Metagame LC Suspect - BLACK BALLOON - Drifloon is banned!

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Camden

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Thanks to Mambo for the fancy write-up and song choice, and a shout-out to http://mega-luxrite.tumblr.com/ for the awesome Drifloon gif.


Drifloon has quite recently risen to prominence within Little Cup due to its plethora of enticing qualities: a solid Speed tier, great ability, versatile moveset, above-average bulk, and unique typing. Drifloon's Recycle stall set, the most notable of its sets, can effectively run through an unprepared or crippled team with ease, only truly struggling to break through Pokemon such as RestTalk Chinchou and Recycle Magnemite. It's also a viable support to fellow Flying-types (namely Fletchling) with utility / coverage moves such as Knock Off, Hidden Power Fighting, and Memento. Hell, it can even get away with a Calm Mind set and bust through the opposing team with strong attacks. All of these various movesets are further bolstered by Unburden, turning the 17 Speed balloon into one of the fastest Pokemon in the metagame - this grants Drifloon the ability to outspeed and burn Pokemon that could otherwise be a detriment to its success.
For this suspect, you'll need to achieve 2900 COIL, and you have two weeks to accomplish this from the day this thread is posted, which is July 11th at 11:59 PM EST. We will be using a b value of 9 for the COIL, so here's how many battles you'll need to achieve the requirements:


Code:
GXE N
100 20
90 29
85 40
80 64
78 86
75 185
Council reqs are 2400 COIL.

If you want to figure out how many matches you'll need to reach 2900 COIL, you can use slap this equation into a calculator or Google:

N=9.0/log2(40*GXE/2900)

A voter identification thread will be up soon, so don't post your proof of COIL here. Only use this thread for discussion and questions.

Note: Drifloon is legal for the suspect ladder!
 
Oo quote,tcr I'm so damn happy you guys actually went through with this. A good explanation is soon to come. I will give legit thoughts soon and we will get this underway. Drifloon isn't that healthy for the tier but it's very flexible and lovely to have on all my teams so I wouldn't want it to leave.
 
Drifloon burned our crops, poisoned our water supply, and destroyed our houses. Well, maybe not all of that. But are we just gonna sit around until it does?
It does carry away small children into the sky though. So that's a thing.

In all seriousness though, I am very happy to see this get a suspect test. The unburden boost makes it a terrifying foe that I despise facing. It's already pretty speedy at +0. It has so many different valid sets that it is nigh impossible to predict until it makes a move. I don't really use drifloon very often because I prefer using other flying types (namely Fletchling). But when you think about the overall bulk of Drifloon, it's really difficult to bring down. It also isn't shy offensively. I think that Drifloon is a very cool pokemon. It's powerful and bulky and fast. It's Drifloon. I feel that I'm leaning towards a ban because I think that Drifloon is just too difficult to deal with unless you have something specifically for beating it. That fact in itself can hinder team building. I would be very surprised to see this thing stay if its characteristics are true to its name.
 
Drifloon burned our crops, poisoned our water supply, and destroyed our houses. Well, maybe not all of that. But are we just gonna sit around until it does?
It does carry away small children into the sky though. So that's a thing.

In all seriousness though, I am very happy to see this get a suspect test. The unburden boost makes it a terrifying foe that I despise facing. It's already pretty speedy at +0. It has so many different valid sets that it is nigh impossible to predict until it makes a move. I don't really use drifloon very often because I prefer using other flying types (namely Fletchling). But when you think about the overall bulk of Drifloon, it's really difficult to bring down. It also isn't shy offensively. I think that Drifloon is a very cool pokemon. It's powerful and bulky and fast. It's Drifloon. I feel that I'm leaning towards a ban because I think that Drifloon is just too difficult to deal with unless you have something specifically for beating it. That fact in itself can hinder team building. I would be very surprised to see this thing stay if its characteristics are true to its name.
"I think drifloon is just too difficult to deal with unless you have something specifically for beating it." Well your statement can be convincing to new lc users and it does make sense in some sort, but I think that most users after seeing drifloon for the first time just get baffled by its ability to stall down opponents(Especially pawniard) with willo and sub due to the most common super effective hit being knock off which does zero against drifloon after being burned and Drifloon being recycled. It's ability unburden just further supports it's method of setting up but there most definitely are ways of dealing with it. For example some people believe that this Pokemon puts too much of a hole in teams that they are scared to have a certain Pokemon burned like chinchou or mag and then have it stalled out by the burn, but they are just unaware of how to calmly deal with it correctly. This is where what you said comes into account; Chinchou is now the most used Pokemon as it is the best water/electric absorber and one of the best all around pivots in the game. The only set of chinchou that really loses to drifloon might probably be scarf set as it still does not outspeed drifloon and volt switches get blocked by the sub. Only way to handle it with this variant is by using thunderbolt repeatedly and having the opponent forced to recycle on your tbolt , but who's to say it can't just switch out. BJ chinchou(being one of the most common Pokemon now) is annoyed by drifloon but can EASILY DEAL with it. With access to heal bell and scalding the drifloon's subs and even relying on the burn, this is an easy hard check to drifloon and way to the promise land. Worst case scenario when using chin vs drifloon is just volt switching on it as it an just sub and force you to switch out into something that doesn't easily handle it. People have adapted to this new metagame and have started bringing hyper voice Amaura which 100% wins vs drifloon. It is not a broken Pokemon , more so just being mysterious and not completely introduced. People believe that with its high speed, access to crippling moves and its utility of knock off , sub and whatever else, that it is one of the most centralizing and unstoppable stalling threats in the tier but it's moreso the idea of drifloon being annoying and difficult to deal with, without taking a huge gap in your team.
 

