Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[Finchinator]

2) the 2.6 referred to the latest survey before DLC2, the one asking about what Pokémon should start in OU. You held a vote on Pokémon that had 2.6 average vote.

This is comparing complete apples and oranges though. If this is what you meant, then it had no business being included in the post at all. I cannot ban Tera before a release like I can Pokemon lol

ou missed 2 points: 1) 3.25 is not equivalent to 62.5% because lowest is 1 and not 0; 3.25 is equivalent to 56%

It is still well below 4 or any of the other Pokemon suspected, which were at 3.8 and 4 respectively. And this still does not account for any of the other things mentioned like how it would make no sense logistically and how it would have to be undone within weeks and so on.

 

[Cuddly]

Burden of finding next best Unburden Pokémon

In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the undisputed best Unburden sweeper was introduced in form of and was introduced into playable format mid generation. Not only having the highest raw firepower with 130 Atk and dual 120 BP STABs, but also ties for second fastest Unburden user or first for Pokemon legal in the game. It hits hard and at 120 Spe had very few Pokemon that could outspeed it. Sneasler also was introduced with the absurd signature move in Dire Claw, which was as strong as Poison Jab, but had a 50% chance to either Poison, Paralyze, or Sleep the target. Unsurprisingly Sneasler was eventually banned and did not receive an unban for the Indigo Disk DLC.

Ever since the ban of Sneasler, there seems to have been a gap with Unburden sweepers. Odd as Unburden has been really popular ever since the introduction of terrain seeds. Seeds that activate immediately when the corresponding terrains are up. A common pairing on HO would be a pivot with a terrain setting ability such as Tapu Koko and Rillaboom, and an Unburden sweeper such as Hawlucha.

But what makes Unburden so good? There are a few reasons why Unburden is great compared to abilities like Swift Swim.
-It lasts as long as you stay in and aren’t given an item. It doesn’t go away if Weather is supressed or removed or changed
-It’s a lot more flexible than Swift Swim or other abilities like it as Weather teams are a lot more constraining. For example Rain would not work well with Gouging Fire or Heatran as Water moves are stronger and Fire moves are weaker
-Compared to Booster Energy abilities, Unburden is faster
-Additionally Unburden doesn’t get screwed over by Sticky Webs. If you use Sticky Webs, Paradox Pokemon that would have gotten a speed boost now get boost to their second highest stat
-Small niche but Unburden is the most anti-ditto ability you can have besides Neutralizing Gas, as Ditto won’t copy the speed boost and you’ll be faster than Choice Scarf

Before we look at current Unburden Pokemon, let's briefly look at currently available terrain setters.​

Ubers so it's not legal.
Actually good
Okish as a regular Pokemon, bad terrain and has better abilities.
/ Both pretty bad on their own, but the terrain is good but not worth using.
Absolutely terrible. If it's not even worth using with Paradox Pokemon, it's not worth using with Unburden. Doesn't even learn volt switch wtf.

So yeah just use Rillaboom. Other terrain setters are either garbage Pokemon making games a 5.5 v 6 or don't fit as Terrain setters for HO. Indeedee Male could be a choice if you also want to use Psyspam in conjunction with unburden if you wanted to. Indeedee Female could have had potential if Baton Pass was legal.

With that out of the way, let's look at all the currently available and legal Unburden Pokemon


Pros:
-Currently by far the strongest having 120 Atk with STAB HJK/Axe Kick/Close Combat
-Excellent coverage for Fighting STAB with Knock Off, Poison Jab, Stone Edge, and Blaze Kick
-Has access to Rapid Spin, if you really want it
-Adamant variants are as fast as Booster Energy Iron Valiant, and can outspeed +1 Roaring Moon/Iron Boulder with Jolly
Cons:
-Paper thin physical defense is almost as bad as Deoxys-N
-Mono-STAB
-It speed ties Iron Valiant, which is also a negative
-Doesn’t outspeed Excadrill in Sand, as well as tons of other

