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My initial thoughts are:
Pangoro alone makes it hard for stall to be viable unless they you run a phys def Fairy-type and try to bring it in on the non-Poison type move and if it gets a free switch in against offense, it's gotta get a knockout or severely dent something. I'm leaning towards ban in that case.
Moltres is just a god; amazing special attack stat as well as having 2 powerful STAB moves in the form of Hurricane and Fire Blast, which also provide amazing coverage, only resisted by Rock. Finding checks/counters for it are difficult as in most scenarios it can just U-turn out and bring in something that can immediately threaten that. I'm all for supporting a ban for this mon and overall, a much healthier metagame.
Moltres has already been known to be a problem, causing many users back in the "Blind Burd Era" to switch to many checks or counters towards it to even be relevant in the metagame. That's still true to this day as Moltres is a high priority for most RU players to stand a good chance against. Despite having poor accuracy with it's move, that's still giving the player a chance to completely nuke your team. Even with some of the really good checks like Slowking, M-Camerupt, and etc, they can get overwhelmed by certain sets that Moltres uses. Stealth Rocks aren't even an issue as most of the best stealth rock users are bopped by Moltres's power. Even Rhyperior isn't safe with some Moltres users switching to Hidden Power Grass. Ban
Pangoro became a problem because of it's massive movepool. It's way too powerful to handle conventionally. It's not about it's speed or it's somewhat farce defense. The sheer force of this thing is way too damn strong. To put to reference, this is from the SAY NO TO PANDA set.
252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Pangoro Hammer Arm vs. 120 HP / 136 Def Alomomola: 321-378 (64 - 75.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
That is scary as shit. This is very unique for a physical attacker as Pangoro is one of the few Physical Attackers that can straight up 2HKO Alomomola with Choice Band with neutral damage. One of THE premier defense walls in RU crumbles beneath panda. It's coverage is also solid, being able to attack things that Pangoro really shouldn't do a lot of damage to such as Aromatisse, Mega-Audino, and Tangrowth. This is an absolute monster to nearly anything or everything that it attacks. So what that is has somewhat flaccid defense. The power of this thing is crazy. I have no more words to say.
I'm pretty happy that moltres and pangoro are being suspected as they are unhealthy for the tier.
As far as moltres is concerned, its life orb set is the most broken as it punishes stall very badly. (http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ru-33942). This replay shows how badly stall is punished by life orb moltres. Thanks to its great special attack + life orb boost, its very hard for the opposing mon to switch in and also one other problem is, it has access to roost, this makes even harder for stall to deal with moltres. Choice scarf moltres is a little weak to stall as it gets locked into one move but against offensive teams, it does extremely well. Agreed that it has a 4× weakness to stealth rock but they don't threaten moltres that much as stealth rocks can be removed by defog and moltres can roost to regain health. Every playstyle is threatened by moltres.
Pangoro is also unhealthy for the tier. Its pretty much impossible for every mon to switch in vs its choice band set thanks to its dangerous STAB moves and high attack. Its swords dance set gives a stall teams a hard time as it has enough speed to outspeed mons used on stall teams and with that it has the ability mold breaker, which means that quagsire's unaware won't save it. Even vs offensive teams, pangoro is a beast, ohko'ing mons easily by a single choice banded knock off.
The meta would be great if pangoro and moltress got banned.
I'm totally pro ban, as far as Pangoro is concerned. That Pokemon has almost perfect Coverage in it's stabs and the ability to run a poison Move to hit Fairies, massive attack, decent bulk, awesome abilities and is allowed in a metagame, where a lot of slow and bulky walls are. Look at this, and the only thing being contraban is, that faster Pokemon do have the possibilty to oneshot it, but even those simply have a hard time coming in, and it's not that hard to switch pangoro out and then back in, when let's say amoonguss is being send out again. man I'd be so glad to see this pokemon go, we might have a fun ru again.
Pangoro is a pokemon, that prevents me from using certain walls, because they allow Pangoro to get off a free hit, and that is something I don't want to, since there is close to nothing that can take a hit. How can a pokemon that makes balanced and stall close to unviable be a good thing? ):
ugh i was late to the posting party almost everything is said already *_*
either way I couldn't be more pro ban on both suspects. They are both over-centralizing to such a degree and limits teambuilding to a point where ive made 4 offensive teams and after tests and tweaks they all end up looking the same on the whole. Pangoro forces you to only be able to use a select few walls without them needing significant support due to how fucking strong it is. It can also run multiple sets (band and SD) both of which are countered differently and if you mispredict which set it's bringing you could be in for a world of hurt.
