Ladder Mix and Mega

xJownage

Even pendulums swing both ways
Well... Here's the thing, it's not all that effective. In theory it should be, but in reality it's not all that powerful meaning it can't dent stall which can PP stall it if needs be, while offence usually just outspeeds it or uses priority. Didn't really do anything, yet again, the council voted and...
Effectiveness is irrelevant. Remember, Gothitelle was like C+ rank in ubers when people voted for shadow tag instead of mega gar ban; it warped the metagame so badly despite being hard to use because it completely reshaped stall. This same thing would apply to heliolisk, its centralization is irrelevant to its effectiveness.
 
This thread just turned to absolute shit... every post is people interpreting words. Can we stop this nonsense?
Besides the absolutely random argument about what trapping is, this thread has turned into a discussion about suspecting an incredibly potent threat to the tier. Besides AJA appealing to his own authority, nothing besides discussion constructive to the tier is happening. That, and you complaining about the thread going off the rails.

i agree if people doesn't stop posting arguments might as well close the thread
If people won't stop trying to balance the tier, we should close the tier thread? What?
 
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I'm gonna contribute my two cents on this.
I believe Heliolisk is broken, for a few reasons.
1. It warps the meta: Pretty much anything without priority, a set up move, or higher speed, is set up fodder for our electric lizard friend, two of which can be worked around somewhat, as I'll explain later in this post.
2. It requires little to no skill to use: Player A is using a balance team, Player B is using a random team that includes Heliolisk. Player A has an alterianite entei, but it gets taken out early. Heliolisk switches in and proceeds to spam electrify, getting free boosts while Player A struggles to beat it.(It's not a great argument, but I'm just trying to provide an example)
3. It's just not fun to play against: To be quite frank, Heliolisk is a pain in the butt to play around, due to the risks of attacking or switching thanks to Electrify. It hits hard after a boost and any potential switchin may end up KO'd because Heliolisk decided to attack.
4. It gets a move that can easily replace 1nvalid 's Protect slot and puts several matchups completely in Heliolisk's favor. This move is known as Glare. This move singlehandedly makes prediction against a Heliolisk player nigh impossible. Sent in a Loppunite attacker to outspeed? Heliolisk player predicts a switch and your check is now set-up bait for Heliolisk or severly crippled for the rest of the match. Tried to set up a Dragon Dance with Zygarde, expecting another Electrify? Now, your Zygarde, while Espeed will KO Heliolisk, is crippled for the rest of the game, and probably won't sweep, or even do much damage. What I'm trying to say here is that with Glare, prediction heavily favors the Heliolisk player, as even a mispredict on helio's part could mean that it has crippled a potentially major part of a team. Heliolisk doesn't even care about magic bouncers reflecting Glare due to it being an electric type, and can run away or simply try to go for the KO. Faster things post-mega may become completely useless or not be able to perform their roles effectively after a single glare.
 
At this point it's painfully obvious that Electrify should be removed to greatly improve the meta the next time it becomes playable. We'll just have to see what the council decides, but hopefully they ban, considering all of the arguments for the ban and the lack of arguments against.
 
O look it's me!


Yeah, like I said, there's a clear defined difference between broken and uncompetitive. Here's some simple definitions.

Uncompetitive: a strategy that relies on luck to win.
Broken: a strategy that uses something that is overpowered and overly good in order to win.

Neither rely on skill, and neither are healthy for the meta. In my example of uncompetitive, swagger is uncompetitive because it confuses the opponent raises their attack so they damage themselves more in confusion. You are relying on a 50/50 coin flip to win, which is simply uncompetitive. Moody is the same way, you are relying on a GOOD +2 and a -1 that doesn't bother you. You are relying on luck, not skill, to win. My example of broken is m-altaria in monotype. It's broken because it's simply too powerful for the meta, allowing a poor or average player to win against far better players and better teams simply because they are using a broken, or overpowered, pokemon. Mega altsria obliterates almost a third of the whole mono meta on its OWN, never mind the team, hence why it's broken.

