HP ice was ran on mienshao just for gliscor as well. Last gen volcaronas occasionally, but rarely run HP ground for heatran. I'd be here all day listing pokemon that had to run fire punch or mixed fire blast for skarmory and ferrothon past gens. While those moves may be useful for only those one or two pokemon.. all moves used to counter aegislash have good uses whether or not aegislash exist or not.
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np: XY OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Ghost of Perdition
- Thread starter gr8astard
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There are certain pokemon that check every common set. Bisharp is one. Running unconventional moves/items adds to the list of checks and can make Aegis weaker to other checks. It isn't like Bisharp and Garchomp are the only ones. And an aegis that focuses on beating Bish would be weaker to garchomp, and vice versa, or just make Aegis not as strong in general, because Aegis isn't as strong without LO.
And as for the team thing, many checks' aegis coverage hits hard, like garcomp EQ or bisharp Knock Off, or even Pursuit, but that is a risk. But remember, the switch isnt free. Also Air Balloon and Colbur Berry only work for certain checks. Anything that can survive 1 aegis hit and has any move that affects aegis, especially prio, can pop balloon and if it has EQ, severely damage it as well. And there are so many checks, it would be very hard for a team to handle most of them while still being effective.
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It doesn't have that many checks. Bisharp, Charizard-Y and Mandbuzz are all you get in terms of viable checks that won't cripple or faint themselves in the process. The metagame isn't bursting with bulky Pokemon with strong priority that can hit Aegislash (besides other Aegislash).
The thread has mostly been discussing Bisharp because there really isn't anything better.
lets add hippowdon, 176 special defense takes 42-47% from shadow ball which can be easily slacked off and with base 47 speed it can ensure that it outslows aegislash. This means that it gets to deal a clean 127-150% since as the faster pokemon aegislash has to be in blade form. Sure aegislash can run toxic, but that is only helpful if you switch hippo in and they predict it which means they likely outplayed you, not that aegislash is broken. But unlike the pro ban side i am not going to pretend it has 15 move slots while everything else only gets 4. i'm sick of the random versatility arguments because they are just throwing out examples, in an actual battle you can guess at somethings moveset at the start based on its teammates and then later on actually figure out what it is running.
This argument almost always comes up from the anti-ban side in every suspect discussion where the suspect's versatility is brought up, and it's a really bad one. No one is pretending that Aegislash has 15 move slots or can run every one of its sets with 4 moves, but, because its checks are so easily dealt with, by the time you learn what set its running, it's already too late. The same argument was used to defend Deoxys-D last gen, who would either run fighting gem to deal with tyranitar, fire gem to deal with scizor, or thunder wave to deal with various other things. Hell, there were a few people who tried to use that logic to defend mega Kangaskhan. Just because a pokemon can't deal with all of its checks in a single moveset doesn't mean that its versatility is acceptably healthy.
Shadowmana9
Banned deucer.
I do not think Aegislash can, as you have said, deal with its checks so easily. Head Smash does not one hit kill Mandibuzz. Sacred Sword has to be predicted for Tyranitar and Bisharp on the switch. Further, Aegislash effectively only has three move slots because it is necessary to have King's Shield. Deoxys' move pool is far more extensive than Aegislash, and in fact not only does not have a consistent counter, also has no real check. Your analogy just doesn't work.
So this is my first post here, but I do have a quite a bit of battling experience in a different nick in both Shoddy and PO; so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Aegis is a quite difficult suspect. It has an unique role, and influences the metagame in a quite different way. While I have not read all of this conversation, I feel the need to emphasize a little bit on some of the pro ban arguments.
About the KS 50/50 argument, a lot of people are saying that anything with a setup move can take advantage of. But doesn't it go both ways? while opponent can either setup, attack or switch; aegis too can either KS, attack or switch in appropriate counter for free. The difference is simply that in case of wrong prediction, the aegis user doesn't risk getting -2 attack. Every time aegis uses king shield, at the very list he scouts the opponent and reverts back to his behemoth 150/150 defense form. Aegis invites the opponent to a poker game while tipping the dealer to always give him a pairs at the beginning. Sure he could still lose, but its a game where he has the better odds. There's also the point that it kills momentum like no other. Say a landorus-T is facing aegis, and aegis has a teammate in Latios. Now Latios can pretty much come in for free on the first turn, because if Lando-T uturns, and aegis kS, then Lando-T gets -2 attack and therefore no longer counter Aegis who can fire SB without problem. If lando-T user does not want to take that risk and eqs; then either Latios will come in for free(and take the momentum in his hand) or Aegis will just KS and get a bit of leftover recovery. Only case Lando-T has any advantage is Latios comes in and lando-T u turns. So to me, the 50/50's we talk about seems more like 60/40 in favor of aegis.
