Manaphy in ranked PVP

[Aggs]

My take on manaphy is that it is a good pokemon. Base 100 all around isnt anything to scoff at, and pure water is a great type. Setup has always been really nice for beating stall teams before manaphy, and after. But, as most setup mons deal with, manaphy has 4 move syndrome. There will always be some type of fat mon that will be an annoyance for manaphy sweepers, and there is no helping it. A Cm/rest/scald/rain dance set that is bulkier will auto-lose to grass types with leech seed and grass stab(namely giga drain) or some type of water immunity (storm drain, water absorb, dry skin), and a cm set without rest or rain dance loses survivability. These are the 1v1s though, which is not always enough to consider a mon bad or good definitely.

 

Archetypes of teams are meant to check each other, and each archetype is at some inhererent advantage/disadvantage vs another. H.O. teams have a disadvantage vs weather, Stall vs Setup, weather vs stall, balance vs H.O., or something along those lines ( and by no means are any of these right because I said so, but rather an example of existing archetypes I believe have these inherent +/- vs other teams). This doesn't mean by any criteria that H.O. CANNOT beat weather and whatnot, but it is harder to. The factors of leads, reads, and set choices are too varied to apply to a paper analysis of manaphy. In this light, it is a lot harder to be able to decide how to deal with the issue.

 

Balance Setup, for an example, running a Timid 3 attacks TG mana vs H.O. Manaphy is thick, but it isn't dummy thick, which, in my opinion, gives H.O. an inherent advantage when manaphy is in. Your balance core will usually get overwhelmed by the H.O. and not given a chance to heal/properly check the other team. Unless there is 0 priority and no mons faster than manaphy, it isn't going to have the chance to tail glow to effectively fill the role of a sweeper.

 

Team preview is meant to let you gather your thoughts on how to handle what you think the opponent's team is, and assess what members of your team will be win conditions, and how to meet those conditions. That is, what I believe to essentially be, competitive pokemon.

 

Whether or not you want to use your favorite archetype, the point is, your favorite archetype will not always be meta. There are competitive archetypes that are more suited for beating others that aren't as geared for that. When you pick up an archetype, you should learns the ins and outs, and what you want to incorporate to not lose to another archetype. You should also know what that archetype will have a disadvantage against, and not call for a ban because you lose more often than not. Stall and bulkier teams will inherently lose to manaphy because they cannot help but lose no less than 2 to 3 mons against a boosted move. This also applies to picking the pokemon for the archetype. There will be sets of mons that will be automatically useless on team preview, and may not be utilized in a match unless the counter(s) are taken care of. You should not only know that those counters could be encountered, but also if, and how, you can properly deal with that counter(s) and their support.

 

Overall standpoint : Don't Ban.

edit: just some spelling checks

Edited March 16, 2019 by Aggs

[Dangarangs]

Manaphy is a powerful pokemon that's capable of sweeping any unprepared team.

That being said it's not unstoppable and can be dealt with if always prepared for it. I think the real issue here is that it's an event/legendary. On top of the fact that the game has a small playerbase and an even smaller pvp base, it will probably need to be rerolled making the curve of pvp even more solidified against upcoming or new players that may wish to pvp.

I dont see it as a good poke as far as keeping the meta game healthy and unless the pokemon is obtainable like greninja or other legendaries, I vote: Ban

Edit: I wasn't aware that it was available to everyone. New vote: git gud

Edited March 16, 2019 by dangarangs

[Baganha]

Idk why people just started putting their "votes" on this thread, this isnt a voting thread just a discussion one, unless thatr just a simple way you want to clarify your opinion then i guess its fine by me.

[Dangarangs]

Idk why people just started putting their "votes" on this thread, this isnt a voting thread just a discussion one, unless thatr just a simple way you want to clarify your opinion then i guess its fine by me.

I vote ban

[Aggs]

Idk why people just started putting their "votes" on this thread, this isnt a voting thread just a discussion one, unless thatr just a simple way you want to clarify your opinion then i guess its fine by me.

 

I think you missed my point. The problem isn't that manaphy is broken, it is that people who, I believe, frequently use slower teams are discussing it's place in the meta, and are skewing it to be a beast, which isn't true. It's good, yes. But broken and ban worthy? No. There are a lot of anecdotes here (on both sides) that don't quite add up.

Point is, know that an archetype is weak to another, and either adapt or at least accept that the archetype has that weakness. Along with that, the players playing also matters. Paper analysis isn't enough.

[Baganha]

I think you missed my point. The problem isn't that manaphy is broken, it is that people who, I believe, frequently use slower teams are discussing it's place in the meta, and are skewing it to be a beast, which isn't true. It's good, yes. But broken and ban worthy? No. There are a lot of anecdotes here (on both sides) that don't quite add up.

Point is, know that an archetype is weak to another, and either adapt or at least accept that the archetype has that weakness. Along with that, the players playing also matters. Paper analysis isn't enough.

 

Im am quite aware that manaphy doesnt excel in every existent playstyle, ive also mentioned before, that, in my opinion, a pokemon doesnt require to be absolutely godly at every MU for it to be considered broken, every mon clearly has its unfavorable MUs, even mons that got banned before, this might be a unfair comparison to some but since PRO seems to only take action to what smogon does i feel like its more than fair, zygarde all by itself doesnt seem to be a stellar mon by any means with maybe the exception of cb sets depending on the MU, stall could stop it with unaware clef + helmet tang, the most annoying set to stall was probably sub toxic however it was still checked by helmet hp ice tang, balance was the mu that struggled the most against him but with solid cores between hippo, ww skarm or bulu it wasnt a dictated 6-0 for zygarde on turn 1, from bulky offense to HO, all had the tools to actually break zygarde's natural bulk, whether it was ash gren, mega medicham, mega diancie, mega swampert, mega hera and even buzzwole. What really took zygarde to the edge was its versatility but more importantly its sinergy with the team, its MU against more offensive teams would easily be much better if it's behind screens for example, its stall MU would get better if it was paired up with something like lele to pressure the teams defensive backbone or abuse phys def tang switchins, with balance something like sd z-kart was very popular paired up with zygarde, as it was able to open holes for zygarde to just clean up and finish the game.

 

The point im trying to make here is that i believe manaphy is being judged at a very superficial level, has if its on a vacuum, neglecting its influence just because its not the reason its winning every game. This is the mon who gives rain its stallbreaking power, rain whom of which is incredibly good against offensive teams, who are the archtype manaphy struggles the most, this pretty much gives rain prefect sinergy against every playstyle, on HO teams it does the same, easing up its MU against bulkier teams, giving them an opening for a potential sweep, on Balance/BO it also fits incredibly well, as these teams tend to do well against faster, more offensive MUs, this all is accomplishable because of manaphy. Its imperfections and faults are existent, however i dont think because a pokemon as them it should be considered not broken, thats pretty much my opinion.

Edited March 18, 2019 by Baganha

[Johncampita211]

Bump

[Mamathieu]

More than manaphy thats the rain problem which come again , regarding usage rain is omnipresent in meta and focus a lot teambuilding (with manaphy rest glow even more)

banning damp rock/drizzle would be a good alternative = less mana abuse and more teambuilding which is main problem of pro pvp atm

[Johncampita211]

Bump please notice this thread

[Gengarlv100]

other option than banning rain is banning surf hydropump and scald have a nice day