Hitmonlee getting access to Sword Dance looks promising and having such powerful attacks fits the HO sweeper the best, it has glaring issues. Namely its speed tier and physical bulk. Speed ties with Iron Valiant are always coin flip and running Jolly does cut into that power. Not to mention that running Adamant means you’re also outsped by Iron Boulder and +1 Speed Proto Great Tusk. But more importantly, having such terrible Def means priority is a major issue. Even at +1 it folds over without resisting priority. Hitmonlee does have other great attributes to somewhat make up for that. It has strong coverage for Pokemon like Gholdengo, having a 50% chance to OHKO defensive Gholdengo after Sword Dance and Stealth Rock. Also Hitmonlee has the best chance of physical attackers with Grassy Terrain + Tera Blast + some chip. And while I did rag on Hitmonlee’s speed, it should be still outspeeding a lot of the metagame.


Pros:
-Fastest available Unburden Sweeper currently
-So fast it can reasonably run neutral nature and invest less into speed
-Grassy Terrain boosts its Grass STAB
-Having a respectable SpA stat, in fact it's the highest SpA for available Unburden Pokemon
-Grass STAB can help as it'll be Super Effective against Dondozo, and Grass typing means you resist its Wave Crashes
Cons:
-Mono STAB attacker
-Second lowest Atk stat among fully evolved Unburden Pokemon
-Has Sword Dance but not Nasty Plot for some reason
-Poor coverage. Earthquake is halved by Grassy Terrain, Drain Punch is Sceptile's best Fighting option, and you have limited options for Flying, Poison, Dragon, and Fire types as well

Sceptile has good qualities but not enough to offset its drawbacks. HO teams need their sweeps to have punch to them so they can actually sweep. Sceptile is one of the weakest in terms of raw power as you have Leaf Blade to use as an Unburden Sweeper and that's really your only STAB. For special attacking, which I don't recommend, Sceptile still has coverage issues. Literally nothing to hit Gholdengo what so ever and only means to hit Steel types is with Focus Blast. Unboosted and non-STAB btw. Even if Sceptile is basically outspeeding everything, it’s far too easy to wall and outspeeding ton of things is a common trait between Unburden Pokemon.


Pros:
-Has best bulk of the Unburden Sweepers
-Only really usable special attacker having access to Calm Mind
-Has great utility options like Strength Sap and Will-o-wisp
-Flinch Hax with Air Slash
-Immune to Extreme Speed and resists Grassy Glide
Cons:
-The slowest of the Unburden Pokemon and can’t even outspeed Iron Boulder
-Weak BP of STAB moves
-Calm Mind boosts its SpA way too slow
-Mon really isn’t built for HO in OU
-Weak to Sucker Punch, Ice Shard, and Thunderclap
Drifblim is unique as being the only that can really use Special attacks for sweeping besides non-boosted Sceptile. But this Pokemon fits more defensive teams than HO. It’s more like a bulky set up sweeper that can also go somewhat fast, but doing so means being forced out kind of ruins the strategy.


Pros:
-Is insanely fast without the burden of having crappy firepower
-Natural STAB Acrobatics, synergizing well with Unburden
-Has utility options allowing for better set up like Encore
-Resists Grassy Glide and Sucker Punch
Cons:
-Options for Gholdengo are underwhelming compared to Hitmonlee
-Fighting STAB is also far weaker compared to Hitmonlee
-Still is incredibly frail
-Weak to Ice Shards
-Doesn’t get passive boosts from Terrain
Hawlucha had been the best Unburden Sweeper for a long time and is arguably top contender for best legal Unburden sweeper, but has stiffer competition thanks to Hitmonlee getting Sword Dance. Really only Hawlucha and Hitmonlee should be considered for OU HO teams. Hawlucha provides much better speed and priority handling than Hitmonlee, while Hitmonlee is way stronger and breaks past Pokemon way better. I think both are valid but have to say Hawlucha edges out on top.


