The 6th Gen Unbans on Showdown: Are they Broken?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I have been playing a lot of pokebank OU on showdown recently, and I not iced something. Three things, actually: Excadrill, Blaziken, and Thundurus. None of these are banned in pokebank OU, which I find strange. I see the reasoning behind unbanning excadrill. With the weather nerf, he's solidly OU, but not really broken imo. Blaziken and Thundurus are altogether different matters. I've run into several blazikens, and they're pretty OP. I personally don't see why they would come down, and I don't think they should. I've only seen one Thundurus, but it wasn't a good experience. I got curbstomped. Why would it come down? It doesn't make sense to me, and I'd like to at least know the reasoning behind this decision. What are your opinions on these pokemon? Should they be legal?
 
you can use him on the pokebank OU ladder, as of this afternoon. It's on tons of teams right now, and if you tell people it's banned, they get very defensive. Whether it's actually banned is kind of a moot point.

Edit: Nevermind, he's banned now, Thundurus is still allowed though. Looks like it was just an oversight, and it will probably be fixed soon.
 
Last edited:
Blaziken was somewhat manageable due to new checks in the form of Talonflame and Azumarill and a general move towards priority which circumvents Blaziken's speed. I never had much of a problem with Blaziken myself.
 
Now permanently gone. Blaz and deoxys, goodbye forever more.

What still plagues this tier, however, are all the OP megas that haven't gone up. Kan, pinsir, luc, gengar are all only stoppable in their mega by dedicated counters and outspeeding. And even that is shaky. Aerilate pinisr has a 1.8x bonus on return and then calcs that into his 155 BST. He also gets EQ, CC, and all the bug moves and at +2, the only way to stop him is to be faster. Lucario falls under much the same. Dedicated counters needed, stopped only by water/flying or water/psychic types with recovery and who get in before he starts boosting. 2x bonus to anything STAB and swords dances generally make him an unstoppable monster. Gengar just has shadow tag and can take out teams because you can't switch out. There are NO counters to him, because you can't bring in one. And of course mega kan who double hits through sashes that could technically counter the other two, doesn't have the greatest attack but has a natural choice band second attack and can swords dance while attacking with PuP.

Of course genesect, Kyurem-B and the genie incarnates are here. Some of the genies won't go back until later. Genesect better go back immediately. Right now, it's ladder with genesect or you aren't laddering. (Unfortunately, the only teams working on ladder are HO if that gives you any idea of how many OP ubers have dropped down. Stall is CRUSHED by all this.) Anything slightly slower loses. And we consider this fair? It's frustrating enough that they're in OU, even more so now that we know they don't go back because we can't start banning until the official pokebank opens up. Basically, the game is unplayable unless you run HO.

Kyurem specifically is annoying. In case you didn't know, he now has a 140 BP ice physical move. Sure it takes a turn to charge up, but this is coupled with his huge 170 attack (how does that get in OU?) and the only for-sure counter is a 4x resist, specifically heatran. Because the next turn it can run into an outrage it the target isn't heatran. And even if it isn't, carry earth power and all heatrans die. It's time to let go of that one, his stats are way too much even if his movepool is slightly limited. Let me ask you, what switches into a neutral hit and OHKOs back?

Of course genesect being here... Someone forgot what the first half of OU5th gen looked like. Anyone remember the usage stat before he was banned? He was the ONLY pokemon in 5th gen and probably gens before that (only challenged by salamence) that reached 30% usage. Meaning that he was basically on EVERY THIRD TEAM. Out of the 50+ pokemon in OU, this one was used 1/18. And that's how it is currently. Unstoppable monster gaining a +1 boost SOMEWHERE on every in.
 
Kyurem specifically is annoying. In case you didn't know, he now has a 140 BP ice physical move. Sure it takes a turn to charge up, but this is coupled with his huge 170 attack (how does that get in OU?) and the only for-sure counter is a 4x resist, specifically heatran. Because the next turn it can run into an outrage it the target isn't heatran. And even if it isn't, carry earth power and all heatrans die. It's time to let go of that one, his stats are way too much even if his movepool is slightly limited. Let me ask you, what switches into a neutral hit and OHKOs back?
He got into OU because people were smart enough to not just look at his stats and go NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE, which you are doing right now. Also, he already had the 140 BP Ice move (not 'now has it'), and it's pretty fucking bad.
 