fatty

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NUPL Champion
shoulda known heysup would try and pull some bullshit

i'm curious with drifloon completely in the spotlight with this suspect test whether we will continue to ubiquitously see the traditional sub recycle set, or possibly see people deviate a little further from that. i'd generally expect the former, but idk suspect ladders are always full of ~surprises~. either way, glad to see that we're actually putting forth the effort to suspect a mon that can't really be classified as broken in the traditional sense but is nonetheless an annoying little twat bag to face. this test will be interesting, good luck to everyone and remember HaVe FuN !!
 
Special Announcement: Little Cup Community Contributor badge holders (not alumni) can earn reqs with 2400 COIL.
Why should people who have the LC community contributor badge get benefits? Everyone, besides the council, should earn 2800 COIL for reqs. I am against having special reqs because it is unfair for everyone else. Just because they are contributors that doesn't mean they are more knowledgeable or a better player than an average LC player, especially because CC just means they host threads.
 

Fiend

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Why should people who have the LC community contributor badge get benefits? Everyone, besides the council, should earn 2800 COIL for reqs. I am against having special reqs because it is unfair for everyone else. Just because they are contributors that doesn't mean they are more knowledgeable or a better player than an average LC player, especially because CC just means they host threads.
:/

While it is somewhat fallacious that being cc means you just host threads, it does mean you contribute a lot, and in turn generally does not necessarily mean the holder of such lustrous pixels is indeed more knowledgeable than those without it. ffs one things abra is broken while some others barely play oras (me included until recently). I disagree with council having special reqs but I think this is even more unfair to everyone else. I don't see why these people need the extra boost for reqs either, especially since it's what 3? Sure they're important contributes and we love having them in lc etc, but really there isn't a reason they shouldn't need to battle when so many other people of equal metagame knowledge do. It doesn't seem right to me.

tree badge =/= good at mons nor knowledgeable about the meta. I almost think that if anything, LC tutors should get the special treatment bc they have to be at least decent at both of these.
 

doomsday doink

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The only LC CC holders who aren't on council, and who would be affected by this rule, are Berks, Cheek Pouch, and Shrug (unless I missed someone?). Just pointing this out for the sake of discussion, I frankly don't care if it goes either way.
 

macle

sup geodudes
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CC holders show commitment to the lc metagame by creating new threads and making knowledgeable posts to keep the forum active. These are the people that I want voting on the suspect over people who don't show much interest in lc.
 
I don't have an issue with Drifloon, yes it is a powerful Pokemon I have run a baton pass stokepile, a calm sweeping set, and several more but it is not to the point of being broken. Looking at Mienfoo, it can run several set and each set has it own counters, and you can quite easily loss one or two pokemom two it, and I have had a Drifloon 6, 0 several times but this against inexperienced players, or players new to little cup. If a team is built well it can easily deal will most Pokemon including the big dangers from Fletchling to Pawniard, less common ones like Drifloon and Wailmer. Yes a have been swept by a water spout Wailmer.

If you are worried about recycle, berry juice that is what knock off is for most LC teams should have it
 

Fiend

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Saw something and felt the need to respond bc it was misguided.
I don't have an issue with Drifloon, yes it is a powerful Pokemon I have run a baton pass stokepile, a calm sweeping set, and several more but it is not to the point of being broken. Looking at Mienfoo, it can run several set and each set has it own counters, and you can quite easily loss one or two pokemom two it, and I have had a Drifloon 6, 0 several times but this against inexperienced players, or players new to little cup. If a team is built well it can easily deal will most Pokemon including the big dangers from Fletchling to Pawniard, less common ones like Drifloon and Wailmer. Yes a have been swept by a water spout Wailmer.