Moltres is just as centralizing but many people see it as ok because of stealth rock and using inaccurate stabs on the scarf set but honestly I think that's BS. Hazard removal exists for a reason and Moltres's LO set and SubRoost set both run Roost to mitigate stealth rock weakness and Scarf runs Flamethrower if it needs a reliable move to clean. The fact that Moltres can ruin its switch ins for the scarf set with a couple life orb boosted hits or crippling key walls with toxic and beating them with subroost make it far too unhealthy for this meta. Obv we know how good scarf is due to u-turn and it's amazing speed and passable power.
Pangoro- Ban
Even though I love Pangoro, it needs to go. It's like the physical Dragagle. (Yes, i said that.) Ever since the move tutors, it got so much coverage. If you run AV, you can easily live a special hit and dish out all the damage. If Choice Banded, it can dish out more damage than AV and easily take out Golbat after crippling it. Speaking of Golbat, one of the two Eviolite users in RU, Pangoro can cripple it with Knock Off and than Ice Punch. You can even run SD and Lum or Life Orb. This is possibly one of the most broken things in RU and needs to go.
Moltres- Ban
This was a close call. Moltres can be bad if you do not have reliable hazard removal. But it's good qualities definitely outweigh it's huge Stealth Rock weakness. It can kill most of it's threats, and can even work on a rain team with Hurricane. Fire Blast and Hurricane/Air Slash are amazing, and HP Grass can kill or 2HKO threats like Gastrodon and Rhyperior. In it's final slot, you can run Sunny Day for a SolarBeam setup. You can also run SubRoost. Also, Moltres can be a huge wallbreaker. It checks many tier threats and stallers like Reckless Emboar, Amoonguss, Meleotta-P, Escav, Pangoro, and many more. Even though Slowking stops it in it's tracks most of the time, with support, it can sweep or wall easily.
After spamming Ho-Oh in Ubers (though it does have Regen, still) and now Moltres, I can pretty safely say that having a 4x SR weakness is not a huge deal compared to how good a Pokemon actually is. Besides, it's pretty easy to keep hazards off the field. Sure accuracy sucks, but if literally the only way you can win is by hitting every Fire Blast or Hurricane then your team needs some re-examining. Of course, if you lose your main sweeper (note: do not use the term "win condition" here, it is incorrect) to a bad situation, it may come down to hitting everything, but your initial plan should never be based on doing so because then you are focusing on an unreliable victory. Basically I'm saying the low accuracy doesn't really take away from Moltres's strength.
I wanted to remind you that Sturdy Tyrunt and Rock Head Tyrantrum are now released. http://serebii.net/
Tyrantrum is a terryfing wallbreaker, and, at least in theory, it works a charm with Pangoro, as they break down each other counters and checks rather easily.
I'll probably post my thoughts on Moltres and Pangoro later, but I have been trying out Rock Head Tyrantrum, both a CB set and an LO set with Rock Polish, and this thing is absolutely incredible. Its Head Smash, boosted by either CB or LO, is absolutely terrifyingly powerful, and it hits so hard even resists like Bronzong are dented heavily. This thing's sheer power is just incredible. Basically, once Tyrantrum gets in safely, something is going to go down. With two powerful STABs in Head Smash and Outrage, Tyrantrum is absurd as a wallbreaker, and it sweeps extremely well too, as it can set up on current suspect Moltres and then wreck stuff once its counters are gone. It can also take advantage of Fletchinder to a decent extent and just overall packs insane power, and EQ is nice to hit incoming Cobalion. It's slow, but I find it to be a lot like Aggron from BW RU: it's kind of hard to get in, but once it does get in, it can do a lot of damage. It has good physical bulk in general and its high power is great.
Rock Head Tyrantrum will probably need more time to be played in the RU metagame but right now I think it's shaping up to be a new top tier threat. It's basically a reliving of BW RU with good old Aggron. Tyrantrum is manly too so yeah.
after playing a decent with and against both panda and moltres, i have to go with ban for both of them.
pangoro w/ CB is legit a 2hko at minimum if not an OHKO, and it's SD set pretty much kills everything, and even choice scarf isn't so bad on it, being able to still deal a hell of a lot. Ban
now moltres is a bit of a different story. while moltres isnt like panda where it legit kills everything, moltres has the ability to run so many sets that there isnt one very solid check. for example, moltres's choice scarf set is generally handled by special walls (i.e. cress, AV users), but those mons are able to be beaten by moltres's subtoxic set. and like wise, it's other sets may not be able to beat other fast mons, but with choice scarf, anything that would have originally be able to beat moltres, is not able to beat it. the amount of solid checks for moltres are quite limited, and really, it's 4x SR weakness is honestly the only thing imo that doesnt make moltres down right broken.
honestly, these two are just too damn good, with panda wrecking everything, and moltres has all the tools it needs to beat it's different varities of checks.
