>>51667206Must've not been as active then. I looked it up, and yeah it was as bad as you say.
>>51667192>But since pretty much everything else got improved more than Sneasel did then it really doesn't matter than in a vacuum...Right, but this is the point I'm trying to make with this. I acknowledge fully that Sneasel is not as viable in Gen 4 as it was prior.
Again, I dont necessarily give much of a shit if you have beef with the split or not. Even though I like it, I can see argument against it in some scenarios. What it did is increase the viability largely and increase movepool coverage greatly to varying degrees of success.
>>51667266Again, you're mixing up concepts.
The absolute strength of the 100 mon is higher than the 90 mon. Whether or not it performs better in its environment is entirely dependent on said environment. Strength=/=viability.
To use an extreme example to illustrate, lets look at Gen 1 Golem.
Gen 1 Golem spent the majority of its life as an OU mon, considered a slightly inferior, albeit situationally better version of Rhydon. Rhydon, who is a quasi-mandatory pick as a way to deal with Dos, and have some sort of secondary way to deal with the Normals. Golem, by extension, could be seen as a mon filling that quasi-mandatory niche. Just about the highest title you could hope for.
Over the years, in the very same game, with virtually NO balance changes (minus some extremely minor mechanics discoveries), Golem's niche ended up getting somewhat swallowed by Snorlax. This cause a downward spiral of usage for Golem, putting it in UU where Waters ate it alive, and then eventually falling to NU.
A mon that was formerly quasi-mandatory, fell to complete obscurity, in a game with no balance changes, only meta shifts.
I imagine you're still going to try and argue "but then its no longer strong"-- no, it's no longer as VIABLE. The strength did not change. The context did. If you're still arguing as such, you're mixing up terms incorrectly.