Pros:
-Fast enough to outspeed most of the tier
-Has dual 120 BP options
-Resists Grassy Glide
Cons:
-You’re using Grafaiai
-And not using Prankster
-Terrible movepool and STAB combo

This mon is the worst of the Unburden users that’s fully evolved. The few good qualities are overshadowed by how bad it is in other areas. Plus Grafaiai has better usecases with Prankster.​

 

[pika pal]

I love joining the thread and seeing the coinflip of if a hot take becomes a subject for 2 pages or is completely passed over as a topic of discussion.

I do think ultimately the stuff added by DLC2 is when a new question is asked about when Powercreep is bringing more stuff to be banned as opposed to simply raising the average power we're going to deal with in OU. The meta going from Gen 3 to 4 saw a lot of old staples and playstyles phazed out by new additions. General opinion seems to view Raging Bolt, Iron Boulder, and to a lesser extent Gouging Fire are exremely powerful but not so stand out as to kick them upstairs by Quickban, compared to the state of several DLC1 mons relative to their meta. I think when a Survey answer has upwards of 15 subjects deemed worthy of Suspect/ban action (most of them in stark contrast to community consensus), it's simply not enjoying the power level the tier itself is sitting at, at which point I don't think banning all of the named mons is going to "fix" the respondents grievances anyway.

As for the "Council should know better than listening to the community" post that has been the subject of some annoyance, what dictates when the council should ignore the community sentiment or the majority being "not well justified" as a prompt to respond as such? Whose arbitration is that down to? The Council's, the qualified respondents? More to the point, the entire premise of the surveys YOU are citing is to gather community input, not necessarily to dictate the course of action outright, but they would be completely worthless on either front just given the premise that the acting bodies could take action that completely ignores or is in contradiction to what the community is saying. Look at how much of a PR disaster the old Volcarona QB was for acting on write-ins without being a standard Survey option: this was something that by data DID have unprecedented community call for attention, but because of the write-in nature was not something the majority of the community knew to be a considerable option, hence the fallout when the ban went through even with a lot of sentiment in favor of the post-Volc Metagame.

tl;dr Bans or not, OU is getting power crept and we can't remove everything. Also asking the council to ignore community majority because (you claim) they're poorly informed completely undermines the Gen's tiering philosophy.

Subjective read I didn't want in my argument

Honestly both posts read very much like a "listen to me, not everyone else" sentiment: the former because of its stark contrast and RaikouLover's history of calling for Tera action even in unrelated topics of conversation; the latter because the call to act on Tera NOW despite citing the Community/Council survey data that doesn't push for immediate action gives an air this poster wants it removed but wants the system standard preventing such bypassed as an obstacle when it benefits their position

 

[MrE]

I will never understand people having a go at the council for how they've handled tera this generation, imo they've made some mistakes (shed tail being allowed for so long and Volc ban being the biggest) in managing the tier but in regards to Tera they've been flawless.

They gave the players a chance to voice their concerns very early in the generation even when there was loads of broken stuff still running about that arguably needed more attention, the suspect failed. Half (?) a year later they asked the playerbase their thoughts about it again via a survey and lengthy discussion thread, it got decent but not overwhelming support for another look into it but with how chaotic things have been due to no fault of their own they've yet to get around to doing another suspect test. People these days just have no patience at all.

 

[awyp]

Every single decision on tiering should be at least somewhat "community-dependent" and a generational mechanic should be to a greater extent. We were not even allowed to quickban or quick-suspect something like Dynamax, which was fleshed out for a month, for example.

65% is equivelant to 3.25 out of 5, nothing got suspected with a 2.6/5, and there has not been an opening to suspect Tera during DLC1 with all that happened. This was made abundantly clear when we had regular suspects on Pokemon that got >95% ban (Ursaluna-Bloodmoon) or Pokemon with far more universal survey support (3.68 Roaring Moon and 3.99 Gliscor). We also had bans on Pokemon with far more support (i.e: Bax at 4.3/5 and Sneasler at 4.4/5).

 

[BolTingBlazie]

I will never understand people having a go at the council for how they've handled tera this generation, imo they've made some mistakes (shed tail being allowed for so long and Volc ban being the biggest) in managing the tier but in regards to Tera they've been flawless imo.

