np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 3 - Ghosts [Giratina-O remains in Ubers - check the OP]

[RoyalDispenser]

First of all, you don't know what a lure is. Lures are used on offensive teams to lure out and dispose of mons that wall or check a given sweeper, allowing them to sweep. Remember how Gira is being suspected because it checks a lot of nigh-uncheckable things? Well, get rid of an opposing Gira and those mons can sweep. Foul Play Diggersby is an effective lure for Giratina-O. Lures are never counters. Like, by definition. If you're trying to lure pokemon A with pokemon B, then if B counters A, it's not going to lure it in. By the way, offensive teams don't even strive to counter things. Now, it's true that Diggersby isn't top-tier OU, but it is able to O/2HKO everything, while maintaining strong priority against offensive teams. It has flaws, but as a wallbreaker it's nearly unmatched. Like, it gets spikes and literally nobody uses them because why spike when you can just kill everything? Seriously. That's the reason.

I know what a lure is, my point is why the hell would I run a subpar lure like diggersby just to deal with giratina? Eventually giratina players will catch on to foul play diggersby as it's the only reason why it'd be viable with giratina around.. we'll know better to switch into more appropriate checks like keldeo as apposed to giratina. On the RK or prediction that isn't foul play, giratina can just OHKO with aura sphere or cripple something else. (btw with a few EVs giratina can avoid the OHKO and switch in on foul play.)

So in what way is luring something making giratina seem underwhelming when it can develop and players will have a better understanding how to use it?

During the suspect test giratina's going to just be slapped on teams and experimented on.. once pokemon start adjusting these sets (diggersby) and see usage we'll begin to handle those accordingly with our own defensive spreads or predictions.

It's not like diggersby can do many other things other than foul play.. with giratina's usage it's a pretty obvious prediction to make that foul play is coming.. Your lure isn't even a good lure, just a situational occurrence against a poor prediction in an underdeveloped metagame with a newly introduce pokemon nobody knows how to use properly yet. It's not like aegislash with several options adding versatility making it an effective lure to bisharp, no, foul play diggersby would become something more standard.

 

[Swaqfeq]

I'm quite surprised that you would post a replay which showcases how bad of a sport you are. Constantly disrespecting your opponent and dissing on him while he says nothing back to you nor showcases off any sort of disrespectul attitude whatsoever. People like you are what's so wrong with PS these days. It's a game for crying out loud lol.

o sry budd. ill make a strong effort to improve my good sportness. giratina is pretty good imo and doesnt really break the meta btw. its a good mon in being a bulky spinblocker and ye.

 

[Alfalfa]

After some experimentation on the suspect ladder, I can conclude that a number of teams that would normally be fine but are unprepared for GiraO find themselves in an awkward position. People also have not come to understand how to play against it, either, which is not surprising due to how little time the ladder has been up. However, one thing I think GiraO is good at is its ability to punish passiveness and take advantage of bulkier teams; while GiraO helps bulkier teams, offensive teams are also highly appreciate of GiraO's ability to do this, so saying that GiraO kills offense is not a good argument when offense appreciates all of the different things it can do for it, including offensive Defog / Will-O-Wisp, Substitute + Calm Mind, and Mixed Attacker. You can say that GiraO's bulk is ridiculously high, but it gets worn down very easily and we still have plenty of time to explore checks and counters, such as Mandibuzz, I admit that Gira O + Sand Offense makes up the majority of the teams I have seen, and the high level of lethality it can exert does overwhelm me a bit, but people are mostly sticking to what works for now just so they can have a better understanding of how GiraO works in the metagame.

Simple things like Foul Play Diggersby are not lures that are going to last forever (this is directed at RoyalDispenser ), and if that catches on as a lure, it will hit a peak, die down in usage, and be replaced with a different Gira-O lure. That is always how lures have worked. I cannot find any mention where anybody mentions luring GiraO making it underwhelming, so I think you have misconstrued his point. I understand why you might conclude that, as some people might treat luring it like it automatically tones down GiraO's effectiveness (like when people said that Ferrothorn was easy to lure and therefore underwhelming, which was the complete opposite), but such an idea is highly flawed and is not what anybody here, including Fizz is trying to say.

 

[Enki]

You know what? Even if this suspect test is by chance just an april fish it is still a good chance for us to analyze our current metagame, see how it fares, and where we are headed.
Many top players don't like the current metagame, they prefer the older metagames for some reasons
This is the (old) thread of a Characteristics for a desiderable pokemon metagame:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/characteristics-of-a-desirable-pokemon-metagame.66515/

Now then, let's go to the "variety" category, on issues and concerns we already find two important things "too much variety is caos" and "nobody can master a game with too many options".
Many laments about team matchup being an issue, but actually, what truly is Team Matchup? The fact that your team, no matter how good it truly is, will always have trouble against a specific threat, or perhaps core or strategy, you can't cover, or more specifically, you can cover that strategy, but you'd get destroyed by something else after doing so.
So, my question is, What Metagame we desire?