Now, I would call electrify broken, not uncompetitive. You literally can just spam an attack and win. It's not uncompetitive prrsay, because it doesn't rely on hax. Instead it relies on them not being able to outspeed an incredibly fast mon. In general it's just a broken move and I'd vote for it to be banned rather than heliolosk as a whole.

Ps; I'd prefer if you tagged me or at least messaged me on showdown before quoting me in the future.
I wouldn't say that broken requires no skill, for example, when mega luc was still OU, it was definitely broken. However, that doesn't mean it requires no skill to use. It still required at least a basic understanding of how to play (competitively, that is), but it just made it much easier to win because it was definitely a cut above the rest.

I mostly agree with your explanations of broken vs. uncompetitive, however, I feel that there is a bit more of a gray area between the two. Uncompetitive, in my opinion, doesn't necessarily mean luck based. For example, if you can boost your evasion enough, it is no longer luck-reliant, as it becomes more likely that the opponent will miss than that they will hit. However, this completely uncompetitive, as it really doesn't require any skill to use. It turns It into a game of "who can boost their evasion to +6 first," which completely uncompetitive, just by the literal definition of the word. It takes any sense of a competition out of it. For reference, in a sand storm, sand veil garchomp holding bright powder at +6 evasion will only be hit (with a 100% accuracy move) 25% of the time.

Heliolisk isn't truly broken either- honestly, as AllJokesAside, it's really not that good. It's not that centralizing, either, tbh. It's just a stupid strategy that adds nothing to the meta and creates stupid situations where the user can't possibly lose, unless they're incredibly incompetent.

Btw, AllJokesAside, "look like a witch hunt?" What the heck does that even mean??? And since when has any council felt it needed to be anonymous to act? This just seems silly to me.
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
Hey there, you guys are all thinking about this wrong and I'm here to tell you how to think about it right instead. /arrogance

here's how heliolisk could or could not be broken:

A: Conventionally broken. It's capable of sweeping entire teams. (or walling them or providing great support, technically, but those don't seem like helio's bag)

B: Overcentralizing. It can be defeated, but requires X small group of hard counters, or X group of (rare / not great checks / some mix of both) checks, and is conventionally broken against teams without these dudes.

C: 'uncompetitive': this is either as a result of extreme centralization forcing team matchup victories (either you easily defeat it because you have uber rare and otherwise crap counter X, or you make a better overall team but lose to it), or because it forces extreme 50/50s with electrify on the attack versus switch.

Note that C is super, super shaky, because any top tier threat often requires some stuff to check or counter it, and that stuff isn't always the best. similarly, many mons often force 50/50s as a matter of course. to really prove C, you need to argue that it's got very low-quality checks / counters (the checks get crippled as they switch in? they suck in general? something else? you decide). and as for 50/50s, i don't even know if I will ever agree with that, but at the least you need to conclusively prove that it is far better at this than any other mon.

if Electrify truly removes skill from the equation, then it's so good that you can't really stop it at all, or with only limited counters. sounds...conventionally broken or overcentralizing

personally, from what i've read in this thread, i think it doesn't, because you can switch to an espeeder or attack. it's just a weighted 50/50, but this is also true of any powerful attacker-if you stay in, you get smashed, and if you switch, you still take a fair amount of damage and may get smashed by some other powerful attack or setup move.

other stuff:

what does electrify add to this meta? i don't know, what does any offensive sweeper add to the meta?

as a man who wants fervently to ban gothitelle, effectiveness absolutely matters. gothitelle just has outsize effectiveness against stall. if electrify has outsize effectiveness against one playstyle, that's fair to say.

evasion requires no skill to use because it is luck-based. ignoring that, even if you've got a 75% chance to dodge, that it is still luck-based, there's still a few turns where that isn't true. evasion's literally just 'hope the rng lets me win teehee'.
 

