*angry breloom noises*
*angry ribombee noises*
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
- Status
*angry ribombee noises*
Libero also allows you to easily Court Change in the face of a Tusk burned on switch-in, which I always found quite useful/irritating (depending on the side)
I was just asking them to draw a comparison. During gen 8 I stayed away from OU, I really only played UU and monotype so I wasn't around to see how those threats were dealt with. Obviously different pokemon, different metagame but there's a lot of parallels in the way ultrabeasts and proto pokemon are designed and operate.
Yea, the meta sometimes can forces you to run some particular moves. and the most clear example at the moment is Tusk running Ice Spinner against Gliscor, but it's still ok since Gliscor can still be checked and as you said, if top tier mons start running different moves, items or even EV (if you meant this clearly), then is a good sign that the meta is changing and it's not staying the same, but the bad sign is WHEN a Pokémon is so powerful that force people to use a Pokémon that was in the lower tiers and was also bad just to try to check it and use weird moves, such as Blissey with Calm Mind for BM, that luckily got banned in the end.
But in the end are asubjective opinions if a mon is broken or not or if that move is ok for the mon or not, but sometimes there are clearly examples of when a Pokémon is broken or create an unhealty presence in the meta.
no one tell this guy about ting-lu
oh yeah, don't fucking remind me about how buzzwole would be an excellent defensive check to tusk, gambit, waterpon, gliscor, zamazenta, hamurott... don't remind me about how this would have been buzzwole's best generation ever because of how many of the meta's top mons it beats
Just imagine a Gliscor just eating an Ice Punch
Does Cinderace get a viable Ghost Move to spinblock ? I have never seen such a set but if it has some flexibility with its Court Change set shouldn't that work?
However - most likely - it would lose Toxic and Roost which hampers its viability. Still a good theoretical addition and I wonder what moves it would run in OU.
You know you make a good point Buzzwole would have been sweet - it even has Earthquake against Gholdengo
However - most likely - it would lose Toxic and Roost which hampers its viability. Still a good theoretical addition and I wonder what moves it would run in OU.
It actually knows Shadow Ball so that could be a nice tech, or you could go Tera Ghost. Don't know though if it is worth the loss in utility
To clarify, I do think Cornerstone is an overall solid Pokemon, the issues I brought up are some minor ones any offensive mon tends to run into in some form. What I more meant to say is that Gholdengo doesn't factor too much into its viability or issues with slotting into a team like Kingambit-demands-Tera-boost or the Overlap with Wellspring does. My reply was primarily to say that I don't think the changes or lack-thereof for the listed Pokemon is a strong argument against a hypothetical Gholdengo ban if it is deemed to have an unhealthy impact on things like Hazard stack
losing roost would hurt, sure, but the combination of drain punch, leech life, and possibly wish support can do in a pinch. it'd probably settle into more of a momentum-based defensive pivot role than the wall and setup roles it's played in the past. it really doesn't need toxic with base 139 attack; even uninvested and with mid-power moves it deals more damage than any other mon that bulky outside of ubers. tera also really helps buzzwole—its main weaknesses have always been flying-types, fairy-types, psychic-types and toxic, all of which are stuffed by tera steel; tera dragon can alternatively be used to resist fire moves and waterpon's stabs, tera water to resist water/ice coverage, or tera grass to resist waterpon's stabs while retaining its ground resistance and not adding a play rough weakness. considering that the only status moves it commonly ran were roost (which it would lose), bulk up (which is only really good on it in conjunction with roost), and toxic (which it never really needed outside of ubers), banded and scarf sets would likely become more common and assault vest might start seeing more use on it, but boots would probably be the most common item for it. all in all, having good matchups against tusk and gambit at the same time is probably enough to eclipse the loss of roost; very few mons can claim effectiveness against both while fitting on teams outside of stall
no i haven't been theorycrafting this since day 1 shut up
Do we think Chomp or Azu could return next month to OU? I know Chomp was just sent to BL but I think he can comeback, I'm not so sure about Azu but his typing is quite good so maybe there's hope.