Let's put it this way, we have three options:
The "sprite option" the "chess option" and the "middle option".
The sprite option is an option that only cares about variety, it has no interest on issues that go outside the player's control such as Team Matchup, the more useable 'mons (and sets) the better.
The chess option has no interest on how many 'mons are effectively useable, variety does not come from the game, in this case, but from the players reasoning, which can be extended to antimetagame sets (hey, if the metagame is smaller to consider, we surely have an easier time considering what can give us an edge, right?) and decisions during the battle, because well, no battles is the same, players may use the same teams, but the result of the battle is different, due to their reasoning.
The third option, what I feel Smogon is using at the moment, especially with suspecting Giratina-Origin the middle option, is an option that tries to fit in both variety and chess option.
How? The reason why Giratina-origin is tested and not stuff like say, mega Lucario is because Gira-origin centralize the metagame by a much larger degree than Aegislash, with a generation with a much higher power creep than DPP (the generation when the old characteristics thread was created) and also many more 'mons to counter, we still have the usual deal, which is, all teams must do their best to cover stuff with six slots, as we get more stuff to check everytime a new games come out, we are still forced to use six slots, some times we are lucky, for example, Stealth Rocks introduced on 4th gen nerfed a good deal of threats, and you didn't sacrifice much by adding them to your team, as a matter of fact, there was a vast list of stealth rocks users (then came gen 6 with defog), stealth rocks alone surely isn't enough to keep at bay the vast majority of threats we have on ORAS (if we count the ones from the viability Ranking Thread we may even get to 130, for example, bear in mind that all those 130 'mons by no means have all a single set, for example: Rock Polish Landorus-incarnate has a different way to be handled than Four attacks Landorus-incarnate... if you call that handling haha).
And this is why, Giratina-origin is tested, and not Kyurem-white or other ubers, because Gira is the one that can bring more centralization than all other (uber) threats and it isn't that difficult to splash on a team, due to its resources.
But in doing so, we raise the power creep even more than what we have now with all these mega evolutions, and we are not even actually sure that Giratina-origin by itself is enough to help the metagame in dealing with all these threats, stuff like mega Gardevoir, mega Altaria and Mega Diancie continue to being VERY difficult to stop (heck, it was one of the main reasons we had an outcry about mega Metagross getting suspect tested), so... if said suspect test is not an April Fish I think we should participate in it questioning, do we like the current metagame? What kind of Metagame do we want? How much are we willing to sacrifice either by banning all megas altogether plz or unbanning potential uber balancing threats like Giratina-origin now in order to reach that desiderable metagame?

As for me

 

[Balke002]

i really think that giratina o should be ou for a lot of reasons:

its low base 90 speed means that is outsped by most of the boosted teir and cant even run scarf to catch up to them
the metagame really needs a stop to offensive teams and giratina o simpy wades through hyper offence
a weakness to knock off and inability to beat bisharp 1 on 1
the amount of high power super effective moves being thrown around ou, giratina needs some bulk and that means sacrificing a lot of bulk and or speed

 

[Let's go shuckles]

i really think that giratina o should be ou for a lot of reasons:

its low base 90 speed means that is outsped by most of the boosted teir and cant even run scarf to catch up to them
the metagame really needs a stop to offensive teams and giratina o simpy wades through hyper offence
a weakness to knock off and inability to beat bisharp 1 on 1
the amount of high power super effective moves being thrown around ou, giratina needs some bulk and that means sacrificing a lot of bulk and or speed

Giratina-O can beat bisharp 1 on 1
252+ SpA Giratina-O Aura Sphere vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Bisharp: 488-576 (179.4 - 211.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Giratina-O has the power and moveset to hit tons of things hard. Ghost and fighting hits everything and throw in draco meteor and very little will want to take a hit from this thing.

 

[-gizmo-]

I've seen a lot of posts of people saying how people haven't had much trouble with Giratina-O on the suspect ladder and therefore it should be OU. I'd just like to say one thing: Most people don't know how to f***ing use Giratina-O because it literally just got introduced to OU yesterday. Once it gets some actual playtesting, I hope people will find the good sets and EV spreads for it. Otherwise I predict this will happen:

1. People use shitty Giratina sets for the next two weeks.
2. Giratina gets unbanned because people don't have much trouble with said shitty sets.
3. People will eventually find the good Giratina sets.
4. People will call for a suspect test to ban Giratina-O when people actually know how to use it.

Honestly, this suspect test should be longer than two weeks because we are dealing with something that hasn't been used at all in OU. I don't think Mega Mawile was considered a very good threat the first few weeks of XY OU and then people started to wise up. I can see this coming from a mile away and I don't want to be telling people "I told you so" in a couple of months.

