Talk:Tier

Due to a decision to remove an article based entirely on opinions, the current article reflects the definition of each tier, and what they stand for.

Archives

• Archive 1 (discussions from July 3, 2007–October 9, 2008) - Pre-tier
• Archive 2 (discussions from October 9–November 10, 2008) - Pre-tier

The previous archives are related to when the page was an appendix list of actual tiers.

Please

Someone needs to move this article back to the Appendix: name space, where it belongs. Someone please do so. ^Chocolate 02:51, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

it is no longer an appendix based on opinions, it is a factual page now. -- MAGNEDETH 02:53, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

The Appendix: is for fan stuff that not everyone agrees with. The tiers are by no means official, which is why it should be in the Appendix: name space. ^Chocolate 02:54, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

uh, yea, thats right. but as you can see, the BP tiers no longer exist. the "Tiers" exist as a term based in the Pokemon community; as in, its a fact they exist. rather than have a giant list that sparked enough debate for the ages, weve gotten rid of it in favor of factual definitions. it was approved by multiple EB members. i fail to see what youre so upset about. -- MAGNEDETH 02:58, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Precisely, this article is explaining exactly what tiers are, rather than giving a list of where each Pokémon belongs in a tier, which is indeed fandom. There is nothing wrong with this page explaining terms to those who don't know about them. Glinn Mgraw 03:02, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

A few fixes?

As a competitive battler quite a few things jump out at me as needing fixes.

Ubers: Wobbufet is not uncountable due to CounterCoat (Many others get this combo, Swampert for example) but due to the definition of counter requiring the ability to switch in and the fact that (outside of Batton Pass/U-turn, Shed Shell and another Wobby switching out) nothing can switch into it. It is also not an Uber by all tier lists (the Official Sever on Shoddy allows it in OU matches) so may not be the best choice as an example, but it is interesting so should stay IMO but with a clear mention that it is listed as Uber by many but not all sources.

Wynaut is not banned from OU due to its own battling powers, but rather due to its fully evolved form being Uber. Many lists allow Pre-Evos of Ubers and so allow Wynaut.

Garchomp has been classed as Uber by Smogon and most other lists followed suit, but not all. Also Chompy was banned for many other very complicated reasons which I would think that Bulbapedia would not want to go into (Overcentralization, almost always getting at least 1 kill, extreme popularity, ect). The reasons listed "high stats, movepool, and low amount of weaknesses" could be applyed to many other OUs.

I will post suggestions for the other sections when I have time Eric the espeon 21:27, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, only the problem with that idea is that we aren't listing the Pokémon in each tier anymore--The Kkllnnator blastoise 21:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Defining Tiers

I have a request.

Can we provide three things to this article?

Tiers - The correct definition of Tiers Tier Lists - The current definition of Tiers would fall under the term Tier List Skill - A warning for people on how to interpret Tier Lists

Tiers: Tiers are an idea, which states that some objects with certain value(s) are greater than other objects bound by laws. In the case of Pokemon, this would mean that certain Pokemon are better than other Pokemon at playing the game. What is the game? The game is Pokemon battling. What is the goal? The goal is to defeat the other team of Pokemon. If Pokemon A can contribute more to the final goal than Pokemon B, then A would be considered a higher Tier than B. In most games, balance is impossible, unless the two characters/cars/objects are exactly the same, or if the differences are quantifiable and measurable. For example, a fighting game in which two fighters, A and B, do damage to each other continuously over a time would be equal if A did 1 damage every 1/2 of a second and B did 2 damage every 1 second. However, in Pokemon, stats are extremely difficult to measure, and due to the large variance in even the same Pokemon (due to IVs, EVs, Natures, and, especially, movesets), it is difficult to measure them. Yet, because it is difficult to measure them, it is difficult to balance them. Pokemon is an unbalanced game. So, for Pokemon, the existence and idea of Tiers are a fact. In fact, Tiers have a bigger impact on Pokemon due to the wild variances between statistics and due to the fact that Pokemon is a turn-based game and that one can have 6, unbalanced characters on their team. For example, Flamethrower is a superior move to Ember. Tyranitar nearly 100% outclasses Absol in physical sweeping ability, 100% outclasses it in support ability (due to Sandstorm), completely outclasses it in special sweeping, completely outclasses it as a physical wall, completely outclasses it as a special wall, and has better synergy with it's team of 5 other Pokemon. Thus, we can easily say that Tyranitar does more to aid in reaching the goal than Absol, and Tyranitar is definitively a better Pokemon than Absol.

