Metagame np: Stage 3 - 9(9) Problems

[Lord Alphose]

Alright, so now that altaria, lopunny, and sceptile have all moved up with tier shifts, is the council just voting on dragalge and slurpuff? Just confirming.

Dragalge also moved up, so it'll just be a vote on slurpuff

 

[boltsandbombers]

Dragalge also moved up, so it'll just be a vote on slurpuff

Ah, right - I forgot that it moved as well. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[kay]

Well lets look at Glalie.

It's weak to rocks, frail-ish, bad defensive typing, and not amazing speed topped by the fact that it can't run scarf makes this mon not overwhelming, despite its raw power. And if they're running double-edge, their going to be racking up lots of self damage.

I don't see Glalie as a huge problem in this tier, and I'd go as far to say that I'd kind of like it to stay. We need some viable physical ice types down here.

 

[Fling]

I meant Steelix specifically, not just any defensive mon. Max defense Uxie, Weezing and Ferroseed are 2HKO'd by Double-Edge. These are some of the best walls in the tier and they can't switch into a neutral attack. Hell, even Steelix dies to Double-Edge plus Explosion. Max defense Dusclops has a chance to be OHKO'd by +attack nature Explosion. Basically any wall lacking Thick Fat is gonna die if it tries to switch in.

None of your points justify a ban seen as glalie is gonna be dead or just really worn down after killing any of those defensive mons. Honestly its just like a faster rampardos thats weak to rocks. Also please chill with the calcs. If you're willing to blow up your mega to maybe kill a dusclops, you need to re evaluate some stuff.

 

[Ares]

Alright, so now that altaria, lopunny, and sceptile have all moved up with tier shifts, is the council just voting on dragalge and slurpuff? Just confirming.

As of now, unless things change, all votes will still come in for posterity - and Slurpuff's will count.

Not sure what the final ruling on this will be (pending discussion with Raseri), but if any of those Pokemon that rose via usage fall back down and were banned in this quickban vote, they will remain BL3 until they are retested. If they were voted to be not banned, they will return to NU outright.

 

[Swagodile]

To be honest, I think Audino, Glalie, and Steelix would all be fine to stay. Camerupt, we'll have to see where it goes.

Audino is self-explanatory. It's the go-to Mega for stall.

Glalie makes a great wallbreaker.

Steelix can get up rocks, but that's pretty much it. It has no reliable recovery, and its ability is useless.

 

[Swagalge]

To be honest, I think Audino, Glalie, and Steelix would all be fine to stay. Camerupt, we'll have to see where it goes.

Audino is self-explanatory. It's the go-to Mega for stall.

Glalie makes a great wallbreaker.

Steelix can get up rocks, but that's pretty much it. It has no reliable recovery, and its ability is useless.

I completely disagree, Steelix-Mega has made sand a lot more viable. In my opinion it can destroy teams even out of sand: it only has a couple of good switch-ins (namely Pelipper and Avalugg) who can live more than 1 hit. Heavy slam is a 120BP move on a lot of the tier, and Steelix also has the bulk to live a hit itself.

 

[Deej Dy]

Yeah, with no need for spc def investment or def investment with mega 125 base attack Adamant hits hard especially with heavy slam, to which it can outspeed and 1hitko Camerupt, it completely walls audino/musharna/uxie barring some strange sets, and 1hitkos Glalie, while taking not much in return. It can also run rock polish if your Fiesty, and it walls a majority of the tier, barring strong water and fire types.

 

[Dentricos]

These calcs are done with life orb sheer force steelix against mega steelix. Keep in mind every time lo steelix uses eq it gets that life orb damage.


252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Steelix Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Audino: 207-243 (50.4 - 59.2%)
252+ Atk Steelix-Mega Heavy Slam (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Audino: 237-279 (57.8 - 68%)


252+ Atk Life Orb Steelix Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Audino: 199-234 (48.5 - 57%)
252+ Atk Steelix-Mega Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Audino: 196-232 (47.8 - 56.5%)



Now if you think about it mega steelix also has sturdy. Just give sturdy steelix steelixite and chose when to mega evolve it. So now we have a steelix with the power of sheer force life orb steelix and the nice ability in sturdy to take out things that get an advantage on ur team like say +2 kabutops in rain.


