NU Stage 6 - Braviary Suspect Discussion

[ebeast]

About 2 weeks ago I posted talking about my opinion about Braviary. After taking the time to read other's posts and looking over my own, my opinion has shifted a little. I realize that my main argument was overestimating Braviary a bit and I closed my mind off to only how SubBU Braviary deals with Balance teams and ignored how it actually functioned against other playstyles. I'm still a little on the fence but certainly not leaning towards ban nearly as much as I was when I made my original post here. On one side the combination of Braviary's versatility in Scarf, Choice Band, and SubBU make it very hard to straight out counter, but at the same time other Pokemon do the same thing such as Samurott, which are not being suspected or probably will be suspected. Braviary's Choice sets are very prediction based and SubBU is dependent on the opponent having a team it can take advantage of. In situation set up just for it Braviary does easily shred past teams, but so do a lot of Pokemon such as Ludicolo, Absol, Swellow, Samurott, Zangoose, and Sawk. It's really only Braviary's bulk that has me on the fence as otherwise I think I would have changed my position on it completely.

As I said on my other post I think that Choice Band is too slow and Scarf not that powerful and SubBU was the main reason it is being suspected. SubBU is a great set, but it truly doesn't do nearly as well against Offense (which is actually more common than Balance using Antar's calculations) and Stall can deal with it, although they find themselves using niche things like Psych Up Regirock and Metang. I see myself abstaining on the vote (which means voting no ban iirc)

 

[Dell]

I suppose that it's my turn to express about what I feel about this subject. I've already posted most of what I'd have to offer for my viewpoints on it already, but here's a little more insight.

The thing about Braviary is that it is one of those Pokemon who can be deemed as unstoppable on paper and is in fact one of, if not the best, Pokemon in the tier right now. When I see a good player utilizing Braviary, it often makes me have that "ugh, should I do this, or should I do that? No clue what to switch to until I figure out what set that it's running....." feeling. The fact that Braviary has useable typing, a huge Attack Stat, a valuable movepool, and surprising bulk and speed allows it to run a number of sets with a variety of ways to turn the tables on the opponent. Should you mispredict what set it's running/what move that it would go for, whether it's going to Brave Bird, Superpower, U-turn, or sets up with the SubBU set, the problem is that one mistake can often mean a disadvantage that leads to a loss of a match.

It's versatility for just a simple dual typing is also a key factor to why it is such a defining force for the metagame, and that greatly limits the number of Pokemon that can claim themselves as potential checks/counters to Braviary. It has a lot going for it with its typing: access to Superpower to break through Rock and Steel types, solid bulk to make use of moves like Roost and Bulk Up, and a massive Attack stat, all of which allows it to potentially get past its traditional checks.

Now, with all of that, there's no denying that Braviary has the potential to be a nearly unstoppable Pokemon to face. However, lets think of things this way: there are many Pokemon who shares similar traits in terms of versatility and the number of reliable checks that they would have. A pretty good example would be Samurott and Zangoose, as their checks are very few, but they are still deemed to be manageable enough to be balanced in the tier. Like Braviary, they also heavily impact and strain team building. It is almost mandatory to be carrying at least a few checks towards these threats. That's what you'd have to do when building teams regarding any metagame/tier, respectively. I feel that since Braviary, like all of the other prominent threats, is proven to be possible to work around with decent team building and good play. If we were to ban Braviary I would feel as if there would not be a reason to not consider everything else that are worth banning.

With that being said, I'm having very mixed feelings regarding my say as to banning or not for the time being.

 

[tennisace]

I'm going to start this off by saying straight up Braviary is not broken. Feel free to read the rest of this post at your leisure, but it's just going to be a tl;dr rehash of the arguments pretty much.

As leader of NU, I had a lot of discussions with a lot of people about the suspect process as a whole. I'm not going to sit here and argue the merits of it, but I bring it up for one specific point: when do we ban a Pokemon? As the suspect process is set up currently, voters are encouraged to vote Do Not Ban if they are unsure of a suspect's placement instead of Abstain. The reasoning behind this is if a suspect does not leave a large enough imprint on the tier for a qualified voter to form a strong opinion one way or the other on it, it probably isn't that large of a threat. Voting to ban is reserved for the overwhelming case where a suspect 100% dominates a metagame, to the point where you could still lose even if you don't fully prepare for it. The best example I know of was Staraptor in DPP UU. Despite its checks, it still dominated the tier until its ban.

I'm not trying to compare Staraptor to Braviary, or compare Braviary to Jynx or Gorebyss or Cincinno. To do so would be an unbalanced argument, since specifically in BW NU, we haven't had a suspect like Braviary yet.

Everybody in this thread and in other threads who have argued for Braviary's banning tend to look at Braviary in a vacuum. I'm not going to sit here and deny that Braviary is a great Pokemon in this metagame. I'm also not going to sit here and deny that if you don't take proper precautions for any top threat in NU, you will get beat.

Braviary has 3 legitimate sets it can use, each with different checks and counters. I understand that if you predict wrong, you're gonna have a bad time. However, I can say that about a bunch of Pokemon in this tier. If you predict Samurott's set wrong, you're probably going to lose a Pokemon. If you predict Gardevoir's set wrong, you're probably going to lose a Pokemon. If you predict Gorebyss's set wrong, you're probably going to lose a Pokemon. That's just the way the game is. Braviary doesn't do one thing so well that nothing in the tier can stop it, it does a few things pretty damn good.

It may sound like I'm underestimating Braviary's power or usefulness, but again, I'm not. I've been on the receiving end of a couple BU Braviary sweeps, and I've gotten a couple too. If you allow it to set up, be it through poor play or unpreparedness, you're going to lose. I can say this about any set up Pokemon though! I haven't seen anyone argue that Braviary can set up way more than it should be able to, in spite of the opponent's best efforts, because it simply is not true.

Before I wrap this post up, I just want to quickly touch upon the argument that Braviary makes stall not viable. This simply is not true, as a few people have shown. Unfortunately in NU, we don't have defensive behemoths with great resistances and good support movesets. We have the leftovers from 4 other tiers. Also even if Braviary did make stall a poor choice to use, that shouldn't matter when considering a suspect's status. It's not our job to determine if a playstyle is or isn't viable in the presence of a certain Pokemon.

It's our job to focus on the Pokemon's effect in the metagame as a whole. And on the whole, Braviary just isn't broken.

 

[jake]

Apparently there's not that much that needs to be debated. This will be the last vote in NU until significant metagame changes occur.

I'm sending out PMs for vote submission now - expect a new np: thread within a day or so.