Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
All this is is just team support. That doesn't mean they are not checks/counters. You are basically saying that latios or latias or anything else weak to pursuit can not be a counter/check to any pokemon because they can be pursuit trapped.
The same goes for the "choose your check/counter" argument. Team support shouldn't be used when discussing pokemon's checks and counters.
The issue isn't "Team Support can remove them, therefore they are not counters". The issue is that Landorus requires such minimal support to remove his only surefire answers to the point one Pokemon can deal with them as well as a handful of other soft answers.
Take Keldeo, another S-Rank, for example. Keldeo needs Pursuit trapping to remove bulky Psychics, but he also can't stay in long without removing/severely weakening at least some of the following
- Bulky Grass types (Venusaur, Amoongus)
- Bulky Waters
- Birdspam/Talonflame
- Altaria
- Azumarill
- Thundurus
- Tornadus
- Manectric
- Celebi
- Serperior
Not everything here can be covered in a single teamslot necessarily, so Keldeo needs to be part of a core to be at max effectiveness. Landorus, on the other hand, can break through most teams lacking the above answers on his own if need be, or requires just some Pursuit Trapper if you insist on being ready for his hard counters.
Also worth noting is that the mons I listed for Keldeo can be on a variety of playstyles, whereas Cresselia is basically Stall exclusive and Mega Latias is at best a Balance mon rather than Offense.
Landorus is a very good pokemon, you know the reasons why is so good, his sheer power lets him 2HKO nearly everything and his movepool lets him being a setup sweeper with rock polish vs offense or calm mind vs defensive playstile or a wallbreaker or even an hazard setter for offensive playstiles with stealth rock and his ability to force a lot of switch
He has some flaws, like any other pokemon, the not so high speed and the weakness to some priorities, like ice shard and aqua jet make him revengekillable
Naturally, he have his checks, but for everyone, Landorus has a move to destroy them and make them useless for stopping him, plus his needs very little support, he only needs a pursuit trapper and someone thats beats the counter for his set, making him difficult to counter and resulting in the need of use more than one check or being taken out by his 4th move and the need to scout his set before sending a pokemon that can be damaged by coverage moves
Let's talk about how his presence influence the metagame, the lack of checks that can completely wall him and the need of put multiple checks makes difficult to build a team and he's overcentralizing
So, my opinion for the suspect is ban
All this is is just team support. That doesn't mean they are not checks/counters. You are basically saying that latios or latias or anything else weak to pursuit can not be a counter/check to any pokemon because they can be pursuit trapped.
The same goes for the "choose your check/counter" argument. Team support shouldn't be used when discussing pokemon's checks and counters.
good point, no pursuit trapped mon IS a counter to anything
i'm not kidding, there's a reason that I won't use pursuit-weak pokemon on any stall team-if your opponent can just trap your 'counter', what did that counter accomplish? (note that, say, Bp celebi or Mew with WoW aren't too pursuit weak to be usable on stall, but something like, idk, defensive latias might be, though it's kind of bad anyhow.)
when you consider that Landorus has a lot of counters and checks that are pursuitable, and that it even has u-turn to facilitate the trapping (though it's not used much), you bet your ass that i'm not depending on a pursuit-weak mon to halt lando-i's rampage
my thoughts on the suspect: suspect ladder is fun, but i really didn't get to experience Landorus meta and I wish that i had been more active earlier...i guess there's no way for me to make up for that now. I'd appreciate if the OU ladder went back up for this reason however
also MikeDawg respect for fighting the good fight and pointing out alternate sets that-while not nearly as good as the original-are still quite powerful. it's a shame that people tend to focus on how those sets aren't as good, instead of realizing the scope of the mon's power (i don't recall much debate over Sand vs Sheer force though tbh, sheer force lando came in a flash and took sand force out of the equation real quick). remember kids: scarf lando-i is the original scarf lando-t.
finally, since this is a suspect thread : *common fallacy* is false because of *common rebuttal to fallacy* can we please get back to discussing the suspect? (Just speaking personally, I wish there was a better way to respond to *common fallacy* without putting it in the actual thread; it's not even like it deters *common fallacy* from being posted in 2 pages)
edit: to be honest I wasn't too forums active during that specific period, but I definitely recall a very quick changeover from sand force to sheer force in terms of overall usage; that said it was still theoretically relevant so good on them, and you (non-sarcastically)
tehy the sand/sheer was at the very beginning of "should we suspect lando?" Lots of unpredictability arguments compared to too-strong ones, especially relative to now.
I think that this was immediately after it was discovered that sand force was accidentally doing 1.5x damage instead of 1.3.
