Metagame np: Stage 3 - 9(9) Problems

[Teddeh]

Just gonna post thoughts on Mega-Glalie:

Although it's got this raw power, it can't have both power and speed, which was unlike the other megas. As it's main go-to stab is frustration / return, for this to hit hard, you're going to have to run adamant / naughty nature for it to work at the best of its abilitys. Along with this, you can't 2 hit ko things like musharna from full health, weezing, mega-steelix (which is oh so fucking common now), mega-audino, anything along these lines tbh. You need to run double edge, but with double edge, you're killing yourself off. You're 2 hit ko'ing yourself effectively, along with rocky helmet being common on weezing. The only thing that really stands out about glalie is boom. Which can be used once, and you kill yourself in the process meaning that it's 1 kill, but most of the time not a useful one and may not even get the chance to go boom.

It's rather underwhelming along with a shitty ice typing that no-one likes as it only resists ice. Its base 100 speed means it's easily revenge killed by a lot of pokemon in the tier. Glalie is also weak to stealth rock, frail as paper in most scenarios and can't fit on most teams. With that being said, NU is full of fire spam and it's commonly prepared for by thick fat yama, which is extremely good (pushing S rank tbh), which also checks glalies main stab move being frustration and can force it out with fake out + bp or if at full CC's and Knock offs. Also with this point, fire spam in general hurts glalie as you're forcing speed ties with both ninetails and typhlosion if you run +speed nature and are completely outsped by pyroar (that's if typh isn't scarfed), hence allowing unnecessary pressure on your team with eruptions, fire blasts, flamethrowers etc.

However, for the unprepared team mega-glalie is a very good wall breaker if player correctly, it can also be a very useful lead with freeze dry, taunt and spikes. I've not seen this set yet but may try it, it may also fit well on my "boom boom" team (lol jk). But it is still not sashed nor has it got sturdy meaning it could well be ohko'd by a lot of common leads moves such as rock blast, stone edge, superpower etc etc. There are flaws even with a well played wallbreaking set as it is still weak to stealth rock and is forced out in many scenarios by steelixs and weezings.

Overall my thoughts on mega-glalie are pretty obvious right here; it's not that great to be honest. Feel free to have your own opinions, but unless the boom set gets amazing overnight, i'm not overly convinced after a lot of use.
But feel free to leave your own thoughts!

 

[Fling]

Just to play devils advocate on this whole smash pass ban argument, why is it being brought up now and not in xy? I know dragalge is gone from nu and it was a decent answer to smash pass most of the time but its not like every team was running a dragalge to beat smash pass. Its an annoying play style to face but it just seems to me that a lot of people are just ban happy at the moment. Just because you dont like losing to something doesn't make it broken. Yes it can be an easy way to win but smash pass teams are usually fragile and tend to break down once you kill one of their main mons. Im not overly against a ban on it but why is this being brought up only now? The second oras dropped we had people constantly going on about banning mega taria and others. Smash pass is not something new, its been here a while so I dont see why the ban argument is only being properly talked about now.

 

[soulgazer]

It has been brought up multiple time since Combusken ban, it just happen that people decided to finally post about it more in this thread instead of discussing it on PS! and IRC lol

I personally don't have a strong opinion on SmashPass (I mostly think its really annoying to play against), but I have seen a lot of good arguments from both side in the past few months so I wouldn't mind a suspect test if it ever happpened.

 

[Fling]

It has been brought up multiple time since Combusken ban, it just happen that people decided to finally post about it more in this thread instead of discussing it on PS! and IRC lol

I personally don't have a strong opinion on SmashPass (I mostly think its really annoying to play against), but I have seen a lot of good arguments from both side in the past few months so I wouldn't mind a suspect test if it ever happpened.

People talk about banning everything on PS! though because they lose to something on ladder and just bitch about it in chat. I really don't mind what happens to it but it just kinda seems that everyone is a bit ban happy atm. A suspect test would be cool though I suppose.

 

[Mysil]

Smashpass has been brought up multiple times since the release of XY on the forums. But there has always been something more important, like combusken and shiftry etc. I know, I personally have complained about it several times before.

