@Lemmiwinks-- I don't mind, let's go to absurdity. People here are so in love with pure logic that common sense rarely gets a chance.
And that lead to a different metagame, no matter how much you argue. Things effective in old UU aren't going to be as effective in new UU, and I bet there are some things in new UU that aren't going to work as well in old UU. The set of Pokemon is different, how are you going to say "well Pokemon A,B,C was useful in metagame 1 but not in metagame 2... well that means metagame 1 is "ineffectual, warped"... yeah figure out the fallacy there, please.
If you want to be a completely logic-to-logic, facts only "you can't prove this applies to that because they are different," then sure I can't talk to you nor prove my point.
However, that's not the case Tangerine, and I am sure even you will admit/are aware of that despite changes in conditions, sets, rules, metagames, at the end of the day each pokemon is just a set of data, and that data does not change despite people knowing/not knowing how to use it in certain ways.
What I am getting at is that while [some] pokemon certainly change over time, this is not the case for all, and regardless changes aren't usually so rapid that you can't say something about what "innate abilities" a pokemon has.
Electivire will always be a relatively slow sweeper with great coverage who just can't seem to hit hard enough. Lucario will always have the ability to be a great swords dance sweeper but also have capacity for other offensive sets. Suicune will always be a nice bulky water with heavy use but not necessarily the poke that instills the most fear. (Insert the word "likely" into all of the above sentances in the appropriate place)
Sure there is room for creativity, but there are also limits to that creativity. As much special defense I pump into scizor (and mine runs careful with over 400 evs in hp/sp.def), it's never going to be a special wall, and while it sure does a better job than adamant at switching into starmie and pursuiting it to death, it can't afford to do that repeatedly.
Yes a pokemon changes with the conditions around it, but also yes that there are things we can say about its abilities regardless of what is going around it. There is the context, but there is also the pokemon itself. If there was nothing innate to the pokemon's own abilities, tiering pokemon would have no purpose.
Why does it not make sense? If it is because of the reasoning above, that's a complete fallacy. Are you arguing that, because we have made a new tier with an arbitrary cut off (i'm not saying OU is arbitrary, i'm saying creating UU based on OU usage is based on some arbitrary definition of a tier we created) somehow happened to be "different" from another one it's "balanced"?
Because usage is an indicator of strength (at least that is common belief, we can argue about that too if you want). While I would agree that it is best taken into reference and thought about more openly, as a generalization, usage is based on competitive strength/usefullness.
Just because you change the context does not mean what information you have about the subject is not of use. The subject is still the subject.
You're right that it's not "definite" but it's the best indicator we have, and that's why we use it in teiring process. The fact is that old UU does not exists anywhere in these usage stats because pokes we banned on our assumptions are actually weaker than we thought.
If you want to bash me for getting swept up in information that is, sure, "limited," or "apt to change" over time, sure, I'll admit that my initial comment wasn't justifiable and I'll apolgize for that. Sorry that I am not exactly expecting to have to write a statistician's summary on an internet forum about a children's video game.
While the data might not have a "perfect" applicability to looking back on old UU, I do not think it's fair to say that there's no application at all. That's how data works, it's never perfect, but you use what you have, make simplifying assumptions like "usage stats are indicator's of a pokemon's strength" and you live with whatever error there might be in the statements you make for lack of better information.
That or you just sit on your ass and twiddle your fingers because you are too scared about not being able to be 100% right about everything.
Please, you can argue that the banlist was WRONG only based on our definition of tiers but you can't ever, ever, argue that the metagame was "WRONG" mostly because given any metagame, people WILL attempt to win. The tierlist are created based off some arbitrary philosophy. It may be "wrong" based on the philosophy in question. Does not make the results "wrong" or "twisted" because it doesn't adhere to that philosophy.
Whether it be old UU or new UU, we were both trying to create a tier based on real competitive abilities of the pokemon.
Let's use your Scizor example, and apply it to what you have said
"Scizor is #1 OU now, but was almost BL when we started... the metagame when we first started is "wrong", "twisted", whatever you want to call it".
That seems kind of unfair considering I was obviously talking about bullet punch Scizor, and that scizor's never been out of the top 5 since it got Bullet Punch.
You can obviously see the fallacy here. It IS about the environment. It CHANGES, and you recognize that. Are you also going to argue that "Well wobbuffet is now a very solid Uber... the entire uber metagame before was wrong"? This is the logic you're tinkering with, mind you... your example hurts you because you're applying this logic to your precious UU but not anywhere else
Well, it's hard to continue this discussion because ubers can't be wrong/right because it's a ban tier but . . . I was simply making a point that pokemon have certain abilities. The environment can change or not change around them, but that does not completely dictate what a pokemon is/is not capable of doing.
"Clefable was useful in metagame A, and metagame B". Blissey is useful in Ubers AND OU. What's your point? Are those metagames anywhere similar? Think about it...
Inversely, are you going to say Blissey's usage stats say nothing about it's competitive abilities? Are you going to say that Kyogre's usage stats in Ubers has nothing to do about what our opinion of it in OU would be? Yeah OU is a different meta from Ubers, but Kyogre is still Kyogre.