Metagame np: Stage 8 - Dream at Tempo 119 (READ POST #119)

[Machineae]

Goth's only real niche is being on a spike stacking team with shit like Primeape/Pawniard to put pressure on the enemies not to defog but even then its not that great IMO.

 

[Brawlfest]

the ONLY thing I can see Goth having as even a small Niche is Competitive + Taunt CM, which will let it beat opposing Psychic CM Mons and be a decently effective stallbreaker, although tbh I dont see any purpose in actually using it lol

 

[Machineae]

Not sure if this thread is the right place for it but w/e. Im interested in discussing role compression in NU. I've been interested in the topic for a while, its something I value highly but after seeing this post on Cobalion I decided to bring it up.

What mons do you think can effectively fulfill multiple roles? Things that come to mind immediately are Lanturn, Mesprit, Carracosta, Archeops and Garbodor. Without going too indepth, its easy to see how these can effectively do more than one thing, where as a mon like Sawk is typically delegated to wallbreak and possibly sweep slower teams. Lanturn has many useful resists/immunities, has cleric capabilities, can grab momentum with VS or can spread your preferred form of status with scald, toxic or twave. Mesprit can get up rocks, spread paralysis, grab momentum with uturn or go on the offensive if you decide for two hard hitting attacks instead of uturn+zen headbutt, serve as a soft fighting check and has a useful ground immunity. I won't bother to elaborate for the last few because its rather straight forward.

Thoughts? Maybe mons you feel can fulfill multiple roles successfuly? Is role compression something you keep in mind when team building?

 

[Ren-chon]

One pokemon worth noticing when talking about versatility in performing multiple roles reliably is Mega Audino. While it doesn't provides any noticeable resistance, its general lack of weakness and enormous bulk coupled with surprisingly good movepool allows it to do well in almost any team archetype: it can perform the role of a cleric, wish passer, soft or hard check to 70% of the tier, defensive sweeper, offensive sweeper, lure (between its stab, fire blast, surf, grass knot and psychic, you can basically lure anything), spread paralysis, act as desperate check to set uppers with encore, and even give a second life to something due to its access to healing wish. Yes, 99% of the time it will be crodino, but that doesn't mean it's limited to just this one role. Also, I really wanna emphasize Archeops' capacity to perform multiple roles while still posing a huge offensive presence unregarding of the set, which is a god's gift to offensive teams. It can remove hazards with Defog, keep momentum with U-Turn, stallbreak with Taunt, lead, and check some troublesome 'mons to offense such as Pyroar, Kangaskhan and Tauros (if lacking Iron Head or Rock Slide).

Now to the last question, role compression is definitely something that I consider when teambuilding as it allows me to use as little as possible slots, leaving some free room later on to fill other objectives, like fixing some problems that may have arised, making the team as diverse as possible. However, I usually tend to focus more on it after the team is actually built, when I have an idea of what I still need and what can I change. For example, if my team is weak to Fire-types and it has Lilligant+Skuntank, I can just change them for a Shiftry and have a free slot to do whatever I want.

Sorry if this message seems a bit messy, I'm almost falling asleep but needed to post before all my ideas about this subject went to the trash.

 

[Kingler]

I mean lanturn is basically the same kind of shit w/ different items/moves lol i wouldn't consider it to fulfil different "roles" as such. nothing really comes to mind. Mawile, Carracosta etc can go both the offensive and support route with Carracosta having many little options which is cool, but I dunno.

Oh actually mesprit is versatile as shit, can go physical/special with a variety of items. Very good mon. Garbodor can switch around a lot of stuff tho at the end of the day it's still gonna be a spiker (granted, in differnet contexts).

 

[Aladyyn]

Mesprit is definitely one of the best gluemons our tier has to offer. It's not hampered by its mediocre defensive typing because fighting resist and a ground immunity are huge assets to have in NU. Add an incredibly diverse movepool and solid bulk with both offensive and defensive sets, support options in Stealth Rock, Healing Wish etc and you end up with probably the most splashable pokemon in the current metagame (fuck lanturn it's ass).