I have been playing competetively since the beginning of BW, and I have to say, Smashpass annoyed me beyond comprehension when it was legal in BW, and nothing has changed in XY. Its so mindless and dumb. Teams based around baton pass tend to rely 100% on team matchup. Either the opponent brings some obscure counter because they are sick of losing to smashpass scrubs, or the smashpass-user will most likely win. Thats very limiting to teambuilding and unhealthy for the metagame imo.

Some might say that if its that good more people would be using it. I think that is not the case simply because most people think the playstyle is so disgusting its not worth it. People play mainly to have fun, and strategies reliant on baton pass is boring af for most people. As the match basically comes down to "Do I get the SS pass of succesfully or not". When full baton pass chains were legal, you wouldnt see alot of people using it on the ladder. Especially highly ranked players were not likely to abuse BP. Only some occasional (BAN ME PLEASE)s like Dennisss or Cacodemon or somthing. (Cant remember their names, even tho I played against them regularly on PO OU ladder). And they were top 10 consistently.

When I was laddering OU on PO in the beggining of XY, I was honestly just praying I wouldnt face these people, and when I did I just insulted them for five minutes and forfeited depending on the team I was using. I knew beforehand if I would lose or win. I could bring an anti BP team and beat BP, but that team wouldnt do as well against normal playstyles. So I ended up using normal team and hoping I wouldnt face BP. In the end they let me draw them whenever I faced them. Which was nice.

All im trying to say is that off all playstyles, teams based around baton pass are the most matchup reliant. You will never spectate a match where one guy uses smashpass and think: "What a great match! Alot of interesting plays here. Rly came down to the wire". It simply unhealthy and I think the metagame would be alot better if you could play without worrying about facing some random dipshit with a smashpass gorebyss.

 

[Fling]

Smashpass has been brought up multiple times since the release of XY on the forums. But there has always been something more important, like combusken and shiftry etc. I know, I personally have complained about it several times before.

I have been playing competetively since the beginning of BW, and I have to say, Smashpass annoyed me beyond comprehension when it was legal in BW, and nothing has changed in XY. Its so mindless and dumb. Teams based around baton pass tend to rely 100% on team matchup. Either the opponent brings some obscure counter because they are sick of losing to smashpass scrubs, or the smashpass-user will most likely win. Thats very limiting to teambuilding and unhealthy for the metagame imo.

Some might say that if its that good more people would be using it. I think that is not the case simply because most people think the playstyle is so disgusting its not worth it. People play mainly to have fun, and strategies reliant on baton pass is boring af for most people. As the match basically comes down to "Do I get the SS pass of succesfully or not". When full baton pass chains were legal, you wouldnt see alot of people using it on the ladder. Especially highly ranked players were not likely to abuse BP. Only some occasional (BAN ME PLEASE)s like Dennisss or Cacodemon or somthing. (Cant remember their names, even tho I played against them regularly on PO OU ladder). And they were top 10 consistently.

When I was laddering OU on PO in the beggining of XY, I was honestly just praying I wouldnt face these people, and when I did I just insulted them for five minutes and forfeited depending on the team I was using. I knew beforehand if I would lose or win. I could bring an anti BP team and beat BP, but that team wouldnt do as well against normal playstyles. So I ended up using normal team and hoping I wouldnt face BP. In the end they let me draw them whenever I faced them. Which was nice.

All im trying to say is that off all playstyles, teams based around baton pass are the most matchup reliant. You will never spectate a match where one guy uses smashpass and think: "What a great match! Alot of interesting plays here. Rly came down to the wire". It simply unhealthy and I think the metagame would be alot better if you could play without worrying about facing some random dipshit with a smashpass gorebyss.

Well first off aint nobody on ladder having fun unless they're on some recreational substances. Secondly the checks to smashpass arent really that obscure eg. Scarf rotom, liepard etc. Honestly if you don't have team match up against any kind of team and theyre a competent player you're gonna find it hard to win. Yes its an annoying playstyle and can be v effective, but you're making it sound like the only way to beat smash pass is if you've completely built your team around countering that one play style and if that was the case im pretty sure it wouldve been banned a long time ago.