They gave the players a chance to voice their concerns very early in the generation even when there was loads of broken stuff still running about that arguably needed more attention, the suspect failed. Half (?) a year later they asked the playerbase their thoughts about it again via a survey and lengthy discussion thread, it got decent but not overwhelming support for another look into it but with how chaotic things have been due to no fault of their own they've yet to get around to doing another suspect test. People these days just have no patience at all.

We should probably deal with the quickbannable stuff first like Kyurem and Roaring Moon before we even do that and get rid of the brokens first.

Also on the topic of Gouging Fire, mon feels mostly fair outside of sun, and it really does remind me of wake in that aspect. Thankfully this isn't gen 5 sun nor is sun the most consistent play style as it does fall off when meta trends change. Plus I gave it a two because its not broken outside of sun and is probably an S/S- rank Mon that adds a ton of positives to the meta and keeps a ton in line, outweighing the negatives of it being hard to break sometimes on the physical side or being nuclear on sun.

Only mons I gave a 5 were Kyurem, Ghold, and Roaring Moon, everything else but Deoxys-Speed got twos and ones, where I gave Deo-S a 4.

 

[Finchinator]

This happened way before the survey in question. It also happened at the same time as the Volcarona ban, which we have openly admitted should've been handled differently and have adjusted since then.

Going out of context and missing the timeline entirely for a "gotcha" when there are hours of hard work and continuity put into things is lame.

 

[Pierpat]

I am having a lot of fun in mid-ladder (1500-1600) with this team
https://pokepast.es/61cb00bb7c18408c

At this point i don't even get what is broken. Like the kokoloko stuff seems reasonable but its difficult to imagine the tier without most of the new threats and ghold-gambit, that have been so pivotal to the very identity of gen9 up till now.
I don't envy the council's position, the metagame does not feel particularly broken by one specific mon but it still feels like this isn't a stable and balanced OU somewhat. I'm having a lot of fun post-disk dlc, but i can see why people that actually play tournaments probably don't like having 4-8 terribly good and diverse threats that need quite specific checks to consider at the same time in the teambuilder.


P.S. Body press phazer archuladon is so fun to use. it just does not die, you can fit rocks on him, he checks a lot of stuff.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

You held a vote on Pokémon that had 2.6 average vote.

it scored a 3 from the qualified playerbase, which seems to have been the "let's vote on this one" threshold for the drop survey. also, they unanimously voted to keep it banned and almost everyone is fine with that decision. so they didn't ignore the wishes of the community by voting on it, nor did they ignore the wishes of the community by voting it to stay banned. this isn't a justification at all for directly overriding the result of a suspect

 

[Moutemoute]

Small and maybe dumb question Finchinator : is there a thread somewhere talking about supermajority bans (maybe in the tiering policy subforum) ? I won't go in the debate if Tera should or shouldn't be banned but I would like to fully understand the point of having supermajority bans. If votes are close then you can opt to redo a test later for X mechanic or Y Pokémon. I've been struggling to understand why supermajority is needed to ban/unban things and do our tiering. Majority should be the way to go in my opinion, even if it's 50.2% vs 49.8%.

 

[RaikouLover]

Regarding Garg, as long as Gliscor (who I personally consider unhealthy and very constraining to build vs despite Gholdengo being the main culprit of hazard dominance) is in the Tier, I see it completely a non issue.

Well, we can predict that cancerous Gliscor will be suspected again once it rises to the top of the suspect list. Garg falls into the same category, but is just even further down the list.

I love how people act like adding 10 or so obviously broken mons to the tier somehow means shit that was broken in DLC1 is suddenly less broken. I’m just identifying what will pop up six months from now.

 

[Eeveeto]

Well, we can predict that cancerous Gliscor will be suspected again once it rises to the top of the suspect list. Garg falls into the same category, but is just even further down the list.

I love how people act like adding 10 or so obviously broken mons to the tier somehow means shit that was broken in DLC1 is suddenly less broken. I’m just identifying what will pop up six months from now.

