Dream World General Metagame Discussion

[November Blue]

The Substitute that dropped Garchomp into pinch range could still be intact, which would protect it from priority.

One Pokemon that is absolutely amazing in this tier is SubCM Latias. She has singlehandedly won me games. The Speed advantage is great, and she isn't OHKOed by Chandelure's Shadow Ball, even at +0 Special Defense.

Breloom is great too. That Mach Punch OHKOes absolutely everything.

Anyway, I just got into DW recently, have been playing for a few days, reached 1200ish on the ladder, tried stuff ect.

So far, I'm leaning towards not broken for both Blaziken and Chandelure. I tried the kickin' chicken myself, paired it with a Baton Pass recipient Dragonite (which proved to be a horrifyingly powerful strategy). Even though its power is devastating and it can reach insane Speed levels while it does its stuff, Blaziken is kept in check by its defensive faults. 259 - 388 Speed is still fairly slow in this metagame, and almost every Choice Scarf user can outspeed it. It has plenty of checks, which include Pokemon that resist its dual STAB moves, such as Dragonite, Jellicent, Latias, as well as Gliscor, Protect users, and Ghost-types.

Even though Blaziken can eliminate all of its counters under sun, is this really a valid point? Sand is so dominant right now and Tyranitar is everywhere due to Chandelure, plus rain teams are the next best option, leaving sun in the somewhat dubious basket. Sure, you can run sun and kill everything with boosted Flare Blitzes (read: two Pokemon before Blaziken succumbs to recoil) but it's not common enough to be used as a legitimate reason for banning it.

I know that recoil damage from Flare Blitz and Life Orb isn't enough to cut short Blaziken's sweep (having used it for a while, this seems like an anecdote, not a fact) and though Hi Jump Kick can miss with disastrous results, most players can play around Ghost-types and Protect users to avoid this, and the 90% accuracy is pretty reliable. However, priority is pretty common, and this recoil does leave Blaziken vulnerable to revenge kills with priority moves (Breloom, Dragonite ect.) It's also vulnerable to Spikes, Stealth Rock, Thunder Wave Thundurus, Choice Scarf users...

While Blaziken is powerful, the factors that push it over the edge (sun, a successful Pass ect.) are somewhat uncommon, and difficult to pull off due to its frailty and the current metagame, which might be overpreparing for it. Inversely, the factors that keep Blaziken in check are all fairly common, which balances it out somewhat. Though Baton Pass is a powerful asset, some of the brokenness must be attributed to the recipient, as a badly made team will not be able to take advantage of the payload as well as a good team could.

As for Chandelure, I've been using a team that lacks both Tyranitar and Stealth Rock, and I've managed to handle it just fine. I'm not entirely sold one way or the other yet, but if I were to prepare for Chandelure a little more, I don't think I'd have much of a problem with it at all. You can deal with it by carrying bloody Tyranitar of all things. No extreme measures, no obscure sets, just one of the best Pokemon in the current metagame.

Honestly, I find Ditto to be much worse than any of these Pokemon. Damn thing is a nightmare.

[bluemon]

once you get higher up in the ladder, the only thing you see are tyranitars.

no rain teams.

and at this moment in time, sun teams suck.

also, while everyone uses ttar, i troll by using a sp. defensive hippowdon.

it is the best thing ever as it lures chandelure (i dont even think SPECS ohkoes me), ttar's ice beam (3-4hko) and gemesect never ohkoes with +1 ice beam.

[DetroitLolcat]

And Brelooms. Brelooms as far as the eye can see.

[The QWAZ]

noooooo, blaziken is gone, oh well what else is clearly broken and needs abusing
aha manaphy

[Danilo]

So i havent been seeing any Chandelure, but that doesn't mean it's not effecting the meta! I've also been seeing a lot more rain teams and idk why. Sand is still king imo since T-tar checks Chandelure. People need to use Ditto...