If you are worried about recycle, berry juice that is what knock off is for most LC teams should have it
I don't think you really understand that Drifloon lives every burnt Knock Off but those of Guts users (when itemless), and usually the Drifloon user is smart enough to play around Knock Off unless it's from say Abra or Tentacool or something. But even then it's not likely that the Knock off will do anything since they love to sub down until they eat bj and then you're stuck.

It's very slightly comparable to Mienfoo; this would be an apt comparison if Toxic Mienfoo (the 10th most viable set, right behind Force Palm!) could weaken Special Attackers or something too. Mienfoo doesn't have passive recovery unless it switches out, and it also doesn't do passive damage--Toxic withstanding. These two things missing from Mienfoo means that it is hardly similar to Drifloon, as those are extremely powerful things by themselves and even better when combined. Mienfoo is a great pokemon just like Drifloon, but Drifloon can outspeed literally everything besides Deerling in sun while safeguarding against crits, status, and knock offs. Drifloon isn't really prone to being worn down unless you slap Toxic on something it likes to switch into or you get a lucky Scald burn, while Mienfoo is much more vulnerable. Mienfoo switches into a lot of things, and thus hates poison damage even if it heals it off. It reduces Mienfoo's recovery by about 1/4th-1/3, while Drifloon only cares so much with being whittles basically an 1/8. [Math is slightly guesstimated bc they run lots of HP numbers]. Again to the fault of the comparison, Mienfoo can't both sub up/heal while doing damage (burn) to the opponent to put them into kill range, making it unable to support itself. Nor can Mienfoo abuse a set up set and reliably sweep. Drifloon also has the added ability to switch out and come back in later to start its thing all over again, which sucks even if you have heal bell.

I don't think the issue is Drifloon doesn't have counters, no. Even Murkrow and Meditite had counters (one true counter in the care of krow), though these were mostly nonviable or generally meh outside of beating these two. Instead I think the issue is that Drifloon makes every team have a dedicated counter that really can't beat it and any other sweeper. Drifloon also has the annoying ability to compress roles that a team doesn't really always need but nevertheless makes them better--it can always be a wincon and you barely need to buld around it for it to have success. I realize some may discredit the suspect because Drifloon is able to stall and be annoying, which isn't really a broken trait, yet it does more than that and has more of an impact on games than being just a fat annoying balloon. Drifloon is able to somewhat offensively support the top 15 sweepers and cleaners, while also supporting itself. It works towards making 2 winconditions be set very frequently [if two winconditions are present on the team]. Every team has its faults, but Drifloon is able to emphasize and abuse these pretty much unlike any other legal member of LC. The only other things that are comparable with this ability are Abra who can sometimes have the magic set that kills your entire team (not really though, try using some fast mons or priority! or your opponent has a really bad set/your balance team is awful) or Magnemite who can screw over pretty much every check with HP grass and correct prediction, but these two require more thought to produce similar yet still lesser results--and not to mention pretty good luck on the correct moveset--and are less constant at attacking a flaw.

If your team is slightly weak to birds, hope you don't play Fletch + Floon. If you have 2 checkw to Snivy you can't really let one get burnt. If you rely on Ponyta for Pawniard and Drifloon, you better hope they aren't Scarf Pawn or you get lucky with Flame Body. If you're using Chinchou to patch a Mag or Water weakness, hope that Magnemite/Corphish and Drifloon aren't used together. Granted, all of this is matchup based and therefore isn't omnipresent, but Drifloon is sadly plentiful while all these pokemon are only slightly less so (unless you're on the ladder, where Drifloon gets an average of 2 KOes a game but has a usage stat that's lower than several B ranks). Not to mention in many LCPL matches, a Drifloon has soloed like 3-4 pokemon for a clutch win. What else besides cleaners can regularly be a last mon and clean up against such a number?

I don't have yet to find something that even half way mirrors Drifloon's situation other than Ponyta / lol Eggy / lol Phantump / Swirlix / DceaKrow / even more barely Fletchling but these are all very critically different than Drifloon. It would be best to generally avoid comparing pokemon to Drifloon, as all this does is poorly reflect the situation. If you can make a strong case as to why pokemon x and floon are the same, then do it, but in this unlikely event feel free to do so.