You are correct that sheer force (and the subsequent "ban u-turn" arguments) dominated soon after, but it's definitely a point worth mentioning given that it was quite a prevelent one before, albeit a premptive one.
All this is is just team support. That doesn't mean they are not checks/counters. You are basically saying that latios or latias or anything else weak to pursuit can not be a counter/check to any pokemon because they can be pursuit trapped.
The same goes for the "choose your check/counter" argument. Team support shouldn't be used when discussing pokemon's checks and counters.
the whole argument of "just team support" is reminiscent of excadrill/thundurus going uber in bw. whatever drill couldn't beat, thundy smacked and vice versa. it's not an entirely new concept of banning a mon that requires a certain level of team support (not to say that lando NEEDS pursuit partners/u-turn, but hopefully you get what i mean).
There are a number of wallbreakers in the meta which have next to no counters. those are keldeo (burn counters, pair with ttar), charizard x (dd/wow), m-gard (spam voice, can taunt special walls), nplot thund, mega gross and lando-i. Im not saying they are all broken, i'm just saying you can slap these pokemon on your team and your opponent will likely have 1 okay switch (maybe 2 for keldeo), every other pokemon switching plays the prediction game. lando-i is biggest culprit because of its sheer power with no recoil. sheer force give such a heavy boost to not only earth power but landos special coverage moves. it just does too much damage with too many different moves. its like greninja except trades 20 speed for 30 spa. ban
I will go ignoring the fact that you are already trying to discredit anti-ban side caricaturing their agruments, I could do the same by just shitposting "LOL pro-ban side are so weak they just wanna ban a mon they can't kill while it's easy as fuck" but I won't
Poeple are talking about 4 MSS because Landorus-I actually needs to make a choice to kill his checks/counters :
Latias-Mega : Landorus-I has no way to win 1v1.
Cresselia : same as above.
Mandibuzz : same as above.
Lati@s : Landorus-I needs U-Turn / Knock Off.
Zapdos : Landorus-I needs Rock Slide.
sDef Talonflame : same as above.
sDef Charizard-Y : same as above.
sDef Gyarados : same as above.
AV Tornadus-T : same as above.
Gengar : Landorus-I needs Psychic / Knock Off.
If you take into account Landorus-I always run Earth Power / Focus Blast / Sludge Wave, you see there is a 4MSS.
I know team support required to beat them is pretty small (scarftar beat a lot of them for example), but these mons also have team support, so "SR weakness" is not a good point imo.
And anyway, if you ban a mon because it is able to beat his checks/counters, then you have to ban every dragoons and even more.
Moreover, Landorus-I is "slow", 101 BS speed isnt huge, it's outspeed'd by a plethora or threats in the metagame (Manectric, Lopunny, Thundurus, Keldeo,...), and it's not mentioning all the priority users (Azumarill, Scizor, Weavile,...) if you are concerned by RP.
All in all, to me Landorus-I just seems to be a pretty good mon for Offensive team, like Greninja was, without the speed tiers that made made Greninja broken.
lol "Landorus-I needs 5 moves to be effective" *lists 7 counters all beaten by rock slide*. Seems to be you can run Rock slide on Landorus-I to be a pretty darn effective lure in metagame, ground, rock, ice coverage is unresisted regardless. Mandibuzz is also beaten by rock slide after rocks mate
That's another thing to think about, both of its 100% counters are weak to pursuit. If you give Landorus-I u-turn it will now be able to trap those mons, sort of invalidating them as "counters"
252 Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Latias: 170-204 (56.4 - 67.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after sandstorm damage
If Latias stays in it will be 2HKOd and it can't OHKO Tyranitar back, Sand storm isn't a bad thing to pair it with either.
252 Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 128-152 (28.8 - 34.2%) -- 1.8% chance to 3HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery
Keep in mind that Cresselia's Ice beam does 10-12 percent, and if Cresselia takes an u-turn + pursuit at (80bp) its no longer able to counter Landorus-I.
Both of these Pokemon are capable of adapting to Pursuit. Reflect Type is a viable option on Mega Latias to copy the typing of the Pursuit trapper to take less damage from Pursuit, though this does require a little bit of prediction to avoid copying Landorus' typing by accident. Cresselia is capable of running Reflect, which it used in late XY to half the damage it took from Pursuit. You would be better off arguing that the former is muddled by teambuilding constraints, whereas the latter struggles with a metagame that is quite capable of exploiting it.
I mean I'm not entirely sure if it matters whether or not you can pursuit trap Landorus' two counters; I think the fact that they're it's only two counters, both of which are passive, one of which is otherwise not that good and the other of which takes up a mega slot, is enough of a reason by itself.