Now onto the over centralizing argument. Aegis is not only the poke that asks the question why you are not using it, but it is the poke which dictates what works and what does not in this metagame. D-nite(which is among the least changed pokes this gen from BW) using eq is a pretty poor example of how Aegis forces pokes to run sub-optimal coverage. Why does Pinsir run eq, a move with 20 less base power than CC and makes him hard walled by Skarm, and cant hit Rotom-W neutrally? That's because getting past a poke who is not only available in more teams than not, but could potentially lower its attack is much more important than breaking through game's one of the best physical walls. With the nerf to steel and rise of talon, you'd think choice T-tar wouldnt be out of flavor. But despite hitting Aegis super effectively this gen which would not be the case had it existed last gen, it is not advisable to spam crunch against aegis. Sp.def gliscor would be a gimmick if aegis did not exist. Despite the relative lack of resistance, here we have mandibuzz rising from NU to OU. Why? Because it stops most of aegis sets. Why is a poke with 200 base atk, 100 base speed and powerful stab not OU? because OU is ruled by aegis. Ask yourselves, should a single pokemon (S rank or not) have this much impact on a metagame? 8 months of playing in this tier have us used to using and preparing for aegis. This should not mean its easier to handle or it should stay in the tier.
Next up is versatility. It can not only defeat each and every single of its counter or checks via different sets without resorting to gimmick, but also can fill in pretty much every single steel and ghost type's shoes. Tank, wallbreaker, midgame sweeper, pivot...pretty much any role other than choice attacker can be fulfilled by aegis at a reasonable effectiveness without compromising its basic qualities. That's how good Aegis is.
Finally, base stats. Only thing I'd like to point out here is that while Aegis do not always have 720 base stats, its low speed means it usually uses all of his 720 stats in a specific turn. Most of those who are slower than aegis is incapable of doing much even in blade form. That leaves only Conkderp and foul play amoonguss, the former of which has to take a guessing game against aegis.
While I'm not entirely sure whether Aegis deserves to go, I doubt it will be in the best interest of the OU metagame to let it continue. So for now I am leaning towards BAN.
Oh, and sorry for the wall of text.
Aegis is a quite difficult suspect. It has an unique role, and influences the metagame in a quite different way. While I have not read all of this conversation, I feel the need to emphasize a little bit on some of the pro ban arguments.
About the KS 50/50 argument, a lot of people are saying that anything with a setup move can take advantage of. But doesn't it go both ways? while opponent can either setup, attack or switch; aegis too can either KS, attack or switch in appropriate counter for free. The difference is simply that in case of wrong prediction, the aegis user doesn't risk getting -2 attack. Every time aegis uses king shield, at the very list he scouts the opponent and reverts back to his behemoth 150/150 defense form. Aegis invites the opponent to a poker game while tipping the dealer to always give him a pairs at the beginning. Sure he could still lose, but its a game where he has the better odds. There's also the point that it kills momentum like no other. Say a landorus-T is facing aegis, and aegis has a teammate in Latios. Now Latios can pretty much come in for free on the first turn, because if Lando-T uturns, and aegis kS, then Lando-T gets -2 attack and therefore no longer counter Aegis who can fire SB without problem. If lando-T user does not want to take that risk and eqs; then either Latios will come in for free(and take the momentum in his hand) or Aegis will just KS and get a bit of leftover recovery. Only case Lando-T has any advantage is Latios comes in and lando-T u turns. So to me, the 50/50's we talk about seems more like 60/40 in favor of aegis.
Now onto the over centralizing argument. Aegis is not only the poke that asks the question why you are not using it, but it is the poke which dictates what works and what does not in this metagame. D-nite(which is among the least changed pokes this gen from BW) using eq is a pretty poor example of how Aegis forces pokes to run sub-optimal coverage. Why does Pinsir run eq, a move with 20 less base power than CC and makes him hard walled by Skarm, and cant hit Rotom-W neutrally? That's because getting past a poke who is not only available in more teams than not, but could potentially lower its attack is much more important than breaking through game's one of the best physical walls. With the nerf to steel and rise of talon, you'd think choice T-tar wouldnt be out of flavor. But despite hitting Aegis super effectively this gen which would not be the case had it existed last gen, it is not advisable to spam crunch against aegis. Sp.def gliscor would be a gimmick if aegis did not exist. Despite the relative lack of resistance, here we have mandibuzz rising from NU to OU. Why? Because it stops most of aegis sets. Why is a poke with 200 base atk, 100 base speed and powerful stab not OU? because OU is ruled by aegis. Ask yourselves, should a single pokemon (S rank or not) have this much impact on a metagame? 8 months of playing in this tier have us used to using and preparing for aegis. This should not mean its easier to handle or it should stay in the tier.