 

[Davon]

Well first off aint nobody on ladder having fun unless they're on some recreational substances. Secondly the counters to smashpass arent really that obscure eg. Scarf rotom, liepard etc. Honestly if you don't have team match up against any kind of team and theyre a competent player you're gonna find it hard to win. Yes its an annoying playstyle and can be v effective, but you're making it sound like the only way to beat smash pass is if you've completely built your team around countering that one play style and if that was the case im pretty sure it wouldve been banned a lomg time ago.

Scarf rotom and liepard aren't counters lol. They're checks cuz neither of them can switch into an attacking move from one of the two pokemon capable of smash pass, and rotom can't even switch into a shell smash from huntail cuz it'll just die to sucker punch

Edit: at below, if you trick while you go for sucker punch then it can just baton pass next turn :p

 

[Fling]

Scarf rotom and liepard aren't counters lol. They're checks cuz neither of them can switch into an attacking move from one of the two pokemon capable of smash pass, and rotom can't even switch into a shell smash from huntail cuz it'll just die to sucker punch

Oh yea lol Im tired af atm ill change it. Then its risking getting tricked. ←im an idiot
Edit: yea lol I should probably hit the hay. Im pretty sure liepard and rotom can switch in on a gorebyss or a huntails attack tho seen as they usually run max hp max speed no?

 

[mertyville]

I didn't get to test it, but as far as I know Super Fang is affected by Mega Glalie's ability.

I believe with this defensive threats are easier to wear down to the point it can 2HKO them with Double Edge.

 

[termi]

On phone so gonna keep it quick, but I feel as though smashpass is very unhealthy for the meta: it isn't hard to use and a lot of the time it forces your opponent to play way more carefully because if Gorebyss comes in and the mon that is currently in can't beat it, it's gg most of the time. Even if it isn't broken it should be banned tbh, a playstyle that forces you to play in a certain way in order to avoid getting autoswept usually isn't a healthy influence on the meta

 

[Deej Dy]

People talk about banning everything on PS! though because they lose to something on ladder and just bitch about it in chat. I really don't mind what happens to it but it just kinda seems that everyone is a bit ban happy atm. A suspect test would be cool though I suppose.

This is more complex than "bitching about the ladder" (thanks for that). This has always been an issue for the NU meta-game, I just thought it was appropriate to bring it up now rather than never. Please try to refute your arguments with points rather than attacks on character, that being said I'll refute your poor arguments.

"Liepard and scarf rotom can easily stop it!"
- Yeah nice try, if only it was that easy, any decent player can anticipate a switch and simply surf/ switch into a check and control the game when the opposing player has no choice but the obvious switch into their counter. Even if the player doesn't even try to get shell smash off from this, they can simply toy with switches into checks and completely shift momentum in their favor. Also if you don't even have these threats, you're doomed, hence the centralization of strategy to defend against Smashpass or get swept.
"We shouldn't ban Smashpass because megas just got banned!"
-This is by far the stupidest argument I've seen in this entire thread, please back up your desire for smash pass with well-thought out points. There is no ban-bandwagon that you seem to think exists, this is simply a comment to ban a ban-worthy strategy.

Those are the only arguments I saw being brought up against Smashpass, if you have a legitimate one post it here. I'd be glad to see it and I wont have to resort to a condescending tone.

 

[wolfenstein]

Well firstly id like to point out that my post wasn't some attack on you. Sorry if you saw it that way but if my post was about you I would've quoted you or something but as my point said PS! and not the forums, it quite obviously wasn't directed at you.

Secondly if you're gonna pick apart my argument please refrain from paraphrasing especially seen as you didn't quote that post at all. Mainly because you've massively misconstrued and exaggerated my points which tends to give your argument a false base. For this reason I'm not even going to attempt to make a counter argument to your post.