Both of these Pokemon are capable of adapting to Pursuit. Reflect Type is a viable option on Mega Latias to copy the typing of the Pursuit trapper to take less damage from Pursuit, though this does require a little bit of prediction to avoid copying Landorus' typing by accident. Cresselia is capable of running Reflect, which it used in late XY to half the damage it took from Pursuit. You would be better off arguing that the former is muddled by teambuilding constraints, whereas the latter struggles with a metagame that is quite capable of exploiting it.
Alright let me put it this way. If you're using Mega Latias & Cresselia you now have a counter to all of the Landorus-I sets alone, they can't beat you and you'll beat them. This means you wont bother using a Specially defensive Zapdos (just an example) and you'll only rely on your Latias/Cresselia to handle Landorus-I. However, you're suddenly caught of guard by u-turn. You switch in your Latias/Cresselia on the u-turn.
4 Atk Life Orb Landorus U-turn vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Mega Latias: 109-130 (29.9 - 35.7%) -- 34.8% chance to 3HKO
4 Atk Life Orb Landorus U-turn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 101-122 (22.7 - 27.4%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
Your Latias is now at a maximum of 70%.
Your Cresselia is now at a maximum of 83%
Landorus-I switches into Weavile/tyranitar/bisharp or another designated Pursuit user ( Scizor even).
Tyranitar carries the strongest pursuit out of the three, so I'll use that though all of the three have their niches.
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Mega Latias: 152-180 (41.7 - 49.4%) -- 18.8% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage
If you go out into Tyranitar, switching it in on a Mega Latias, mega Latias lacks the ability to OHKO you and it's in a 50/50 scenario. And the best play would be going for Pursuit as Latias can't attack Tyranitar if its the stored power version and Tyranitar will eventually crit it or stall it out of roosts. Pursuit has 32 PP versus Roost that has 16 PP.
In short, Mega Latias loses regardless.
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 140-168 (31.5 - 37.8%) -- 89% chance to 3HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery
This is another issue, but again Landorus-I will win. If you switch your Tyranitar in on the Creeselia that's at 83% your best move is going for Pursuit. The first pursuit will do 31 minimum leaving Cresselia at 52%. Cresselia has no good, reliable recovery. And its best shot is to set up a reflect on the first pursuit, then switch out on the other. This leaves Cresselia at 22% maximum. It's no longer able to counter Landorus-I
Alright let me put it this way. If you're using Mega Latias & Cresselia you now have a counter to all of the Landorus-I sets alone, they can't beat you and you'll beat them. This means you wont bother using a Specially defensive Zapdos (just an example) and you'll only rely on your Latias/Cresselia to handle Landorus-I. However, you're suddenly caught of guard by u-turn. You switch in your Latias/Cresselia on the u-turn.
4 Atk Life Orb Landorus U-turn vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Mega Latias: 109-130 (29.9 - 35.7%) -- 34.8% chance to 3HKO
4 Atk Life Orb Landorus U-turn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 101-122 (22.7 - 27.4%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
Your Latias is now at a maximum of 70%.
Your Cresselia is now at a maximum of 83%
Landorus-I switches into Weavile/tyranitar/bisharp or another designated Pursuit user ( Scizor even).
Tyranitar carries the strongest pursuit out of the three, so I'll use that though all of the three have their niches.
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Mega Latias: 152-180 (41.7 - 49.4%) -- 18.8% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage
If you go out into Tyranitar, switching it in on a Mega Latias, mega Latias lacks the ability to OHKO you and it's in a 50/50 scenario. And the best play would be going for Pursuit as Latias can't attack Tyranitar if its the stored power version and Tyranitar will eventually crit it or stall it out of roosts. Pursuit has 32 PP versus Roost that has 16 PP.
In short, Mega Latias loses regardless.
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 140-168 (31.5 - 37.8%) -- 89% chance to 3HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery
This is another issue, but again Landorus-I will win. If you switch your Tyranitar in on the Creeselia that's at 83% your best move is going for Pursuit. The first pursuit will do 31 minimum leaving Cresselia at 52%. Cresselia has no good, reliable recovery. And its best shot is to set up a reflect on the first pursuit, then switch out on the other. This leaves Cresselia at 22% maximum. It's no longer able to counter Landorus-I
My question to the Mega Latias user in question would be...
If you know your pursuit weak... then why would we not alt the set to incorporate HP Fighting?
Even assuming TTar has CB the following calcs shows that its possible, and thus, potentially viable to run HP Fighting for this reason alone:
0 SpA Mega Latias Hidden Power Fighting vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 156-184 (45.7 - 53.9%) -- 34% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Mega Latias Hidden Power Fighting vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 156-184 (45.7 - 53.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
HP Fighting also decimates Bisharp and Weavile without the need for SR.