Yeah, I'd say so, in fact I think he's gotten even better hence its increase in usage, CC has been a blessing for him this gen with all the hazards war that's been going around since Hamurott was released and now with the Lord Harzards aka Gliscor coming back.
This is true. While I don't think Trick Valiant is that great, it does pose a huge threat without gholdengo's existence. People have already started talking about it getting suspected as well even despite gholdengo's existence, and I dont really want to keep one broken mon just because of another broken mon. This should be looked at as well. Playing devil's advocate simply for the sake of it, there are still mons that can exist that wall certain sets. Glowking is still an issue for the special variant as well as hatterene if it doesnt continue to run shadow ball. Obviously there are other valiant sets that do beat glowking/hatterene but that is also true for gholdengo and a reason this mon is being discussed for a suspect.
No longer requires Dark or Ghost coverage in its movesets and can more freely use moves like Encore or Trick. Additionally it can use more Psychic moves to hit Poison types and hit almost everything nuetrally with STABs + Psychic.
Also true another great pokemon that finch seems to have a personal vendetta against (with decent reason dire claw is a funny move even if it is a bit inconsistent.) Gholdengo is one of if not the proper mon holding this thing back by being a steel type (immune to poison) while being a ghost type (immune to fighting). Other mons can come in and deal with this thing as well tho including gliscor, glowking (so long as its not running night slash), pex, amoongus (other than unburden acro)... any poison type really thats viable in OU is a potential wall. All those things really fear is sleep from dire claw which has always been the thing that makes everyone look suspicously at sneasler. Also worth testing regardless of ghold's inclusion. Again i dont want to keep broken mon just cuz it checks another broken mon just ban both.
Besides Gliscor (also on Radar) and Tera’d Garg, it can spam Dire Claw and fish for Status uncontested besides against Steel types (You know, the perfect Fighting type check). It can also run Tera Blast Ice for likes of Gliscor and Landorus-T without having to worry about being cucked by Gholdengo.
Here's where i start disagreeing. Yes Cornerstone is a great offensive threat and one that im very aware of. However, a few things hold it back from being outright broken without gholdengo. 1 is this pokemon has an incredibly hard time coming in due to its lack of resists. It would need help from slow uturns/chilly reception which offers a bit of a restriction when slotting this into a team. 2 is the same thing with other ogerpon forms where it cant really easily be fast or a sweeper or even surprise you in any way, its biggest threat to the meta would be in its ability to consistently get kills every time it comes out. 3 is that unlike waterpon and firepon, i do not think rockpon is getting kills everytime it comes out. While you say it can simply run fighting coverage, this completely ignores bulky fighting types that would be able answer rockpon. Pokemon like conkeldurr and kommoo become much more useful once gholdengo is gone, so they would naturally exist in the tier to answer cornerstone. Cornerstone can run play rough but that is the same issue it faces now where it is forced to chose between 1 of 2 moves.
Can simply run Fighting coverage now to deal with Steel types, something it couldn’t do before because of Gholdengo.
Personally i think this mon is already placing a huge constriction to the ou tier, just at a lower threat than other mons that are currently being looked at. But if ghold was the only answer, or even close to the only answer, this mon would have been removed a long time ago. Dragapult, enamorus, dozo, clefable, gliscor, hatterene, valiant, ribombee, pex, moltres, and zapdos all can check this thing depending on sets and thats without looking even into uu for other sudo-viable ou mons that would check it as well (skeledirge/amoongus/pelipper/tornt).