Tier Lists: Tier Lists are the opinions. Tier Lists are an effort to quantify Tiers. Tier Lists usually have more restrictions on them than the game originally comes with, and those restrictions are collectively known as a metagame. For example, Smogon's standard list comes with the restriction of banning Pokemon they have deemed as especially overpowered and overcentralizing to the metagame, such as Mewtwo or Deoxys-Attack Forme. In the game of Pokemon, Pokemon who have a low-risk, high return on the user's part are banned by Smogon. The metagame also represents the usage of certain strategies, and those strategies are not used often without reason. The move Pursuit is notable. If it weren't for the prevalence of Pursuit, Celebi would be considered Uber, or too overpowered. However, due to the large presence of Psychic-types, who are usually the premier special sweepers but physically frail, Pursuit has worked hand in hand with the boosted usage of strong, physical Dark-types. Due to Pursuit being omnipresent in the metagame, Celebi is considered OU. In Pokemon, there also exist counters. Most games have counters, as some characters have natural advantages that would help them defeat other characters. This is extremely significant in Pokemon, and is more obvious in one on one battles between Pokemon. A Glaceon may be considered a counter to Garchomp. Glaceon also has a high Defense, allowing it to sometimes switch into Garchomp, especially it's commonly used Earthquake or even Outrage, take the next shot of Earthquake or Outrage, then OHKO it with Ice Beam. However, this does not mean Garchomp is a worse Pokemon. In fact, Garchomp has easy ways to defeat it's counters, by way of attacks such as Swords Dance or Fire Fang. Plus, Garchomp contributes more to it's team than Glaceon. Garchomp has a wider range of resists and has higher HP, and can actually take physical hits better than Glaceon, despite it's physical defense being it's best stat, and can easily KO more Pokemon than Glaceon. Garchomp is a better Pokemon than Glaceon in the Smogon metagame, and thus is reflected in their Tier Lists. In fact, Garchomp is a better Pokemon in the Official Nintendo metagame, as the only differences between the Smogon and Nintendo metagame are the ban list, However, if there was a metagame in which Earthquake, Outrage, Dragon Claw, Fire Fang, and Swords Dance could not be used, then Glaceon would be a better Pokemon than Garchomp.

Skill: Although I wrote this here last, this should probably go near the top of the article. This is the main warning for those reading this article. It should be said that Skill is always a higher deciding factor in most video games. A more skilled player will usually triumph over a less skilled player. Indications of less skill would include things such as teaching Earthquake to a Pokemon with low Attack Power, using Earthquake on a Pokemon with Levitate, etc, etc. Skill differences would also include predicting ability, teaching a Pokemon certain movesets, learning to use certain moves at certain times, knowing when the switch, using Pokemon to their best roles, etc, etc. When player A uses Pokemon who are more powerful than the Pokemon on player B's team, player B simply is simply less likely to win. Through good prediction, good movesets, etc, player B can always defeat player A. As another example, even though there is a prevalence of teams full of sweepers, Pokemon designed to KO as many other Pokemon as possible, it is still possible to win using other methods, such as Baton Passing with Pokemon who aren't considered high up on a Tier List, such as Medicham and Smeargle, or Stalling, with "UU" Pokemon such as Weezing.

I hope this wasn't too much to read. To be honest, I was sifting through the archives and noticed people saying "Tiers are BS" and I sort of wanted to clear it up, and maybe see if they were willing to read the other side of the argument, and see that they had some notions which were flat out wrong.

I also want to make the argument about articles being bad because they are opinions; for one, tiers aren't opinions. Tier Lists might be opinions. However, there is a true and clear concept for tiers. It's good to see the Tier List gone, because that's not Bulbapedia's job, but the previous arguments bashing it for being opinions might have been valid if it weren't for the fact that Shipping articles have a place on Bulbapedia. But, a Shipping article are about an idea supported by some purported facts, and Tiers are an idea supported by purported facts. Every game information site that has a competitive flavor to it should have an article on tiers, and explain them in the context of the game.

