Speaking of Pincurchin, I've been toying around with that mon a bit and man is it (and E-Terrain as a whole) bad. E-Terrain actually some strong pieces like Specs Iron Jugulis (which is fast and difficult to switch into) + SD Seed Valiant and Iron Leaves. It even has mons that are passable pivots like Iron Crown and Iron Treads which match up well against Glimmora. What's neat is that a lot of these mons like Jugulis and Crown are great outside of Terrain as well from what I've toyed around with. However, it feels like there are just too many roadblocks for this style to work, between Pincurchin itself being mostly deadweight, the lack of consistent speed after Terrain has worn off (for the SD sweepers) + other Terrain setters (i.e. Rillaboom) being more threatening + the SD Speed boosting sweepers requring too many turns to actually sweep + Ice Spinner being rather common on Iron Treads / Great Tusk / Dragonite etc. A style like this (and by extension, Sun, and most other terrain styles) have felt really fishy because they have to rely on one dead slot to support the other 5 & still run into issues against the likes of Specs Dragapult, LO Deo-S, etc. even in spite of having such strong tools. The only style I've felt has been consistent (besides Rain debatablely when Arch was legal) is G-Terrain since Rillaboom itself has a lot of utility as a breaker.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
The only mons that use booster speed commonly are:
Iron valiant, which I don't think is a negative presence in the meta, and actually a good presence since it can be used to revenge kill lots of things. It can be scary, but poison types definetely help against it and it cannot take a hit that isn't a dark type move to save its life.
Iron boulder: Mon is bad, I'm sorry to say. The only thing it really has is outspeeding iron valiant, which isn't really a claim to fame when you have stuff like darkrai which can do that AND not have the set known as soon as you see it on team preview (sd, mighty cleave, cc and earthquake, with maybe zen headbutt over either cc or e-quake but that is quite rare from my knowledge). Also is screwed over by common priority moves, grassy glide, sucker punch and aqua jet.
Iron moth: Not even an OU mon, as while it is good, it does have issues of being hazard weak. It also can be screwed over if it doesn't have the right coverage.
Iron treads: Also isn't a problem, booster speed is mainly on lead sets, which while decent don't necessarily destroy anything in the tier. Is purely a momentum setter.
Iron crown: Is niche, and the most common sets actually run assault vest. Has a severe problem with steel types, so can be walled if it doesn't have focus miss.
Gouging fire: I still think this is a problem, but others don't. So this is the one I will concede.
Walking wake: Relegated solely to sun teams, which are not a problem.
Only 5 mons use booster speed commonly in this meta, with only 1 I consider a problem with booster speed. Booster energy is not the problem, it actually helps due to mons like valiant being good revenge killing mons. (Tusk and moon either don't use booster a lot or use booster attack).
Do agree with the gambit take, it feels like you have to overprepare against that mon. Sadly, won't be banned, I can live with that fate just barely.
I don't want to derail the thread, and I don't think Lugia should ever be dropped, but you forgot some things. Faster or scarf pivots chip multi-scale very easily. So do bulky slower pivots besides Glowking. Same for Stealth Rocks on non-Boots sets. Other faster pokemon like Meowscarada, Cinderace, and Roaring Moon can all threaten Lugia after chip. Speed boosting mons with Energy Booster or Choice Scarf can potentially do the same, depending on the set. Fast encore users like Valiant, Scream Tail, speed tie Ogerpon, niche Maushold, can wreck Calm Mind Lugia if you time it right and keep them in the moves. And because we established Lugia needs multiple Calm Minds, this isn't as hard to do as it seems. This Calm Mind/Roost set has a 50% chance to be clicking a passive move on your switch. You can control variables further with a slow pivot that chips it to take away Multiscale.
The most potent Lugia set would likely involve Whirlwind and a hazard stacking team. But this move is negative priority and the speed tier isn't really a factor.
When a list of Booster Energy abusers doesn’t include Roaring Moon and instead mentions Walking Wake which literally is only used in Sun and doesn’t need Booster Energy:
-Everything is going according to plan.
I did actually check the SPL games, and only one moon that I saw actually used booster speed. That was what I based it off. If you wanted to base it off booster speed, then sure, moon is definetely included in that broken list, though I think booster speed isn't the only thing breaking it.When a list of Booster Energy abusers doesn’t include Roaring Moon and instead mentions Walking Wake which literally is only used in Sun and doesn’t need Booster Energy:
Also, when thinking about wake I was like "I commonly see proto activate for speed, it must use booster speed", but preceeded to forget that its because of sun lmao. My b.
been a while since i've talked so im just gonna leave my thoughts on everything since the kyurem suspect
i feel as if many of this gens detractors just believe this gen to be broken checks broken situation, and you really cant ban anything no matter how broken people think it is is cuz something broken checks it too, everything just becomes a "necessary evil" at some point were you just HAVE to keep it cuz if not something else thats broken will take over
why would you ban gambit when zama and skarm exist?
why would you ban raging bolt when clodsire, glowking, and tinglu exist?
why would you ban gouging fire for its breaking swipe set when heatran and dirge exist along with curse + body press dozo sets, along with alolamola + terabaiter such as gliscor exist?
why would you ban volc when gouging, dirge and plenty other checks exist?
why would you ban gholdengho when kingambit exist?
why would you ban zama when it has a good amount of checks(skeledirge, clef, skarm, etc)?