SpartanMalice

Y'all jokers must be crazy
I'm not a mod in this forum, but are you really gonna redo this when The Immortal already warned you guys prior for constantly bickering out in this thread? Being a council member all I can say is we'll decide on the Heliolisk matter, but for the love of god try to keep the discussion civil.
 
and as for 50/50s, i don't even know if I will ever agree with that, but at the least you need to conclusively prove that it is far better at this than any other mon.
The Heliolisk 50/50's are better than a traditional 50/50 because if you pick electrify, you can pick it over and over, which means it's a 50/50 that you can spam a safe move over and over until it's very unlikely the opponent will pick the move that will punish you. That's why Heliolisk is the best 50/50'er in this tier.

but for the love of god try to keep the discussion civil.
Where's the incivility?

---
@everyone I think you guys think of Heliolisk as an offensive threat, when it functions much better as a stalling threat. If you use any kind of hazards at all, Heliolisk's ability to force switches due to the opposing Pokemon literally not being able to hit it is fantastic. I used it to good effect with Toxic Spikes and Stealth Rock support, but I think most people hate using Toxic Spikes and consider them a weak gimmick. If your opponent is inflicted with any kind of residual damage at all, the 50/50 is no longer a 50/50, it's just a time to click Electrify and wait for the opponent to die.
 
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SpartanMalice

Y'all jokers must be crazy
I'm not pointing out names, they should know themselves by now. What I do know is is this. Sound familiar?

"Do you guys not know what happens to threads that deteriorate like this? They get locked."

And that's all I have to say on the matter. And I'd rather not see this thread locked due to the same reasons as before as MnM is one of my favourite metas.
 
I can't safely assume Heliolisk's 3rd attacking move, probably between surf, gknot, hp fire, maybe even focus blast to match the typical Mega Ampharos movepool, but assuming Heliolisk runs Electrify, Tbolt, Dragon Pulse, filler, what does it have for Alakazite Togekiss?

Great special defense, unfortunate that Alakazam got the +10 SpD instead of the Mega Stone, but still, Togekiss has great recovery, unfortunately can't outspeed but certainly walls 100%

Can run tailwind if Electrify doesn't effect Tail Wind, and has Dazzling Gleam for some damage. Also, assuming you bring in Togekiss as a check, not a counter, he'll assume he can drop a tbolt and ohko, but you mega and trace, then drop a +1 Dazzling Gleam OR Tailwind up so you can outspeed, and maybe even sweep with a +1 modest togekiss hitting 512 with 0 investment in speed.

Calcs (post mega):
+1 252+ SpA Togekiss Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Heliolisk: 530-626 (200 - 236.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

0 SpA Togekiss Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Heliolisk: 272-324 (102.6 - 122.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO (no investment for that matter ohkos, but togekiss becomes a bulky tail wind sweeper at that point)

+3 252 SpA Heliolisk Surf vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Togekiss: 240-283 (64.1 - 75.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+3 252 SpA Heliolisk Hidden Power Ice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Togekiss: 320-378 (85.5 - 101%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO (I know HP ice not used much since Dragon pulse, but just for consideration)


Still not a counter, and I'd like to know if Electrify works on Tail Wind like it would on something like Trick Room (I doubt electrify effects these kind of status moves), but 100% a check, and unless your opponent is greedy and electrifies the turn you mega evolve (again assuming tail wind is effected by Electrify), you can pretty much take him out without a problem.
 
Electrify affects all status moves as long as they are used after it has been used. Even Roar and Toxic.
Then you switch in after inevitably sacking a pokemon to Heliolisk, or switch aggressively on an Electrify, then Mega Evolve, Trace, and Dgleam for a KO. Has enough bulk to take pretty much any hits from Heliolisk, bar a +2/+3 Hp Ice after rocks
 
Actually guys, Lightning Rod absorbs Electrify, since Electrify is an electric move. So Togekiss doesn't even need Tailwind. And after Togekiss has Mega Evolved, it is officially a hard counter for the rest of the match. I've had the situation come up against opposing Sceptilite Milotics, which are also threatening to Heliolisk, but not quite a hard counter.
 
Alakazite was an option if you don't want to waste Sceptilite on another pokemon, which threatens a super effective Dragon Pulse from Heliolisk, not to mention with Blue Orb Ferrothorn being more common, Heliolisks would venture to run Focus Blast, which thus makes Trace Togekiss a total wall for Heliolisk.

