Pokemon that aren't weak to Grass, such as Heracross, Togekiss, etc also switch into Leaf Storms and then kill it off with a Megahorn, Air Slash, etc.

Also, you have to consider, Leaf Storm only has 5 PP, so you can probably stall it out somehow aswell.

I do agree with the statement, that Tierlists can't really be created, atleast not as a whole. I wouldn't make a tier-list on the Pixelmon forums if anything, since the Meta is different from server to server. One server uses stuff like Dragonite, Salamence, etc alot, while another server might be more into more bulky Pokemon or whatever.
If anything, I'd make a tier-list for one server only (the server you play on yourself). I've done this in the past, I've made a tierlist for the server I played on, and alot of ppl agreed with me. However, I didn't name the tiers OU, UU, etc., but instead called them just Tier 1, Tier 2, etc. These tiers were just based on usage, how I see it on the server I play on.
By Mosapotayis
#181538 Hello, I run a 1.7.10 server that has quite a lot of competitive players and regularly host different tiers of tournaments. Because of this we have an official tier list that all players follow and help balance by having verbal discussions about certain Pokemon, etc.
This is the link if you're interested in checking it out: http://journeygaming.com/threads/journe ... -rules.32/

As the server is quite developed, players have figured out the power of HP Fire Serperior, that is why it has been moved to UBERS in our tier list.

I also completely agree that the tier list can heavily vary depending on what server you play on, if you're for example playing on a new server, Pokemon that get their main power from their Hidden Abilities wont be as strong and can be put in a lower tier, for example Blaziken, Serperior, Crawdaunt, etc.
By Monthearly
#188072 It is the knowledge that a lot. I try and keep as much as possible. To be asked to share with my friends.
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