Drastic Tier Shifts

idk what the hell else to call this but Antar is right (I believe at least) about precedence on the issue i'm about to outline and we should at least discuss it.

when a Pokemon jumps up multiple tiers and then drops again, it should go back to where it came from. in this particular instance, it is relevant for Quagsire, which went from NU to OU and has now dropped out of OU. Quagsire has already found its way down to NU, and it hasn't even been long since that happened. OU is a very different metagame from RU and UU, so it being good there at one point (arguably at least) does not mean that it is good in UU or RU or that it should go there. and as it was before, it will still be legal in those tiers and can move up to them if metagame shifts favor it.

our only instances of doing this in the past have been with mega formes prior to tiering megas and their base formes separately and with bans (snow warning in BW was banned from UU, thus banning it from RU and NU. when it was unbanned, snow warning snover was allowed in both of those tiers because that's where it was when it got banned).

those instances are not different enough from this to justify doing things differently here imo and we should probably change our policy to reflect that.
 

Punchshroom

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I can get behind this but there is something I'd like to point out:
when a Pokemon jumps up multiple tiers and then drops again, it should go back to where it came from. in this particular instance, it is relevant for Quagsire, which went from NU to OU and has now dropped out of OU. Quagsire has already found its way down to NU, and it hasn't even been long since that happened. OU is a very different metagame from RU and UU, so it being good there at one point (arguably at least) does not mean that it is good in UU or RU or that it should go there. and as it was before, it will still be legal in those tiers and can move up to them if metagame shifts favor it.
Usage, as I've always believed, is always looked at objectively, so viability in other tiers, how long the mon has remained in a tier before jumping tiers, or 'how different they are' should hardly ever be a factor to justify what tier a mon ends up in should it jump / fall several tiers. With that said, I'm just gonna bring up my post in the Usage Thread as I feel it's more suitable here.
It certainly seems odd that it isn't applied here when the concept is rather similiar for the Mega's base forms: base form is already in lower tier, gets snatched up by ORAS Mega, allowed to quickdrop back to original tier when accounting for their own individual usage. I always thought that dropping tier by tier was only necessary for mons that never visited the lower tiers (the XY Mega's base-forms), but quickdropping is applied if the mon quickrose from a much lower tier in the first place.
 
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Bughouse

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Just to make clear that this isn't a one-off case: Quagsire and Amoonguss both leapfrog rose from not-UU to OU in May 16. Tangrowth just now also jumped from not-UU to OU. So this isn't a one-off thing, assuming Amoonguss or Tangrowth drop at some point. It's also gonna happen whenever Togetic falls from RU, because it insta-rose from PU, not from NU.

My personal opinion on these is based on the fact that the rise in the Pokemon's tiering was entirely usage based, not based on a new mega forme, and the drop was also just usage based, not caused by an indirect ban, like on Snover's Snow Warning. And since it wasn't caused by any particular exogenous shock, my view is that we have to be objective and follow what usage based tiering means. Anything else would be based on our assumptions of "what an [insert tier here] Pokemon looks like." If it's indeed true that Quagsire is not cut out for UU or RU, then it will quick drop back into RU, and then eventually NU. It'll take two extra months. Most mons would only leapfrog one tier, so they would only take one extra month.

I get what you mean about Quagsire not being up for long, but great what's even the cut off? Let's say Pokemon x rises from RU to OU literally the first tier shift after RU became official in XY, whenever that was. Then in the last tier shift before SuMo, the Pokemon doesn't get enough usage to stay OU. It has been there lingering at the bottom for a few years but never fell. It finally does. And you're telling me it should finish in the end of ORAS tier listing as RU, not UU? That seems highly suspect to me.
 

Vinc2612

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I don't like the precedent of Megas. I'm going to take the example of Altaria: it was NU in XY, then Mega-Altaria raised to OU with ORAS. While we decided to separate them as two different Pokémon, Altaria went back to NU. But since we consider them as two different Pokémon in tiering, then regular Altaria never got the use to be OU. It's just like it wasn't ranked for months.