With this little tidbit, it becomes, at minimum, a strong consideration for the M-Latias builder to incorporate this at the cost of either Reflect Type / Sub if being pursuit trapped is that big an issue.
Its either that or when team building; you compliment M-Latias with something like SpD Gliscor with Ice Fang (WTF!!!) and PRAY TO GOD, ALLAH, RA OR WHOEVER YOUR HIGHER BEING IS LANDO-I ISN'T carrying HP Ice.
(Just thinking about this makes me want to build this... lol j/k... OR AM I?!?!)
Just some food for thought here... in the end... I'm in the BAN camp.
My question to the Mega Latias user in question would be...
If you know your pursuit weak... then why would we not alt the set to incorporate HP Fighting?
Even assuming TTar has CB the following calcs shows that its possible, and thus, potentially viable to run HP Fighting for this reason alone:
0 SpA Mega Latias Hidden Power Fighting vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 156-184 (45.7 - 53.9%) -- 34% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Mega Latias Hidden Power Fighting vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 156-184 (45.7 - 53.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
HP Fighting also decimates Bisharp and Weavile without the need for SR.
With this little tidbit, it becomes, at minimum, a strong consideration for the M-Latias builder to incorporate this at the cost of either Reflect Type / Sub if being pursuit trapped is that big an issue.
Its either that or when team building; you compliment M-Latias with something like SpD Gliscor with Ice Fang (WTF!!!) and PRAY TO GOD, ALLAH, RA OR WHOEVER YOUR HIGHER BEING IS LANDO-I ISN'T carrying HP Ice.
(Just thinking about this makes me want to build this... lol j/k... OR AM I?!?!)
Just some food for thought here... in the end... I'm in the BAN camp.
Mega Latias is strapped for moveslots as is -- Calm Mind, Substitute/Refresh, Roost, Psychic STAB, Dragon STAB... I'm not saying HP Fighting isn't viable, but it's very difficult to find a place for it - especially when mono-fighting is bad for it, and Psychic/Fighting coverage ain't that great.
Built on some of the other posts with me lurking...
If I may continue to say, Landorus is not to overpowered... It has some reliable checks in Rotom-Wash and Sub-CM Keldeo, and Keldeo is also a good counter, even though it has a small amount of checks or even counters... It can be hurt if you play right with levitaters or others, when using it it can be shaky to use, if you use it as a lead, it will be gone as soon as it was out, if you use it as a cleaner, it will be hurt still by priority... Although Nidoking could be used, same with Nidoqueen, but those don't have the benefits that Landorus has, in Rock Polish and Calm Mind, a move pool that holds power, and small amount of counters and checks, so the Nidos would be more useless than anything... And Landorus has the some problem as Torterra in NU and RU, the Ice weakness, anything that is bulky with an ice type move can 1hko it, I.E:
252 Atk Life Orb Weavile Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 348-421 (109 - 131.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Rotom-W Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Landorus: 332-392 (104 - 122.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Landorus: 480-566 (150.4 - 177.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Icy Wind vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Landorus: 480-568 (150.4 - 178%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Landorus: 716-846 (224.4 - 265.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Scald vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Landorus: 524-618 (164.2 - 193.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
56 SpA Life Orb Teravolt Kyurem-B Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Landorus: 832-983 (260.8 - 308.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Built on some of the other posts with me lurking...
If I may continue to say, Landorus is not to overpowered... It has some reliable checks in Rotom-Wash and Sub-CM Keldeo, and Keldeo is also a good counter, even though it has a small amount of checks or even counters... It can be hurt if you play right with levitaters or others, when using it it can be shaky to use, if you use it as a lead, it will be gone as soon as it was out, if you use it as a cleaner, it will be hurt still by priority... Although Nidoking could be used, same with Nidoqueen, but those don't have the benefits that Landorus has, in Rock Polish and Calm Mind, a move pool that holds power, and small amount of counters and checks, so the Nidos would be more useless than anything...
You obviously have no experience with Landorus do you? Rotom-W and Keldeo aren't even close to being checks, especially to Rock Polish variants.
>Reliable checks in Rotom-W and Keldeo
252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 168-198 (55.4 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 273-321 (84.5 - 99.3%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Not really formulating an opinion or whatever, but I just wanted to point that out. It hurts my eyes ;-;
Built on some of the other posts with me lurking...
If I may continue to say, Landorus is not to overpowered... It has some reliable checks in Rotom-Wash and Sub-CM Keldeo, and Keldeo is also a good counter, even though it has a small amount of checks or even counters... It can be hurt if you play right with levitaters or others, when using it it can be shaky to use, if you use it as a lead, it will be gone as soon as it was out, if you use it as a cleaner, it will be hurt still by priority... Although Nidoking could be used, same with Nidoqueen, but those don't have the benefits that Landorus has, in Rock Polish and Calm Mind, a move pool that holds power, and small amount of counters and checks, so the Nidos would be more useless than anything...