[Matthew]

I've been really digging Zapdos lately. It's a better Thundurus in this current metagame since it can actually take a hit, plus its Dream World ability is so good I want to cry sometimes.

[Kidogo]

A cool zapdos set is the agility sweeper--if you can get it in on a choiced electric move, it gets +1 / +2 for free as the opponent switches. A set like Thunder(bolt) / Hidden power [ice] / Signal Beam (or something else, signal beam hits ttar) / Agility has worked well for me. Zapdos is a perfect fit for rain teams both offensively and defensively, and really brings a nice balance of power and bulk (and speed too), which is its main advantage over thundurus. The part I don't like though is how limited it is--the fact that it would consider something like signal beam shows how sparse its movepool is, and without HP [fighting] it can't even dent something like ttar, which is NOT good for rain teams (and HP [fighting] doesn't even 2HKO SpD variants). This does kinda turn me off from zapdos, but he's really useful on rain teams regardless, as demonstrated by his high usage.

[superbadd]

I've been playing dw for a couple of months and just recently made an account and I'm wondering instead of banning ss+drizzle altogether why don't we have a clause? Like one ss pokemon per drizzle team. It could help add diversity and po did something like that w/evolite and middle cup. Plus it could help rain take on sand.

[Sewa]

All you need is using Kingdra, you don't need other SwiftSwimmers.

[superbadd]

Ludicolo and Kabutops are pretty decent, the type of SS depends on your team's layout.

[Sewa]

Still, just one of them breaks the game, through overpowered moves like DM and Hydropump or just with perfect coverage and high speed like ludicolo. We're not talking about bad pokes like chrolophill abusers that just see their fire weakness boost up and just a buff to solarbeam. We're looking at pokes that see their main stab boosted even further and have access to good coverage.
Kabutops has waterfall, SD, SE, aqua jet; it can rapid spin if you need it, has a boosted SpDef in enemy weather. The same goes for Armaldo, that has even stab X-Scissor to scare grass types that usually give problems to rain.
Ludicolo stops the main counter to rain offense (Gastro) with stab gigadrain, has rain-boosted Hydropump/surf, ice beam for grass and dragon pokes and HP of choice, Focus Blast or just another rain dance just to fuck up with tyranitar switch-ins. And if you don't like this set, you can just make the fast staller set with leech seed/sub, just like venusaur in sun, but with an easier time to switch in and start annoy. It also has SD to run a physical set.
Huntail and Gorebyss can invest in bulk and run a ShellSmash BP set with swift swim without worry of being outsped. Omastar can do the same with max HP/max SpAtk. If Poliwrath gets a free turn it goes to +6/+2 under rain.
And I didn't talk about Kingdra.
It gives scarf-like speed to pokes that can run boosting items, switch attacks and have a double-stab on water.
Rain is full of abusers, like Thundurus (normal and T), Tornadus (normal and T), Zapdos, Keldeo, Toxicroak, CMrachi etc.. etc...
It even powers up scald for bulky waters, reduces fire weakness from the likes of amoonguss, ferro, forre and scizor, gives Tentacruel and decent recovery. It even has Manaphy in DW OU.
I think giving it the chance to run something like Kingdra or other swift swimmers should be unhealthy in a balanced tier like the one we created.

[superbadd]