Hopefully, we can agree to a base definition for Skill, Tiers, and Tier Lists that can be on the page. The Skill part would be sort of a warning to people who supposedly want to choose a team based on the tiers. We might also want to remove Smogon's definitions for UU, BL, OU, etc. Instead of referencing Smogon, we could simply state that there are Pokemon who are clearly used very much, such as Gengar and Infernape, and Pokemon who are not used very often, such as Luvdisc, and mention ban lists. Thus, there would be no need to go into BL, which is 100% a "fanon" thing.

GoldenBattler

Congratulations. Encyclopedia. We don't do recommended movesets, we don't have a tier list. We just give the people the facts about each and every Pokémon and let them decide what they wanna use. Better than the tier thing anyway. TTEchidna 09:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I didn't really expect you to read that wall, but you clearly didn't get the point. Who said something about recommended movesets? Nobody. Who said something about your tier list? I did, but I stated that I was glad that Bulbapedia's tier list was gone. I was simply asking for a better definition of tiers, and I also want the whole "Tiers are opinions" mindset, which is false, to go away. GoldenBattler

Legendaries and Ubers

Could someone who can edit this page add a note in the Ubers section saying not all legendaries are Ubers? I'm getting rather sick of people telling me off because I use legendaries that are part of OU/UU. Thanks. RegalStar 19:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

NU

the article says that smogon doesn't have a NU tier anymore, but in fact they have recently added it again, so can an administrator remove that from the article? Oh and another thing, who knows what somogon's limbo tier means? Mijzelffan 18:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Thick Club

Can somebody please edit out the comment that says Marowak's Thick Club "doubles its base Attack to 160"? That's erroneous. Thick Club doubles the actual stat, not the base stat. --Frost 06:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Remove protection. And almost everything is wrong.

This article is bad. And it is the second page appearing in a google search on tier list, after the smash bros tiers. This page should be improved and be made correct, instead of giving false information.

The protection should be removed. Why is it protected? Because of a couple of vandalisms every week? I guess it wasn't even vandalism. But anyways, to revert a few vandalisms every week is not much work. People here are so lazy if the can't bother to do that. Even every day would not be too much for someone who has it in their watchlist, if they visit bulbapedia every day. Someone should fix the artile. But noone can, because it is protected. And the admins don't even bother to fix the errors that have been pointed out, many months ago. This is probably the most important exxplaination of the tier lists in pokémon, but it is so wrong. It should be correct, and give a good explaination. But no ...

Some of the problems is: There are two ways the tier lists is made, by different sites. It is the 4. gen Smogon way, and most people follow the Smogon list, and it is the way all other tier lists are made, by theorymoning and guessing. The borderline section in the article only reflects the other way.

Wrong information. Toxicroak is UU because of all the psychic moves in OU? That is wrong. It is botherline because it is mostly outclassed by Lucario and other fighting types. As mentioned before, the error with doubling the base stat of Marowak. Wynaut and Wobbuffet are not uber because of Counter and Mirror Coat. They are uber because of Encore.

The mention of Smogon getting rid of the NU tier is also wrong. It has been known for more than a year that they were going to remake the UU tier and add the NU tier after that. And the reasoning for getting rid of it is dumb. What does physical/special split have to do with the NU tier? It isn't llocical in any way. Graut 21:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

this was supposed to be only a timed protection, but for some reason it wasnt. now, i dont mind if you edit the page, but will not let you use your horrible grammar and spelling on the page, so be advised. -- MAGNEDETH 21:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't write any better, so I should probably not write anything. Graut 22:11, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with much of the recent changes.

I think parts of the recent changes is bad. I am not going to correct it now, but you will have my reasoning if I do later.

Ninjask? It isn't very neutral to say it may be the best baton passer. I think most people would agree Gliscor is the best one. Ninjask is one of the worst. The only thing keeping Ninjask in OU is new players using it. If it dropped from OU it would probably drop all the way down to NU, because there are less new players in UU. Ninjask is one of the bad pokémon kept in OU just because bad players think it is good. And Ninjask has a really bad support movepool. At least not good. The only support it has is baton pass. No screens, taunt, stealth rock, wish, anything.

Kingler is not UU by the Smogon Tier List, but NU. I tried to just mention pokémon that both Smogon and other agree are UU. Actually I don't know about any other tier lists than the smogon, so it would be nice if someone could link to it, well, there are some which hasn't been updated since 2007 or 2008, but something still updated. I also think Smogon is important enough to keep Kingler from being mentioned. Smogon should be at least 50 % weighted in the article, unless somebody can link a popular, updated tier list. And thus, NU pokémon in Smogon lists should not be listed as UU. I went the other way when I made new examples. I didn't put Mismagius or Blaziken there, to make the article for more than just Smogon.