Can you please explain how Keldeo is a good counter when it has about a 38% chance to live a modest earth power after stealth rock? Are you using air balloon?
Just going to play a devil's advocate here atm. I think the meta is broken for sure. Certain mons like landorous can destroy teams easily. Part of the problem is its sheer versatility. You know it is carrying earthpower but other then that no clue. If its paired with tyranitar then it probably isn't carrying knock off as ttar can just pursuit trap its psychic checks. This is my question what if it isn't landorous that is broken, but it is Pursuit?
If pursuit wasn't around landorous would basically be forced to carry knock off. This would mean you would know 2 moves on lando lessening its versatility. In addition it would have to have a naive or hasty nature weakening one of its defenses.
It is not just landorous that appreciates pursuit support a variety of other pokemon including: Mega Charizard Y, Keldeo, Breloom, terrakion, and mega lopunny.
These pokemon can become near unstoppable for bulkier teams when their counters get removed. Obviously what pursuit traps and kills are mainly psychic and ghost types. These pokemon include, lati@s, cresselia, gengar, slowbro, slowking, reunciulus, celebi, mew, jirachi.
Basically, you are faced with an impossible decision when facing a pursuit trapper while playing balance or stall. You can let Charizard Y or whatever kill one of your team or switch to your lati@s. Yet, if you do switch to lati@s it just ends up getting pursuit trapped and killed then zard can just sweep later.
Pursuit is just inherently uncompetitive leaving no room for counterplay. Regardless of what you do your going to lose a mon.
Also while i'm on the subject of uncompetitive, why does smogon ban some uncompetitive elements, but not others? I am mainly referencing brightpowder, lax incense, and confuse ray. Smogon has banned evasion boosting moves, so why not evasion boosting items. They both have roughly the same effect except one has a lesser effect. Imagine the outrage if someone won OST via brightpowder hax? Basically the item takes the game out of the players control. In addition confuse ray does a similar effect. It takes control out of players hand and brings it down to a coinflip. It is not as easy to abuse as swagger, but can be abused nonetheless. These items and move can give the user of them freeturns that are unwarranted where they can set up and then sweep. No these things aren't used a lot, but usage is not an indicator of brokeness. I may just be salty because I just faced and lost to a confuse ray brightpowder team, but still doesn't mean its not broken.
Just going to play a devil's advocate here atm. I think the meta is broken for sure. Certain mons like landorous can destroy teams easily. Part of the problem is its sheer versatility. You know it is carrying earthpower but other then that no clue. If its paired with tyranitar then it probably isn't carrying knock off as ttar can just pursuit trap its psychic checks. This is my question what if it isn't landorous that is broken, but it is Pursuit?
If pursuit wasn't around landorous would basically be forced to carry knock off. This would mean you would know 2 moves on lando lessening its versatility. In addition it would have to have a naive or hasty nature weakening one of its defenses.
It is not just landorous that appreciates pursuit support a variety of other pokemon including: Mega Charizard Y, Keldeo, Breloom, terrakion, and mega lopunny.
These pokemon can become near unstoppable for bulkier teams when their counters get removed. Obviously what pursuit traps and kills are mainly psychic and ghost types. These pokemon include, lati@s, cresselia, gengar, slowbro, slowking, reunciulus, celebi, mew, jirachi.
Basically, you are faced with an impossible decision when facing a pursuit trapper while playing balance or stall. You can let Charizard Y or whatever kill one of your team or switch to your lati@s. Yet, if you do switch to lati@s it just ends up getting pursuit trapped and killed then zard can just sweep later.
Pursuit is just inherently uncompetitive leaving no room for counterplay. Regardless of what you do your going to lose a mon.
Also while i'm on the subject of uncompetitive, why does smogon ban some uncompetitive elements, but not others? I am mainly referencing brightpowder, lax incense, and confuse ray. Smogon has banned evasion boosting moves, so why not evasion boosting items. They both have roughly the same effect except one has a lesser effect. Imagine the outrage if someone won OST via brightpowder hax? Basically the item takes the game out of the players control. In addition confuse ray does a similar effect. It takes control out of players hand and brings it down to a coinflip. It is not as easy to abuse as swagger, but can be abused nonetheless. These items and move can give the user of them freeturns that are unwarranted where they can set up and then sweep. No these things aren't used a lot, but usage is not an indicator of brokeness. I may just be salty because I just faced and lost to a confuse ray brightpowder team, but still doesn't mean its not broken.