Alakazite + Tailwind make Togekiss geared toward denting the opponent, it's not a metagame that's focused around "Oh this pokemon is only used to check something" whereas with Alakazite Togekiss, you check, and begin to do damage in reverse, and the point of this Metagame is to give mega abilities and stats to a variety of pokemon, and having fun with it. I'd have fun with a +1 Togekiss under tailwind. Other benefits of trace include Scrappy, Magic Bounce, Shell Armor (if you run Psych Up, that is). Good moveset would be two attack (Aura Sphere, Dazzling Gleam), and any combination of Tailwind/Psych Up/Roost/Nasty Plot, or another attack. Extreme Speed could be an option, as Togekiss benefits from Aerilate and Pixilate as stab (albeit not the coolest use), or even Hyper Voice as a bulky check to mons like Zygarde which pierces zygardes spdef with basically the same power as Gardevoir Mega, but with better bulk (this is if you trace Zygarde Pixilate).
 
Are there any good -- good, not horribly broken -- choices for Dragon Ascent? A physical Flying-type who would probably drop Brave Bird and put DA in its place ... DA is less powerful but has no recoil and the stat boosts probably make up for the power difference ... well, that would probably be best, but I was wondering about possible special attackers?

Thoughts?
 
For reference, the decision will be reached on the 11th, sometime in the morning (9-12) West Coast time. (Barring meatspace shenanigans)

Re: Trace/Alakazite

I've been meaning to lay this out for a while anyway, since no one else has stepped up.

Potential benefits of Tracing.

/
Beedrillite/Lucarionite: You get Adaptability. This is OK, but you can probably get a better result by taking a Mega Stone that better suits your hypothetical Alakazite user.
Blazikenite: Speed Boost! Which is only normally available to other Speed Boosters! Problem: nobody actually runs it. :(
Kangaskhanite: Tracing Parental Bond is amazing... but currently, this means Tracing Mega Kangaskhan, which requires A: that people use it (They don't) and B: that your Alakazite Pokemon isn't terrified of Mega Kangaskhan.
/
Mawilite/Medichamite: Huge/Pure Power is amazing. Problem: Alakazite weights you toward being a fast Special attacker. Unless you're a mixed attacker anyway -unlikely- the payoff is... you hurt yourself in Confusion more? Yay?
Red Orb: Literally pointless.
Blue Orb: Same.
/
Altarianite/Gardevoirite: And you're running a (Special) Pixilate-able Normal move on your Trace abuser because?...
/
Pinsirite/Salamencite: See above.
Glalitite: Third verse, same as the first.
Lopunnite: What, are you Alakazite Keldeo, desperately hoping to hit Ghosts with Secret Sword?
/
/
Sablenite/Diancite/Absolite: Wait, why didn't you just run Absolite in the first place?
/
/
Aerodactylite/Charizardite X/Metagrossite: Tough Claws applies to almost no Special attacks. Useless.
Aggronite: Filter is legitimately cool, but Aggronite users will usually be stallmons that hardly care about reduced super effective damage. Might help protect you from a switch-in, a little. Maybe.
/
Ampharosite/Gyaradosite: Mold Breaker gives you nothing against the user you're Tracing from. Has slightly more plausibility against switch-ins, and it is worth commentary that neither of these Stones increases Speed, and in fact Ampharosite reduces Speed. Mildly useful, but niche.
Cameruptite: Assuming you're running Sheer Force-able moves, cool. Given Cameruptite reduces Speed, it's even advantaged over running Cameruptite directly. Again, mildly useful, but niche.
Charizardite Y: Hooray, you risk giving them back the weather they presumably care about?
Manectite: On the face of it, this sounds good. Problem: Manectite abusers are almost universally Special attackers, and therefore lowering their Attack is useless, or worse than useless.
Mewtonite X: Standard Mewtwonite X users aren't exactly big on Flinching things. Steadfast is a lame Ability anyway.
Pidgeotite: Wait, why aren't you running Pidgeotite anyway if you care at all?
Venusaurite: Exactly how many Venusaurite users are attackers in love with Fire and Ice moves? Has a small chance of protecting you a bit from a switch-in... meh.
Audinite: Literally useless.
Banettite: Actually useful! And since Banettite is a Physically oriented Mega Stone, the result is even uniquely valuable... might see use as a way to counter-Prankster specific Banettite builds.
Blastoisite: Almost nothing even gets more than one of the affected moves. Nothing actually runs Blastoisite in the meta. Fast Mega Launcher is pure hypothetical.
/
Latiasite/Latiosite: Lati-ite users aren't exactly big on Ground moves themselves... mostly they're Heatran anyway... if you care that much you're probably better off running one of the Stones yourself...
Sceptilite: Can let you create a hard stop to Electrify Sceptilite Heliolisk. Other than that, essentially useless.
Scizorite: Scizorite is only mildly Physically oriented anyway (20 Attack vs 10 Special Attack), albeit it provides little Speed. But why is your Alakazite Pokemon running Technician-able moves?
Slowbronite: Mostly found on walls who aren't exactly here to attack you directly. The protection from switch-ins is... nice... I guess. Is your Tracer a setup wall? If so, why isn't it just running Slowbronite itself?
Swampertite: Would be legit useful if anyone ever ran it, allow you to easily outspeed them in their own weather. Nobody runs it.
Tyranitarite: Again, why are you risking giving them back their preferred weather?
/
Garchompite/Steelixite: How often are you going to be running Earth Power, Flash Cannon, or Power Gem on your Alakazite user? And if you're running the first two... Cameruptite is more reliable, albeit slower. Extremely niche. And no one runs either of them anyway.
Galladite: So Fake Out is bad against you now. Problem: nobody runs Galladite. Other problem: who cares?
Heracronite: No Special Skill Linkable moves even exist.
Houndoomite: Actually good! Except nobody runs it.
Sharpedonite: What Special Strong Jaws moves?
Abomasite: Again, you're risking giving them their weather back... and nobody runs it anyway.
Mewtonite Y: Nobody runs it, nobody tries to spam Sleep moves with it. At most could be used to wake up your Tracer after they've been put to Sleep already, which is lame and requires somebody is running it and fighting you.
Alakazite: You can Trace whatever they Trace! Huzzah! Wait, I just covered how useless Tracing things is.