0 SpA Xatu Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Steelix (lo-sf): 186-220 (52.5 - 62.1%)
0 SpA Xatu Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Steelix-Mega: 136-162 (38.4 - 45.7%)


252 SpA Life Orb Ninetales Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Steelix (lo-sf): 398-468 (112.4 - 132.2%)
252 SpA Life Orb Ninetales Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Steelix-Mega: 291-346 (82.2 - 97.7%)


252+ Atk Choice Band Mold Breaker Sawk Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Steelix (lo-sf): 338-402 (95.4 - 113.5%)
252+ Atk Choice Band Mold Breaker Sawk Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Steelix-Mega: 300-354 (84.7 - 100%)



In conclusion mega steelix OUT OF SAND has more bulk and more power the sheer force life orb steelix. It also is able to run both sturdy and have the power that regular leftovers sturdy steelix lacks. Saying there is no reason to use this out of sand is simply not true. You can throw this on any random team and it has the bulk and power to take lives.

In addition to that steelix is able to be in sand. People seem to dismiss this fact way to easily... in sand which is not that hard to get up (smooth rock uxie, hippopotas, or even sandstorm mega steelix) this thing is a monster that really doesn't have very many switch ins. The best ones I can think of are Pelipper and weezing ect...


252+ Atk Sand Force Steelix-Mega Rock Blast (5 hits) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Pelipper in Sand: 280-340 (86.6 - 105.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock


252+ Atk Sand Force Steelix-Mega Heavy Slam (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Weezing in Sand: 172-204 (51.4 - 61%)



People say yeah its good in sand but I say yeah this is enough to warant it's viability over other megas...

 

[Mysil]

None of your points justify a ban seen as glalie is gonna be dead or just really worn down after killing any of those defensive mons. Honestly its just like a faster rampardos thats weak to rocks. Also please chill with the calcs. If you're willing to blow up your mega to maybe kill a dusclops, you need to re evaluate some stuff.

Its nothing like a faster rampardos because its typing, stats and movepool are completely different. The only thing they have in common is that they are physical attackers. Meaningless comparison imo.

 

[Teddeh]

Seriously why are people comparing mons to rampardos? rampardos has nothing to do with any of the megas or pokemon that are being discussed in this thread...

 

[boltsandbombers]

My quick thoughts on mega glalie.
Yes, we have established that it is a great wallbreaker that hits incredibly hard physically and has access to freeze dry for useful coverage. But ice is a terrible type defensively, leaving it crippled by stealth rock and common priority moves, mainly Mach punch and bullet punch. Sure, most Pokemon that carry those moves can't switch in, but between entry hazards and double edge recoil it won't be too hard to pick off. Also, while it is somewhat fast, it's outpaced by most Pokemon before mega evolution, as base 80 is just meh, and after mega evolving it struggles with the crowded base 100 speed tier and some above that like pyroar.

 

[Fling]

Its nothing like a faster rampardos because its typing, stats and movepool are completely different. The only thing they have in common is that they are physical attackers. Meaningless comparison imo.

My point is that they can both do massive damage to defensive walls, they are both quite frail and they get very few free switch ins.

 

[Fling]

Seriously why are people comparing mons to rampardos has nothing to do with any of the megas or pokemon that are being discussed in this thread...

The comparisons with rampardos are because people just put damage calcs and say the mon should be banned because of how much damage it does to a defensive tank and rampardos is an example of a powerful mon that 2hkos a lot of stuff but is not very good. It mainly shows how damage calcs provide a bad argument for bans.

 

[g]

To be honest Glalie is quite a cool Pokemon to use at the moment. While it has a ridiculously strong Ice STAB in Double Edge, able to 2HKO even Weezing, priority in the form of Ice Shard (which I guess matters a bit less now that Mega Sceptile is gone), and a killer Explosion, it still has very weak coverage moves (non STAB Earthquake from 120 Attack with no boosting item isn't strong at all) that sometimes make wallbreaking different. I wouldn't really point out it's got bad defensive typing all that much because after all it is an offensive Pokemon and only minds being weak to priority (which it can sponge with OK defenses). Against balanced teams and bulky offense is when Glalie really shines in my opinion because outside of the weird Avalugg and Poliwrath (if no freeze dry) it is very very hard to switch into it repeatedly and even mega Steelix is heavily crippled by Double Edge + Explosion possibly paving the way for something like Kangaskhan to clean more easily later. I don't know if this Pokemon will end up suspected in the future but it will definitely be a huge threat now that the opportunity cost for using it is lower n_n