Completely disagree here, Pursuit can help Landorus but it isn't broken. Back to Landorus though, your argument doesn't really make any convincing points as to why Landorus isn't ban worthy or broken. All you've done is moan about irrelevant things.
No competent player uses Brightpowder, Confuse Ray or whatever else because it's moronic and there are 3000 better items/moves to be running. I don't really believe I need to go into this....
Sorry for 'minimodding' but this is really not relevant to the suspect so please rethink your post
e; sorry for double post I clicked the wrong button
In reply to the people saying use Nido, even though p sure some of you were joking just thought I'd mention: Nido is weaker, slower, worse typing and doesn't have access to moves like Rock Polish + CM. It's not a horrible mon but it's not in the same league as Lando.
Just going to play a devil's advocate here atm. I think the meta is broken for sure. Certain mons like landorous can destroy teams easily. Part of the problem is its sheer versatility. You know it is carrying earthpower but other then that no clue. If its paired with tyranitar then it probably isn't carrying knock off as ttar can just pursuit trap its psychic checks. This is my question what if it isn't landorous that is broken, but it is Pursuit?
If pursuit wasn't around landorous would basically be forced to carry knock off. This would mean you would know 2 moves on lando lessening its versatility. In addition it would have to have a naive or hasty nature weakening one of its defenses.
It is not just landorous that appreciates pursuit support a variety of other pokemon including: Mega Charizard Y, Keldeo, Breloom, terrakion, and mega lopunny.
These pokemon can become near unstoppable for bulkier teams when their counters get removed. Obviously what pursuit traps and kills are mainly psychic and ghost types. These pokemon include, lati@s, cresselia, gengar, slowbro, slowking, reunciulus, celebi, mew, jirachi.
Basically, you are faced with an impossible decision when facing a pursuit trapper while playing balance or stall. You can let Charizard Y or whatever kill one of your team or switch to your lati@s. Yet, if you do switch to lati@s it just ends up getting pursuit trapped and killed then zard can just sweep later.
Pursuit is just inherently uncompetitive leaving no room for counterplay. Regardless of what you do your going to lose a mon.
Also while i'm on the subject of uncompetitive, why does smogon ban some uncompetitive elements, but not others? I am mainly referencing brightpowder, lax incense, and confuse ray. Smogon has banned evasion boosting moves, so why not evasion boosting items. They both have roughly the same effect except one has a lesser effect. Imagine the outrage if someone won OST via brightpowder hax? Basically the item takes the game out of the players control. In addition confuse ray does a similar effect. It takes control out of players hand and brings it down to a coinflip. It is not as easy to abuse as swagger, but can be abused nonetheless. These items and move can give the user of them freeturns that are unwarranted where they can set up and then sweep. No these things aren't used a lot, but usage is not an indicator of brokeness. I may just be salty because I just faced and lost to a confuse ray brightpowder team, but still doesn't mean its not broken.
About Brightpowder, you say it takes the game out of the players control. Same goes with Paralyzing opponents, so should we ban T-Wave and everything that can Paralyze.
Anyways, to stay on topic, I suppose I should give my opinion on Landorus-I. I am leaning towards ban. As so many people have stated, the only real counters to Landorus is M-Latias and Cresselia. I am not going to bring those to every single team I build just to counter the stupid genie. That leaves me with almost always needing to sack something to send in my check, which just forces Landorus out, my opponent then switches out, and saves it for later when my check to it is gone. Also, that Earth Power is just way too strong. Just had to say it. Another thing stated so many times, is how you don't know three of its moves. When it has like 8 different options for those 3 slots, making switches and predictions really hard early game.
I also thought that we were not making these kind of decsissions based on how the metagame will be without it. I don't care if stall will be maybe a bit more common, it might end up not being it at all. How the metagame will be without it is an argument people must stop using. I personally think it will be healthy to get rid of it for the metagame, but we are here to discuss if it is a big enough pain the way the metagame is now to ban it from OU.
StarmeiTheGod that post did get a little off topic (how does Evasion even factor into this?), however both Landorus suspects and the Keldeo suspect have gone back to Pursuit trapping support to a large degree. Could this be one of those instances where we are banning around the problem instead of looking it in the face? Don't really know. However the impact of trapping of any kind in terms of checks and counters is very real and shouldn't be ignored.
Edit: This wasn't meant to imply the Landorus is not broken in any way, just more that trapping shouldn't be swept under the rug like it's a non issue.
You obviously have no experience with Landorus do you? Rotom-W and Keldeo aren't even close to being checks, especially to Rock Polish variants.