I haven't really seen many Carracostas, neither defensive nor offensive, its typing really hurts it defensively, it lacks resistances and has to rely on raw bulk to check stuff. I usually find that it's not worth putting on a team when I can use Rhydon or Regirock to check most of the same things but with clear advantages over Costa. Smash Costa actually sounds intriguing, Aqua Jet is incredible on everything and rock + water stab sounds like a great combination for attacking the meta.

 

[Machineae]

I mean lanturn is basically the same kind of shit w/ different items/moves lol i wouldn't consider it to fulfil different "roles" as such. nothing really comes to mind. Mawile, Carracosta etc can go both the offensive and support route with Carracosta having many little options which is cool, but I dunno.

Oh actually mesprit is versatile as shit, can go physical/special with a variety of items. Very good mon. Garbodor can switch around a lot of stuff tho at the end of the day it's still gonna be a spiker (granted, in differnet contexts).

I don't mean to say that it can use different sets to fulfill but rather that one set (with coverage changed to how you want) does a lot and fits in a lot of useful things. A standard set of Scald/VS/filler/filler consisting of heal bell, toxic, t-wave, icebeam, whirlpool, etc can do a ton of things! Spreading status, curing it, grabbing/denying momentum, sponging big special attacks, etc.

Admittedly, Cara is the weakest of the mons I listed at least in terms of this arguement. My logic was: Has rocks, can go defensive and serve as a strong flying, normal and fire check, or can use rocks then go on the offensive later if you fit SS into your set+two STABs. Or even just going with an offensive spread and dishing out some strong attacks, picking off faster weakened mons w/ Aqua Jet coming off of 108 Atk is great.

 

[Aasgier]

Doesn't a powerful STAB Fire move - at least if it is special - 2HKO Carracosta anyways?
Dunno, last time I spammed Fire Blast against it was Gen V, with Choice Specs Solar Power Charizard in the sun - which really had no problems just flat out OHKO'ing Carra, quad resist be damned, but we are talking about literally the most powerful unboosted special attack in the game at that point.

That, and Pyroar can annoy it with Taunt + WoW even if it doesn't, or Magmortar can whack it with Thunderbolt. There are also the Power Herb Solar Beam shenanigans if you are into that.

I dunno about Carracosta being a Fire-check, I always found it a bit iffy versus special Fire-types (which most are, at least in NU).

 

[honchkrow]

252 SpA Life Orb Pyroar Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Carracosta: 73-86 (20.7 - 24.4%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery

not quite a 2 hit ko. close tho

 

[Ares]

252 SpA Life Orb Pyroar Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Carracosta: 73-86 (20.7 - 24.4%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery

not quite a 2 hit ko. close tho

252 SpA Life Orb Pyroar Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Solid Rock Carracosta: 324-382 (92 - 108.5%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

50% in my favor

Edit @below: still in my favor :^)
252 SpA Life Orb Pyroar Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 64 SpD Solid Rock Carracosta: 292-347 (82.9 - 98.5%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

 

[Punchshroom]

At least use the correct defensive Costa spread u fuks

252 SpA Life Orb Pyroar Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 64 SpD Solid Rock Carracosta: 292-347 (82.9 - 98.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Dunno, last time I spammed Fire Blast against it was Gen V, with Choice Specs Solar Power Charizard in the sun - which really had no problems just flat out OHKO'ing Carra, quad resist be damned, but we are talking about literally the most powerful unboosted special attack in the game at that point.

252 SpA Choice Specs Solar Power Charizard Fire Blast (120 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Carracosta in Sun: 190-223 (71.3 - 84.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

You sure you weren't facing like a level 50 Costa at the time?

 

[Aasgier]

Hehe, thanks for proving me wrong. still, there's always that coverage most Fire-types carry. Magmortar's Thunderbolt, Pyroar's Hidden Power Grass, just Will-O-Wisp, etc

Punchshroom: No, but they (I faced more than just one Carracosta) probably had taken a few rounds of hazards damage. I forgot if my Sun Team used Spikes back then or not, but it might also have just switched into SR and/or Spikes twice. I doubt they ever were at full HP especially with your calc in mind. Hazards, maybe even an Earthquake from Golem if it was a lead (but then it also likely had max HP and possibly max SDef). It was just an OHKO whenever someone sent in Carra again against Charizard, but Charizard never came out until lategame, or midgame if I just wanted to blast a hole with those sickeningly powerful Fire Blasts.