Body Press has 1 less Ghost type that completely blocks it. Like with Sneasler it is also now more free to use options like Play Rough, Psychic Fangs, Iron Head, or Ice Fang to break past other checks
This is currently not even an ou mon and i dont really see it rising anytime in the very near future. Granted bax and roaring moon also had a stint in UUBL so i think this is worth considereing. KommoO has a lot of options and i think it is an excellent wallbreaker even now. However there is a lot holding it back even with ghold's absence. Clodsire (and blissey to an extent) can be a big problem for this mon unless its also running specific coverage that allows it to deal with those mons, relying oftentimes on splitting ur offenses into running physatk as well as spatk investment. Dozo and corv can equally be a bigger issue to the physical sets. +2 tera normal boomburst on a mixed set is very powerful tho. The other thing is that I mentioned this is a great wallbreaker, not a sweeper. This thing even at +1 speed has a hard time sweeping anything with the existence of scarf enam, scarf wake, any additional fast scarfers, booster speed valiant and moth (which are very present in current ou), as well as many forms of priority (suckerpunch from kingambit being surprisingly notable if you do decide to tera normal and drop ur resist). That as well as the fact that it takes some time to setup im not sure it lives up to the hype
+2 Boomburst with Fighting and Dragon STAB is incredibly hard to wall, especially with Tera Normal providing STAB and reducing weaknesses
Dozo, bulkier tusks, clef, ting lu, big zama, even garg and skeledirge can all bother this thing depending on sets as well. There isnt really 1 set that can deal with everything while still doing the dumb broken stuff it would do in dd espeed. That and many of us are finding dragonite setting up to not be quite as free as it may have felt before. Either way there are answers that arent air ballon ghold.
No longer has to deal with Air Ballon Gholdengo, or regular Gholdengo as it can more freely run coverage for Corviknight and Dragapult too.
Veil for sure still an issue. However im more cool with veil in a metagame where i can run defog to get rid of it consistently than in the current metagame.
One of the biggest offensive Steels being gone means its Aurora Veil is much easier to set up and leading to shit like this being much easier
252 Atk Choice Band Tera Dark Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Cloyster in Snow with an ally's Aurora Veil: 76-90 (31.5 - 37.3%) -- 86% chance to 3HKO
252+ Atk Tera Normal Dragonite Fire Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Frosmoth in Snow with an ally's Aurora Veil: 186-220 (66.1 - 78.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Slaking Body Slam vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Weavile in Snow with an ally's Aurora Veil: 115-136 (40.9 - 48.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
And plenty more examples
TLDR yeah like u said there are answers to all these mons and gholdengo works well as amazing glue to answer all of these. That being said I dont think being glue is enough of a reason to stay around when A) gholdengo is impacting the rest of the meta by making hazards broken b) some of these mons ghold is being glue to are worth banning regardless C) enough answers exist to the rest of the mons such that the glue it provides is not necessary. I like glue tho as Im sure everyone else does. I'm praying the murmurrings of aegislash's return in DLC2 are true so we can get a gholdengo that exists in the tier without having one of the most laughable abilities GF has ever created.
Last edited:
Azu will not return as long as Ogerpon-Wellspring is in the meta IMO as it mostly invalidates Azu. Ogerpon being a Water-immune that threatens an OHKO on it makes Azumarill cry.
TCTphantom
formerly MX42
I think Chomp has legs to rise. SD with Scale Shot feels nice enough, I have been enjoying it on Veil in particular. Chomp still hits hard after a SD and Scale Shot is a godsend for it. It's not the best thingin the metagame by any means, but I do think it is a tad underutilized rn and could have legs for a rise. I also messed with Scarfchomp a bit, but being unable to outspeed +1 adamant Roaring Moon sucks and I would not suggest using it.
Azu will probably not rise again as long as Waterpon is in the tier. Its kinda meh rn and I would have expected it to drop even before the Teal Mask.
Chomp, yes, it really benefited the drop of a lot of grounds to UU and the bans of bax and BM. Azu? Never, even if waterpon gets banned, azu juat gets outclassed by a lot of other mons in OU who can do its job better and with less risks.
i have to wonder, though. gliscor's presence has forced ice coverage onto basically anything that can carry it and a couple things that can't. between that and the existence of stuff like manaphy and atales, ice moves are a lot more present in the meta than they were pre-dlc, which is worse for chomp than every other ground-type
KamenOH
formerly DynamaxBestMeta
what doesn't he have a vendetta against? Stall?