This is in its own theory, but I feel like this process is going at an accelerated rate because giratina is the only "new" thing we've had to play with for a while, so cores and sets are being developed rather quickly as its the main focus. Though, I guess 2 weeks isn't very long to show the extent of giratina's effect on the metagame, but I do think it is enough to solidify feelings and ideas about the matter. Not trying to argue what you're saying, just wanted to toss my two cents out there.

 

[Alfalfa]

Giratina-O can beat bisharp 1 on 1
252+ SpA Giratina-O Aura Sphere vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Bisharp: 488-576 (179.4 - 211.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Giratina-O has the power and moveset to hit tons of things hard. Ghost and fighting hits everything and throw in draco meteor and very little will want to take a hit from this thing.

Gira O still has mindgames to play with Bisharp because Life Orb Sucker Punch can do over 70-90%. And if you say that the fact that GiraO can live that hit makes it broken, Wobbuffet can live that hit as well, despite also being weak to Bisharp's Sucker Punch. I see the point you are trying to make, but you are just overspinning everything that would make it bannable and are not even considering why people would say it is not broken.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

Simple things like Foul Play Diggersby are not lures that are going to last forever (this is directed at RoyalDispenser ), and if that catches on as a lure, it will hit a peak, die down in usage, and be replaced with a different Gira-O lure. That is always how lures have worked. I cannot find any mention where anybody mentions luring GiraO making it underwhelming, so I think you have misconstrued his point. I understand why you might conclude that, as some people might treat luring it like it automatically tones down GiraO's effectiveness (like when people said that Ferrothorn was easy to lure and therefore underwhelming, which was the complete opposite), but such an idea is highly flawed and is not what anybody here, including Fizz is trying to say.

And what's the other lures going to be? Giratina-O is not easy to lure as a lot of pokemon that giratina switches into have either nothing to touch him with, or only get a small 3HKO at best from a random hidden power/coverage move which hits nothing else but giratina. Diggersby is a lure, however like we both said, it's only going to hit a peak, then go down hill from there as giratina-o players understand it's most common set. Then we're cherry picking for niche sets.

The bad thing is all these "lures" for giratina don't have any other options in a giratina metagame, they're forced to run these moves. They're not lures, they're just pokemon trying to hit giratina on switch.. otherwise they are completely useless and walled by giratina. Similar to EG pinsir just for aegislash. Aegislashes didn't always switch into pinsir cause EQ was just the main coverage move.

We don't have checks (set dependant), we don't have counters, we just have lures. Which is not a healthy pokemon to introduce in a metagame where coverage is jam packed on every set to try and handle the majority of the tier. If a metagame of slapping lures on teams for giratina specifically is desirable, I don't know what is.

 

[Alfalfa]

And what's the other lures going to be? Giratina-O is not easy to lure as a lot of pokemon that giratina switches into have either nothing to touch him with, or only get a small 3HKO at best from a random hidden power/coverage move which hits nothing else but giratina. Diggersby is a lure, however like we both said, it's only going to hit a peak, then go down hill from there as giratina-o players understand it's most common set. Then we're cherry picking for niche sets.

The bad thing is all these "lures" for giratina don't have any other options in a giratina metagame, they're forced to run these moves. They're not lures, they're just pokemon trying to hit giratina on switch.. otherwise they are completely useless and walled by giratina.

We don't have checks (set dependant), we don't have counters, we just have lures. Which is not a healthy pokemon to introduce in a metagame where coverage is jam packed on every set to try and handle the majority of the tier. If a metagame of slapping lures on teams for giratina specifically is desirable, I don't know what is.

I cannot say for sure what people will come up to lure out Gira O. Also, aside from Diggersby lacking Foul Play, GiraO gets worn down very easily by the Pokemon it checks, so it cannot be expected to handle all of these threats at any given scenario like you imply it can. Sure, it is extremely threatening to these Pokemon, but these Pokemon are not going to become complete garbage just because of Gira-O's presence, since the constant chip damage will wear it away very easily.

 

[giovanidude]