Also, these calcs prove that Carracosta is a shaky Fire check because Pyroar's HP Grass KO's after a Fire Blast - rendering it incapable of switching in, nor can its witch into Magmortar's T-Bolt or Focus Blast, and hell, even Flareon carries Will-O-Wisp which Carracosta hates.

 

[Punchshroom]

Aasgier I mean Costa is not the best Fire check in NU but its access to Aqua Jet allows it to at least keep them at bay for fear of taking too much damage to properly break your team or for them to get easily revenge killed; it merely serves as a soft check much like Samurott does. Costa is sure as hell is a better Fire check than most other mons like Barbaracle, Gorebyss, Poliwrath and whatnot.

I haven't really seen many Carracostas, neither defensive nor offensive, its typing really hurts it defensively, it lacks resistances and has to rely on raw bulk to check stuff. I usually find that it's not worth putting on a team when I can use Rhydon or Regirock to check most of the same things but with clear advantages over Costa. Smash Costa actually sounds intriguing, Aqua Jet is incredible on everything and rock + water stab sounds like a great combination for attacking the meta.

I never found defensive Costa's resistances lacking: it hardwalls most Normal and Flying-types better than Rhydon can (thanks to Solid Rock and Lefties), and the lack of a Water weakness means it won't get surprised by random Aqua Tails. While its offensive presence is not as strong as Rhydon's, access to STAB Scald and Aqua Jet means that Costa is nowhere near the super passive Ground-bait that is Regirock, and I don't know if you've noticed, but the term "Ground-bait" is not a term you want to be associated with when Rhydon is a top threat atm.

Smash Costa is a decent alternative to offensive Rhydon as it can set up on much of the same mons, while still having (an invested) Aqua Jet to soft check Fires and things like Vivillon or whatever as well as offering improved early-/mid-game presence. You can even give up Aqua Jet and go mixed Hydro Pump + Ice Beam Smash Costa if you so desire, which, imo, is actually better for end-game cleaning atm.

Carracosta @ Life Orb
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 180 Atk / 88 SpA / 240 Spe
Naive Nature
- Shell Smash
- Hydro Pump
- Stone Edge
- Ice Beam

NU always has an abundance of physically bulky Pokemon compared to special Pokemon, so physical Smash Costa isn't doing that hot when it comes to the wallbreaking department. Mixed Costa trades early-game presence (with Aqua Jet) and reliability (Waterfall's accuracy) for all-out power against the walls of the tier. It doesn't miss out on any damage against its regular targets either; it still scores more or less equal damage on things like Tauros, Sawk, Garbodor, Musharna, and Mega Audino (the only notable exception I can think of being AV Yama), with the drawback against them being accuracy, but it's hard to argue with the strength mixed Costa boasts. While the less than max Speed investment no longer allows Costa to speedtie with even Adamant offensive Rhydon, it's still enough to outrun Tauros after +2. The offensive investment is split in such a way to score maximum overall damage against the likes of Lanturn and bulky Grasses. Quag gets 2HKOed by Hydro Pump on the switch-in, +2 Hydro Pump drowns things like Weezing and Intimidate Mawile, the bulky Grasses get totalled by +2 Ice Beam, and Pokemon which resist Pump + Beam (Water-types and Jynx) are more than handled by +2 Stone Edge.

88 SpA Life Orb Carracosta Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Unaware Quagsire: 207-243 (52.5 - 61.6%) -- 98.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 88 SpA Life Orb Carracosta Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Weezing: 387-458 (115.8 - 137.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 88 SpA Life Orb Carracosta Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 56 SpD Eviolite Gurdurr: 305-360 (81.5 - 96.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 88 SpA Life Orb Carracosta Ice Beam vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Vileplume: 346-408 (98 - 115.5%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
+2 88 SpA Life Orb Carracosta Ice Beam vs. 248 HP / 60 SpD Gourgeist-Super: 374-442 (100.2 - 118.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 180 Atk Life Orb Carracosta Stone Edge vs. 40 HP / 220 Def Lanturn: 402-473 (100.2 - 117.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 180 Atk Life Orb Carracosta Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Samurott: 403-476 (102.2 - 120.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

It's sad that you can't pair this with CoilPass Huntail due to the redundancy and difficulty (shared weaknesses), but what can ya do?