Quagsire isn't in the same case here. It's the same Pokémon who was NU, raised to OU then dropped by usage. And Snover is not a better precedent imo, since his raise and drop had nothing to do with usage.

That being said, I believe those instances are actually different enough to not "just follow the precedent". If you want to create a new rule, I'm fine discussing it and I agree it would make a lot of sense (although I'm not a big fan of the change, I'm not strongly against either).

Also no please, don't mix viability and usage rankings. Viability itself is unreliable for tiering purpose. It's basically sending every "should be BL but still find some usage somehow" to the closer lowest tier on a more subjective basis than usage.
 
It's not about "what x Pokemon should be" or "what x tier should look like". If that were the case, I'd be suggesting what King UU suggested. I don't even like Quagsire lol

But it doesn't make sense for a Pokemon that was UU for one month ever to go back to UU because that Pokemon was good enough in a tier above UU. Same for RU. Bughouse's example of a Pokemon that goes RU to OU and stays there for a couple years and then drops should not be treated differently either (perhaps unless a big change happens to it, like Sheer Force Feraligatr/Contrary Serp coming out of no where). It's possible that RU is completely different when this hypothetical Pokemon drops than when it moved up, but that's ok. Worst case scenario, it's broken and we suspect it. No harm, no foul. Meanwhile, UU had the opportunity to take/keep it before and did not do so.

That hypothetical kinda happened to NU when UU banned Venomoth. The original BP clause happened, and it was unbanned in UU, RU, and NU. I'm not sure how going from NU to OU and then dropping again and going from NU to BL and dropping again is different enough to do things differently.
 

atomicllamas

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I don't see why this wouldn't follow the same process for this as we would with unbanned mons. Snover was dropped from BL to NU in gen 5, and Venomoth was dropped from BL to RU literally 1 year ago. Unlike Venomoth which was about to be suspected in RU before it rose, Quagsire is just kind of dong in all these tiers. As far as I'm aware this is the first case of a leap frogging mon redropping (leap frog by usage, not ban), so while I really don't care if it takes Quagsire 2 months to fall to NU, I would think given the parallels to previous decisions, dropping it to NU makes the most logical sense.
 
There've been cases before of Pokemon leapfrogging up tiers and then having to slowly drop back down from previous gens.
 

Kink

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On phone, so this might be too concise.

Regardless if there have been cases, I think the most important component isn't whether or not there has been a precedent.

If Quag is going to drop to NU then it should be an evaluative process. The only reason I brought up viability before is before is because Quag is generally irrelevant in UU, and to stifle the process of it returning to NU is, by any means, counterintuitive. Having case by case scenarios for situations such as these would enhance the current tiering process, not minimize it. The decision, ultimately, should rest on whether or not more good comes out than bad for the NU tier.

Nothing else is at stake here. Nothing will happen to the integrity of the tiering process if we occasionally examine mons that have returned to us from OU after jumping several tiers. This is an opportunity to enhance NU, should Quag fit that mould. If it doesn't, then it doesn't. The process should be evaluative, independent of precedent setting cases unless there is strict disagreement between the council memebers of said tier, and even then the solution would still be settled through healthy debate amongst peers.
 

Punchshroom

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There've been cases before of Pokemon leapfrogging up tiers and then having to slowly drop back down from previous gens.
Frankly, I don't really see a reason why this precedent should even be a thing.

Like if the mon quickrises to a tier and the tiers in between barely even touch the thing, why should it slowly drop back down as opposed to dropping several tiers at once when the mon doesn't even fit the usage criteria for the tiers in between? I feel like the slow dropping should only be applied if the quickrised mon is also receiving adequate usage in the middle tiers: from what I know, sufficient usage in higher tiers would override sufficient usage in lower tiers (ex: if an NU mon receives >3.14% usage in UU and OU, it rises to OU instead). If said mon falls from OU, there is no reason the mon would be dropped to the neighboring tier below (UU in this example) as opposed to tier-jumping when usage from said tier doesn't even override the usage from its original tier.