Guys, I want diversity in the meta game, and having something to check lando-i/metagross is great and all, but this thing is fucking broken. Nothing really beats it one on one and the fact that it doesn't have reliable recovery is just patched up with healing wish/wish support. The thing is just too damn bulky and the unpredictability of the pokemon is HUGE. Its movepool aint bad with access to EQ, draco, shadow sneak, PHANTOM FORCE (which also goes through protect), willo-wisp, t-wave, toxic, dragon tail, defog, calm mind, aura sphere (lol), d-bond, hex, hone claws, icy wind, outrage, and rest-talk...there is just sooooo much that this thing is capable of especially with the amazing stats it has. While comparing it to greninja is very rash, i can easily see this thing being slapped onto every team as nothing but the latis and fairies beat it, with the former being easily pursuit trapped. Faries do heavily damage to it but thats about it, and a fully invested shadow force does huge damage, to where altaria cant even check it with an un-boosted return as it isn't doing nearly enough damage phantom force + shadow sneak kill the standard dd set. A fully invested gengar doesn't even kill with shadow ball while its ohko'd with shadow sneak. And this is all running a defensive spread (uber physical defog), where if its a fully special defensive spread a LO latios doesn't even kill, while a draco, from giratina, kills a support latias. It can also be stalled out by the likes of ferrothorn so there is that. There is going to be allot of scouting with this pokemon as there was with greninja, but instead of moves, its entire spreads with giratina being able to virtually do anything other than set hazards thanks to its fantastic stats and movepool. While taking dracos are undesireable, the fact that it can is astounding. One pokemon that solves most all of its problems is heatran as it deals with fairies, latis, and ferrthorn. This core is more than likely going to be extremely dominant and hard to stop (tran also eats up burns). I was looking through the viability rankings and the above mentioned mons beat it, while OU DARK TYPES DONT BEAT IT. Bisharp inst doing shit with knock off and, if hes burned, is beat one on one with EQ. This also goes for the same with tyranitar, assuming its not scarfed, which will continue to rise if this thing drops. This is all not mentioning that this thing has two fantastic immuneities to fighting and ground respectively, meaning it abuses wall breakers of gallade, lopunny, and medicham while laughing in lando's face. This also makes harder to wear down, not being affected by spikes. Overall the pokemon is more than likely to be overcentralizing as it has a plethora of options for it, being able to fit on all styles of teams as it has amazing stats, STAB priority, access to a set-up move in calm mind, ability to run a mixed set, tools to support a team, and ease to fit onto teams.
Calcs provided so you guys know what I'm talking about

252 SpA Life Orb Latios Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Giratina-O: 398-471 (78.9 - 93.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Griseous Orb Giratina-O Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Latios: 360-426 (120.4 - 142.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 SpA Griseous Orb Giratina-O Draco Meteor vs. 72 HP / 0 SpD Latias: 314-372 (98.4 - 116.6%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Dragon Claw vs. 0 HP / 248 Def Giratina-O: 302-356 (68.4 - 80.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0- SpA Griseous Orb Giratina-O Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Charizard X: 404-476 (136 - 160.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Griseous Orb Giratina-O Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Manectric: 318-375 (113.1 - 133.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Griseous Orb Giratina-O Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Lopunny: 273-322 (100.7 - 118.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Pixilate Mega Altaria Return vs. 0 HP / 248 Def Giratina-O: 338-398 (76.6 - 90.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Griseous Orb Giratina-O Shadow Force vs. 64 HP / 0 Def Mega Altaria: 225-265 (73.2 - 86.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Griseous Orb Giratina-O Shadow Sneak vs. 64 HP / 0 Def Mega Altaria: 76-90 (24.7 - 29.3%) -- 99.9% chance to 4HKO (AVG of 106.75%)
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 248 Def Giratina-O: 289-343 (65.5 - 77.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (bisharp can easily be burned as Giratina out speeds)
252+ Atk Giratina-O Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 226-268 (83 - 98.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Griseous Orb Giratina-O Shadow Force vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Slowbro: 230-272 (58.3 - 69%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Griseous Orb Giratina-O Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Slowbro: 392-464 (99.4 - 117.7%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Mold Breaker Mega Gyarados Crunch vs. 0 HP / 248 Def Giratina-O: 260-308 (58.9 - 69.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Griseous Orb Giratina-O Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Gyarados: 211-249 (63.7 - 75.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-2 252+ SpA Griseous Orb Giratina-O Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mega Gyarados: 106-126 (32 - 38%) -- 94.4% chance to 3HKO (AVG of 104.45%)
252 Atk Garchomp Outrage vs. 0 HP / 248 Def Giratina-O: 312-368 (70.7 - 83.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Mega Gallade Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 248 Def Giratina-O: 310-366 (70.2 - 82.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Mega Sceptile Dragon Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Giratina-O: 302-356 (68.4 - 80.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

This thing is bound to be the most dominant pokeomon in the metagame as it abuses most pokemon, thanks to great bulk and typing, who simply cant touch it for any damage. Allot of these calcs aren't things that you would switch giratina in on, but the fact that this monster can take these hits is amazing, and in a pinch it will preform, while being nursed back up to full with a potential healing wish/ wish. I will also say that I haven't been able to use the mon as I haven't had the time, but on paper it looks far to good.