 

[Machineae]

All this because I said Carra was a fire check haha. Its good seeing this discussion tho. Ik Carra gets plenty of love from people who browse the forums but it seems ladder ppl ignore it.

But yeah, my bad, I meant he was a shakey check. If I'm pyroar and I have hazards on my side I'm definitely hesistant to HP grass that Carra because the aqua jet makes the rest of the game that much harder for me.
I'm also on the special smash Carracosta train. It feels shitty to use the lower offensive stat but as Punch said, there's definitely more physically defensive mons and ice beam is just wonderful rn.

 

[ryan]

I don't think everyone really grasped what Machineae was getting at when he said role compression. Carracosta is a versatile Pokemon that can perform a few different roles, but not all at once. A better example would be Musharna, which can compress all of physical wall, Fighting-type check, cleric, and sweeper into one set, rather than be able to do all those things in different sets.

On topic, I think role compression is really important in NU. It's the reason why, when Sneasel was around, it was on every team, and most teams looks highly similar. Sneasel itself gave your team strong priority, an incredibly fast offensive Pokemon that could both break down defensive cores and shred offense, a Pursuit trapper, and a softener of common Flying/Normal checks (Gurdurr, Mawile, Regirock, etc.) thanks to Knock Off. Beyond Sneasel, many teams in that metagame carried defensive Mawile and Lanturn because they both offered checks to top metagame threats, a slow defensive pivot, and some form of support (Stealth Rock, Heal Bell/Thunder Wave, respectively) on top of that. These Pokemon compressed multiple important roles for a team into just one slot, which made them better than most alternatives.

Role compression is certainly less important in this metagame than it was in the Sneasel metagame, but it is still something to keep in mind while teambuilding. The more you can fit into fewer slots, the more optimized your team becomes, with exceptions i.e. Bastiodon can set Stealth Rock, phaze with Roar, and offer some way to wear down its switch-ins with Toxic, but it does so at the cost of no offensive presence and a niche defensive typing. Some of the roles you might be able to compress into one slot might also not be important. Again with the Bastiodon reference, many NU teams doesn't need any way to phaze because they can keep up enough pressure against setup Pokemon to keep from losing to them, even if the team is weak to them on paper.

 

[Machineae]

Yeah, you're pretty much getting at exactly what I meant, but had trouble maybe getting through with some of my examples.

 

[Evan.]

role compression is really important and is a big reason why a lot of the top mons are top mons (i.e rhydon being a normal and bird check, as well as getting up rocks and checking bulky boosters w/ SD if you choose to go w/ SD rocks; lanturn acting as a check to like every non-grass type special attacker, heal bell user, and momentum grabber) but i think that a lot of builds, specifically balance builds, are trying to compress too many roles atm. By throwing on lanturn as your only check to waters and fires or rhydon as your main answer to normals / birds, you leave yourself open to getting worn down and overwhelmed by teams with multiple mons that a lanturn or a rhydon has to beat. while this isn't optimal, i feel like we've reached a point in the metagame where you need mass role compression in order to have at least one answer to anything the metagame can throw at you.

this may seem unhealthy at first, but when you think about it, a desirable metagame doesn't exactly require that balance teams can hard check the entirety of the metagame in 6 slots. in fact, balance being a bit weaker might even be a good thing for the metagame since it promotes the use of different playstyles. i was talking to hollywood about this a bit the other day, and we both agreed that offense is a pretty great playstyle right now (maybe even better than balance), because they don't need to have a solid defensive answer for everything in the meta. you'll still need at least soft checks for the top threats (unless you run heavy / hyper offense) but keeping up offensive pressure and abusing priority is one of the best ways to pressure top offensive threats like Magmortar, Sawk, Tauros, Archeops, etc. Offensive teams also do a great job of overwhelming the balance teams that I mentioned earlier that rely on role compression to check everything at once. A good example of this would be finch's normal spam team from the sneasel meta, since that team did a really good job of taking advantage of teams that relied on regirock or rhydon to stop the top physical threats in the tier.