Take this scenario:
OU: >3.14% -> <3.14%
UU: <3.14%
RU: <3.14%
NU: >3.14%
If the mon falls below 3.14% in OU, why doesn't it go straight to NU? The mon should only fall to UU if the usage corresponds, and of course this should be applied to the closest tier with the appropriate usage in general, such as:

OU: >3.14% -> <3.14%
UU: <3.14%
RU: >3.14%
NU: >3.14%
In this case, the apparent procedure is to drop the OU mon to RU instead of NU and skip UU. Pardon my insolence, but I don't really see why/how this is tricky to implement.

Btw this is only applied for mons that have been in all of these tiers at some point, and looks into a mon's raw usage in each tier without factoring in its viability in those tiers at all.
 
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Bughouse

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I just don't buy the argument that Quagsire should drop straight to NU because it's no good in RU and UU and if people wanted it to be in those higher tiers, they would have used it... It seems like a really bad argument when Amoonguss quick rose in the same month as Quagsire, from RU to OU. If Amoonguss falls, no one would use the same argument. It was perfectly fine in UU, just didn't happen to get the usage necessary to rise from RU, just like Tangrowth, partly because of their competition with the other. With both in OU now, if one fell, it quite likely would be UU.

A large factor in ladder play for whether or not a Pokemon gets the use to be in a tier is... well... whether or not the Pokemon is listed in the tier. Right before Tangrowth rose to OU, it was getting a shade under 2% usage in UU. I believe if it was actually listed under UU in the teambuilder, and with no Amoonguss as competition, there's a decent chance it would have actually been UU. It was in B- rank according to viability ranks. It's not a matter of whether or not it was good, just not used enough. Meanwhile, there are Pokemon that actually are UU by usage that are considered far worse, like Vaporeon or Goodra. How it's listed on the teambuilder on PS has a huge effect. I would not remotely assume just because it wasn't some tier by usage before that if it rose quickly that if it dropped into lower tiers one by one it might stick somewhere before where it rose from. And in that case, is it really the tier it came from?
 

atomicllamas

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I agree that Quagsire (or Amoonguss/Tangrowth) being good or bad in these tiers is irrelevant, but it should still drop to NU. It's the essentially the same situation as the base formes of the ORAS Megas. Altaria had something that made it get enough usage in OU (mega Altaria), when it was no longer getting enough usage in OU (cause mega altaria's usage was being counted separately), it dropped immediately back down to NU (PU? Idr). Quagsire had something that made its usage rise in OU (a specific stall build in OU), now that it no longer gets enough usage in OU (cause stall build is out of meta), I'd think the same procedure would be applied in this case. So yeah I don't really agree with "it's bad so it should drop", but it should still drop because that's how we've been treating base formes and unbans.

I also think your second paragraph could easily be used to argue against your own point Bughouse. The influence of the team builder keeps terrible mons in tiers such as Vaporeon (Ambipom, Typh, Cin, etc.), as stated by you. By dropping them one tier at a time you would increase the teambuilder's influence on tiering, which I (and I think most other people, considering the number of threads there have been on reducing its influence on usage) see as a negative.

Fwiw I'm not posting this cause I want these mons in RU (Quagsire and Tangrowth are bad and mostly irrelevant, I've never been happier than when Amoonguss left because I hate that mon), I just don't really see the pros for dropping them one tier at a time and there are no real cons for dropping them back to their original tier immediately as far as I'm aware.
 

Bughouse

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So in other words, Amoonguss had something that made its usage rise in OU (countering Keldeo - a simplification, I know), now that it no longer gets enough usage in OU (hypothetical Keldeo ban), it should drop straight back into RU? That's a terrible form of logic. There is something concretely different between Quagsire's and Amoonguss's rise and Altaria's rise. Altaria rose because Altaria got an entirely new forme that we've furthermore decided to tier entirely differently from Altaria anyway. Quagsire and Amoonguss rose because Quagsire and Amoonguss rose. The mega evolutions are huge exceptions to the rule.