---

In summary: if you think Trace is a reason to go for Alakazite... no, not really. If you want a second Absolite-type user, it's an acceptable second option... other than being largely inferior to Pidgeotite... so a third choice, if you really want three fast Special Attackers...

...

No, seriously, Alakazite is lame.
 
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We aren't giving Pokemon moves. The only two Pokemon that would have been able to Mega Evolve with Dragon Ascent if this was an AG Meta are Smeargle and Rayquaza.
Okay, so does that mean those two are the only mons that can get the 30/10/30/10/20 + Delta Stream boosts?

Or can other mons get those boosts without picking up Dragon Ascent?
 
As grateful as you've been explaining the near-uselessness of Trace, I don't see how running trace and hyper voice on the same mon is useless when Zygarde is S-rank, and popular with Altarianite. Grass Knot is also boosted by Tough Claws, though there's no good alakazite user with Grass Knot anyway so that point is moot.

It's an option for Togekiss, the mon itself has boosting moves in the form of tailwind and nasty plot, as well as a decent move pool to abuse nasty plot. Also the 85/115/115 is a nice mixed bulk on top of a typing that, again, abuses both Aerilate and Pixilate equally. I'd like to point out its utility when it picks up these certain traceable moves. Also, depending on speeds and mons, you can trace some abilities pre-mega, like Prankster, Natural Cure, Regenerator.


Okay, so does that mean those two are the only mons that can get the 30/10/30/10/20 + Delta Stream boosts?