I'm looking at his stats and his movepool, and he has just enough to wreck anything that doesn't outspeed him. I've been putting up with him since gen5, but now with keldeo being nonexistent, people are going "Oh look, a 700 BST pokemon with as much bulk as jirach and more attack than lando-t!". He's definitely not meant for OU. 170 attack tops everything else in tier and he has moldbreaker to make it even more difficult to stop him.
 
I pretty pissed that blaziken is banned! in 6th gen he's just a regular mega evolution now with many checks and counters (mega pincer, azumarril, talonflame, chandelure, etc)! I can understand why he would be banned in 5th gen. Honestly I think most of the people at smogon are scrubs who; just because they can't figure out how to beat a certain pokemon, decide to ban it! Come on smogon
 
I think that blaziken should be OU while mega blaziken should be Ubers. With many of the new pokemon who will be used such as talonflame and with the resurgence in usage of Azumarill that regular blaziken should be OU.
 
Blaziken isn't banned for its mega evolution. There are plenty of overpowered ones, but the fact you can only have one means they usually aren't as format-warping. Blaziken was waaaaaay too good in general. You could beat him, but he was too powerful.

Things I still think should be banned: Genesect and Thundurus
They still deserve uber status, in my opinion. I haven't seen enough of manaphy, deoxys s or d, landorus, or tornadus t to come to a conclusion about them.

Edit: Two counters is really not enough, and talonflame is pretty abysmal in general. 4x weak to stealth rock, only 499 base stats, and an extremely shallow movepool make talonflame a pretty terrible pokemon. It will end up, at best, UU.
 
i was just naming a few counters to blaziken, there are a lot more.Blazikens mega evolution is just about as good as the others. In fact; Mega pincer, gardevoir, tyranitar, alakazam, gengar, lucario, and gyarados have the same if not better base stats. Also just because blaziken has speed boost doesn't mean he'll kill everything, there are only so many pokemon he can ohko, plus the recoil from flare blits/ brave bird gets to him after 2-3 kills
 
Deoxys speed, someone said that that one is here to stay. Which is fine, in a generation where leads are kind of useless due to defog, Speed is going to be a lesson in mediocrity. Defense on the other hand is probably not going to stay for long, but for right now deoxys-d provides some stability to a metagame of complete and utter offense.
 

Camden

Hey, it's me!
is a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
...and talonflame is pretty abysmal in general. 4x weak to stealth rock, only 499 base stats, and an extremely shallow movepool make talonflame a pretty terrible pokemon. It will end up, at best, UU.
How is Talonflame a bad Pokemon? Yes, it does have more usage right than it will later on, but it still has two very strong STAB attacks in Brave Bird and Flare Blitz, very high speed, and Priority on Brave Bird, Roost, and Tailwind, not to mention other options like U-turn, Will-o-Wisp, Swords Dance and Bulk Up. Its movepool isn't the most expansive, but it has the right tools to do what it does best: Revenge Kill.
 
It just comes down to typing, really. It has 3 common weaknesses, and takes 50% from stealth rock. Since it's completely outclassed by special revenge killers, its only niche is physical revenge killer, for teams that want one. However, his attack is a pretty dismal 81, making me more inclined to go with a scarfed physical attacker, like terrakion, haxorus, genesect, landorus-t, etc. That will be faster, hit harder,, and get better typing and coverage. I think talonflame will happily make a home in UU, where competition is less fierce.
 
Uhm... I think you need to face some talonflames. It has the strongest priority move in the game (here I was thinking it would be greninja before the gen released) because of gale wings. At +2, it destroys almost every physical wall. Acrobatics at +2 will 3HKO heatran if given a dedicated spread of 172 neutral defense and 248 HP. And heatran will only live if he didn't take rock damage first. The priority and speed combo means that pokemon aren't going to get it via priority, and it isn't weak to any priority short of water shuriken anyways. For rock weaknesses, which it and volcarona both share, both also have roost. Flame is the single best counter for mega pinsir/mega heracross as well as being perhaps the best revenge killer in the game. It will NEVER touch UU. It is OU for sure. Counterable, yes. Weak, by no means. Breloom had a worse overall stat total and became an A-list threat in OU 5th gen. TF is destined to be a B-list OU threat at worse.
 
