OU Forum Introduction

Introduction

The OverUsed subforum is one of the most frequented forums on all of Smogon, and for good reason. It is home to most discussion of Smogon's premier metagame, OU, and can be a confusing place for a new user, especially due to the huge amount of discussion and projects that go on in the forums each day. Hopefully, from this brief guide, you will learn to navigate the OU subforum a little bit better.

Metagame Discussion

Metagames are constantly shifting, and this is especially true of the current generation of OU. The Manaphy craze came and went, Mega Altaria has seemed worthy of a suspect at times and a total non-threat at other times. Onward and upward from there. Metagame discussion has been a focal point of the OU subforum for quite some time and continues to be to this day.

The Viability Rankings thread is arguably the most well-known aspect of the OU subforum. From newer users jumping into the fray to the occasional veteran tour player giving their thoughts, discussion can range from very high quality to low quality (trust me, I can see the deleted posts). A question many new users ask or think about at some point or another is: "how do I go from a VR chump to a VR champ?" It goes beyond simply posting walls of calcs or posting about how Mega Heracross or Manaphy has no counters once set up. Good VR posts are backed by usage trends. And usage trends go beyond simply "Landorus-T gets 25% usage S rank plz." Here is a recent example of a well-thought-out post by VR council member Albacore:

Most of you guys seem to be on board with Keldeo and Lando-T being S rank, so I guess I'd better make the case for Latios. I was actually very skeptical about Latios being S when it was first brought up, however, if we're using standards that would allow Torn-T, Keldeo and Lando-T to be S rank (and we probably should), I think Latios should be S too. I think it's about on par with these three, both as a metagame-defining threat every team needs to account for, and as a really great pokemon to use that will usually pull its weight in battle.

First of all, it's about as splashable as you can get, not just becuase of Defog, but also because it combines a ton of useful resistances with great offensive prowess, it can weaken or lure a bunch of Pokemon, it can seriously damage teams without needing much support, and most of its checks are straightforward to deal with and have pretty viable checks of their own, so you rarely have to accomodate for it by changing your team round when you want to use it. It's one of the most common Pokemon in OU for a very good reason, and when you compare it to Lando-T or Keldeo it actually suffers less competition for its role, or rather, less viable competition : Keldeo has to compete with Azumarill and Manaphy for the role of offensive Water while Lando-T is very simplar to garchomp in what it does, and all 3 of these are pretty dominant threats. Meanwhile, Latios has Latias and Starmie, both of which are generally worse options. My point is, if you want to use sompething like Latios, you're almost always going to use Latios, and that's something that's less true of Lando-T and Keldeo.

The biggest problem with Latios, and the most convincing argument against it moving to S rank, is the prevalence of Pursuit. And yes, the fact that Latios can just be useless vs certain teams defenitely sucks, especially if we're looking for consistency. However, it's not like Pursuit has no counterplay at all, you can use the opportunity to get a free setup or hazards up. Pursuit users are either easily taken advantage of (TTar, Metagross) or have a lot of trouble actually switching into and trapping Latios (Weavile, Bisharp), so there's always a way around it. Also, Pursuit trappers can't actually prevent Latios from Defogging, so it's not completely useless and can still help you win a battle even if it gets trapped.

In fact, Defog almost guarantees that Latios is going to at least be able to do something in a battle. And if you ignore teams with Pursuit trappers, Latios can put in work pretty consistently in general. Like Keldeo, many teams have multiple checks to it, but like Keldeo, it's still able to put in work against teams that are prepared for it. And unlike Keldeo, and even Lando-T and Toprn-T to a lesser extent, it can threaten multiple types of teams at once.

Keldeo can threaten offensive teams with a Scarf and bulkier teams with Specs or SubCM, but it kinda has to choose : Specs and SubCM aren't very good against most offensive teams due to Keldeo's underwhelming speed tier, while Scarf just falls flat on its face vs any bulky team (aka any team with a Clefable on it).

Lando-T sorta has the same problem where Dual Dance and offensive SR setter sets struggle vs offense due to their limited defensive capabilities, but defensive and scarf sets are too easy to switch into and wear down to really be hard for bulky teams to handle.