I also disagree on your second point. The more important piece of information about Quagsire when it comes to "Is it NU, RU, or UU?" is whether or not it is UU. If it is, then it would not be allowed in the lower tiers. Giving it a chance to settle in the highest possible tier first is very important. This is why when a generation starts, we fill in usage tiers from the top down. First, everything bar ubers is available to use in OU. Then after some time we define OU and let everything else be used in UU, rinse and repeat for other lower tiers. This is because we first want to check if something gets used enough in UU to be banned from RU. We don't just assume tiers and then let things rise if they turn out better than we thought. We always default to assuming it's used more than it is and letting it fall if it falls.
 

atomicllamas

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So in other words, Amoonguss had something that made its usage rise in OU (countering Keldeo - a simplification, I know), now that it no longer gets enough usage in OU (hypothetical Keldeo ban), it should drop straight back into RU? That's a terrible form of logic. There is something concretely different between Quagsire's and Amoonguss's rise and Altaria's rise. Altaria rose because Altaria got an entirely new forme that we've furthermore decided to tier entirely differently from Altaria anyway. Quagsire and Amoonguss rose because Quagsire and Amoonguss rose. The mega evolutions are huge exceptions to the rule.
In both cases they rose multiple tier simultaneously, then they stopped getting usage in said tier. The last time this happened we dropped said mon back to the tier it previously resided in. They aren't identical situations but they are the same on a fundamental level (regarding usage and placement). If anything not dropping the usage mon multiple tiers would be the exception cause we did it for both mega base formes and unbanned mons.

I also disagree on your second point. The more important piece of information about Quagsire when it comes to "Is it NU, RU, or UU?" is whether or not it is UU. If it is, then it would not be allowed in the lower tiers. Giving it a chance to settle in the highest possible tier first is very important.
If Quagsire is dropped straight to NU, nothing is preventing it from being used in UU. If it's all of the sudden really good in UU and moves up in 2 months time, that's fine, but there isn't any harm in it being in a lower tier for 2 months. You claim it is important to give it a chance to settle into a higher tier first, but why? Is there actually anything gained by dropping it slowly? Placing Quagsire in NU does nothing to prevent it from "settling in a higher tier".

This is why when a generation starts, we fill in usage tiers from the top down. First, everything bar ubers is available to use in OU. Then after some time we define OU and let everything else be used in UU, rinse and repeat for other lower tiers. This is because we first want to check if something gets used enough in UU to be banned from RU. We don't just assume tiers and then let things rise if they turn out better than we thought. We always default to assuming it's used more than it is and letting it fall if it falls.
Thanks for explaining to me how usage based tiering works at the beginning of a generation, I was completely unaware, the thing is, this isn't the beginning of the generation. Quagsire has already participated in this process and it ended up in NU. At some point the meta game shifted in OU and made Quagsire favorable. Sure, we could redo the process, but the OU shift has nothing to do with the UU or RU meta games, there is no reason to believe Quagsire (or Amoonguss / Tangrowth) would end up in a higher tier, other than the teambuilder's influence on usage (which was my point).
 

Bughouse

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Yes and I'm saying the teambuilder's effect on usage is huge. Do you really think people would use Vaporeon more than Alomomola in UU if Alomomola was listed as UU and Vaporeon was listed as RU?
 

Aberforth

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I thought the megas were different because of the change in policy so the base and the mega were no longer tiered together. We let them drop to pre-oras positions because under the new policy they never would have left those pre-oras positions.

And I feel it is further different than Quagsire because it was not that something raised their usage to Ou levels, because their usage was never raised to ou levels, just tacked on to something that did. Quagsire as a Pokemon raised to ou. Altaria did not.
 

atomicllamas

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Uhh Martin. asked me to post this for him.