basically the point of this post was just to try and encourage people to stray away from your lanturn + grass type + rhydon balance builds and try out offense or even semi-stall (i haven't tested it yet, but queen's fat builds that he always calls "balance" are basically semi-stall and are usually pretty solid). I know i've heard people complain about this metagame, I was one of the people that didn't like it up until about a couple days ago. I hated that my usual rhydon + lanturn balance builds couldn't consistently win games even though in theory, i was handling the top threats. I was also one of the people that kept complaining that it wasn't possible to check everything in the meta. While i was technically right, I was too stubborn to change my builds up slightly to account for the new metagame, and in return, i actually stopped playing the tier for a while. With this post, i hope that i can open some eyes to different builds and playstyles especially since this meta is actually really diverse. I just feel people just need to adapt their expectations when building, and they'll be better off for it.

 

[Kingler]

Marikeinen then that's a mon that offers role compression w/one thing which is significantly different. Mush like hollywood said is a good example, these two are pretty different terms altogether

 

[Raseri]

Hey guys, due to how dead this thread has been over the past month or 2, we're going to be introducing some semi-regular topics. The NP thread will host these discussion topics whenever there is no discussion going on in order to keep relevant and intelligent discussion flowing through the thread. These topics are meant to induce intelligent responses and maybe even create a bit of debate within the thread. Seeing as the NP thread is the central hub of discussion in our subforum, users who consistently contribute to discussion with high quality posts may find themselves in the running for either the shiny Pre-Contributor (

) or Community Contributor (

) badges.

Of course, these topics are just a baseline for discussion and you shouldn't feel restricted to exclusively talking about the topic at hand. This new format is meant to enhance and increase discussion, not limit it, so feel free to discuss anything alongside the weekly topic. Also, if you aren't confident in your posting abilities, but have an idea for a topic that you would like to see discussed, feel free to PM or VM it to Can-Eh-Dian, where he will bring it up with the format revitalization group and try to work it in sometime in the future.

Our first topic will be:

Defensive Teams in the current metagame, (this can mean full stall, semi-stall, or even defensive balance teams) how do they fare? What are some potential metagame trends that help and/or hurt them? How do you see them faring in future metas compared to how they fared in past metas?

 

[Louna]

Actually, I don't think the defensive teams have a lot of potential, because of the drop of Skuntank who can pressure the bulky psychic like Xatu, Musharna and Mesprit who are in a lot of defensive teams, and in NU, we have a lot of wallbreaker or stallbreaker, such as taunt 3atk Samurott who can just defeat this kind of team. CB Sawk is a huge pressure to the defensive teams too, because of his movepool, and his two ability, it literally had no safe switch in, even in a defensive team. The defensive team have just a huge amount of set up follder due to amazing numbre of set up user in the current NU. It's literally impossible to check them all, in offense, we can pressure them, but in a defensive teams, we need to lost X mon or take a lot of damages to phaze/defeat them. The second thing i have about the defensive teams is the lack of speed, for the current NU, having a lack of speed can be fatal. There are a lot of offensive threats who can pressure the defensive teams because of the lack of speed the defensives mons have in this tiers. The speed tiers is really too high to use pretty well a defensive team, the offensive mon can just impose their rhythm to defeat the defensive team pretty easily. I'm maybe wrong, but i see the tiers like that at the moment.