That's the whole point of testing to see it's affect. You also can't run all those pokemon at once, only one per team. On top of that sand has something like exadrill, sandslash, and scoutland. Allowing rain to just have one equivalent of those three won't be the end of the world. If we're testing darkrai than just one SSer won't be too bad. Beside that balance is boring. Why do you think DW is so much fun? It's not balanced it just all fits together w/o any major disruptions. W/the SSer pokemon allowed blaziken has the option of being retested because there are more viable checks available. If anything allowing them in the metagame may be healthy for it.
Now let's look at the SSer you mentioned. Kingdra-w/o rest jellicent counters it and can stall w/recover +toxic. With rest slowbro counters the physical version to hell and back, stalls w/regenerator+slack off and can get a burn w/scald and wear it down with psychic. Kabutops-Again slowbro walls it and burns it with scald. The best thing kabutops can do is xscissor and even that doesn't do much w/o a boost. Gastrodon resists all of it's moves and can destroy it with earth power and scald. breloom and scizor both check it w/priority. Ludicolo-Blissey. Seriously she can take anything it can do and wear it down w/seismic toss. spdef ferrothorn is a decent check as the best ludicolo can do is rely on focus miss. With ludi's low speed fast scarers can also check it such as scarf tornadus. Huntail/gorebyss-Ditto. phasers remove the boosts. Priority thunderous t-wave neuters both of them. Haze mitotic, though not as common is a great check. Poliwrath is picked off by strong priority and bulky gyrados can phase it out. As you can see w/o going into detail and whipping out calcs there are plenty of viable checks/counters for each SS pokemon. So at least testing them wouldn't hurt. I think I misspelled quite a few pokemon names, sorry about that.. -;-;

[Matthew]

that rule seems overly complex for not a whole lot of benefit. A good rain team crushes sand teams anyway, why hinder sand anymore that it already is? It has to deal with: Keldeo, Breloom, Manaphy, opposing Garchomps, Conkeldurrs, hell even Infernape in the right case.

[superbadd]

We're already in a complex ban regarding ss+drizzle so why not alter it? Isn't sand already dominant in DW atm? Once darkrai is done, this could be the next thing to take a look at. I'm just asking if this can at least be looked at with consideration. Though not incredibly substantial, a little more diversity is good, right?

[Sewa]

Originally Posted by Fat superbadd

Isn't sand already dominant in DW atm?

Nope. Rain is dominant: except for few sand stalls like Jimbon one, other sand teams have sand stream just because ttar traps and kills chandelure with ease. they're just ttar + garchomp/exca cores and no other sand abusers, or just maybe gliscor to stop enemy exca. Rain has more bonuses and more abusers that can easily rip throught ttar and hippo. What can exca and chomp do against a scarftoed? nothing, they're doomed. And if ttar tries to switch-in it gets hit by a stab Hydropump or risks a burn from scald (losing survivability).

[superbadd]

I haven't played dw in a while, so how have the genies effected the metagame? Is sand still dominant or has rain taken the crown as the best weather?

[Tendie]

Sand is still very, very dominant.

[VerbingVerber]

I didn't know where to put this, so here will do. I'm pretty sure Soul Dew is banned from DW OU. It was on PO, and it says so in the banlist thread in here, too. However, I was mucking around on PS! and I was able to play several matches with Soul Dew Latias and one with Latios. So, is it legal now? Or has PS! just not implemented the bans.

[Tendie]

A TON of things need implemented on PS! Drizzle+SS, for example.

Just sit tight, and inform the PS! forums of this issue.

[Bryce]

Originally Posted by Fat Sewa

Nope. Rain is dominant: except for few sand stalls like Jimbon one, other sand teams have sand stream just because ttar traps and kills chandelure with ease. they're just ttar + garchomp/exca cores and no other sand abusers, or just maybe gliscor to stop enemy exca. Rain has more bonuses and more abusers that can easily rip throught ttar and hippo. What can exca and chomp do against a scarftoed? nothing, they're doomed. And if ttar tries to switch-in it gets hit by a stab Hydropump or risks a burn from scald (losing survivability).