Next up is versatility. It can not only defeat each and every single of its counter or checks via different sets without resorting to gimmick, but also can fill in pretty much every single steel and ghost type's shoes. Tank, wallbreaker, midgame sweeper, pivot...pretty much any role other than choice attacker can be fulfilled by aegis at a reasonable effectiveness without compromising its basic qualities. That's how good Aegis is.
Finally, base stats. Only thing I'd like to point out here is that while Aegis do not always have 720 base stats, its low speed means it usually uses all of his 720 stats in a specific turn. Most of those who are slower than aegis is incapable of doing much even in blade form. That leaves only Conkderp and foul play amoonguss, the former of which has to take a guessing game against aegis.
While I'm not entirely sure whether Aegis deserves to go, I doubt it will be in the best interest of the OU metagame to let it continue. So for now I am leaning towards BAN.
Oh, and sorry for the wall of text.
The point of the headsmash variant is that, because mandibuzz is almost always people's switch-in to agislash, it's usually safe to gamble on the mandi switch-in and 2hko it. Yes, Aegislash frequently relies on nailing tyranitar and bisharp on the switch, but the risk vs reward for the aegislash player is way out of proportion compared to the opponent's. If the Aegislash player predicts the bisharp switch-in incorrectly and sacred swords something else, the aegislash player is forced to switch, worst case scenario. If the opponent predicts incorrectly, he risks either losing bisharp/ttar to the sacred sword or something else eating a shadow ball. The risk the Aegislash player takes on in comparison to the opponent is far too low for the reward.
You're missing the point of my bringing up Deoxys-D's suspect test last gen. I'm explaining that it's a dumb comment to say that "oh X pokemon has the potential to deal with all of its checks fairly easily, but too bad! It doesn't have 15 moveslots so it's not broken," because we have precedence from previous bans that suggest this reasoning isn't legitimate in cases where pokemon sacrifice little or no strength to deal with almost all of their checks.
re Head Smash: Aegislash can 1HKO Mandibuzz after Stealth Rock as long as it has a Life Orb and a positive nature. Since Mandibuzz is often the team Defogger, it is going to switch into hazards often. Aegislash's problem in this case is correctly predicting the switch.
And Aegislash can always run a specially-based set with Flash Cannon.
After reading this I kinda realized a new argument maybe. Now, as always, this is my opinion, so nobody has to eat me about it.
First, in OU, you have team preview. You see Aegislash and you're like "Oh great, well at least I have my 'insert Aegislash check here'".
This automatically puts the person with no Aegislash at an advantage, and here is why:
They know exactly what you have as your check for Aegislash. Yes I know that is apart of the game. But here is the disadvantage I find. You don't exactly know if your Bisharp(seems to be the best argued counter for Aegi), for instance, can handle the Aegislash set because you dont know if its a set that utilizes Sacred Sword. However, your opponent knows exactly if its Aegislash can handle Bisharp or not. Its either going to switch out on the same turn that it predicts Bisharp to come in, or force you into a position to use your Bisharp earlier and kill it, OR it knows it can handle Bisharp, expect the switch in, and kill it. Sure, THAT takes some sort of skill, but it puts the person running Bisharp at a disadvantage all the way around.
As I've said before, the best way to make sure someone can handle Aegislash is to carry 2 or 3 pokemon that can check it to make sure that you can thoroughly deal with Aegislash. And also as I have said before, thats 2 or 3 pokemon on your team dedicated to one pokemon, that could/should be used for dealing with the rest of the opponents team. A battle with Aegislash, without running Aegislash, is always going to favor your opponent.