Honestly, aside from the reason you gave, part of the reason I don't think you or anyone would counter his argument is because it can't be. All the reasons Deej gave make this broken strategy eligible for a ban. It is the same instance with mega altaria, we have to run one or two specific pokemon that counter it or we lose which opened holes for other sweepers and ultimately made the meta bad and that's why it got banned (well, moved by usage, but technically banned). The same thing happened with mega mence in OU and some of the megas here too. If it is nearly impossible to counter a strategy, or is possible by retarded means that cause you to lose when not against smashpass while also limiting team building then I think it should be at least suspect tested. Also, countering a good smashpass player requires you to not make a single mistake or you will lose regardless of the counters you brought (liepard and rotom for example). The same thing occurred with every other ban I've seen. One wrong move will most likely be gg and you usually can't play around that. Like mega altaria, you put yourself in a position where it gets up a sub, then what can you do? You just lose 90% of the time.
I could elaborate, but whatever I say has probably already been said, so can we please just ban or suspect test shell smash + baton pass so people can stop hitting #1 on the ladder like it's nothing? (ps: I don't care about the ladder, was just using it as an example of how easy it is to abuse smashpass)

 

[Karane]

One pokemon that is shining right now in the metagame is Simipour. It acts as mega-buster OHKOing 3 megas after rocks and boosting faster than Crodino with Nasty Plot. Outspeeds the cluttered base 100's and also checks Gatr. Highly underrated.

 

[soulgazer]

I have been enjoying the ORAS meta so far and I feel like Dragalge and Slurpuff leaving makes a lot of stuff better:

Slurpuff walled it and was common, so Gurdurr lost a lot of usage while Slurpuff was in the tier. Since Slurpuff is gone, the only Fairy-types left are like Togetic / Granbull / Carbink / Mr. Mime (lol)/ lord and savior Marill, so Gurdurr's standard BU set is amazing now :)

Speaking of Fairy-types:

Carbink is amazing. Walls Fire-types (except M-Camerup), handles Normal-types, can handle some Dark-types (not Pawniard) and iirc can beat Gurdurr too. This little rock with eyes is fat and cute so use it :)

Marill might seems like a joke, but its actually a cool Pokemon. I used to think Sap Sipper was the only way to go, but a offensive set w/ Huge Power isn't that bad either :o

Marill @ Eviolite
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Waterfall
- Play Rough
- Aqua Jet
- Knock Off

~344 HP, ~200 defenses thanks to Eviolite, and hits ~300 Attack with that spread. Sure its not gonna be a top tier Pokemon, but that typing is nice and its not that weak sooo try it out imo.

Dark-types:

These guys have been underrated for a while even though they were gods back in XY. With Slurpuff and Dragalge gone im expecting a lot of teams to start relying on Psychic- and Poison-types for Fighting-type resists, and these eats Psychic-type for dinner (Most players I have played so far on ladder didn't start using Dazzling Gleam on their Psychic-types, so abuse them asap ).

Walls Fire-types like Carbink, but can also wall M-Camerupt (unless it runs shitty Flash Cannon) which is huge imo. Can also check Archeops decently so thats nice too. Rock-type with recovery too :). Also has Psychic, Moonblast, Earth Power, and more for coverage!

With Sceptile and Dragalge leaving, Lilligant became amazing. Especially with Dragalge and Altaria gone, Lilligant has less reasons to carry Hidden Power Ice so thats great! Use it more.

Touncher. Enuf said.

What else do you guys think became better in this meta?

 

[Lord Alphose]

Something that I've found to be better in the meta is Scraggy, especially with Slurpuff gone.

It's sorta like the Marrill you got up there in that it might not seem that good, but it can surprise people in how effective it is.

 

[Swagalge]

Something that I've found to be better in the meta is Scraggy, especially with Slurpuff gone.

It's sorta like the Marrill you got up there in that it might not seem that good, but it can surprise people in how effective it is.

You're like 8 months late mate

 

[Choice Banned]

Would Megarupt + Lilligant be a decent offensive core? This is pure theorymon tho, but it just popped up in my mind.