 

[honchkrow]

So let me start this off saying I'm a huge fan of balance. Most of my teams include a defensive core of 3/4 mons then an offensive core. A team like this is very consistent and solid so I wouldnt discount balance as a good playstyle at all. Semi-stall/full stall on the other hand is awful in my opinion. Holiano said it well, mons like Sawk and pursuit (Skuntank ofc) threaten these types of teams a lot. Pokemon like Magmortar, Archeops (if hp grass for Quag, because Quag is fairly common on stall builds), and Tauros just break right through stall. Every team in my opinion needs a fast strong attacker like Tauros, Archeops, Floatzel because otherwise you leave yourself to always attacking second. And we all know that being the first to attack is very important in winning or applying pressure during a game. Like I said, if you want a "defensive" team, balance is the way to go, not stall/semi-stall. I've been having success with cores like Quag/Ferro/Mush or Gourgeist/Lanturn recently which handle a lot of top threats and still allow you to run offensive pokemon like Tauros as a ghost immunity and fast revenge killer or Magmortar as a Lilligant counter and wallbreaker.

tl;dr balance and offense are the best playstyles in my opinion atm

 

[Teddeh]

Well I'm in agreement that defensive teams suffer (look at Queen0-3discs for example ;)) I'm not too sure whether it was purely just because of the drop of skunk. I think that NU just has too many offensive pokemon and not enough defensive pokemon. It makes cores very standard for ladder play and often defines what's the best threats by the pokemon that can beat the most common cores, since there aren't many effective cores that cover every threat. Hence why balance seems to be a dominant playstyle simply because of people choosing to run core breakers / sweepers on every team with their own defensive cores / pivots. Hence making stall / semi-stall teams extremely unviable without the use of a core breaker themselves, hence making it basically balance.
I think that the most viable pokemon for stall however are pokemon such as mega-audino, musharna, quag, xatu, vileplume, but each of these pokemon often loses out to xatu's which may not be as common now, but is still there to null and void defensive teams. Whilst we have a hand full of core breakers that are extremely good such as magmortar, sawk, offensive vileplume (hehe), plus many more which i cba to look up but you get the point.
Final point is that semi-stall teams heavily rely on status + hazards to beat normal teams, defog is extremely easy to use and impossible to prevent and even there there are still spinners which can beat our handfull of spin blockers we have in the tier now spiritomb is gone, which just suggests that in every sense defensive teams are going to struggle.

tl;dr stall teams / semi-stall teams aren't viable imo

 

[Kiyo]

I'd argue that stall has become increasingly less viable as the number of viable set up sweepers in our tier have dramatically increased. For the longest time NU had been about abusing Pokemon with immediate power in order to take advantage of free turns and exploit opponents weaknesses in teambuilding (i.e. CB Sawk, CB Sneasel, Specs Dragalge, etc.) Which is not to say relevant set-up Pokemon such as Klinklang and Lilligant havent been around, they simply took an extra turn to be effective. However with the recent tier shifts and resulting metagame shift we've seen far more teams include Pokemon that can boost their stats or boost the stats of their teammates (think dual dance Rhydon, SD Scyther, CM Musharna, Fletchinder, SD Shiftry) as a way to get through bulkier balance builds with less of a struggle. I feel that this increase in boosting attackers is simply too much for stall to handle with out forcing a team to run Quagsire. Simply put I dislike Quagsire, it can be easily exploited and frankly doesnt provide the role condensation that defensive teams in NU need to deal with the plethora of offensive threats. Quagsire literally does nothing for a team other than provide an "Oh shit" button in emergencies.

Defensive teams becoming less viable is more of a recent occurence than people tend to realize. I'm of the mindset that stall was not only playable but a top playstyle until fairly recently, I've found its more people have a distaste for the playstyle, cannot effectively build it, or simply don't have the ability to change mindset when playing to a more defensive long-term oriented one.

I see others arguing that sheer offensive presence is holding teams back, or that defensive teams only deal damage through the use of entry hazards. I'd like to submit a sample defensive team that I've been using on and off since the early ORAS NU metagame to great success. I think you'll find it adequately deals with the majority of offensive threats in the tier when played well, it simply struggles to beat boosting sweepers not named Vivillon, Lilligant, Klinklang, or Samurott. This team relies far more on status damage than hazard damage, and has an offensive mode if you will by using Stoutland as a late game cleaner and a way to dispose of faster threats (or at least weaken them with pursuit).

http://puu.sh/kMDyT.txt

tl;dr Defense has the ability to check top tier offensive threats, its not necessarily reliant on hazards to deal damage, it simply becomes overwhelmed by set up sweepers without using the handicap known as quagsire.