Why compleatly remove Medicham and Porygon2 from the NU? NU is more than Luvdisc and Delibird. Graut 00:59, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

This is why I hate tiers. This article should have the Pokémon examples removed... CuboneKing 01:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Garchomp and Shedinja.

Perhaps Shedinja ought to have a mention in the uber catebory. I know it is debated as to whether Shedinja's uber or NU and that Smogon says NU, but perhaps it ought to have a little mention all the same. Garchomp is debatable as to its tier, but most of the debate was sparked from Smogon's classification of classification as uber (I really don't know why they bother). Perhaps a more general term should be used, such as pseudo-legendary. Just a thought. --Hyurnat4 22:32, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

were trying to leave out as many Pokemon as we can. it just creates arguments. Garchomp is listed, but simply as a "some people" consideration. Tiers in general are a giant "some people" so its fine the way it is. -- MAGNEDETH 23:08, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Salamence

Can it please be noted that Salamence is only an Uber on certain tier lists, such as Smogon's? Because right now Smogon is the only place I've seen it moved to the Uber list, and while Smogon is certainly an authority when it comes to competitive Pokémon battling, they are not the only website that has a tier list.--PhantomJunkie 16:24, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I see above me that Garchomp is supposed to be listed as a "Some people" uber, but the sentence that contains both Garchomp and Salamence is a very factual "These Pokémon are Ubers because of this." No mention of "some people" or "some tier lists."--PhantomJunkie 16:26, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Done. For people adding things in future, remeber all specific examples should be listed as possibilities, to account for differences between tier lists and to prevent edit wars. Also, the number of specific examples should be kept to a minimum for the same reason. Werdnae (talk) 20:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Links

I don't think this subject would be so controversially if links or collapsible text boxes were used so that people could read the rationales. The original article was just a list with no description of why Pokémon were added there. --☯ *Ɣℯ№ӎօṫհ* ☯ 17:15, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The placement still causes too much arguing, even if there is an explanation. Just look at what happens on Smogon whenever they decide to change the teirs. Besides, the placement of Pokémon into teirs is opinion, and doesn't belong in the mainspace of an encyclopedia. If people want a list of Pokémon in the teirs, they con go to Smogon, which, by the way, Bulbagarden is affiliated with. Werdnae (talk) 21:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

New tiers

This page is still protected for whatever, reason, but I'd like to say there are a couple new tiers that are generally agreed upon, which are basically just RU/LU (the name depends on what you use, since Smogon and PO call them different things) and BL2 (the banlist from RU/LU). Should those be added? It's Turtwig A! My talk or wiki edits 00:32, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Wobbufet

Wobbufet is not an uber anymore. It was put into OU in BW and then booted down to BL in BW2. I've noticed that this along with the metagame termatology page are a bit outdated when it comes to generation V. Noah★ (talk) 07:26, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Tier Variations

I think this part needs to go. It's going to change with every gen and even within gens. Anyone have any ideas for ways to make it more constructive? -- evkl _{(need to talk?)} 03:39, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree; this part is a both aimless and poorly written. I don't really know how to fix it - it seems like a pretty irrelevant section.--Breh (talk) 10:19, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that PU should be added now.

It might be a bit early to add FU, but PU should be added. Trainer Yusuf (talk) 13:24, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

The first section says that "the six most common [tiers] are listed below", but then there are 10 subsections in there. I kind of think the list really should be trimmed back to the six most common ones (or less). (In particular, stuff like "Borderline 2" and "Borderline 3" hardly seem worth mentioning.)

It seems to me painstaking tier lists should be left to competitive sites, and for us, a simple focus on more broad strokes would be best. Tiddlywinks (talk) 13:40, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Clarification

That this is based on Smogon's rulings need to be made more apparent. They're not the only unofficial tier setting group, though they are the most prominent. Other groups seem to use a similar system but handle some individual species differently, while others use a different system entirely. --KingStarscream (talk) 21:07, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

PU

I added the PU tier here, since it's official now. Sirspykerks (talk) 15:22, 27 December 2016 (UTC)