 

[Alfalfa]

Guys, I want diversity in the meta game, and having something to check lando-i/metagross is great and all, but this thing is fucking broken. Nothing really beats it one on one and the fact that it doesn't have reliable recovery is just patched up with healing wish/wish support. The thing is just too damn bulky and the unpredictability of the pokemon is HUGE. Its movepool aint bad with access to EQ, draco, shadow sneak, PHANTOM FORCE (which also goes through protect), willo-wisp, t-wave, toxic, dragon tail, defog, calm mind, aura sphere (lol), d-bond, hex, hone claws, icy wind, outrage, and rest-talk...there is just sooooo much that this thing is capable of especially with the amazing stats it has. While comparing it to greninja is very rash, i can easily see this thing being slapped onto every team as nothing but the latis and fairies beat it, with the former being easily pursuit trapped. Faries do heavily damage to it but thats about it, and a fully invested shadow force does huge damage, to where altaria cant even check it with an un-boosted return as it isn't doing nearly enough damage phantom force + shadow sneak kill the standard dd set. A fully invested gengar doesn't even kill with shadow ball while its ohko'd with shadow sneak. And this is all running a defensive spread (uber physical defog), where if its a fully special defensive spread a LO latios doesn't even kill, while a draco, from giratina, kills a support latias. It can also be stalled out by the likes of ferrothorn so there is that. There is going to be allot of scouting with this pokemon as there was with greninja, but instead of moves, its entire spreads with giratina being able to virtually do anything other than set hazards thanks to its fantastic stats and movepool. While taking dracos are undesireable, the fact that it can is astounding. One pokemon that solves most all of its problems is heatran as it deals with fairies, latis, and ferrthorn. This core is more than likely going to be extremely dominant and hard to stop (tran also eats up burns). I was looking through the viability rankings and the above mentioned mons beat it, while OU DARK TYPES DONT BEAT IT. Bisharp inst doing shit with knock off and, if hes burned, is beat one on one with EQ. This also goes for the same with tyranitar, assuming its not scarfed, which will continue to rise if this thing drops. This is all not mentioning that this thing has two fantastic immuneities to fighting and ground respectively, meaning it abuses wall breakers of gallade, lopunny, and medicham while laughing in lando's face. This also makes harder to wear down, not being affected by spikes. Overall the pokemon is more than likely to be overcentralizing as it has a plethora of options for it, being able to fit on all styles of teams as it has amazing stats, STAB priority, access to a set-up move in calm mind, ability to run a mixed set, tools to support a team, and ease to fit onto teams.
Calcs provided so you guys know what I'm talking about

This thing is bound to be the most dominant pokeomon in the metagame as it abuses most pokemon, thanks to great bulk and typing, who simply cant touch it for any damage. Allot of these calcs aren't things that you would switch giratina in on, but the fact that this monster can take these hits is amazing, and in a pinch it will preform, while being nursed back up to full with a potential healing wish/ wish.

Most of these calcs are cherry picked. Some of the Pokemon on this list, such as Mega Lopunny, Slowbro, and Mega Manectric lose to GiraO anyways regardless, and GiraO will still be heavily weakened by many of these hits, combined with some prior damage, meaning breaking through it is not the most difficult thing to do.

And for those who are hyping about GiraO: people hyped about Kyurem-B back during the days of BW2 being broken in OU and it proved otherwise; people were afraid it could wallbreak with little support, and that claim did not hold up. Likewise, GiraO still needs team support to accommodate its vulnerability to chip damage, something to take on Pokemon it cannot beat, and backup checks to some of the Pokemon it checks due to its limited staying time.

 

[Red Cat]

I think Enki brought up a very good point in his post. This suspect test is about what direction we want to take OU in. I want (and I think a lot of other people want) a meta where there is a variety of usable threats and strategies, but not a meta where the battle is won or lost at team preview. Unfortunately, it is difficult to satisfy both of these at the same time. Giratina's ability to check so many threats may make the meta less matchup based (though this is not guaranteed), but it will reduce the number of viable threats and strategies.

Unfortunately, OU is at a crossroads right now. We have a broken checks broken meta and people were afraid to pull the plug on Mega Metagross for fear that the meta would fall apart. Since we didn't stay the course, the council is now suggesting that we go in a completely different direction (because really it is this or suspect Mega Metagross again and hope it gets a few more Uber votes). The problem with this direction is that if we unban Giratina-O, and then let's say we move on to Aegislash and maybe even Genesect or Mega Lucario, there is the risk that we end up at a dead end where people don't like the meta and then we have to go back to the drawing board.

Although we are not to discuss future suspects, I believe that is very important in the context of this test. If we unban Giratina-O, then we are not likely to suspect Landorus and Keldeo and we might not suspect Mega Metagross again. So we are basically looking at two completely different OUs depending on the outcome of this test. Since we have already established that most people don't like overcentralizing Pokemon through previous suspect tests, I would rather take the "keep banning stuff until most people are relatively happy with the meta" route than the "find Ubers to drop down to check top threats" route because it is really just better to play Ubers at that point. The increasing power creep with each generation demands that we be more aggressive banning threats if we want a meta that is both competitive and balanced. If you think the other route is better, have fun with those King's Shield 50/50s again.