 

[Deej Dy]

I think it's time we discuss how broken smash pass is, not only is it nearly unstoppable (I'm talking 95% success rate, barring unlikely crits or haze/dragon tail) its main stoppers (haze Dragalge/Crygonal) are now gone / not as usable in this meta. It is truly ridiculous how easily you can slap a Cottonnee/ Uxie on your team with screens or memento (or both if you want to rub it in) bring in Gorebyss with S-Smash/Barrier/Sub and pass to Xatu (or another mon if they want to toy with you before your inevitable forfeit).

I'd like to propose a ban to Smash pass, that meaning the combination of Shell Smash and Baton pass. I'll likely post more on this later, but I figured I'll bring it up when my salt is still fresh from all my losses on ladder today being solely against smash pass teams.

I'll save the next replay and show how perfect prediction is utterly useless against smash if you lack 1 or 2 moves.

 

[soulgazer]

well for me it depends: is smashpass broken on every smashpass users in nu?

I don't really like to compare stuff to past suspect tests, but when we were suspect testing Combusken, multiple people brought up suspecting Baton Pass + Speed Boost instead, but iirc we didn't go that route since Ninjask wasn't as broken as Combusken in that role.

Huntail and Gorebyss, on the other hand, are pretty much the same to me (idk for everyone). Only reason Gorebyss is used more than Huntail is because.. well, they both have a better movepool for special attackers and gorebyss does that better. But when it comes to pure SmashPass, they are the same since they have the same bulk.

So yeah when you discuss about smashpass, don't only talk about Gorebyss, talk about both Gorebyss AND Huntail.

Now correct me if I am wrong Amarillo, but (its an exemple) if Gorebyss and Huntail's ability to SmashPass ends up being broken, wouldn't banning Shell Smash + Baton Pass be the better decision? Especially since Gorebyss and Huntail are the only ones able to SmashPass in NU and both do the exact same thing (when it comes to pure SmashPass)? We would keep two perfectly balanced Pokemon. I would only ban a Pokemon if only one of them was broken (like lets say if Gorebyss was 100x better than Huntail in the SmashPass role) since we shouldn't try to nerf everything when only 1 of them is the problem, which was pmuch the case with Combusken.

editing here because too lazy to post again: saying that you never saw a huntail or a gorebyss without bp+smash should mean that they can't do anything else is wrong. Ofcourse they are using bp+shell smash the most: its their best niche. 3 atk shell smash gorebyss is threatening and Huntail can now use some nice physical coil set or use shell smash + sucker punch to BEAT CHOICE SCARF ROTOM .

 

[Ares]

well for me it depends: is smashpass broken on every smashpass users in nu?

I don't really like to compare stuff to past suspect tests, but when we were suspect testing Combusken, multiple people brought up suspecting Baton Pass + Speed Boost instead, but iirc we didn't go that route since Ninjask wasn't as broken as Combusken in that role.

Huntail and Gorebyss, on the other hand, are pretty much the same to me (idk for everyone). Only reason Gorebyss is used more than Huntail is because.. well, they both have a better movepool for special attackers and gorebyss does that better. But when it comes to pure SmashPass, they are the same since they have the same bulk.

So yeah when you discuss about smashpass, don't only talk about Gorebyss, talk about both Gorebyss AND Huntail.

Now correct me if I am wrong Amarillo, but (its an exemple) if Gorebyss and Huntail's ability to SmashPass ends up being broken, wouldn't banning Shell Smash + Baton Pass be the better decision? Especially since Gorebyss and Huntail are the only ones able to SmashPass in NU and both do the exact same thing (when it comes to pure SmashPass)? We would keep two perfectly balanced Pokemon. I would only ban a Pokemon if only one of them was broken (like lets say if Gorebyss was 100x better than Huntail in the SmashPass role) since we shouldn't try to nerf everything when only 1 of them is the problem, which was pmuch the case with Combusken.