Ok, but we are talking about current Meta. Not many people think Gliscor is currently a problematic Mon, so that means Garg is even less problematic and unlikely to be taken action against currently.

 

[Finchinator]

Small and maybe dumb question Finchinator : is there a thread somewhere talking about supermajority bans (maybe in the tiering policy subforum) ? I won't go in the debate if Tera should or shouldn't be banned but I would like to fully understand the point of having supermajority bans. If votes are close then you can opt to redo a test later for X mechanic or Y Pokémon. I've been struggling to understand why supermajority is needed to ban/unban things and do our tiering. Majority should be the way to go in my opinion, even if it's 50.2% vs 49.8%.

There is not a recent one that I know of; people with PR access are open to making one if they see it best fit, but I cannot say I would personally approve moving the goalposts right now with everything else going on and the current outlook of suspects. That is not a firm no and that really goes to tiering admin ultimately though

 

[KamenOH]

I love how people act like adding 10 or so obviously broken mons to the tier somehow means shit that was broken in DLC1 is suddenly less broken. I’m just identifying what will pop up six months from now.

Ah, but that's where you're wrong. You're outright stating that all the new mons are obviously broken, when we don't know if the vast majority of them are even broken in the first place. Furthermore, what makes them unable to influence the strength of DLC1 mons with their presence in the tier?

Said it before, will say it again: the best thing we can do to a balanced metagame is to not tip the first domino in the chain.

 

[RaikouLover]

Ah, but that's where you're wrong. You're outright stating that all the new mons are obviously broken, when we don't know if the vast majority of them are even broken in the first place.

Are we not discussing the Kokoloko method? It’s not even a conversation if there aren’t hilariously broken mons in the tier.

 

[KamenOH]

Are we not discussing the Kokoloko method? It’s not even a conversation if there aren’t hilariously broken mons in the tier.

You're right. It was a mistake for people to even bring it up in regards to this era of the tier. Back in last December? Could see it happening, but now? Not really, especially when most people can't agree if one thing is broken, much less a multitude of "hilariously broken" things.

 

[RS25802580]

If the decision on whether banning Tera or not is community-dependent, and the community wants it to stay, then the community is a disappointment and the council should know better what to do. The point of having a council instead of letting the surveys have a DIRECT impact on the tiering system is that the community is biased, made out of many casual players and many people that don't have the knowledge to visualize the impact of a given decision on the tier. If (big "if", unfortunately) the council was well-educated on what a competitive tier should prioritize then Tera would have been gone for some time now, regardless of the majority's opinion.

Hard disagree here. Why are you presupposing that action on Tera at this time is some kind of objectively correct decision? That’s your personal opinion. It’s fine to have opinions but saying that anyone who disagrees (i.e the community) is “a disappointment” is just insulting.

Last survey on Tera was almost half a year ago, so it’s not necessarily generalizable to today. Maybe there’s a reason why the council hasn’t released more in that timeframe? Like two DLC drops and many more immediately overwhelming mons requiring suspects? The council is working their ass off to address things in due time, this isn’t some kind of grand pro-tera conspiracy, man.

I agree that another Tera survey is warranted in the future but it’s reasonable that it hasn’t been addressed yet given how chaotic the recent releases have been. And since the ratings for the post-DLC2 meta are higher than before (at least from what has been posted here), the tier seems to be functioning rather decently with Tera right now so it’s not the most pressing issue.

 

[pika pal]

Are we not discussing the Kokoloko method? It’s not even a conversation if there aren’t hilariously broken mons in the tier.

Kokoloko is a method that is applied for a large number of potentially unhealthy broken mons being in the tier, under the premise that removing them all first and reintroducing later makes it easier to judge without a broken-checking-broken argument. However, this isn't an applicable tiering method when there isn't even a consensus on a significant number of mons with an unhealthy/banworthy presence, as is the case with DLC2's community so far (we have maybe 2-3 mons that are deemed worthy of action, and while 1 is majority, none feel like slam dunks there).