 

[viol and bass]

I know what a lure is, my point is why the hell would I run a subpar lure like diggersby just to deal with giratina? Eventually giratina players will catch on to foul play diggersby as it's the only reason why it'd be viable with giratina around.. we'll know better to switch into more appropriate checks like keldeo as apposed to giratina. On the RK or prediction that isn't foul play, giratina can just OHKO with aura sphere or cripple something else. (btw with a few EVs giratina can avoid the OHKO and switch in on foul play.)

So in what way is luring something making giratina seem underwhelming when it can develop and players will have a better understanding how to use it?

During the suspect test giratina's going to just be slapped on teams and experimented on.. once pokemon start adjusting these sets (diggersby) and see usage we'll begin to handle those accordingly with our own defensive spreads or predictions.

It's not like diggersby can do many other things other than foul play.. with giratina's usage it's a pretty obvious prediction to make that foul play is coming.. Your lure isn't even a good lure, just a situational occurrence against a poor prediction in an underdeveloped metagame with a newly introduce pokemon nobody knows how to use properly yet. It's not like aegislash with several options adding versatility making it an effective lure to bisharp, no, foul play diggersby would become something more standard.

Yeah it's absolutely true that lures lose utility when the wider player-base catches on. Like Alfalfa said, I'm not trying to imply I think Giratina is underwhelming. I was giving an example of a set that I've used and found to be quite effective in dealing with Giratina in this one-day-old metagame. The whole reason it's effective is because nothing can switch into Diggersby. It's not as simple as going to a different Diggersby check. Giratina is essentially the only wall that isn't 2HKOed by Diggersby's standard set. So Foul Play is an adaptation to a change in the metagame. It's fairly effective at the moment. A physically defensive Giratina-O with 252 Atk / 252 Def is easily OHKOed, while special sets are 2HKOed.

 

[pika pal]

Gira O still has mindgames to play with Bisharp because Life Orb Sucker Punch can do over 70-90%. And if you say that the fact that GiraO can live that hit makes it broken, Wobbuffet can live that hit as well, despite also being weak to Bisharp's Sucker Punch. I see the point you are trying to make, but you are just overspinning everything that would make it bannable and are not even considering why people would say it is not broken.

The thing is, Bisharp stands a fair chance of KOing Wobuffett after SR with its likely more used Knock Off, therefore it would never switch into Bisharp. Giratina-O, on the other hand, with HP investment alone, survives this
252 Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Giratina-O: 268-320 (60.7 - 72.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

And on the next turn, can outspeed Bisharp with 96+/188 neutral investment in speed, burns him, and leaves it useless
252 Atk Life Orb burned Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Giratina-O: 165-196 (37.4 - 44.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

I cannot say for sure what people will come up to lure out Gira O. Also, aside from Diggersby lacking Foul Play, GiraO gets worn down very easily by the Pokemon it checks, so it cannot be expected to handle all of these threats at any given scenario like you imply it can. Sure, it is extremely threatening to these Pokemon, but these Pokemon are not going to become complete garbage just because of Gira-O's presence, since the constant chip damage will wear it away very easily.

Yes, Giratina's lack of recovery hurts his walling ability, but on the other hand, how many of these wallbreakers would you ever find on a single team? Zard-Y, Landorus-I, Keldeo, Diggersby, Pinsir, among just offensive pressure in general seems like a lot, but at most you'll see maybe two wallbreakers on a team, since as you'll notice, using even 2 of these makes a team surprisingly Talonflame weak, for example. Giratina only has to deal with maybe 2 big offensive threats on a given team, and these are wallbreakers that are hard to get-in, hard to get out, though Giratina robs them of the latter. Zard-Y and Pinsir are hazard weak, and all of them have pretty mediocre bulk, so their best bet to enter tends to be a revenge or U-Turn, and every time they're forced out is losing a chance to get a kill, something they need to do to put in work for a team.

And that argument of chip damage from dealing with multiple Pokemon applies in the reverse principle. If Giratina-O answers so much of the opponent's team that he's that pressured to take hits, logically I'd run Wish/Cleric support, if not a Resttalk set on Gira itself to keep him alive while he chips THEM down. And unlike Giratina, these mons aren't surviving much after chip damage adds up on them. And if we add Giratina for the purpose of checking several top tier threats, then the support he wants to do that becomes more prominent as well, which leads to even LESS team variety.

Also, I thought from the OP one of the main motivations to suspecting Gira-O in particular was because he was "a mixed attacker with great defensive and offensive typing" that could bring variety back to a defensive Metagame, but if anything, I'm seeing signs that he'd bolster defensive teams by checking so many of the wallbreakers that are supposed to break them (but evidently don't if they're such a dominating force). If the problem is making Defense less dominant, Giratina-O is more likely to worsen the problem than alleviate it. I don't believe Giratina to be some broken, uncheckable/undefeatable monster, but I do believe he will be a force more centralizing than Aegislash in XY; hell, he might be more defining than Gen 5 weather was. And if that kind of centralization by a single mon is something we don't want for the metagame (which is another question raised in some capacity by Enki ), then adding Giratina-O doesn't seem like the solution for this dilemma.