Plus I wanna keep muh Coil pass

 

[GOthee]

Why people jsut want Smash pass to get banned Instead of buildign a team vs Set up sweeepers. Whats next? Banning Coil Pass like Montsegur mentioned before ?? That can be prettu broken strategey if you build carefuly around it with .. I dont know: screens, memento etc etc..

 

[Lord Alphose]

Why people jsut want Smash pass to get banned Instead of buildign a team vs Set up sweeepers. Whats next? Banning Coil Pass like Montsegur mentioned before ?? That can be prettu broken strategey if you build carefuly around it with .. I dont know: screens, memento etc etc..

Because there's a distinct difference between +2 in Special Attack, Attack, and Speed vs. +1 in Attack, Defense, and accuracy. To avoid a slippery-slop aspect on the matter, the thing that makes SmashPass so potent is how simple it is to use and difficult it is to stop. Coil + Baton Pass, on the other hand, doesn't create a deadly sweeper by any stretch of the imagination. Dangerous, sure. Stoppable, hellz yeah.

 

[Teddeh]

They're the same pokemon, just with a different attack. People just use gorebyss out of preference for the type of attack they will want as coverage.

Shell smash boosts are easy to obtain if they have the right ev's + team support, almost unstoppable if setup. However, there are some obvious stops to smash pass that are around such as scarfers like rotom, evire etc... plus defog is a thing for screens and taunt is also a thing. There are other stops aswell such as encore from liepard, so there are stops to it, it just requires an annoying amount of team building which may result in your team being weak to other aspects of the metagame as most of these options aren't the easiest to build around. Even if you do have them, you need to make predictions too.

I've not lost to smash pass a lot but when i have, it's been against things like smash pass to bulky colbur berry mesprit which has tanked a knock off and then swept with coverage... now people are running pangoro + xatu, which truly makes it 50/50s tbh. But baton pass as a whole (from experience) has only been troublesome when passing speed + boosts from fairly bulky mons. Gorebyss, busken, huntail all do the same thing when they pass speed + power, difference is that busken passed defense + speed + attacks making it a lot more threatening whereas gorebyss just passes speed + attacks and can be outsped by common scarfers. Not to mention typing but busken is a whole different matter which i shall not get into.

Definitely worth a mention though for banning it, it was just a matter of time tbh for it to get tested since it's been slowly getting banned but no one has quite finished the job; since they banned banned baton pass chains and then NU banned combusken. It's fairly crippled but yet still a broken and annoying strategy that no-one likes playing against as it is too easy.


If it does get banned, rip iplaytennislol

 

[marilli]

GOthee also note everyone isn't agreeing with a smash pass ban. Note both me and soulgazer preceded our comments with 'if smash pass were to be broken' or 'if we choose to ever ban smash pass' because I'm pretty sure sure not everyone agrees on Smash Pass being broken. There will be discussion and I expect there to be at least few people disagreeing. I know that drawing smogon in light of 'ahh i cant deal with it, lets ban that' is very much in fashion, but if you can actually read you'll notice that we're not just crying about smash pass and wanting it banned.

There's only literally 2 pokemon that can smash pass in the tier. It's what they do. I've never seen 1 Gorebyss that doesn't carry Baton Pass + Shell Smash. No one runs sweeper Gorebyss with 3 attacks. Why? Because Smashpass is what it does best. Only deviation may be whether you're running surf + ice beam with investment to do damage when you want to, or running full bulk + sub etc. I would maybe think about banning smashpass over banning Gorebyss / Huntail if they were doing anything else relevant to the meta. But they literally don't do a thing, and we'd just be banning its most relevant set. Can any of you say Smash + 3 Attacks Gorebyss would really be that relevant to the meta? Because I haven't seen anyone run that. Investing in SpA in the first place seems to be really rare.

Banning smashpass right now is literally going at a pokemon and saying 'ah this mon is very mediocre, but its best set (and the only set people are using) is broken. let's ban the best set and leave the rest in the metagame.'

well then there's coilpass i guess, I think coilpass is more of a novelty option but if you guys really wanna keep coilpass then that'd be ok i suppose.

edit: w/e it's not ~irrelevant~ (it was probs my fav set BW NU, so I know it's not bad) but it just strikes me as strange how we see banning the best set of Gorebyss and Huntail is OK, but obviously banning the best set for idk, Crustle, is clearly not an option. I could probably think of another better example, but icbf. I just wanted an example of a pokemon that has a really rare access to both move A + move B, and the set with both move A and move B are by far the biggest niche. What makes Smashpassing different from any other 'best niche set' of any other pokemon?