Breloom has two of the best abilities in the game, as well as the single best move. I've faced a lot of talonflames. Like I said, they're on pretty much every team. I haven't really had problems with them. Sure, talonflame is good, but it's outclassed by too many things to really find a comfortable home in ou. Maybe you're right, and it won't go down to uu, but I would expect it to at least go to borderline once the hype dries out and people realize that fire/flying typing is still terrible. 81 attack just isn't enough.
 
Breloom has two of the best abilities in the game, as well as the single best move. I've faced a lot of talonflames.
Gale wings is the single best ability in the game right now. You now make a base 120 stab move priority. Or you can recover off before you get hit by priority, meaning that you literally cannot die by being at 1% health (essentially second rock switch in) and getting hit by some weak attack to finish you. Single best move? What would that be? Talon has one of the single strongest move when coupled with a gem... Acrobatics should hit near 160 base power? (110x1.5=165?) and while 81 isn't enough by itself, +2 does damage and talon can almost always find time to do so. I bet you just happen to have a few counters to talon (namely rotom wash/rotom flame/slowbro/Ttar) That make countering it a little easier.
 
Spore. Spore is the single best move in the game.
And after playing with some other teams, I've kind of come around. I had been using a stall team that always had stealth rock up and ran scarftar and gliscor, which are both good counters. now that I've played with other teams, talonflame is alright. In particular, it gives my baton pass team trouble since I try try sweep with mega heracross. It's still way overhyped, and probably won't stop being omnipresent until genesect returns to ubers where it belongs.
 
However, his attack is a pretty dismal 81, making me more inclined to go with a scarfed physical attacker, like terrakion, haxorus, genesect, landorus-t, etc. That will be faster, hit harder,, and get better typing and coverage. I think talonflame will happily make a home in UU, where competition is less fierce.
252+ Atk Choice Band (custom) Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Garchomp: 246-289 (68.71 - 80.72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Terrakion Close Combat vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Garchomp: 204-241 (56.98 - 67.31%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Talonflame hits far harder than terrakion rofl.

252 Atk Haxorus Outrage vs. 88 HP / 4 Def Gyarados: 261-307 (73.93 - 86.96%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band (custom) Brave Bird vs. 88 HP / 4 Def Gyarados: 285-336 (80.73 - 95.18%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Hell, he hits harder than Haxorus. (he's almost exactly on par with adamant haxorus, and doesn't have to lock himself into his revenge killing move).
 

ss234

bop.
No, talonflame does not hit harder than terrakion. You didn't factor in Choice Band for terrakion, while you did for talonflame which is very unfair. Same for haxorus. Both actually hit much harder than talonflame because of their higher attack stat and they have a 120 BP STAB, the same as talonflame. If you're going to do this sort of thing at least keep the item the same. Otherwise I could claim that deoxys-n hits harder than deo-a because the latter isn't running evs(bad example, but you get the point-make sure all factors are the same before comparing mons).
 
just to clarify, he was comparing talonflame to other physically based scarfers (which act as revenge killers) which is what choice band talonflame essentially is, thanks to its priority. i know that ignoring the choice band boost on terrakion and haxorus looks unfair at first glance, until you notice that he was explicitly talking about revenge killers, and talonflame does indeed hit harder than those two examples in that role.
 
Unfortunately, with a choice band talonflame really runs into the shallow movepool problem. Once you eliminate roost, swords dance, and acrobatics, it really only has 3 viable moves. You end up having to use return or thief.
 
the reason many ubers in bw were given another chance in xy is that it's a completely different metagame. mons that thrived in bw may not be as good now. maybe the metagame has adapted and said uber has many more checks/counters than before? the only way to find out if they're still broken is to give them another chance in ou, and see how they affect the metagame.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top