 

[Balke002]

Yeah it's absolutely true that lures lose utility when the wider player-base catches on. Like Alfalfa said, I'm not trying to imply I think Giratina is underwhelming. I was giving an example of a set that I've used and found to be quite effective in dealing with Giratina in this one-day-old metagame. The whole reason it's effective is because nothing can switch into Diggersby. It's not as simple as going to a different Diggersby check. Giratina is essentially the only wall that isn't 2HKOed by Diggersby's standard set. So Foul Play is an adaptation to a change in the metagame. It's fairly effective at the moment. A physically defensive Giratina-O with 252 Atk / 252 Def is easily OHKOed, while special sets are 2HKOed.

i agree but look at this


252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Foul Play vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Giratina-O: 413-489 (93.6 - 110.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO or guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

even without rocks, offensive giratina has a high chance to be ohko ed

 

[Balke002]

The thing is, Bisharp stands a fair chance of KOing Wobuffett after SR with its likely more used Knock Off, therefore it would never switch into Bisharp. Giratina-O, on the other hand, with HP investment alone, survives this
252 Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Giratina-O: 268-320 (60.7 - 72.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

And on the next turn, can outspeed Bisharp with 96+/188 neutral investment in speed, burns him, and leaves it useless
252 Atk Life Orb burned Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Giratina-O: 165-196 (37.4 - 44.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO




Yes, Giratina's lack of recovery hurts his walling ability, but on the other hand, how many of these wallbreakers would you ever find on a single team? Zard-Y, Landorus-I, Keldeo, Diggersby, Pinsir, among just offensive pressure in general seems like a lot, but at most you'll see maybe two wallbreakers on a team, since as you'll notice, using even 2 of these makes a team surprisingly Talonflame weak, for example. Giratina only has to deal with maybe 2 big offensive threats on a given team, and these are wallbreakers that are hard to get-in, hard to get out, though Giratina robs them of the latter. Zard-Y and Pinsir are hazard weak, and all of them have pretty mediocre bulk, so their best bet to enter tends to be a revenge or U-Turn, and every time they're forced out is losing a chance to get a kill, something they need to do to put in work for a team.

And that argument of chip damage from dealing with multiple Pokemon applies in the reverse principle. If Giratina-O answers so much of the opponent's team that he's that pressured to take hits, logically I'd run Wish/Cleric support, if not a Resttalk set on Gira itself to keep him alive while he chips THEM down. And unlike Giratina, these mons aren't surviving much after chip damage adds up on them. And if we add Giratina for the purpose of checking several top tier threats, then the support he wants to do that becomes more prominent as well, which leads to even LESS team variety.

Also, I thought from the OP one of the main motivations to suspecting Gira-O in particular was because he was "a mixed attacker with great defensive and offensive typing" that could bring variety back to a defensive Metagame, but if anything, I'm seeing signs that he'd bolster defensive teams by checking so many of the wallbreakers that are supposed to break them (but evidently don't if they're such a dominating force). If the problem is making Defense less dominant, Giratina-O is more likely to worsen the problem than alleviate it. I don't believe Giratina to be some broken, uncheckable/undefeatable monster, but I do believe he will be a force more centralizing than Aegislash in XY; hell, he might be more defining than Gen 5 weather was. And if that kind of centralization by a single mon is something we don't want for the metagame (which is another question raised in some capacity by Enki ), then adding Giratina-O doesn't seem like the solution for this dilemma.

even though giratina dosent have recovery, it can use a restalk phazing set

Giratina-Origin @ Griseous Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk or SpAtk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Rest
- Sleep Talk
- Dragon Tail
- Shadow Sneak/Will-O-Wisp/Shadow Ball

 

[Maple Syrup]

I think we should be suspecting Giratina-O alongside Aegislash and possibly a third Pokemon. Mostly because I feel like OU will just stay as G-O the meta. Adding aegi would be interesting because they are similar Pokemon but with different strengths and weaknesses. You wouldn't necessarily use them on the same team making it not complete gira spam as right now I see no reason not to run any type of gira at all on any type of team.

Would the metagame become ghost spam? Possibly but there are many solid Pokemon stopping ghosts from coming in such as bisharp ttar and even ghosts themselves.

 

[AlphaGiratina]

The only thing somewhat hindering my argument is the possible reaction of the OU council to this thread....I think it's good that the overcentralizing Giratina is probably staying in uber by overwhelmingly popular demand, but I'm worried this kind of backlash will deter them from unbanning other things in the future... Because at the end of the day this suspect test was with the best intentions and all. Just my 2 cents.