I have to agree with most people on Firebird, even though at first, a pokemon with a x4 weakness looks kinda bad, tres can be quite versatile. I'd be ok with a ban, but I wouldn't mind if it stayed.
On the other hand, Pangoro is kind of an obvious vote (again, there are plenty of reasons with the comments above about his superb stall breaking potential and much more), so bangoro all the way!
Pangoro is a real threat to most if not all teams. As said by many others, it hits damn hard. Either a CB set or a SD sets puts in so much work on teams. Pangoro having Drain Punch makes it harder to take down and some of the would be checks like Aromatisse are wrecked by Gunk Shot. Even though it has lackluster speed of 58, it still manages to find a way to safely switch in and deck something since most of the tier is bulky. I've even seen a TR team that used Pangoro to devastating effect with Reuniclus, and I really think the RU metagame would be much better without the panda. I'm thinking Ban.
Alright so here are my thoughts on the fire bird. With Mega Pidgeot gone, Moltres is back as the premier bird spamming its Hurricanes and Fire Blasts. The Choice Scarf set is deadly to a lot of offensive teams as well as to some defensive teams. However, even defensive teams can struggle against Moltres for its defensive set is still great in the meta. I've been so far using defensive Moltres rather than offensive as my team greatly appreciates it more as it puts in more work. It can get off a Toxic on things like Jellicent, Quagsire, Alomomola, Gastrodon, and even Slowking while being to outstall them thanks to a combination of Substitute to block incoming status from the former mons while using its ability Pressure to PP stall in conjunction with Roost to get rid of the damage. While people argue that the 4x weakness to SR is a major hindrance, most of the time it's normally bypassed with support from a hazard remover or even just wish passing onto weaker hits if you use the bulky variant. Sometimes you just ignore the SR altogether if you're offensive and just clean up the opponent anyway. I wasn't too sure since Moltres does have its share of checks, but the amount of work it puts on teams is a tad much so I believe it warrants a Ban as well.
Tyrantrum @ Choice Band
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Head Smash
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang / Crunch
So yeah, Tyrantrum got Rock Head today. And boy is it scary now. While the Dragon Dance and Choice Scarf sets certailnly like a more poweful primary STAB, I think the Choice Band set is easily the most terrifying. According to the Honkalculator, there is almost nothing that can safely switch into this monster: The only things that really can are physically defensive Steelix and Doublade, both of which can only switch in once and are easy to wear down. Not only does it hit incredibly hard, it's bulky and has a suprisingly nice typing defensively, meaning it can take random priority moves and can avoid being revenged killed by mons such as Jolteon and Scarf Moltres.
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 120 HP / 136 Def Alomomola: 393-463 (78.4 - 92.4%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 152+ Def Cresselia: 262-310 (59 - 69.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hitmontop: 153-181 (50.3 - 59.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Steelix: 164-194 (46.3 - 54.8%) -- 85.9% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Bonus:
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Gligar: 178-211 (53.4 - 63.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Ok so I haven't really ladder yet with my RU team that I made but I am going to input my thoughts beforehand so I can say what I need about them.
Pangoro: This thing is a major threat that got buffed with the release of ORAS tutors, gaining a recovery move in Drain Punch, Gen 6 Dark Spam Move (Knock Off), and a great coverage move in Gunk Shot to beat the Fairies that were plaguing it in XY. The fact that it can wallbreak super easily with CB or break Stall thanks to Lum + SD is pretty scary as well. I believe that due to the ORAS tutors, Pangoro has became the threat everyone wanted it to be in XY. I am leaning towards ban but I cannot say until I play the meta.