Well, we can predict that cancerous Gliscor will be suspected again once it rises to the top of the suspect list. Garg falls into the same category, but is just even further down the list.

I love how people act like adding 10 or so obviously broken mons to the tier somehow means shit that was broken in DLC1 is suddenly less broken. I’m just identifying what will pop up six months from now.

This is again assuming the mons dropped in by the DLC are "obviously broken" and thus only suppressing "broken" DLC1 mons by superseding instead of simply changing the Meta. Just to give one example: Archaludon (who even among those finding DLC2 iffy, I doubt is a high priority/controversial mon) is a major addition to Bulky teams and Rain, playstyles that were major match-up wins for Ogerpon in DLC1 that gained huge new tools that exploit it to hell and back. A balanced addition that majorly handicaps it was added to its couterplay list alongside its existing issues with other playstyles due to its okay-for-offense Speed for example and a rise in Sun Teams.

This is the primary contention I have with these points: they pre-suppose or require the opening assumption that the new additions ARE broken and we're deciding on a course of action for broken threats, when the conversation so far is much more if anything is problematic to need action at the moment.

 

[Lethargic]

I just don’t really get the complaints of a centralized meta game because that’s literally how games work and how they’ve always worked. This is how opportunity cost and diminishing returns come together.

in competitive COD, there’s almost always been 1-3 guns better than all the rest and that’s all the pro players use.

In yu-gi-oh there are always 1-3 decks at any given time that stand out top tournaments

Any chess fans here? Lmao don’t even get me started on the Anand vs Carlson Berlin Defense games it was legit the exact same opening over and over and over again at the highest level play and yet chess is one of the most competitive games there are.

in basketball there’s a reason why you almost exclusively see lay-ups

should we petition to ban the lay-up in basketball because it’s overcentralizing?

if you think analogies are too abstract to be valid points look at any other OU Pokémon tier, Lax dominates gen 1-2, Ttar and Skarm dominate gen 3.

you can ban 50 mons and 1-3 will still rise to the top every single time. I’m not saying never ban anything but tusk being at %40 usage or kyurem + meow dominating high ladder just isn’t an inherent problem to me. I thought the goal was to make sure the meta stays competitive, not to get rid of shit that we find annoying.

If anything, the ironic thing is a gen like GSC where it’s basically a mirror match is a BETTER game to determine who the better player is, this is more similar to chess where the position starts symmetrical and MITIGATES matchup fishing.

 

[Cuddly]

Opinions on this tech?

Gouging Fire @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Ground (could be what ever you want)
EVs: 208 Atk / 48 Def / 252 Spe
Impish Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Heat Crash
- Earthquake
- Morning Sun
Using this set on a Sun team, you may wonder why I’d use Booster Energy. Well you see there are 2 mechanics about Protosynthesis that are interesting.
-When a Pokemon is holding Booster Energy while Sun is up, Booster Energy is not consumed
-Stat changes can actually affect what stat is boosted with booster energy, which you can see with Iron Valiant switching into Webs and suddenly getting a boost to offensive stats
The idea here is to send Gouging Fire in Sun, use Def boost in Sun to set up Dragon Dances, and when Sun fades you’ll get an Atk boost because of Dragon Dance.
This Tech also works as a plan B too. If the weather changes before you Dragon Dance, such as with Rain, you will probably prefer the Def boost to help protect against common Swift Swimmers.
It should be noted that you can have your Booster Energy Knocked Off, but honestly not that big of a deal if your opponent lets you get a few boosts, and honestly not much will get the oppritunity to knock off your booster energy.
Another thing that could happen is if you get intimidated, which would mean you get a boost to Speed, but that’s also fine as you get x2.25 speed after a Dragon Dance and reach 631 speed or 843 where you’re outspeeding +2 Jolly Dragapult.

Anyways I think this tech is neat idea and wanted to hear what other people think. You can use different moves and Tera for this. This is also 100% perfectly fine set out of sun teams as boosting Def for priority/boosting oppritunities is valid. EV spread is what I found to have highest Atk/Def on Gouging Fire where Def is still highest.