I see all of your points that you made and we could debate all day but i do have one thing to say about the future bans part. If you want to be more logical (in my opinion in what logic is) you would plan for the future and how something would affect the game till its changed by the next generation or another game comes out like OR&AS. Also how many people run counters to Aegislash VERY FEW. Why? Because MOST special and physical walls can stop Aegislash with a status like i stated before, and yes i did read about what you said to the statusing of pokemon. Now the forms thing like you said the charizard forms may be banned due to few counters but why not Rotom-Wash be banned swell due to the rest set that is commonly run, Rotom-W that is special can stop a special aegisash and can burn a aegis lash to get rid of its chances of doing anything physically without setting up which you could stop easily before it was setup enough to do damage. Also its not like when Mega-Kangaskan and the other banned metas that were running around all over the place while Aegislash is not as common due to players not being the best to predicting and are not willing to take a huge risk with a huge payoff (not as large as payoff the be better than the risk)
I wouldn't say that is true at all. No pokemon in OU is nearly as unique as Aegislash. It isn't like every pokemon can break physical attackers with Kings Shield, tank a hit in Shield Forme, and attack with at least a base of 150 atk or spec atk with moves clearly not many other pokemon outside of its unreliable checks to deal with.
Sure Aegi is unique but beeing unique doesnt make it broken.
And the problem that you dont know the moveset of your opponents mons is true in general, that has nothing to do with Aegi in particular. Swich in your Chari X counter only to find out its Y, switch your SpD Hippo into Thundy only to find out it has Grass Knot, bring your CBB Nite into Lando and oh shit it has HP ice i could continue this list all the way down the viability ranking list.
And compared to other mons the risk you face by mispredicting the Aegi set is far lower than for many other mons. If your Mandi or Hippo gets poisoned by Toxic they can still check Aegi to an degree its not like they are outright dead. If you switch into Headsmash you can just switch back out to avoid the 2hko and even if you lose a mon to an unexpected move its not like Aegi is going to sweep your team like other threats.
You guys are acting like getting caught off guard by some unexpected move is something that only happens against Aegi and is a huge deal but its not, it happens every day and rarely decides games, especially not in Aegis case as most OU teams run 2-3 Aegi checks without even thinking about him during teambuilding.
There are so many offensive and defensive checks for it you will have a hard time building a team thats actually weak to Aegi. There are 3 things in the S and A ranks that are actually weak to him, the Latis and Breloom, everything else has ways to hurt/beat it somehow.
And the problem that you dont know the moveset of your opponents mons is true in general, that has nothing to do with Aegi in particular. Swich in your Chari X counter only to find out its Y, switch your SpD Hippo into Thundy only to find out it has Grass Knot, bring your CBB Nite into Lando and oh shit it has HP ice i could continue this list all the way down the viability ranking list.
And compared to other mons the risk you face by mispredicting the Aegi set is far lower than for many other mons. If your Mandi or Hippo gets poisoned by Toxic they can still check Aegi to an degree its not like they are outright dead. If you switch into Headsmash you can just switch back out to avoid the 2hko and even if you lose a mon to an unexpected move its not like Aegi is going to sweep your team like other threats.
You guys are acting like getting caught off guard by some unexpected move is something that only happens against Aegi and is a huge deal but its not, it happens every day and rarely decides games, especially not in Aegis case as most OU teams run 2-3 Aegi checks without even thinking about him during teambuilding.
There are so many offensive and defensive checks for it you will have a hard time building a team thats actually weak to Aegi. There are 3 things in the S and A ranks that are actually weak to him, the Latis and Breloom, everything else has ways to hurt/beat it somehow.
You should go down the list, because personally I wouldn't mind seeing Charizard-X and the genies gone. It isn't useful to say that one S-rank Pokemon isn't broken because the other S-rank Pokemon are equally powerful, just like it isn't useful to say that Aegislash's absence will make Medicham and Gardevoir broken.
Sure it is. In a meta without big threats like Charizard X and Mawile, duh Aegislash would be ban worthy because it'd stick out like a sore thumb. Their presence however is what I believe makes Aegislash's ban-ability questionable. It's the most centralizing force in the game, but there's plenty that are only a step or two behind it that together produce a balancing affect. If we mess with too many of those, the balance will go up in flames and we'll have to ban them all. That's no excuse to keep something that's clearly broken, but it does pretty much shut up the "it does too much for any one pokemon!" argument. There's plenty of pokes right behind it that would only become better from the vacuum created by the top threat disappearing.
Azu with Superpower to smash ferro, Latis with a million different coverages moves, Pinsir with Stone Edge to nail Zapdos, Kyub with all its different moves, probably one of the most difficult things to find out as it ohkoes almost everything with the right move, Conkeldurr with Poison Jab for Fairys and so on. If you need more examples use your brain and find some for yourself. Making a full list is too much of a drag, adds nothing to the discussion and isnt needed to prove my point.