Moltres: This thing reminds me of Jirachi in UU in that is has so many viable sets with each set having different checks and counters that it is hard to find a reliable counter to all sets. While I do believe this thing needs hazard removal to be completely effective, it isn't that hard to get rid of hazards from what I can tell in RU thanks to a lot of offensive mons who can spin or Defog while also hitting hard against Pokemon it may not want to spin on (ex. Shiftry and Kabutops). I am truly on the fence about this guy because while it has many viable sets, it also has to worry about keeping the team's spinner or Defogger alive to get rid of rocks otherwise it isn't as effective (especially if Moltres is lacking Roost). I am currently abstaining on this mon until I play the meta to see just how much of a threat it truly may or may not be.
After getting reqs I am leaning towards Ban on both suspects. Pangoro is an easy decision to make, as it does huge damage to all playstyles and makes stall almost inviable. It is impossible to play around in many situations and extremely difficult to build around. It's lack of ways to be played around warrants a ban.
As for Moltres, this one is obviously not as clear cut. Everyone knows what this does, but I'll say that I feel the amount of preparation that is required to have any hope of handling specifically Moltres, especially on more offensive teams, puts too much constraint on teambuilding in the current meta. For that reason I feel a ban would be beneficial to the tier.
Pangoro:
I was first a little surprised that pangoro was up for suspect, what with around 8 fighting types in the tier that can handle it (The one thing hitmonchan checks) and a few good fairies like aromatisse, togetic, and slurpuff. However, after further inspection, Pangoro is very strong regardless. Thanks to UU for getting rid of the biggest physical wall we have in gligar, which normally stopped Pangoro. Now, there is one pokemon that I would say walls/counters Pangoro: Togetic (physically defensive is best). There are some offensive checks such as slurpuff, thee hitmons, other pangoros, moltres, and fletchinder, but most of those pokes would rather not switch in to a knock off or drain punch. Not to mention that giant walls like Cress and Cofagrigus can be felled easily by a knock off (unless cress outspeeds with moonblast). Pangoro is out of control in Ru, and with only one true counter, I say Ban.
Moltres:
While Pangoro benefits from gligar gone, Moltres suffers without it. Yes, I will admit that Moltres is fast and powerful with a lot of versatility in sweeping and wallbreaking, but it isn't broken enough to leave Ru. Without Gligar, moltres lacks the partner to get rid of rocks easily. Moltres is allergic to stealth rocks, which are gaining in popularity ever since the tier shift in February, and it has to take 50% every time switching in. Fire blast and hurricane are powerful moves, but each have shoddy accuracy, not guaranteed to hit every time. Plus, bulky water, rock and electric types can deal with moltres pretty well, mostly av eel, lanturn, regirock (av or not), and tyrantrum. While hp grass is run on almost all moltres, the scarf set, which is more common, is now locked into it and a safe switch can be provided, for example registeel who can set up rocks in its face, and cripple it with toxic or thunder wave. The life orb set, which gives it more power and versatility, is worn down easily, regardless of roost. This set is not as fast as the scarf set, and can be destroyed by switching into resisted hits. Pokemon like scarf emboar of all pokemon can beat lo moltres 1 on 1 after switching into a fire blast or hp grass. And for those who say agility life orb is the best of both worlds, that means Moltres can't run both roost and hp grass on the same set, moves that moltres needs to have on the life orb set to avoid being walled by every water and rock type in the tier. This IS NOT Mega Pidgeot, guys. Unlike mega pidgeot, it misses its hurricane and fire blast, it has no way to boost reliably and effectively (I say that since no one in their right mind would use ancient power moltres), and no longer has the teammates like gligar and dragalge to stop whatever stops moltres, or, in the case of gligar, remove stealth rocks. This is an easy No Ban for me.
I hope the rest of the Ru community agrees with me and decides to vote accordingly. I feel like this is a healthy suspect as it gives an example of two great wallbreakers, each a staple in Ru, where one is broken and the other is balanced. In summation, Bangoro and keep Moltres. Let's have this resonate loudly during testing, for we can't let Ru wither like it has during ORAS. If you have any questions/comments/concerns about my post, feel free to reply; I will check daily to see what you think. Please be level-headed and nice, it's alright to criticize me, just do so respectfully. Thank You. With that said, Happy Battling. Go RU!!!