 

[Martin]

Small and maybe dumb question Finchinator : is there a thread somewhere talking about supermajority bans (maybe in the tiering policy subforum) ? I won't go in the debate if Tera should or shouldn't be banned but I would like to fully understand the point of having supermajority bans. If votes are close then you can opt to redo a test later for X mechanic or Y Pokémon. I've been struggling to understand why supermajority is needed to ban/unban things and do our tiering. Majority should be the way to go in my opinion, even if it's 50.2% vs 49.8%.

Supermajorities are important because they indicate that the result isn't a swing result. Say you have 99 total votes and something receives 50 votes in favour of a ban. A single voter swing (which could've been achieved if the vote had e.g. been held a week earlier or later or if one person hadn't slept through their alarm clock on the last day of laddering or whatever) would have been enough to change the result from a majority to a minority, and if there had been one extra voter it could have just as easily been a 50:50 split. As such, it is safe to say that taking action would be controversial and statistically insignificant. and thus the burden is placed on the party looking for change to demonstrate that it is decidedly the most desirable option—or, more accurately, the option that most people say they want, as what people say they want does not necessarily align with what they actually want or what the actual correct course of action is; gamers are great at spotting symptoms, but they are generally not very good at identifying problems (case study: Jago in Killer Instinct (1:19:17–1:21:40; timestamp linked)).

A supermajority is an arbitrary point at which we deem a majority to be statistically significant. This could be 11:9 (11/20 (55%)), 3:2 (3/5 (60%)), 2:1 (2/3 (66.67%)), 3:1 (3/4 (75%)) or whatever other ratio, but as a broad rule of thumb, a higher supermajority requirement increases the significance of a vote in exchange for making it harder to enact action. IIRC the one used by OU is 3:2; my personal preference is 2:1; depending on who you ask, you will get different numbers for where they say they believe the sweet spot is, but whatever is set for a specific suspect test is all that actually matters. Smogon doesn't have the resources or even necessarily anyone qualified enough to do anything as in-depth as a paid game developer working full-time in the balance department, but we can at least get a loose image and conservatively trim the edges to get something that is okay enough provided we don't have too itchy of a trigger finger, which is what supermajorities aim to inhibit. Of course, for an environment unlike OU, a simple majority may be preferable, either because the format is highly unstable (e.g. lower tiers with frequent tier shifts) or because the playerbase is small to the point that a lot of supermajority benchmarks would end up being swing votes regardless (e.g. most OMs).

 

[Finchinator]

The council has spent a lot of time discussing Gouging Fire recently.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

The council has spent a lot of time discussing Gouging Fire recently.

Are we really quickbanning it, or deciding whether or not to suspect it? It feels a tiny bit too soon even with the funny numbers it puts out because it could end up being good for the tier, but it also feels like something that could make sun too good. Feels like more suspect territory, because from what I can tell people are split on it with a lot of responses that have been publicly shared being all over the place.

Roaring Moon, Kyurem, and Deo-S feel more overwhelming to me at the moment anyway.

 

[RyukTheDarkrai]

The council has spent a lot of time discussing Gouging Fire recently.

knew that Heat Crash / Roar / Burning Bulwark set was too much for the tier to handle

As much as I like Entei with a big hat, I think he's gotta go. Its incredible defensive profile while running an offensive build is downright nasty, whether its Morning Sun for great longevity or Burning Bulwark to flip the script on would be physical attacking counters.

Are we really quickbanning it? It feels a tiny bit too soon even with the funny numbers it puts out because it could end up being good for the tier, but it also feels like something that could make sun too good. Feels like more suspect territory, because from what I can tell people are split on it

Roaring Moon, Kyurem, and Deo-S feel more overwhelming to me

I think we'll see a suspect test. I don't think Gouging Fire is quickban worthy but I'm not gonna be complaining if it goes.

 

[Finchinator]

Are we really quickbanning it

Definitely not