 

[Cased]

Hi sorry I think Mega Glalie is broken and stuff because n_n

Uh the counters I've gotten from people are Steelix, Piloswine, and Prinplup (bruh). tl;dr two Pokemon without reliable recovery and tbf not that good in the metagame right now bar beating Mega Glalie, considering Piloswine had no real niche over Rhydon/Steelix/Uxie/Mesprit in terms of setting up Rocks, it just wasn't that good. And Prinplulp has no reliable recovery and frankly just an ass Pokemon tbh I don't understand the hype, but I guess people like running 252 / 252+ / 252+ sets somehow and says it beats the whole metagame. I guess a pissweak Pokemon that is easily switched into by 80% of the metagame is cool... Anyways this is the set I've been using.

Glalie (M) @ Glalitite
Trait: Inner Focus
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Super Fang
- Ice Shard / Taunt / Doesn't matter cuz broken
- Explosion
- Double-Edge

Double-Edge is a very strong move, totaling 234 after factoring in Refridgerate and STAB, making it an incredibly strong move and making Earthquake not as useful, although Double-Edge wears it down noticeably, it does a shitload more than Return and the damage is definitely noticeable. The only Pokemon worth having Earthquake for is Klinklang and like 120 HP Klinklang takes 36-43% from a Jolly Double-Edge. And of course takes 77% from an Explosion from Mega Glalie. I just find it way too easy to get at least 2 kills per game with this, Super Fang brings its counters down to low amounts of HP to where Double-Edge can kill it. Of course I'm not saying I ALWAYS Super Fang whenever a /counter/ switches in, and I flawlessly get every prediction right to the question of "Will he go to his counter or fodder this fearing Super Fang," because that's not true. But it gets insanely easy for Glalie to work around its counters with Super Fang. Ice Shard allows it to pick Pokemon off that attempt to revenge it at low health, but it's definitely the most replaceable move. Taunt allows it to stop any healing or stuff from things like Miltank that are able to switch-in thanks to Thick Fat. But yeah, everything else is pretty explainable.

There's nothing that can reliably switch into Mega Glalie with Super Fang, esp. since two popular switch-ins to Mega Glalie are apparently Piloswine and Prinplup, are permanently at 50% or lower after taking Super Fang, and any previous damage on them means Double-Edge is sometimes able to kill after the Super Fang. And honestly I think that Double-Edge recoil / possible Stealth Rock damage on Mega Glalie do not heavily take away from its effectiveness, and that its raw power, above average Speed tier, and ability to wear down its counters with great consistency is what makes it broken.

QUADRUPLE ICE-TYPE GLALIE AS FUCK

 

[Karane]

Would Megarupt + Lilligant be a decent offensive core? This is pure theorymon tho, but it just popped up in my mind.

It's a quite decent core actually. Lilligant can set up on water types Camerupt baits and camerupt can switchin on poison and fire types to nuke something.

 

[Ares]

So y'all are complainin about Mega-Glalie being broken but, like cased briefly mentioned as a switch-in in his post, Miltank is actually a fantastic switch-in.

Miltank (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock / Heal Bell
- Body Slam
- Milk Drink
- Thunder Wave / Toxic

Miltank is jumpin in to say no way to Mega Glalie while being able to heal off damage with Milk Drink, Taunt is a thing but tbh the damage is negligible and you can just Body Slam and paralyze it not to mention Taunt is rather uncommon on Mega Glalie. Stealth Rock or Heal Bell depending on what sort of support you want to run for your team. Body Slam is for spreading paralysis and damage, you can also use: Return / Double-Edge / Seismic Toss for more damage or guaranteed damage. Milk Drink is obviously for regaining HP, while the next slot is open for w/e status move you see fit to run. With the rise in usage not a bad mon to be slappin on to patch up that Mega Glalie weakness.