Or can other mons get those boosts without picking up Dragon Ascent?
You're literally in a metagame thread farthest from what you're searching for, this metagame centralizes on using mega stones with almost any pokemon, there is nothing about move replacing or learning, this is not hackmons. And since Rayquaza has no stone, his mega can't be used. It probably works with Smeargle if the code allows it, but I 100% doubt it.
 
You're literally in a metagame thread farthest from what you're searching for, this metagame centralizes on using mega stones with almost any pokemon, there is nothing about move replacing or learning, this is not hackmons. And since Rayquaza has no stone, his mega can't be used. It probably works with Smeargle if the code allows it, but I 100% doubt it.
Since Smeargle has been banned from Mega Evolution... no, it's not legal on anything currently.

(whoops, forgot to cover Delta Stream, though it doesn't matter, so whatever)

As grateful as you've been explaining the near-uselessness of Trace, I don't see how running trace and hyper voice on the same mon is useless when Zygarde is S-rank, and popular with Altarianite. Grass Knot is also boosted by Tough Claws, though there's no good alakazite user with Grass Knot anyway so that point is moot.

It's an option for Togekiss, the mon itself has boosting moves in the form of tailwind and nasty plot, as well as a decent move pool to abuse nasty plot. Also the 85/115/115 is a nice mixed bulk on top of a typing that, again, abuses both Aerilate and Pixilate equally. I'd like to point out its utility when it picks up these certain traceable moves. Also, depending on speeds and mons, you can trace some abilities pre-mega, like Prankster, Natural Cure, Regenerator.
If you want a Special attacker with Pixilated Hyper Voice (Boomburst, Wring Out, whatever) to deal with Zygarde, you're better off with Altarianite or Gardevoirite -other than being 10 less Speed Gardevoirite provides the same statline. (Plus 20 pointless Attack) Trace is a bad gimmicky way of accomplishing that, especially since you'll outspeed Zygarde or fail to outspeed Zygarde (Because Dragon Dance) regardless, with Togekiss (Among other possibilities), whether you're Alakazite or Gardevoirite.

Anytime you don't Trace an -ate Ability, Hyper Voice is functionally a dead slot, which is terrible, and not something you can afford. Aside from Pixilate Zygarde, few Pokemon hate being hit with their -ate type: Altarianite Entei and Arcanine are resistant, Pinsirite Zygarde is neutral, Glalitite Weavile is resistant...

Meanwhile, as far as Tracing pre-Mega, you can look to Trace's utility in OU. (And then lower your estimation of its utility because you'll get any given use once, at most) I personally love Mega Gardevoir in way too many tiers, so I have a lot of experience with Trace, and it's utility goes like this:

-If Shedinja can be successfully Traced, that can be a sweep right there. (Nobody runs Shedinja in MnM, and nobody will until a Sturdy Mega Stone is released... and if that ever happens it will probably result in a ban, anyway)

-Intimidate is a great Trace because Intimidators are almost all Physical. (Mega Manectric is the only viable exception in Standard) In MnM, that will only apply the first time, unless it's Manectite, in which case they aren't Physical, and it's useless. In practice this amounts to an opportunity to Intimidate Landorus-Therian one time... and you could run Manectite for a similar statline and reliable, repeatable Intimidate.

-Flashfire is an excellent Trace because almost everything that runs it defaults to Fire as an attack. (Heatran is literally the only viable, Flashfire-running MnM Pokemon, and it will only work the one time) This extends, to a smaller extent, to the Water and Electric immunity Abilities. (With the caveat that almost nothing in MnM that gets them is run at all, or at least run with them) Furthermore, all three of these typings have better ways to become immune to them in MnM: Red Orb for Water, Blue Orb for Fire, Sceptilite for Electric.

-Unaware is a decent Trace, specifically if Clefable, because Clefable often runs either Calm Mind or Cosmic Power, and being able to ignore that is valuable. (Nobody runs Unaware in MnM)

-Regenerator is a decent Trace... primarily because Gardevoir has crap recovery, and will often want to switch out after forcing a switch anyway. (Nobody runs Regenerator in MnM, even though it could theoretically be useful)

-Natural Cure is an OK Trace, entirely because Starmie and Chansey carry Thunder Wave and it sucks to be hit by it. (Well, and some extremely passive Chansey rely entirely on Toxic) This all runs into the problem, in MnM, that Absolite is vastly superior protection, plus the secondary problem that you'll only get to do it the one time, again, since they'll have Mega Evolved immediately.