 

[Swagalge]

GOthee also note everyone isn't agreeing with a smash pass ban. Note both me and soulgazer preceded our comments with 'if smash pass were to be broken' or 'if we choose to ever ban smash pass' because I'm pretty sure sure not everyone agrees on Smash Pass being broken. There will be discussion and I expect there to be at least few people disagreeing. I know that drawing smogon in light of 'ahh i cant deal with it, lets ban that' is very much in fashion, but if you can actually read you'll notice that we're not just crying about smash pass and wanting it banned.

There's only literally 2 pokemon that can smash pass in the tier. It's what they do. I've never seen 1 Gorebyss that doesn't carry Baton Pass + Shell Smash. No one runs sweeper Gorebyss with 3 attacks. Why? Because Smashpass is what it does best. Only deviation may be whether you're running surf + ice beam with investment to do damage when you want to, or running full bulk + sub etc. I would maybe think about banning smashpass over banning Gorebyss / Huntail if they were doing anything else relevant to the meta. But they literally don't do a thing, and we'd just be banning its most relevant set. Can any of you say Smash + 3 Attacks Gorebyss would really be that relevant to the meta? Because I haven't seen anyone run that. Investing in SpA in the first place seems to be really rare.

Banning smashpass right now is literally going at a pokemon and saying 'ah this mon is very mediocre, but its best set (and the only set people are using) is broken. let's ban the best set and leave the rest in the metagame.'

well then there's coilpass i guess, I think coilpass is more of a novelty option but if you guys really wanna keep coilpass then that'd be ok i suppose.

I run SS Gorebyss with 3 attacks, I really like it and will be kinda annoyed if byss were to get banned just because of SmashPass. While it is annoying to face I don't think the tactic is necessarily broken, but if there was to be a ban surely just ban the combination of SS and BP.

sg edit: and Huntail can use coil/aqua tail/sucker punch and a bunch of cool stuff now :)

 

[Dentricos]

GOthee also note everyone isn't agreeing with a smash pass ban. Note both me and soulgazer preceded our comments with 'if smash pass were to be broken' or 'if we choose to ever ban smash pass' because I'm pretty sure sure not everyone agrees on Smash Pass being broken. There will be discussion and I expect there to be at least few people disagreeing. I know that drawing smogon in light of 'ahh i cant deal with it, lets ban that' is very much in fashion, but if you can actually read you'll notice that we're not just crying about smash pass and wanting it banned.

There's only literally 2 pokemon that can smash pass in the tier. It's what they do. I've never seen 1 Gorebyss that doesn't carry Baton Pass + Shell Smash. No one runs sweeper Gorebyss with 3 attacks. Why? Because Smashpass is what it does best. Only deviation may be whether you're running surf + ice beam with investment to do damage when you want to, or running full bulk + sub etc. I would maybe think about banning smashpass over banning Gorebyss / Huntail if they were doing anything else relevant to the meta. But they literally don't do a thing, and we'd just be banning its most relevant set. Can any of you say Smash + 3 Attacks Gorebyss would really be that relevant to the meta? Because I haven't seen anyone run that. Investing in SpA in the first place seems to be really rare.

Banning smashpass right now is literally going at a pokemon and saying 'ah this mon is very mediocre, but its best set (and the only set people are using) is broken. let's ban the best set and leave the rest in the metagame.'

well then there's coilpass i guess, I think coilpass is more of a novelty option but if you guys really wanna keep coilpass then that'd be ok i suppose.

Uhhhh I do have to disagree with the thing about gorebyss with 3 attacks being irrelevant.... I use it all the the time and its a brilliant sweeper.

That being said smashpass is not OP by any means. There are many ways to stop it with checks like liepard and scarf rotom, and it has a few counters in haze mantine and haze cryogonal who by the way are not irrelevant in the meta.

 

[CanadianWifier]

My friend The Goomy and I have been searching and wide to find a switch-in to that uncounterable threat: Mega-Camerupt. Well fret no more, the counter has been found friends. [In all seriousness has anyone found a decent switch in for this?]
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/nu-188767768