252 Atk Refrigerate Glalie Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Thick Fat Miltank: 72-85 (18.2 - 21.5%) -- possible 7HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Refrigerate Glalie Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Thick Fat Miltank: 84-100 (21.3 - 25.3%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Refrigerate Glalie Explosion vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Thick Fat Miltank: 175-207 (44.4 - 52.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

For comparison to the most common Thick Fat user Hariyama with the mixed defensive spread, which doesn't have access to recovery and is easily worn down having to check so much:

252 Atk Refrigerate Glalie Return vs. 0 HP / 128 Def Thick Fat Hariyama: 129-153 (30 - 35.6%) -- 26% chance to 3HKO
252 Atk Refrigerate Glalie Double-Edge vs. 0 HP / 128 Def Thick Fat Hariyama: 151-178 (35.1 - 41.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Refrigerate Glalie Explosion vs. 0 HP / 128 Def Thick Fat Hariyama: 313-370 (72.9 - 86.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[QueenOfHax]

So basically Miltank dies to Super Fang followed by Explosion after Spikes/rocks damage. If M-Glalie manages to pull that off it has done its job as a wallbreaker. So yeah we can confirm that nothing in the tier is safe from the icy wrecking ball, yes?

 

[Ares]

So basically Miltank dies to Super Fang followed by Explosion after Spikes/rocks damage. If M-Glalie manages to pull that off it has done its job as a wallbreaker. So yeah we can confirm that nothing in the tier is safe from the icy wrecking ball, yes?

Well there is actually a very slim chance of being able to do that, lefties will put Miltank above 50% depending on the hazards and then its a roll, pretty good chance to live and then you just Milk Drink on the Explosion.

 

[wolfenstein]

So basically Miltank dies to Super Fang followed by Explosion after Spikes/rocks damage. If M-Glalie manages to pull that off it has done its job as a wallbreaker. So yeah we can confirm that nothing in the tier is safe from the icy wrecking ball, yes?

This is assuming you have rocks up, predict the switch and then sacrifice your mega only for a chance to kill the cow. Not even worth it.

 

[dbull620]

So basically Miltank dies to Super Fang followed by Explosion after Spikes/rocks damage. If M-Glalie manages to pull that off it has done its job as a wallbreaker. So yeah we can confirm that nothing in the tier is safe from the icy wrecking ball, yes?

Honestly it's really not that difficult to deal with. Pyroar, Simisear, scarfed Typhlosion, Sneasel with Low Kick, and a good number of scarfed mons are easily capable of dealing with it.

As a random thought, a Jolly Guts Swellow can guaranteed OHKO M-Glalie with Facade (252 Atk Guts Swellow Facade (140 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Glalie: 309-364 (102.3 - 120.5%)). However, this assumes M-Glalie isn't packing Ice Shard as a Jolly/Naive M-Glalie almost guaranteed OHKOs Swellow after Stealth Rock damage (252 Atk M-Glalie Ice Shard vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Swellow: 188-224 (71.7 - 85.4%) -- 81.25% chance of OHKO after rocks). Even if Swellow gets lucky and survives a low roll, it will go down to toxic/burn damage after taking out M-Glalie.

 

[SnowWhistle]

I have a set for a defensive Slurpuff:

Slurpuff ( Puffles ) @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP, 252 Def, 4 SpA
Ability: Sweet Veil
Bold Nature
Heal Bell/Aromateraphy
Wish
Protect
Cotton Guard

With Sweet Veil, Puffles and it's ally can't fall asleep ( Stops Sleep Powder Spams like Vivillon ), with Heal Bell/Aromateraphy, it can removes bad stats from all Allys, including he, Cotton Guard allows Slurpuff to get a Strong Defense and Wish/Protect are a good combination to get heal.
That's good?

@ ama I cp'd it from the other thread so blame raz...

Slurpuff @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Unburden
EVs: 44 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 208 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Belly Drum
- Play Rough
- Drain Punch

Slurpy is gonna be fantastic while it's still here (not long, I would bet). Drain Punch is huge additional coverage, and now it can kill stuff while simultaneously making itself harder to KO. Kangaskhan and its ilk can't try to wear it down with Fake Outs anymore, since Slurp will just recover it all back with a safe Drain Punch. Sub blocks potential statuses; can be replaced with whatever you want if you feel like it. Spread outruns Scarf Rotom (benchmarks might change, so play with the spread if you like) and maintains an even HP WHICH YOU MOST DEFINITELY NEED.

Also, Weezing being used to check almost all the megas sounds like a negative but it's certainly a positive; Weezing lacks true recovery so wearing it down with something like Mega Lopunny (who can support Slurp even more by Encoring moves) will help a ton.