going to keep this short because spirit said pretty much everything i wanted to. Pangoro is just stupid. It has close to zero switch ins (i never got really troubled by it in this suspect because i ran defensive Qwilfish+Cobalion, which is the closest thing to a defensive answer you can get) and it makes Knock Off more crippling than it should be considering how it rapes Knock Off absorbers such as Steelix and Audino with surprising ease. Its speed troubles it in matchups against offense to an extent but the fact that SO MANY bulky pokemon are forced to waste a lot of their defensive EVs in order to outspeed and not get completely dumped by it (see Cresselia, Golbat, SubCM Meloetta, Braviary, etc.). ban
Moltres' usefulness might be understated now that after months the metagame has adapted to it but the lack of reliable answers that can fit in offensive teams (AV Kabutops and???) to check JUST the Choice Scarf set is probably what makes this Pokemon broken. In addition to that the Life Orb set has RIDICOLOUS wallbreaking potential 2HKOing pretty much everything outside of Specially Defensive Cresselia (and a third set beats it :/). so this should definitely be banned too.
and lets get tyrantrum out of the tier too asap :]
Pangoro is absolutely ridiculous; testing out alternatives to Band and SD made me realize that teams often have a pokemon ready to dump to get rid of this monster, which is absolutely not healthy for the meta. The only thing I really learned is that sub bulk up is really not good in comparison but is still a monster. It singlehandledly makes stall almost impossible to use, and some minor bulk investment mean stall's few, rare answers can't even KO anymore, and since they're running speed to get the edge on you at max, 252 jolly isn't even necessary. BAN
Moltres is iffier, but I think that's just in comparision; Life Orb, Sunny Day, Subtoxic and Scarf are all monsters and you can't possibly prepare for all four. Missing isn't balance. Rocks keep it in check, but the fact that it has very good synergy with two decent offensive spinners - Kabutops and Hitmonlee - and alright synergy with the only real offensive defogger - Shiftry - means it's not as hard to keep rocks gone as is thought. Even at 50%, Moltres can take a hit with it's alright defensive typing and decent bulk; its not as completely helpless to rocks as people have said, but it's also not completely immune to them. BAN
Pangoro: Honestly, Pangoro is just disgusting. The ORAS tutors took a Pokemon that was often overlooked, and turned it into stall's worst nightmare. You don't have to put much thought into tossing it onto a team as it would never really hinder any build because it is JUST THAT GOOD. This thing really doesn't have any counters that can outlast its constant beatings, even with a great wish passer like alomomola in the tier to help keep your "counters" going. Every Pokemon that attempts to switch in will at least take a decent chunk from one of its coverage moves, and while I must admit it does have checks, these checks are hindering themselves by running speed evs and are less efficient when it comes to their actual role outside of Pangoro. In the current metagame, which I find to be somewhat slow and bulky, Pangoro is just extremely healthy and should be BANNED
Moltres: Moltres is an odd one to say the least. Its set has such a big part in how you play against it, because they perform so differently. Scarf moltres is hell for offensive teams to deal with, useful from the beginning to late game, whether its gaining momentum through turning, or cleaning up late game. Then there's lo moltres, which is honestly just hell to switch in to, to the point where stall has used Pokemon such as regirock, only helping prove the case that moltres is an unhealthy Pokemon in the RU metagame. Some might say huge weakness to rocks spells doom for Moltres, but Moltres is still able to perform its role since there are enough hazard removers in ru that partner well with it, and for these reasons I find Moltres to be unhealthy for the tier. Moltres should be BANNED
Might as well post my thoughts seeing as how I just started getting into this tier again and have been playing quite a bit lately.
I didn't even need to play more than a few matches to know just how dumb Pangoro was. It may have its share of checks, but it literally has zero switch-ins outside of niche shit and playing around it. Unlike Moltres, pretty much all of its sets are consistently good against almost every playstyle, and there really isn't anyway to prepare enough for this thing, regardless of how many checks you carry. SD Lum completely rapes stall teams and common balance cores, while other sets such as CB also do a number to bulkier teams but against offense every time it gets a free switch-in something is going to die. Parting Shot gives it momentum as well, so even if for some reason spamming Knock Off is not the optimal play, you can just Parting Shot out on a predicted switch and send something in basically for free, while potentially giving it a free set up opportunity as well. It also requires like zero support to be effective. Even Moltres needs shit like hazard control and sometimes Pursuit support in order to fuck Slowking, but Pangoro can do whatever the hell it wants without really needing any kind of outside support. There is absolutely nothing healthy about this thing. It's too strong, requires hardly any team support to be effective, limits team building, and can single handedly tear apart teams on its own. Ban the fuck out of this thing.