>Reliable checks in Rotom-W and Keldeo
252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 168-198 (55.4 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 273-321 (84.5 - 99.3%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Not really formulating an opinion or whatever, but I just wanted to point that out. It hurts my eyes ;-;
Keldeo and Rotom-W actually are checks, as they switch into at least one of Lando's moves without dying and KO/threaten it out with Water STAB. Lando-I is still a broken piece of shit, though.
StarmeiTheGod that post did get a little off topic (how does Evasion even factor into this?), however both Landorus suspects and the Keldeo suspect have gone back to Pursuit trapping support to a large degree. Could this be one of those instances where we are banning around the problem instead of looking it in the face? Don't really know. However the impact of trapping of any kind in terms of checks and counters is very real and shouldn't be ignored.
I was just replying to someone else's post who mentioned evasion btw
Your idea about banning around the problem is interesting but in this case I don't really agree. It doesn't take a genius to work out that Lando-I is an incredible mon in OU and no doubt that pursuit support helps it but a lot of teams run it without Pursuit support and it seems to still destroy souls. Most mons benefit from Pursuit in some way, be that getting rid of a Lati (or similar mon), making risky plays predicting your opponent to be scared of pursuit or just weakening a Rotom-W (or another mon) to put it in range of xyz's move. But Landorus can 2hko Lati@s anyway assuming non mega and destroys a lot of teams regardless or Pursuit.
Forgive the comparison but in this incidence I think of Landorus as your Steak and Pursuit as your side of chips. Pursuit is very nice support to Landorus but it's not mandatory just as chips are very nice with steak but aren't needed in order to have a nice steak.
Can't end a post by talking about food so I'll go on... People are overrating Pursuit imo. Yes, it helps to Pursuit Lati@s, Mega Latias and sorta Cresselia but how many teams in Lando-I meta actually run Cresselia or Mega Latias? Not all too many, huh. Regular Lati@s are pretty common yes, but they're 2hkod by landorus anyway and usually end up whittling themselves by switching in on rocks to defog, life orb and just taking hits putting it in easy range of Landorus Sludge Wave/HP Ice unless it carries Roost and even then it can be whittled pretty easily. But in the big picture, how much work is Pursuit doing compared to Landorus itself. No where near as much, so as stated, I disagree with the idea that we're 'banning around the problem instead of looking it in the face' Pursuit is just great for supporting mons.
If Pursuit was a big a threat as Landorus then my guess is that we'd have more things like Dugtrio rolling around to punish TTars, Bisharps and also the crisp Colbur Berry Lati.
Ok, I'm seeing a lot of posts stating checks to Lando-I, mainly to just revenge kill instead of having switch-ins to this powerful mon, which is usually the issue here. Everyone pretty much made it clear that Mega Latias and Cresselia are THE best switch-ins to this by being immune to it's most powerful STAB move being Earth Power and not giving a flying fuck about it's only super effective against them being Knock Off as both would just recover it off or revenge kill. However, if these are legit the only good switch-ins to this monster in OU and the rest of it's "checks" just drop to the floor or get 2hkod, don't you think that it's an issue for it to remain in OU?
If I may continue to say, Landorus is not to overpowered... It has some reliable checks in Rotom-Wash and Sub-CM Keldeo, and Keldeo is also a good counter, even though it has a small amount of checks or even counters... It can be hurt if you play right with levitaters or others, when using it it can be shaky to use
All this states from you is that "Lando isn't overpowered" when there are only those 2 switch-ins I just mentioned to take on all of it's sets (barring CM, that might be troublesome if you're not packing ice beam on your check). Rotom-Wash is only a decent "check" depending on the moveset, basically you're hoping it doesn't pack Focus Blast which is risk/reward that shouldn't be risked, especially if your opponent is packing a flying spam mon like Talonflame or Pinsir in the back that Rotom-Wash checks.
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 191-226 (63 - 74.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
Keep in mind this isn't even Modest Lando-i so good luck w/ your check.
I agree with Keldeo being a Lando-i "counter," however think about how you are even able to bring in Keldeo vs this thing w/ it taking a shitton of damage on the switch-in. You'll most likely have to sack something in order to bring it in to put yourself at a disadvantage OR you have to predict the HP Ice on the switch-in, which is risky enough. Same thing applies to Weavile, you have to sack something or predict HP Ice or Psychic from this thing to even threaten it or you can kiss your check goodbye.
If its paired with tyranitar then it probably isn't carrying knock off as ttar can just pursuit trap its psychic checks. This is my question what if it isn't landorous that is broken, but it is Pursuit?