Heck, even Torn-T has to choose between screwing over bulky teams with LO+Taunt or actually switching into offensive threats with AV. But Latios only really has to choose one set, becuase it only needs one set, one that can switch in on offensive threats and put offensive teams in a tricky situation due to the pretty low number of Dragon resist that actually work on offense, and which can come in multiple times against bulkier teams and chip away at its checks until they can no longer handle it.

Latios doesn't really have to make compromises bewteen threatening team type A and team type B becuase it can do both at once; yes, it has to choose between HP Fire, Roost and EQ sometimes, but none of these are really necessary in order to be effective against a certain team, they just make it easier. And even if Latios faces a team with 3-4 checks to it, it can always fall back on Defog, much like Lando-T can fall back on SR, Keldeo on burning stuff, or Torn-T on its pivoting capabilities.

Latios is something you'll rarely regret using, and that's what makes it S rank worthy more than anything.

Another, more recent, development in metagame discussion has been the revival of the Metagame Discussion thread. Before, there was not really a central place to discuss the metagame outside of, you guessed it, the Viability Ranking thread. The metagame discussion thread offers a more relaxed posting atmosphere where not everything has to be put strictly in the form of a nomination. The metagame discussion thread is still trying to establish the direction it will move as a thread, but the response to the re-purposing has generally been positive, and it can only improve from here!

After discussing the more popular topics in the forum, we now move to what the bulk of the OU subforum contains: projects and resources.

Participating & Projects

OU has many projects running at a time, ranging in scope from posting checks to a threat to creating the plot of a new Pokemon game. These projects can be run by any user as well, with moderator approval of course.

So why contribute to these projects in the first place? Most new contributors use these topics to gain knowledge of a metagame in a hands-on fashion. Aiming to post the best partners in Pokemon Matchmaking, for example, can help newer users get a grasp of what makes for good cores, and good cores lead to good teams. Another good example of an informative topic is the Core Analysis thread. That thread takes a current core and identifies both partners and threats to that particular core. It's one of the few topics that look at both the offensive and defensive ends of the spectrum. A final example is Victim of the Week, which has been running for over 90 consecutive weeks at this point. Participating in this topic helps users get a solid grasp of checks and counters to various OU threats. Learning through experience is a great way to learn!

A special mention goes to two of the most extensive projects on the entire forum, the OU Theorymon Project and the Smogon OU Version. Ever think "what if Infernape got Prankster?" Then the OU Theorymon Project just might be the place for you. The current iteration of the project has been running continuously since October 2014, and it shows with the extensive archive of past slate winners. Just be sure to read the rules of the thread before submitting your ideas! Smogon OU Version, on the other hand, has been running for a long time now and has slowly been building a massive amount of content. To give you a rough idea of just how long this project has been running in its current form, the mock cover art still includes Deoxys-D.

Resources

The OU forum also has a lot of resources for new users. Some of these resources, such as the Speed Tiers thread and the Checks Compendium, require less active participation but nonetheless are still very helpful for both new and old users alike.

On the other end of the resource spectrum, there are topics that provide an active, continuous outlet for teams and cores. Examples include the Good Cores thread, the Sample Teams thread, and the Teambuilding Workshop. Once you find yourself a more veteran teambuilder with a good grasp of the metagame, the former two topics are a great chance to show off your teambuilding talent. On the other hand, if you are a fresh new user, the Teambuilding Workshop can be a great place to both request teams and look for already finished teams. The Teambuilding Workshop has been running continuously for quite some time now, and all completed teams are archived at the beginning. This leaves it a great source of both finished teams and team ideas.

Conclusion

That just about covers everything the OU forum has to offer, outside of the occasional forum minitour. Speaking of minitours, they often come with altered rulesets, such as allowing various Ubers for a round like Gods Among Us.

With all that said, feel free to look around the OU forum! It's one of Smogon's most active subforums, and we are always looking for smart contributors. Post well, and you may even find yourself with a Ladybug sooner rather than later. Additionally, if you still have any questions, PM an OU moderator at any point, as we are here to help.

« Previous Article

Home