Moltres is definitely more of a controversial suspect. While it does require more support than Pangoro to be very devastating, the opportunity cost is well worth it. It's not terribly hard to remove hazards as well, seeing as how with just a bit of pressuring the opponent, the use of Taunt, and decently viable spinners/defoggers are well worth using in order to make Moltres more useful. Specs and LO sets hit extremely hard and lack very reliable switch-ins outside of Slowking, but they're pretty easy to check. The Scarf set on the other hand is very difficult for more offensive teams to check, seeing as how most people are relying on the subpar AV Kabutops to do the job for them. Bulkier teams have very little trouble dealing with the Scarf set, but offensive teams have very little for it, and most of the shit that they do carry for it are worn down easily or can be taken advantage of (AV Tops has no recovery, Slowking is Pursuit trapped etc). It's not like Specs and LO are a complete liability against offense either, because if it gets a free switch into something, nothing is going to want to be taking a Specs Fire Blast/Hurricane while LO variants usually carry HP Grass so AV Tops and specially defensive Rhyperior are no longer reliable answers to it. SubRoost variants can also be a bitch to balance teams because it's able to cripple common switch-ins such as Slowking, SpD Mola, and Gastrodon with Toxic. Yes Moltres is pretty easy to overwhelm, yes SR can be a bitch even though hazards aren't too difficult to remove, and yes some of its sets have good/bad matchups, but overall, Moltres' limits the fuck out of team building and each one of its sets can be a terror to respected team builds. While I don't think Moltres is nearly as ban worthy as many of the other suspects before it, I still think Banning it is the way to go.
Currently in the process of laddering (whoever it is that has that team with random Assault Vests is the best person on the ladder btw). Hadn't played since the previous suspect ended but it didn't take long to realize that building a team with a switch-in for Pangoro is nearly, if not completely, impossible. Once that thing gets in against something it immediately threatens, it becomes a matter of choosing what to let die or hoping you "predicted" their move correctly. Fighting and Dark make for a fantastic STAB combo and Knock Off just makes it that much better. Everything worth saying about Pangoro has already been said though, I don't think there's much to add to the "ban Pangoro" side.
As for Moltres I'm a little surprised there hasn't been a lot of talk on the anti-ban side. I guess more people have developed their "on the fence" opinion towards the ban side since then, and I'm the same. It's been around for as long as I've watched the tier and the cries for a suspect test on it have probably been longer. As long as I've played the tier I've been used to the idea of trying to cover Moltres, but I've always felt that the number of answers for it have been relatively limited. I've used AV Slowking too many times solely because it's a Moltres switch-in, and while it's given some cool things like Lanturn some relevance I feel it's put a lot of strain on teambuilding for too long. The fact that it's got vastly different sets that have different checks and counters just make it a pain to deal with. It's not as blatantly absurd as some of the other things this tier has seen, but I'm definitely leaning towards ban on Moltres.
On a similar note Tyrantrum is a jerk and I love/hate it.
Amidst all this suspect chaos, Snow Warning Aurorus is getting released next month.
Be prepared for it having absolutely 0 impact upon the tier. ... I guess it could be an alternate hail setter.
Pangoro: My goodness... if you ever wanted to see a broken mon, you've found one. There isn't much that I can say about Pangoro that hasn't already been said. Thanks to its new toys in Drain Punch, Gunk Shot and Knock Off, it has essentially zero switch-ins. Of course, you can always try and bring in a Pangoro check on prediction, but if you mispredict, your switch-in will probably die. Even if you predict right, you'll still lose your item, let Pangoro get healthier, or possibly get poisoned, thus killing your momentum. Perhaps the only thing that can safely switch into Panda is Alomomola, and even then that's pushing it a bit. Panda is also somewhat frail and can be revenge killed by a fast, powerful mon such as Virizion fairly easily, similar to how Dragalge had some offensive checks in RU, but that was not reason enough to keep Dragalge around, so it shouldn't be enough to keep Panda here either. In conclusion, Pangoro is broken as fuck and deserves a ban, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it banned unanimously.