-Tracing Sand Rush, Swift Swim, or Chlorophyll can be excellent for counter-Speeding the abuser, when the situation crops up. (Weather teams are not a thing in MnM, and are limited in their potential to be a thing, barring further weather-oriented Mega Evolutions being released)

-Tracing Shadow Tag has the utility of allowing you to switch out of it. (Banned from MnM in its entirety)

-Download is occasionally useful if you get the correct boost. (Downloaders are not viable in MnM, at least not enough to be worth commentary, and it's a one-time deal, again)

-Forewarning you that you're facing Zoroark by virtue of it failing to trigger can be useful. (Nobody runs Zoroark in MnM)

-Multiscale. It's Multiscale. (Could have a niche use against Lugia, I'll admit)

-Poison Heal. It's not unusual for Gliscor to try to stall out Pokemon with Toxic+Poison Heal. (Nobody runs Poison Heal in MnM)

This is about it, barring extremely niche things like switching into a Sturdy Steel type that would otherwise OHKO you. There's things you might expect to be useful -shouldn't Magic Guard be a good Trace?- but the meta doesn't accommodate that expectation. (Magic Guarders rarely employ indirect damage themselves)

The only Tracer I've ever used in any metagame is Gardevoir, and entirely because Telepathy is useless in Singles while Synchronize is even more niche and unreliable than Trace. Trace itself is a limited Ability, in Standard, where it's more viable than in MnM.

To really argue for Trace/Alakazite, your Pokemon needs to simultaneously fulfill multiple roles against common threats entirely on the basis of Trace, such as acting as a check on a slower Banettite user and walling Sablenite users who like to dump hazards and... something else, I dunno...

And thus far nobody has found such a thing or even theorymonned it in any capacity. The Sceptilite Electrify Heliolisk counter is about it, and frankly the only reason I credit it at all is because it means you can run Sceptilite Heliolisk alongside your Sceptilite Heliolisk counter. Otherwise I'd just say "so why not run Sceptilite on Togekiss?"
 
if electrify is being considered for a ban on the basis that helio has limited checks, shouldn't sacred fire also be considered? altarianite entei's extremespeed/sacred fire combo invalidates huge portions of the meta, and its checks (blue orb steel types, red orb ground types) are few and susceptible to being lured/worn down by teammates. it can even howl on predicted switchins to break through them.

the point i'm making is that they have similar centralising traits, AND entei is more threatening imo (though some of you will probably be inclined to disagree with that point). so why the double standard?
 
if electrify is being considered for a ban on the basis that helio has limited checks, shouldn't sacred fire also be considered? altarianite entei's extremespeed/sacred fire combo invalidates huge portions of the meta, and its checks (blue orb steel types, red orb ground types) are few and susceptible to being lured/worn down by teammates. it can even howl on predicted switchins to break through them.

the point i'm making is that they have similar centralising traits, AND entei is more threatening imo (though some of you will probably be inclined to disagree with that point). so why the double standard?
I hope you're not actually serious. Entei is a powerful physical threat, but you can still wall it and wear it down with relative ease with Aggronite users, Blue Orb users and other walls, and Espeed it back with Pinsirite users.

Electrify is 32 turns at least that you can spend being unaffected by moves. Do you seriously not get the difference?
 
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edit: redacted, was pretty gauche and immature. i don't really appreciate the implication that i have no idea about this meta/no right to an opinion because i disagree with you, it feels agenda-driven.

if you seriously think there's no comparison to be drawn you should take a look at your own biases imo.

i enjoy this meta, and got up to the high 1300s on the ladder in 20 games (late in the omotm period when helio was allegedly running amok) so i know at least a little about what's effective, and it's my considered opinion that electrify didn't merit banning. i recognise i have no say in such matters though and it's done now, so whatever.
 
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