But yeah I gotta agree with your Zamazenta opinion. its ok. It is OU material don't get me twisted, but its just ok. I forget if its just fighting or if its fairy/fighting but yeah I think even skeledirge walls it, and thats UU.
Now if it had pursuit...
we are currently waiting for the meta to settle after bloodmoon ban before the next slate
- vr council the loor
The loor has spoken
When NUbers comes out, it will finally be just OU with broken (thus making it popular new players obviously by the name). That is, until the broken gets NUUBBL'D. Why, we could even revision the meta starting from Ubers, with OU being the NUbers tier.
As for OU itself, and the resurgence of the demands for broke coming back down, I do want to note some common patterns of the banned mons. Either being sweepers who are wallbreakers, or wallbreakers who are sweepers. It's a problem I am used to seeing in lower tiers because, like, that's Smogon since forever threats who aren't used enough in a tier drops into one where all of a sudden defensive answers to them are kind of lame. I think with Dexit philosophies of modern Pokemon, that effect is taking place in OU where defensive answers are less simple than before.
Recovery moves are much less spammable now, so stopping attacks all game is on a much shorter timer. And what more, defensive mons who were taking for granted the scalding, toxicing, defogging or knocking off suddenly have reduced distribution of these moves as well. Defensive mons don't have as many of those options as now as before. The problem has two faces: it's not just the big meaty defensive mons being able to take a hit, it's doing something else to make progress.
Oh except spikes.
Spikes is real easy for defensive mons to make progress, and it has good distribution this gen.
Gliscor stands out to me because it is a mon that retained just enough of the tools to consistently make progress while still being a defensive mon. The meta has been growing around the assumption these tools are rare when combined together, and Gliscor has been very disruptive to those assumptions. But it's a very old kind of Gliscor. You know what the gen v set for Gliscor is?
Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 244 HP / 140 Def / 124 SpD
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Protect
- Knock Off
Shuffle the EVs around and swap stealth rock for your hazard of choice, and you have a Gliscor ready to time warp to 2023 to deal with meta of Gen IX. Simply because it has a variety of tools to make progress as a wall, when most of the walls don't have that variety.
It's interesting to me to watch how certain pokemon with explicit defensive tools have been bubbling under the radar, Gholdengo being the most obvious one. But I remember when murmurs of Garganacl and even Dondozo being too much to play around, or too consistent in making progress. Are these defensive utility pests really too much for the meta, or it simply that the meta has certain, lower expectations for defensive mons in making progress?
Ah well in that case my bad Avira
I do think it's difficult to draw meaningful comparisons at the moment though.
Us the Azubros found dead in ditch, well it was fun while it lasted
But yeah, the power creep caught up to him and Waterpon makes it almost useless. Have fun in UU, little fella.
I honestly don’t like Chomp rn in the current metagame, where Wellspring is the new Mid-gambit. Also a ton of fast fairies, and being resisted by a super common sweeper+sharing that 4x ice weakness with daddy gliscor, who everybody has prep for, just isnt nice. Azu has a use for walling moon+setting up but thats still Wellspring moment…
Tran and scizor are looking fire rn tho!
W Heatran set that shreds the following:
-Rain (tera->trap their setter n rock)
-sun (same as above but taunt after trapping+trap wake later n tera)
-Non-Superpower Enam
-Gliscor w/o Knock or facade
-Lead Glimm
-Specs Pult
-Valiant w/o CC
-ALL Moth
-(when tera) 1v1s water-pon
Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: grass
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 212 SpD / 40 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Taunt
- Earth Power
- Stealth Rock
-Rain (tera->trap their setter n rock)
-sun (same as above but taunt after trapping+trap wake later n tera)
-Non-Superpower Enam
-Gliscor w/o Knock or facade
-Lead Glimm
-Specs Pult
-Valiant w/o CC
-ALL Moth
-(when tera) 1v1s water-pon
Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: grass
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 212 SpD / 40 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Magma Storm
- Taunt
- Earth Power
- Stealth Rock
- Status