Personally, I really dislike the idea of us being forced to settle something in it's highest possible tier just because it moved up due to a short-term trend and I think the logic that Bughouse is using is pretty terrible in general. If the metagame is reasonably similar to what it was before after Amoonguss dropped to the hypothetical Keldeo ban, wouldn't it make the most sense for it to go straight back to where it was before it rose? Like, if the Keldeo ban had happened between the current and previous shifts then it is probably roughly as good in UU as it was before meaning that you are just needlessly prolonging the dropping time which, while not that big a deal on the current shift unless UU did a less extreme Vaporeon on us, would become a big deal if it rose on the second-to-last shift and then dropped on the last. It doesn't provide an accuract depiction of the Pokémon's place in the metagame and it is just kinda stupid to make something have to drop 2/3 times just because it went up 2/3 in one shift and then dropped the next. That said, there does need to be something in place to prevent hypothetical scenarios that involve Pokémon jumping tiers at the start of a gen and dropping to the very bottom in a single shift at the end of a gen.

My proposal is simple: we have an unchanging, pre-determined cutoff (e.g. 9 or 12 months) to say when the game is sufficiently "different" (for lack of a better term) to play than it was when the Pokémon rose and we decide whether something drops multiple tiers or a single tier based on this cutoff. This way we have an objective way of deciding whether something should drop quickly or not without allowing one-season trends like the current Quagsire one from leading to the unnecessary tier-by-tier dropping that the current system forces and avoiding the potential complaints of elitisim that only evaluating drops X, Y and Z would cause. I think the fact that something is dropping so quickly after it rose is enough precedent to say that it is a safe assumption that it will drop to where it was before and I'm not quite sure where the controversy is coming from as it does make a lot of sense for something to drop quickly if it rose for one usage season due to a short-lived trend and then dropped again the moment the next shift happened.
Personally I agree there needs to be limitations on when things can re-quick drop (as Ryan pointed out earlier in the thread), but I'd probably go with something more game related ie. if something raises w/in 3 months of a new game (ORAS for gen 6) it won't redrop into the new tier (cause meta shifts), or if something gets an event move / ability and raises 3 tiers (cause essentially a different mon (Gatr and Serperior for example)).
 

Punchshroom

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The more important piece of information about Quagsire when it comes to "Is it NU, RU, or UU?" is whether or not it is UU. If it is, then it would not be allowed in the lower tiers. Giving it a chance to settle in the highest possible tier first is very important. This is why when a generation starts, we fill in usage tiers from the top down. First, everything bar ubers is available to use in OU. Then after some time we define OU and let everything else be used in UU, rinse and repeat for other lower tiers. This is because we first want to check if something gets used enough in UU to be banned from RU. We don't just assume tiers and then let things rise if they turn out better than we thought. We always default to assuming it's used more than it is and letting it fall if it falls.
This still is, and should be, applied to Pokemon who have never touched the lower tiers prior to dropping (meaning there were no usage stats from those tiers to glean from), so they drop tier by tier. The ORAS Mega's base-forms were already settled into their respective tiers before being snatched away, and get to immediately return once they were allowed to drop. A similiar case occurs here with Quagsire, as well as Amoonguss and Tangrowth if they end up dropping from OU (though unlikely).

I thought the megas were different because of the change in policy so the base and the mega were no longer tiered together. We let them drop to pre-oras positions because under the new policy they never would have left those pre-oras positions.

And I feel it is further different than Quagsire because it was not that something raised their usage to Ou levels, because their usage was never raised to ou levels, just tacked on to something that did. Quagsire as a Pokemon raised to ou. Altaria did not.
While this is strictly different in a sense, I don't see why tier-plummeting isn't applicable here. Like see, here are the April 2016 usage stats (specifically http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-04/) for Quag for when it quickrose:
OU: 3.40959% (The final stats showed 3.595%, which I don't actually know how to get from the 1500, 1695, and 1825 stats even if I average them) [also Antar, is the usage cutoff stat taking the exact value or does it round up/round down?]
UU: 1.24330%
RU: 1.13413%
NU: 8.41668%

(Note: I didn't account for Quag's usage in lower tiers for the months between April and July since it's irrelevant, plus all trace of Quag in lower tiers disappeared in June's usage stats aka two months later.)
So what's happening here is that once Quag fell from OU, instead of dropping back to NU, it is instead deprived from there and forced to spend at least one month in respective tiers where its initial usage in April shows it shouldn't have any business being confined there in the first place. Doesn't this seem off?

