We can start to look at that, as such a potential characteristic would begin to account for why Dual Screen Deoxys-S "made it uber" and why Wobbuffet is uber because of how easily it sets up pretty much anything you want. Things like Bronzong, while obviously viable, cannot pull this off as easily thanks to lack of speed, lack of reliable recovery, lack of Taunt, susceptibility
to Taunt and just getting blasted anyway, and "lol i dont have shadow tag". While I've seen Rest/Sleep Talk/Reflect/Light Screen Bronzong in play I don't really think it's all that threatening. Latias may prove itself a great dual screener as soon as "people" realize that it's not just a "better Specsmence" or just meant to CM sweep, but only time will tell that story, since it's not like anyone should be forced to use a Reflect/Light Screen/RecoverDP or Refresh/ Latias@Light Clay set if they don't want to.
So sure,
the ability of a pokemon to consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep seems workable to me. Though, as with any characteristic, it's really defeating the purpose of this thread for just me to say yea or nay on a characteristic (much like it's defeating the purpose for me personally to decide on the tiering of any Suspect for the thousands and thousands of people who use our tier list for competitive battle, no matter how informed my opinion is). I will also state here that "substantially easier" here and with any other characteristic is obviously subjective, but that the other purpose of this thread is to come up with and chisel away at multiple chars, so that with enough solid ones, this kind of subjectivity can be trumped.
this thread needs more activity!
im not sure why sweeping is held in such prominence for an uber definition, maybe jump is just a BT addict. stuff like giratina and lugia are "clearly uber" not because of their sweeping ability (or even the ratio of damage done vs damage it can take... i dont understand that parameter either, shoulnd't it be a product?)
First of all, I know you're half-kidding and all, but I just stated above, and have stated before in this thread, "characteristics" is plural for a reason. I think it's funny that you would reference my "BT addiction" with reference to how I seem to regard sweeping with prominence, because it actually proves my point and underlines why I actually made this thread, and here is why.
I'm sure a few of you have clicked on one of Stark Mountain's most-viewed threads of all time in "DP Battle Tower Records". Rather than pat myself on the back for having the #1 record or insist that my BT prowess indicates to a very large degree that I actually really do know an awful lot about pokemon and what it takes to be excellent at it, I will just let my numbers and teams speak for themselves. My current record is 462-straight wins, a streak that's still active. I have achieved this with a Trickscarf strategy that is nearly foolproof when employed correctly. The pokes I use are Cresselia and Latias/Scizor as the sweepers. Of my three best teams, I have Switcheroo Lopunny with Latios and Lucario as the sweepers as my second-best team (with a record of 321 wins, which is still good enough for 4th all-time), and my sweeper-heavy, straightlaced Starmie/Tyranitar/Garchomp team whose record is 203 wins.
I can say with the confidence of a person who has played for hundreds and hundreds of hours in the Battle Tower, and likely knows more about the BT-metagame than anyone does about the competitive metagame, that standalone sweeping in the BT metagame is nigh impossible and definitely needs support if you want to be successful (where success equals a streak of, say, 150 or more). MY BT addiction has shown me things about pokemon that support my knowledge of competitive pokemon and things that I would not otherwise know if I weren't a BT addict. Again, I'm not going to argue that my BT-prowess alone makes me the #1 authority on competitive pokemon of all time, but if you haven't played the BT and know what it takes to be successful, well, you don't know what I know, considering I actually do play competitively as well. And in my opinion it doesn't matter that we're talking about the Battle Tower and not "competitive pokemon", because in the sweeping regard, there is little to no difference. I would therefore argue that if there is one person who knows first hand that ability to sweep on its own does
not guarantee you success, it's me.
Further, as far as the BT is concerned, "Lopunny is uber". It is obviously very funny/silly to say that on the surface and I do that alot with Breloom and Kingdra in jest, but please see my point. In the competitive metagame, Lopunny is a UU pokemon, not even BL (not right now anyway). In the BT metagame, I have demonstrated that Lopunny can utilize a moveset that lets other pokemon rampage through the game hundreds of battles at a time. So if we were to tier things in the "BT-metagame", Lopunny would very much be "uber" or at least top-tier OU thanks to the Switcheroo/Thunderwave/Charm/Sweet Kiss set. Without the support of Lopunny or Cresselia, Calm Mind Lati@s isn't going to go that far trying to sweep in the BT. More applicably, though, Calm Mind Lati@s isn't going to go that far trying to sweep in standard competitive play without the support of pokemon like Magnezone and Dugtrio. So I know that there's more to "uber" than just being able to sweep, and is why I am imploring all of you to come up with characteristic
s because I know there is not just a one-sentence definition of "uber".
i think the case has been in the case with all ubers currently tiered, be it wobba, chomp or dsds, that there exist no viable checks within the OU metagame for these pokemon.
"check" is reasonably well defined, and viable would be a parameter based on "overcentralization".
i.e. a "specialized check" (be it a pokemon, set of pokemon or even an entry hazard, like ts was a pseudo chomp check, and a team full of shed shell mons was a wobba check) for any uber can exist in the OU metagame but will result in an "overcentralized"/"overspecialized" team who's strategy suffers. this parameter would (hopefully) one day have a concrete statistical definition.
Would you think that a metagame with Latias and therefore CB Tyranitar, and therefore CB Dugtrio (that can run Toxic as I've been stating for yeras to beat Wobbuffet) would be "overcentralized" in checking Wobbuffet? I'm not trying to deuberize Wobbuffet but am rather highlighting the danger in just relying on your proposed check characteristic to account for all pokemon as you seem to be implying, where something like what QZ proposed is an addition single characteristic that serves to go along with other ones.
Finally, this thread, and Tangerine's before it, have been around for almost a year. I think it's clear that we've pretty much reached the limit of our ability/willingness to both come up with and decide upon an uber definition or characteristics of an uber. Whether this is because even hand-picked PR members besides myself, Tangerine and a small handful of others are unwilling to contribute or just unable is a non-issue now as far as I'm concerned. If QZ had not posted early this morning (and if I had not given him PR access two weeks ago, thanks to Tangerine's input) I would have had to bump this topic, my own topic, for the second time, considering that Tangerine and I were talking in PM a little after midnight about starting to wrap this up today because no one else is posting. (I will use my next post to reply to his posts directly.) I reiterate that we are in dire need a definition of uber in order for people to accurately vote on whether a given Suspect belongs in standard or uber play.
With Tangerine's help I am going to pull together and decide upon the best characteristics and whatever we come up with will be our definition, and that will be that. Besides the fact that this has stagnated for long enough, I think there's been great progress and we'll be able to apply whatever I decide on to Suspects going forward. But I cannot just let this sit around and wait for people to contribute after constant coaxing, because it's pretty clear to me that we're not going to get anywhere anytime soon if I don't do something.