I'll make more planned posts on my thoughts of Floon later bc I'm not sure if it's broken or just irksome (obviously I lean to one side though), but please don't argue that pokemon who are only similar in that they heal and some people dislike them are similar enough that they aren't broken.
 

apt-get

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CC holders show commitment to the lc metagame by creating new threads and making knowledgeable posts to keep the forum active. These are the people that I want voting on the suspect over people who don't show much interest in lc.
Might as well make the suspect CC-only by this point when everyone else needs a perfect record with less than 1 loss every 10 battles otherwise your gxe is fucked

I don't think you understand how unrealistically hard these reqs are to achieve
 

Camden

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I might lower the reqs to 2850 if it's proven that 2900 is way too difficult to reach, but if I'm going to do that I'd like to wait until people are in the 2800-2850 range.
 
Special Announcement: Little Cup Community Contributor badge holders (not alumni) can earn reqs with 2400 COIL.
Not that I particularly care much for the suspect itself but this is really pushing a double standard. Given the logarithmic nature of the GXE system, the higher the set COIL, the more competitive games you have to complete. Though the difference between 2400 and 2900 or 2850 doesn't sound like much it really is.

You don't need to be a mathematical prodigy to plug numbers into the equation in the OP but if you're going to average a GXE of 80 and you're aiming or the 2400 COIL, you may only need to play 22 games on the ladder. Whereas if you're some poor scrub who doesn't have council privilege or the badge, you're going to have to play 64 games with the same GXE (Also seen in the OP). Even if you do lower the COIL to 2850, it's still a minimum of 54 games.

Now I'm not against the more experienced players in the community having an advantage in getting reqs but this is borderline mindless. Expecting players outside the circlejerk to play nearly three times as many battles as you is just unfair. I've done suspects in nearly every other tier/metagame on Smogon and haven't seen this anywhere else.

TL's pls fix.
 
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Coconut

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Not that I particularly care much for the suspect itself but this is really pushing a double standard. Given the logarithmic nature of the GXE system, the higher the set COIL, the more competitive games you have to complete. Though the difference between 2400 and 2900 or 2850 doesn't sound like much it really is.

You don't need to be a mathematical prodigy to plug numbers into the equation in the equation in the OP but if you're going to average a GXE of 80 and you're aiming or the 2400 COIL, you may only need to play 22 games on the ladder. Whereas if you're some poor scrub who doesn't have council privilege or the badge, you're going to have to play 64 games with the same GXE (Also seen in the OP). Even if you do lower the COIL to 2850, it's still a minimum of 54 games.

Now I'm not against the more experienced players in the community having an advantage in getting reqs but this is borderline mindless. Expecting players outside the circlejerk to play nearly three times as many battles as you is just unfair. I've done suspects in nearly every other tier/metagame on Smogon and haven't seen this anywhere else.

TL's pls pls fix.
So I don't really know where you're getting your information from, but the other suspects that are currently happening right now also have council reqs. So yeah, they have to play less games than everyone else and it happens in literally every other tier.

Borderline mindless is an absolute stretch, as they still have to ladder, and as it was already stated, this only affects 3 people. So complaining about 3 people getting council reqs is absolutely insane and far from a "circlejerk".

Lots of Love,
Someone in the circle jerk who has to ladder like everyone else
 

Camden

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Also, from this point on, please keep the discussion focused solely on the suspect. I'll leave the others posts up for the sake of being informative, but in reality the threat here is Drifloon, not a high COIL requirement.
 
So I don't really know where you're getting your information from, but the other suspects that are currently happening right now also have council reqs. So yeah, they have to play less games than everyone else and it happens in literally every other tier.

Borderline mindless is an absolute stretch, as they still have to ladder, and as it was already stated, this only affects 3 people. So complaining about 3 people getting council reqs is absolutely insane and far from a "circlejerk".

Lots of Love,
Someone in the circle jerk who has to ladder like everyone else

I never said Council reqs didn't exist in other tiers. The difference between average jerk-off and council members + CC holders is way too high. I don't see why this is so hard to understand? As someone that plays this metagame, you probably know how inactive the ladder is even during suspects. I'm not going to explain why this makes the suspect harder than that of say an OU or UU suspect since it should be self-explanatory. What I mean to say is my mongoloid cousin could probably get 2400 COIL on the LC ladder but 2900 is way way too high.

Best of luck with your laddering and all my affections.
Random jerk-off.

P.S. Didn't see Quote's last post until this one was made, so I'll leave it at that.
 
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