 

[shrang]

Okay, I don't know why people are bring up Mega Gardevoir and Bisharp as good checks. Shadow Sneak almost kills Mega Garde (you do like 80% with Sneak). As for Bisharp, it's going to be hard pressed to switch into offensive sets, while the defensive ones that you want to switch into Defog tend to carry WoW as well, and Knock Off is not very strong against Gira since you can't knock off Griseous Orb.

 

[HeartlessAngel1993]

Doesn't Calm Mind Mega Sableye wall sets that aren't running Dragon Tail? A free Calm Mind after mega evolving, and both STABS being super-effective on, plus inability to be burned by Will-O.

 

[Red Cat]

Doesn't Calm Mind Mega Sableye wall sets that aren't running Dragon Tail? A free Calm Mind after mega evolving, and both STABS being super-effective on, plus inability to be burned by Will-O.

If it comes in as regular Sableye after a KO, then yes it can because of Prankster CM. If it comes in mega evolved already, Giratina-O can 2HKO with Shadow Ball + Draco Meteor if Giratina has max special attack (this is factoring in the CM on Mega Sableye for the Draco Meteor).

 

[quagback2qc]

To be honest, Giratina-O is kind of ridiculous at this point. To start, it has people thinking about using something obscure, like Mega Audino for god's sake. Also, is this calc for real?
252+ Atk Giratina-O Iron Tail vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Audino: 69-82 (16.8 - 20%) -- possible 5HKO

Anyway, that is besides the point. The main thing is that Giratina-O is like many different suspects we've had before. It's like Greninja because of its great movepool and because it has no definite counters to all of its sets(Unaware clefable is a 50/50 depending on which type of defensive it is). It is like Aegislash because of its typing, and base stats. It is like Megamence because it has people thinking about obscure counters like Mega Audino.

Even if you refute one of these statements, the facts dictate that it carries traits like previous suspects. Just the fact that this is happening should be enough to not allow it in OU.

 

[chuckaboomboom]

"After removing from the metagame numerous offensive powerhouses, we realized that the time had come to invert the course. The current OU metagame is stale and the abundance of defensively oriented teams led us to believe that a mixed attacker with great defensive and offensive typing will probably give back some vivacity to the tier."

Giratina-O is indeed an interesting and cool choice for the suspect test. It would definitely flavor up the metagame as it has a nice typing with a good movepool to boot. I'd be very interested in using it if it makes the drop to OU.

I know that this is slightly off-topic, but just out of curiosity, wouldn't it be more appropriate to suspect test Aegislash? When it was tested in the past, the voting was extremely close, showing that a good amount of users would still like to keep it in the metagame. It would definitely be a bane to the defensively oriented teams and can check / counter many things in the current metagame.

Edit: Aegislash has been banned before, and can no longer be retested, but I was hoping that rules can be stretched.

 

[skup]

The more I play with Giratina-O the more I come to the conclusion that not only is it not broken, its not particularly good. This isn't to say that it's an awful Pokemon, because it isn't, but I honestly find it aggressively mediocre and actually kind of hard to seriously justify using on a team.

Giratina-O hits just weakly enough to be walled by the standard balance, I'm finding. Ferrothorn, Clefable, Hippo, AV Torn-T, Mega Altaria, SpD Talonflame, Chesnaught (which is super fucking underrated) are all in that sweet spot where they just don't get 2hkoed by anything the normal Giratina-O has, ignoring SpD drops with Shadow Ball. This means that when you're putting Giratina on HO, it really struggles to do anything until the very late game, and most of the time it just kind of... sits there. I know it's bulky, spin blocks, has a good mixed attacking movepool, checks a lot of shit, and has good support options, but what exactly does it do? It's too weak to wallbreak, it has no recovery to be a set up sweeper, it can't change it's item to go scarf or anything of the sort, it kind of just... sits there.

Putting Gira-O on balance also has a lot of issues. Yes Gira-O checks a lot of things, but do to having 0 recovery, common weaknesses, and typically not being able to invest much in bulk, it's very easy to wear down. This means that while Gira-O checks a lot of things, it can't switch into many things (a lot like a scarfer). It also means that Gira-O is easy to overwhelm if you try and use it as your Keldeo/Lando/Zard-Y/Mega Metagross/Mega Lop/etc. catch all. This inability to really switch in makes it strangely mediocre on balance, which wants either Pokemon that serve a clear offensive purpose, or can switch into things that threaten the offensive core.

I'm not going to talk about stall because I haven't played any, and I'm not really a big stall user.

Honestly, I just find Gira-O hard to put on a team. Ignoring all the hype around it, most of the time, you're better off with something else. Balance is more pressured by Gengar (and it's a bit too slow for opposing offense), which I think is typically the better option for HO. Balance typically doesn't like it because its incredibly easy to pressure and wear down. I'll probably try fitting it on a bulky offense next, but so far, I'm not impressed.