With that said, I can get behind some certain cases of quickrises that atomicllamas pointed out (namely Gatr and Serperior) that can cause havoc should they ever fall back to their 'original tier', but both those mons have been quickbanned even before usage claimed them. Thus, I believe it falls on the responsibility of the council of each respective tier to keep track of potentially problematic mons that may tier-drop back into their tier and keep them in check, or even just remember notable ones (like RU -> PU Togetic) should they arise. This is a community after all.
 
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Aberforth

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This still is, and should be, applied to Pokemon who have never touched the lower tiers prior to dropping (meaning there were no usage stats from those tiers to glean from), so they drop tier by tier. The ORAS Mega's base-forms were already settled into their respective tiers before being snatched away, and get to immediately return once they were allowed to drop. A similiar case occurs here with Quagsire, as well as Amoonguss and Tangrowth if they end up dropping from OU (though unlikely).

While this is strictly different in a sense, I don't see why quickdropping isn't applicable here. Like see, here are the April 2016 usage stats (specifically http://www.smogon.com/stats/2016-04/) for Quag for when it quickrose:
So what's happening here is that once Quag fell from OU, instead of dropping back to NU, it is instead deprived from there and forced to spend at least one month in respective tiers where its initial usage in April shows it shouldn't have any business being confined there in the first place. Doesn't this seem off?

With that said, I can get behind some certain cases of quickrises that atomicllamas pointed out (namely Gatr and Serperior) that can cause havoc should they ever fall back to their 'original tier', but both those mons have been quickbanned even before usage claimed them. Thus, I believe it falls on the responsibility of the council of each respective tier to keep track of potentially problematic mons that may quickdrop back into their tier and keep them in check, or even just remember notable ones (like RU -> PU Togetic) should they arise. This is a community after all.
Doesn't it seem off that Vaporeon is still in UU despite being terrible? Or Ambipom in RU? They have no business being confined there in the first place, we should just drop them to a lower tier so that they can find their true home.

My point is/was that the precedent being argued for is a completely different situation from the one being discussed now. Quag neither got banned and then unbanned by UU, nor did it have its usage raise for any reason other than its merits as a pokemon. Quag being NU or UU doesn't effect me significantly, but if so it should be based on better arguments than it should be there. Because there are a fair few things that should be in other tiers than where they are.

I dont want more Vaporeons, but I'd prefer more Vaporeons to us removing objectivity from tiering. Quag was more viable than Vaporeon and of similar viability to Goodra, Cloyster and Milotic last time it was ranked in UU, and being listed in the teambuilder for a month might result in people finding a great Quag set to use in UU like Milotic found eventually.
 

Punchshroom

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Doesn't it seem off that Vaporeon is still in UU despite being terrible? Or Ambipom in RU? They have no business being confined there in the first place, we should just drop them to a lower tier so that they can find their true home.
My point is/was that the precedent being argued for is a completely different situation from the one being discussed now. Quag neither got banned and then unbanned by UU, nor did it have its usage raise for any reason other than its merits as a pokemon. Quag being NU or UU doesn't effect me significantly, but if so it should be based on better arguments than it should be there. Because there are a fair few things that should be in other tiers than where they are.
So what's happening here is that once Quag fell from OU, instead of dropping back to NU, it is instead deprived from there and forced to spend at least one month in respective tiers where its initial usage in April shows it shouldn't have any business being confined there in the first place. Doesn't this seem off?
Out of my several posts here, not once have I referenced the fact that Pokemon should be tiered based on 'potential viability', which is what I assume your "should be there" is supposed to mean. My arguments always looked strictly at the Pokemon's usage, as well as whether the mon has ever been in lower tiers prior to tier-jumping, such as PU -> RU Togetic. I don't know why you brought up Ambi and Vaporeon since this doesn't apply to them at all.