Moltres: I was not sure about Moltres at first, but after using it on the ladder quite often, I believe it has to be banned. Granted, using a suspect on the ladder is not necessarily the best way to determine whether said suspect is broken or not. Nonetheless, Moltres has almost zero switch-ins, similarly to Pangoro. It's an incredible wallbreaker that can smash much of the A+ through A- ranked Pokemon with little to no effort. When a mon can sweep such a significant portion of the metagame, it may be broken or simply overcentralizing, but I feel Moltres lands more on the broken side. Who knew that HP Grass could be the cherry on top, wrecking Rhyperior and Kabutops? The arguments that I can see on the anti-ban side are Moltres's Stealth Rock weakness, and that it has some reliable defensive checks such as Cresselia, Slowking, and Eelektross, as well as offensive checks such as Jolteon and Tyrantrum. However, whether a mon has viable checks and counters is NEVER the sole reason for determining its brokenness. Moreover, Moltres can simply Roost away the Stealth Rock damage depending on the set it's running. Thus, Moltres isn't as broken as Pangoro, but it's pretty overpowering in RU and it would be better for the tier if it were to leave.
I find both Pangoro and Moltres to be underwhelming pokemon.
Pangoro suffers from numerous problems including but not limited to: a bad speed stat, no priority, vulnerability to hazards and chip damage, few resistances (dark, psychic, and ghost, all of which are usually paired with fairy or fighting coverage, and rock which is uncommon and paired with highly damaging secondary stab or SE coverage in most cases), and it doesn't have enough bulk to switch into neutral attacks and in a lot of scenarios it can't switch into resisted attacks either. Once in, it's still not that scary in my opinion. Defensive checks exist; no you can't counter every set with one pokemon, but that's true for other pokemon. With that said, pivoting to Alomomola, Qwilfish or Tangrowth is a pretty effective strategy for scouting its set. I'm using Adamant Pangoro calcs, even though Jolly is the better nature to show that it doesn't make a difference.
252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Pangoro Hammer Arm vs. 120 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 259-306 (51.6 - 61%)
252+ Atk Choice Band Pangoro Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 120 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 210-247 (41.9 - 49.3%)
252+ Atk Choice Band Pangoro Knock Off vs. 120 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 141-166 (28.1 - 33.1%)
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Pangoro Hammer Arm vs. 248 HP / 136+ Def Qwilfish: 102-120 (30.6 - 36%)
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Pangoro Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 136+ Def Qwilfish: 165-195 (49.5 - 58.5%)
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Pangoro Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 136+ Def Qwilfish: 226-268 (67.8 - 80.4%)
252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Pangoro Hammer Arm vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 193-228 (47.8 - 56.5%)
252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Pangoro Drain Punch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 144-171 (35.7 - 42.4%)
252+ Atk Choice Band Pangoro Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 156-184 (38.7 - 45.6%)
No one runs earthquake, but whatever. All of them can switch in, scout the set, and in Mola and Tangrowth's case switch out to an immunity or a resist (there are many; Doublade, Slowking, Qwilfish, Cresselia and Golbat are all very solid fighting resists (there's tons more). Cobalion, Virizion, Drapion, and to a lesser extent Emboar all don't really mind losing their items. The initial pivot works too as knock off is really weak after the first use.) or pass a wish/click leaf storm (or focus blast, knock off, sleep powder, stun spore... so many good options) and pick up Regenerator. Qwilfish can pivot out to a resist like the above, or use pain split to heal off the damage and chunk panda pretty hard, or set up hazards (harder to clear with no gligars!), or press scald because op. These aren't the only switches, of course. PDef Golbat is a pretty good switch to scout the set, as it gives 0 fucks about fighting stab and can manage without an eviolite (though it sucks, for sure). Running protect on defensive pokemon like Rhyperior is a viable option too.
As for checking SD Panda with a defensive team, keeping tspikes up so you blow its Lum Berry without using a turn is a useful strategy. If it has Leftovers then you can get status on it (not paralysis) and stall it reasonably effectively, before killing it with super-effective attacks. If it uses substitute golbat just flat out kills it through the sub due to infiltrator:
0 Atk Golbat Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Pangoro: 264-312 (79.5 - 93.9%)
SD Pangoro is a very matchup reliant set, and it doesn't really do anything vs offense who can ko it and should outspeed it with nearly everything, and so using it is at best a big risk. It is threatening vs stall, but stall still has many tools to deal with it. Fairy-types can switch safely into both stabs at least once. Hitmontop can switch into panda and force it out regardless of set. Dugtrio can revenge kill Pangoro extremely easily,
252 Atk Choice Band Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Pangoro: 217-256 (65.3 - 77.1%)
and limits Pangoro in almost all cases to only one kill at best (I'm not saying it always gets a kill, just that it almost never can do better vs a Dugtrio). Cresselia can KO with moonblast after minimal chip damage and easily run enough speed (124 EVs) to creep Jolly Pangoro. And defensive teams should probably be utilizing spikes to get residual damage.