I'm not gonna bother commenting on your confuse ray, brightpowder, or your unrelated CharY shit as that's not part of this discussion whatsoever but I will comment on your "pursuit is broken, not lando haha" opinion. Yes, pairing Lando-I with tyranitar is great because it helps eliminates one of the most common defogers/switch-ins to Lando-i in the game being the Lati Twins and also provide a chance to eliminate Starmie that also "checks" Lando-I. Chances are, if those are your only checks to lando-i and ttar happens to eliminates them, you're in trouble, as most likely Lando-i would just plow through your team. This goes to show how limited the checks are to lando.
If pursuit wasn't around landorous would basically be forced to carry knock off. This would mean you would know 2 moves on lando lessening its versatility. In addition it would have to have a naive or hasty nature weakening one of its defenses.
Pursuit is just inherently uncompetitive leaving no room for counterplay.
I don't think you understand that if Pursuit wasn't even a move to use that Lando-I is so fuckin strong that it won't even need that kind of support. With the Rock Polish set on Lando-I and you manage to get a +2 up, if you're packing knock off, you only need 8 Atk EV investment to kill genger a latios w/ rocks up, Earth Power can just toss most of your psychic mons barring Celebi which just gets bopped w/ a Knock Off or Sludge Wave. You forgot to mention Bronzong as a check, which is a decent one, but you're hoping again that knock off isn't packed. If it is not RP set and you have a Latios out, what makes you think Lando-i is staying in if it has a chance to 2hko your entire team barring the Latios? What makes you think that if you're playing vs someone that actually has knowledge of the tier won't have any checks or plans to beat Lati so Lando-I can have a field day? Also if it is packing Knock Off, think about the risk to try and bring Lati in on this beast. You're pretty much going to predict or sack something to bring it in, risk/reward that can lead you to a disadvantage in 1 turn.
Also just stating that "pursuit is just inherently uncompetitive leaving no room for counterplay" clearly states you haven't played in a high-level tournament environment being team or individual tours which is basically nothing BUT trying to "counterplay" your opponent to get a win for yourself or team. I just thought this was a retarded comment, and even though pursuit has no relation to this topic, I think Pursuit IS competitive as it can give you an advantage FOR Lando-i so you don't HAVE to risk trying to say, Knocking Off a Lati on the switch or something, when you can just trap the lati just by switching to ttar, bisharp, or w/e and just get rid of it that way to give lando an easier and safer time to cause more damage if not kill something.
I think the point I'm tryna get across here is that, yes, you can revenge kill this monster with priority, weather abusers, or any mon that can "tank a hit" or outpseed lando if not Rock Polish, but it's main problem is that it can 2hko if not OHKO every ORAS mon in the metagame barring Mega Lati, Cress, Chansey and Blissey, which IS a problem and is worth a ban. The fact that all of it's sets are known YET still unpredictable (unless you're good at team recognition) IS another problem. You can run 4 attacks to check the weaknesses for your squad, you can run CM to bash through non-Cresselia stall teams, you can run Rock Polish to toss offense, shit you can even run U-Turn Lando-i on a Lati switch and trap it w/ a pursuit user and bop, there goes your check.
I want this pile of shit gone, but let's see where this goes.
Mega Latias is strapped for moveslots as is -- Calm Mind, Substitute/Refresh, Roost, Psychic STAB, Dragon STAB... I'm not saying HP Fighting isn't viable, but it's very difficult to find a place for it - especially when mono-fighting is bad for it, and Psychic/Fighting coverage ain't that great.
I agree that M-Latias is strapped for moves... just pointing out that when it comes to team building that the creator needs to take these things into consideration.
That's why I mentioned SpD Gliscor with Ice Fang as another option (GAAAWDDD this sounds wrong) but alas, if we are really hinging hopes and dreams on Mega-Latias FTW then damn we are in a bad place alredy... -_-'
Also, thank you Karxrida for reaffirming what a check is for some ppl here who clearly forget what a check is suppose to do. ^_^
I agree that M-Latias is strapped for moves... just pointing out that when it comes to team building that the creator needs to take these things into consideration.
That's why I mentioned SpD Gliscor with Ice Fang as another option (GAAAWDDD this sounds wrong) but alas, if we are really hinging hopes and dreams on Mega-Latias FTW then damn we are in a bad place alredy... -_-'
Also, thank you Karxrida for reaffirming what a check is for some ppl here who clearly forget what a check is suppose to do. ^_^
As you just mentioned, M-Latias is already strapped for moveslots, and by running HP Fighting all you're doing is making it even less-useful since you have to drop another move that it wants to run even more than HP Fighting.
If your mentioning IFang SpD gliscor as something to run, then it brings up another problem, that you need to run it in order to check Lando, which is a clear case of an over centralizing mon, bringing it up as another case for the pro-Ban side.