 

[Banan123]

Yeah honestly stall is pretty bad right now. The only thing that makes stall not completely unviable is M-Audino, but it does better at balance anyway. Meta is much more offensive with Skuntank and Shiftry dropping and stallbreakers/taunt users such as Floatzel, Samurott and Skuntank seeing a big raise. Also wallbreakers like Sawk, Tauros, Rhydon,Aurorus and Scyther are better than ever. It's not even hard to have cleric nowadays as mons like Lanturn and M-audino are easy to slap on every team. Hazards + roar is also pretty inconsistent rn because it needs spinblocker, taunt user and the way to scare off defogers to work the way it's supposted to. I mean it's not like stall doesn't have tools to work. There are some mons that are great for this playstyle such as Misdreavus, Roselia, Pelipper and even defensive Flareon, but they aren't that common and are often overwhelmed by sheer power of some mons. If somehow meta becomes more balance and less offense I can see stall being relevant again, but now it's just straight up trash.

 

[Ren-chon]

In my opinion, full stall isn't that great due to the sheer amount of heavy hitter we have nowadays: CB Sawk, LO EQ Magmortar, Aurorus, Pyroar, Band Scyther... Yes, you can try to cover them, but most of the time they just have to spam their STAB or coverage and watch things die. And unlike offense, balance and semi-stall, full stall has almost no means to get back to the trails after one mon dies as it usually (not always) relies in just one mon countering or checking other 3~4. For example, if you lose Audino you WILL have huge problems against WoW Hex Rotom, you WILL have huge problems against LO EQ Magmortar, you WILL have problems against and the list goes on. It also shows another crippling problem that stall has: surprise factor. Out of all playstyles, it's the most affected by it. A single Aqua Tail from Kangaskhan against your Rhydon, or Grass Knot from Audino against your Quagsire, a random Explosion from Shiftry against your Vileplume or Skuntank, or even just some unexpected pokemon like Haunter will put the stall player in a position where they'll need to achieve nirvana in order to win the game. Stall isn't dead, it's just that its general slowness + lack of offensive presence + heavy dependance on every slot makes it kinda bad in the current meta. Also, I personaly think it's easier to cover things offensively and still have a backup answer to X threat than it is to do so defensively.

I don't have much experience with semi-stall or defensive balance teams, but I can say that they're more effective. First and most important, they can switch between defense and offense (even though the first is more present), meaning those kind of teams can both deal with threats defensively AND ofensively. This makes one hell of a difference when facing, for example, Zangoose who is almost impossible to cover with a defensive core, but easily dealt with the likes of Gurdurr or Archeops. It also greatly helps that in NU mons that trouble defensive builds are usually slow, unlike let's say OU with Chari-X, Manaphy and LO Torn-T, meaning that they're easier to cover with fastmons instead of fatmons. NU has been shifting more and more to a offensive focused tier, and semi-stall has been rising in popularity just because it's adapting to such changes rather than sticking with 6 walls who can't deal damage.

Now on things that works on those 3 archetypes, I'd definitely say Musharna, Audino and Archeops. The first two can do a lot of things that stall appreciate: they can act as a win condition, cleric, spread status with TWave, and are less prone to those random coverages that I've already talked about, since they have less exploitable weakness, as non-STAB signal beam does 0 to Mushy and the only relevant mon that run Iron Tail/Head as "surprise factor" is Tauros. As for Archeops, it's incredible because it offers to defensive builds 3 things: 1) offensive presence, due to its high Attack and Speed; 2) A way to check wallbreakers, as it can outspeed basically every one of them: Magmortar, Pyroar, CB Sawk, Zangoose, Aurorus... You name it; and 3) it helps against other defensive teams due to its access to Taunt. Of course there are a lot more mons that offer vital support to (semi-)stall, but those 3 are my personal favorites.

I'll try to use semi-stall more and comment with a more solid opinion here later, but I've already thrown all my cents about full stall. I've started this post like 40m ago but stopped to play a tour, so I'll probably get ninja'd. Pardon me if my message sounds like a copy of someone that posted before n_n