Basically, if you use 6 pokemon that are slower than panda you're going to lose to SD Pangoro. Don't use 6 pokemon that are slower than Pangoro.
If anyone wants me to go into detail about why Pangoro is ineffective vs offense, let me know, but I've spent a lot of time on half my post and I don't see how an offensive team could ever give up more than one kill to a Pangoro (Nice! You traded kills! OP pokemon!), and it cannot safely switch into anything offense runs (maybe a choiced Meloetta Psychic or Shadow Ball?? It gets nuked by Hyper Voice or Focus Blast so it's at best a risk). Anything remotely offensive (I guess except Drapion. Poison Jab only does about 40%.) can do 50-60% minimum to Pangoro so once it gets chunked it's effectively death fodder. Many pokemon can OHKO it, Please correct me on this if I'm wrong but I don't think I am. Oh and balance uses a combination of the concepts stall and offense uses (pivots + not being outsped by Pangoro). If all else fails, you can 50/50 it and either pick up a Justified boost with Cobalion/Virizion or a free CM with Sigilyph or Uxie or whatever CM Psychic you felt like using that day, there's a billion of em. Most of them murder Pangoro with coverage so it can't stay in and Knock Off if non-choiced/come right back in and Knock Off for choiced.
Pangoro on paper can deal a lot of damage, but in practice it can't safely deal that damage in a majority of scenarios. It isn't even close to broken. No Ban.
I'll edit in my Moltres reasoning later today probably, I already spent a lot of time writing about panda. I feel less strongly about Moltres than Pangoro though. I mostly think that it's predictable and powerful enough that the meta is fairly centralized against it, and that a lot of its power comes from having to respect the damage of the Life Orb set and the speed of the Choice Scarf set, and that once it reveals its item it's pretty simple to handle. Assault Vests are a powerful tool for checking Moltres. Atm I think it's pretty stupid to play against but not overpowering, and I'd probably Abstain. Might change my opinion while writing though.
Oh and I'll throw out there that Exploud is the real brokenmon in this meta. It actually has no counters, lol.
So after getting reqs on suspect ladder and playing a decent amount of games, I thought I would post my thoughts as well.
Pangoro: As most other people have said, Pangoro is broken. It pretty much can make stall unviable as a playstyle, and it can simply run through entire stall teams with SD + Lum. It is not that easy to wear down, considering Drain Punch can keep it healthy most of the match. It is somewhat slow, but this can be easily remedied with a little support such as paralysis or Sticky Web. Obviously it is extremely centralizing, as most Golbats now run enough speed to get off the Brave Bird first on Pangoro. Although it completely killed stall, Offense also has some problems with Pangoro. In my experience, once again paralysis support could eventually lead to Pangoro sweeps, or Pangoro just completely breaking the defensive cores until another teammate could follow it up. On the other hand, if Pangoro just came in for free, which isn't hard to do against a choice locked mon, something was going to die. Some Trick Room teams also utilized Pangoro as a TR attacker, and it could work devastatingly well against offense. While it is slow and still somewhat easy to revenge, every time it comes in, something was getting crippled. This meant as long as the Pangoro teams had a decent defensive backbone that could take the hits and then get Pangoro back in later, they could still win the match even if they mispredicted a bit. (yeah you can kinda tell i was using zdrup's team by now) Anyways Pangoro is broken and i'm just repeated what others have said many times...BANGORO
Moltres: Moltres does not have the ability to singlehandedly destroy playstyles like Pangoro, but it was still annoying to face on my ladder run. With stall basically dead thanks to Pangoro, Moltres ran through many teams. I usually checked Moltres with Slowking, but even this was not enough on (toxic) spikestacking teams and also could be played around with stuff like U-turn + Pursuit. Which brings me to my next point, it is extremely versatile. It can run Choice Specs, Scarf, Life Orb, or even SubToxic to get around its checks. There are many Defoggers that complement Moltres well, such as Skuntank and Pangoro, minimizing the 4x SR weakness(although roost also can negate it). In a similar vein as Pangoro, Moltres fares well against many playstyles, such as Scarf vs Offense and Specs vs Stall. Although it does have bad accuracy on many of its moves, you cannot count on this. While not as hard to check as Pangoro, it is much more versatile, meaning it can get past almost all of its checks with the right set. So while not as clear cut as Pangoro, I think we should still Ban Moltres.
Now time for my thoughts.