My point is/was that the precedent being argued for is a completely different situation from the one being discussed now. Quag neither got banned and then unbanned by UU, nor did it have its usage raise for any reason other than its merits as a pokemon. Quag being NU or UU doesn't effect me significantly, but if so it should be based on better arguments than it should be there. Because there are a fair few things that should be in other tiers than where they are.
Quag rose on its merits as a Pokemon in OU, but once it fell, why should it have to be confined in UU and then RU before returning to NU when it didn't even have the usage criteria to be considered 'official residents' of those tiers while it was still usable there? It certainly didn't have its 'merits as a Pokemon' then, and I don't really see how this'd impact UU and RU since they can still very well use the Pokemon if it was NU, but the vice versa is not true. If UU had sufficient Quag usage during the moment OU took Quag from NU, I'd have no issues with this, whereas if RU had the sufficient usage instead, I'd expected to see Quag drop to RU from OU this month.
I dont want more Vaporeons, but I'd prefer more Vaporeons to us removing objectivity from tiering. Quag was more viable than Vaporeon and of similar viability to Goodra, Cloyster and Milotic last time it was ranked in UU, and being listed in the teambuilder for a month might result in people finding a great Quag set to use in UU like Milotic found eventually.
See you're complaining about the teambuilder's tier-based structure and how users mainly only focus solely on the mons that reside in the respective tier they play, but if those guys completely disregard the VR / forums or simple advice offered in the Showdown! rooms, you can't really expect to change a significant amount of minds by just altering the teambuilder a little; the fact that people still use Vaporeon despite the multitude of superior bulky Waters already present leads me to strongly believe that just making Quag more visible wouldn't end up influencing very much at all. Keep in mind that even with the current teambuilder structure, OU has managed to drop Conkeldurr and Sylveon, RU relinquished Claydol, Hitmonchan, and Trevenant, and NU gives PU fleeting moments of mercy once in two blue moons, so it likely has more to do with the player mindset rather than a significant flaw in the teambuilder structure (even if so, how would you propose to fix the Vaporeon/Ambipom situation? At that point I'd rather suggest that higher stats be calced for usage than mess with the teambuilder).

Meanwhile, I'm irked by the fact that higher tiers have the option to steal a mon several tiers lower on a whim and force it to drop slowly tier by tier; what's to stop them from pulling that off again? How is this fair to the lower tiers, who already have to wait for the closest higher tier to give them mons, and now have to wait through a consecutive gauntlet of tiers to reclaim their tier-jumped mon, which they may not ever get back?

Edit: cleared it up with Aberforth; what I meant by quickrise/quickdropping, I meant rise/fall by several tiers at once.
 
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tennisace

not quite too old for this, apparently
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bump

This really should get resolved soon one way or the other, tagging tier leaders Sam Hikari atomicllamas Molk ryan Kiyo TDK Magnemite galbia and Antar for good measure.

When a Pokemon jumps multiple tiers in a single tier shift and then falls out of that tier in a subsequent shift, do we:

a) Do nothing, and wait for it to fall down naturally.
b) Do nothing, wait for it to fall down naturally but impliment a more lax quickdrop system.
c) Drop it back to its original tier before the jump, regardless of external metagame considerations.
d) Drop it back to its original tier before the jump, if the jump and drop occur in the same part of the generation (different parts being XY vs ORAS, BW vs BW2, DP vs DPP vs HGSS). If they aren't in the same part of the generation, let it drop naturally.
 

Josh

=P
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not that im a tl but B and D are the only ones that make any sense as opinions to me, A and C seem like the opinion versions of outclassed (lol). B is just an upgraded version of A because it still lets it shift through the lower tiers steadily in order to account for the "this mon shows as uu so i should use it in uu!" thing that (arguably) happens both subconsciously and to new players while at the same time still getting a mon back to the lower tier quicker than would otherwise happen. I support dropping back to original tier before the jump personally, but D is the only one that makes sense. XY and ORAS are completely different metas, and while I wasn't around on smogon for the others I imagine they were as well, so to me C isn't logical at all because they are so unique.
 

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