What your examples have in common is that they're all designed to hit different Pokemon - Zapdos, Ferrorthorn, fairies, etc. But a lot of OU Pokemon run coverage moves to hit the exact same Pokemon - Aegislash, because their team can't deal with it otherwise. And you can't just slap on a Hidden Power and expect to beat it. It takes powerful STAB super effective moves.
Even if there's multiple overpowered OU Pokemon, OU can easily end up a matchup-based "rock paper scissors" metagame if teams need to specialize to beat Aegislash, Mawile and Charizard-X.
Stop mentioning 150 attack and Special attack. It's moves have low base power. It's outdamaged by so many pokemon it's not even funny. So please stop with 150/150 offenses.
Isn't Pokemon already a "rock paper scissors" game? And all three you just mentioned all fear one thing: earthquake. It is not hard to tack on earthquake onto a team, or even stone edge if you aren't sure about the Charizard.
But not many other Pokemon combine base 150 offensives with good coverage and Eviolite Porygon2 levels of bulk.
Look at this from the other direction. Hustle Raticate outdamages Aegislash (and ties with Haxorus in Attack and Speed, weirdly), but it's still PU.
Not in the way you're thinking.
Say that Haunter suffers from severe brain damage and decides one day to allow the Moody ability in OU. Moody becomes so dominant in OU that teams are created specifically to counter it. But those anti-Moody teams lose to every other team. The "rock paper scissors" is this:
Moody teams < anti-Moody teams < "normal teams" < Moody teams
You can tell which teams win in this metagame without even having to watch the matches. You may as well hit the forfeit button on turn 1 if you're in a bad matchup. This is what got Baton Pass banned, and if people have to specialize to defeat Aegislash, it'll turn the metagame into this too.
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I feel like people are underestimating the majority of the checks. We talked about Bisharp already and a couple more but here we go:
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 322-382 (99.3 - 117.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Hippowdon: 210-247 (50 - 58.8%) -- 72.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 Atk Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 414-488 (127.7 - 150.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO (Hippo outslows Aegis)
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield in Sun: 440-522 (135.8 - 161.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Those are just some of the Aegis checks. And there are also unconventional sets. Swords Dance Garchomp can check aegis by switching in on Shadow Ball, SDancing on the KS, and EQ, and even without SD, Garchomp can kill if given free switch.
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Garchomp: 183-216 (51.1 - 60.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 458-542 (141.3 - 167.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 230-272 (70.9 - 83.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
And none of these are bad pokemon. And keep in mind these aren't all of the Aegis checks. These are some of the best at checking and the best in the metagame, don't get me wrong, though.
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 322-382 (99.3 - 117.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Hippowdon: 210-247 (50 - 58.8%) -- 72.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 Atk Hippowdon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 414-488 (127.7 - 150.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO (Hippo outslows Aegis)
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Aegislash-Shield in Sun: 440-522 (135.8 - 161.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Those are just some of the Aegis checks. And there are also unconventional sets. Swords Dance Garchomp can check aegis by switching in on Shadow Ball, SDancing on the KS, and EQ, and even without SD, Garchomp can kill if given free switch.
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Garchomp: 183-216 (51.1 - 60.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 458-542 (141.3 - 167.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Garchomp Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 230-272 (70.9 - 83.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
And none of these are bad pokemon. And keep in mind these aren't all of the Aegis checks. These are some of the best at checking and the best in the metagame, don't get me wrong, though.
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Those aren't "some" of Aegi's checks. You listed every single usable one save for Mandibuzz and Bisharp, and even Hippodown loses to SubToxic and Garchomp has trouble with Air Balloon variants.
And yet, there are still more pokemon that have lower base attack and special attack that use those moves. Along with Stance Change to help tank hits before attacking, and Kings Shield, we might as well argue that having a high base atk and spec atk makes it good. Almost too good.
This suspect test isn't about just one aspect of Aegislash, its about all of his amazing qualities that he has, that no single other pokemon in OU holds in its han(ds)... Sword and Shield appendages.
(Edit: spelling issues. xD)
Not every single one. Look at some earlier posts. I don't think i listed Landorus-T for example. And SubToxic is more checkable than other sets and the Air Balloon variant is easier for other checks to deal with and overall not worth the defense against mainly just 1 pokemon. And also, Garchomp can pop Air Balloon given a free switch in.
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