So you suppose sand teams carry only ttar,garchomp,exca and Gliscor.That is not the case,Sure,sand teams are weak to rain,but sand teams are prepared for that as well.TTar Pursuit+Chandelure Energy ball is a common strategy to take out politoed.Plus most sand teams carry defensive checks for rain teams such as Latias or Suicune.Genesect can easily threaten the opposition with tbolt and scout with U-turn.Manaphy,especially the bulky one is the problem sand teams have and keldeo to an extent.Manaphy can be screwed over by a smart switch to ttar and forcing out politoed.Hazards and offensive pressure which sand teams easily provide can take out the rain toad.Sub salac chomp can easilt rip through rain teams after an SD if Breloom/Physical walls are taken out.In short ,Sand teams that are well prepared for Rain teams are prominent.I agree that Rain teams are really strong but I completely disagree about how you compare them.Both styles are equally good.

[wobbahax]

Just a little argument that chandelure isn't that broken:
SubCM sets: can only do this against: choiced locked normal, fighting moves and special walls. That's pretty limited...
Choice scarf sets: Limited to: Non boosted, non scarfed sweepers (>80 speed stat.) Okay, so chandelure can't revenge sweepers that have DD or agility. It can only revenge the average kill (you know, vaporeon uses ice beam, finishes off a Therian). Oops, DD haxorus just OHKO'd your chandelure.Oops, scarf landorus/therians killed your chandelure.

~
Putting it all together: Chandelure with shadow tag isn't that broken. With the likes of biissey already decreasing in such a fast paced metagame, and who uses choiced fight/normal, anyway?) SubCM isn't that cheap. Scarfed can't stop setup sweepers. So yeah, chandelures one of my favorite pokes, but it isn't that broken.

[Antihaxxer]

Originally Posted by Fat wobbahax

and who uses choiced fight/normal, anyway.

Terrakion ? Scizor Superpower/Bullet Punch ? CBNite with Extreme Speed ? CBLoom MachPunch/LowSweep ?

But I don't play DW OU a lot, I could be wrong

[Sewa]

One of the most used pokes in DW (Breloom) is setup bait for Chandy. You can trick choice items on walls and start setup, you can entrainment truant and start setup.

As for the scarf set: it's not like a revenge killer, it's just a physical walls trapper. It can come in on Skarmory, Slowbro (yeah, scald does pitiful dmg), Amoonguss not using spore, Bronzong, etc.. and kill them. Scarf Chandelure helps too much your sweepers. With no Skarmory or Slowbro, who's gonna stop your SubSalac Garchomp? With no Jellicent/Amoonguss, who's gonna take specs hydropumps from Keldeo?
What should you do against Exca? Revenge with mach punch and risking that Chandi comes in or predict the switch and risk to get stomped by +2 iron head?

Chandelure is so good that many walls hold Shed Shell in fear of it. Skarmory has always feared Magnezone, but shed shell was rare. Now quite every skarmory has Shed Shell. You know why? Because Chandelure comes in and you can switch to your Tyranitar when it uses fireblast.

Not to forget it has the highest SpAtk of the tier, tied with Thundrus-T.

[Bryce]

Chandelure is clearly a huge threat but it's not that broken IMO.Basicly like Sewa said it's job is to remove physical walls for the likes of Exca and Chomp to sweep.How ever,the viability of shed shell makes it less threatening.Skarmory and Slowbro doesn't mind it much since skarm is immune to sand and slowbro has regenerator.Gliscor needs toxic orb so it's an issue for him but still u can always run sand veil with roost and it was a classic wall in 4th gen,may be get a bit of sand veil hax as bonus.Bronzong might be the only physical wall that's need to fear chandelure the most.

As for Breloom,I think Chandelure balances it out becoz Breloom would be a nasty poke in an offensive Meta like DW with fast but relatively frail pokemons.

Chandelure also isn't that much of a threat to other common DW OU pokes without getting killed it self(Example:Politoed)other than Non scarfed Genesect or Genesect locked into the wrong move and Garchomp outside sub / with out salac boost or scarf.

[superbadd]

I'm really worried that once it gets released in standard, people will do anything to ban it. >.> I hope you guys are ready to come to it's defense.

Anyway, what's with darkrai? Can we finally come to a decision about it? How long do we have to wait?