[when discussing specs kyurem]why ban kyruem when you just use more offense to beat it?(blissey is only really used on stall)
yes i know most of these mons that are checks aren't broken, but every mon i mentioned on the "why ban [ ]" side has had a suspect or given radar
its very interesting to me that archaludon was the only suspect mon banned post dlc 2, it REALLY carried rain for that month or so it was legal and even without rain it still was crazy, i really do wonder what the kyurem suspect test wouldve looked like post arch ban
speaking of which, i still don't like kyurem in particular as i feel like theres no real defensive check or counter to it(again, blissey is only really ran on stall), and although glowking can be a nice roadblock, it still cant 1v1 because you still can lose to earth power and take more damage than you do healing from 1 switch out (51% from earth power at minimum vs 33% from regen)
going back to my earlier thought though, i may be thinking wrong or look silly but i feel like many of the people that don't enjoy this metagame come from a "its just broken checks broken checks broken metagame" mindset, not sure who mentioned it before(pretty sure it was blunder) but zama, ghold and gambit form almost a rock paper scissors group, gambit beats ghold, ghold beats zama, zama beats gambit, and 2/3 of those have been suspect tested(with ghold being on the radar but seeing no suspect, although it usually does have a bit of people thinking its action worthy on surveys)
he DID also state though that with tera ghold can beat both, tera isn't specifically what im talking about but the "is tera broken" debate is interesting to think about, especially when tera was the CLOSEST to being banned but not actually having enough to be banned out of every suspect (59.25%/60%)
also genuine question, is there any reason why this gen hasn't had an experimental ladder for no tera?not sure if smogon as a whole still does those anymore but im still curious as i wonder if it'd help or give any feedback, as i really don't feel like we're gonna be seeing any more suspects or anything by the end of summer, and thats a bit generous on my behalf
edit:not even gonna mention dropping anymore ubers to OU, darkrai was the one exception i feel like cuz the tier already has 2 pretty fastish dark types that can deal damage, bringing in a mon like solgaleo or lugia, while funny for like a day would get very tiring quickly, oh well, maybe next gen :P
thats all i have on my mind though, defintiely fluctuated in topics but i hope i at least kept my thoughts interesting enough for people to read, thanks
i feel as if many of this gens detractors just believe this gen to be broken checks broken situation, and you really cant ban anything no matter how broken people think it is is cuz something broken checks it too, everything just becomes a "necessary evil" at some point were you just HAVE to keep it cuz if not something else thats broken will take over
why would you ban gambit when zama and skarm exist?
why would you ban raging bolt when clodsire, glowking, and tinglu exist?
why would you ban gouging fire for its breaking swipe set when heatran and dirge exist along with curse + body press dozo sets, along with alolamola + terabaiter such as gliscor exist?
why would you ban volc when gouging, dirge and plenty other checks exist?
why would you ban gholdengho when kingambit exist?
why would you ban zama when it has a good amount of checks(skeledirge, clef, skarm, etc)?
[when discussing specs kyurem]why ban kyruem when you just use more offense to beat it?(blissey is only really used on stall)
yes i know most of these mons that are checks aren't broken, but every mon i mentioned on the "why ban [ ]" side has had a suspect or given radar
its very interesting to me that archaludon was the only suspect mon banned post dlc 2, it REALLY carried rain for that month or so it was legal and even without rain it still was crazy, i really do wonder what the kyurem suspect test wouldve looked like post arch ban
speaking of which, i still don't like kyurem in particular as i feel like theres no real defensive check or counter to it(again, blissey is only really ran on stall), and although glowking can be a nice roadblock, it still cant 1v1 because you still can lose to earth power and take more damage than you do healing from 1 switch out (51% from earth power at minimum vs 33% from regen)
going back to my earlier thought though, i may be thinking wrong or look silly but i feel like many of the people that don't enjoy this metagame come from a "its just broken checks broken checks broken metagame" mindset, not sure who mentioned it before(pretty sure it was blunder) but zama, ghold and gambit form almost a rock paper scissors group, gambit beats ghold, ghold beats zama, zama beats gambit, and 2/3 of those have been suspect tested(with ghold being on the radar but seeing no suspect, although it usually does have a bit of people thinking its action worthy on surveys)
he DID also state though that with tera ghold can beat both, tera isn't specifically what im talking about but the "is tera broken" debate is interesting to think about, especially when tera was the CLOSEST to being banned but not actually having enough to be banned out of every suspect (59.25%/60%)
also genuine question, is there any reason why this gen hasn't had an experimental ladder for no tera?not sure if smogon as a whole still does those anymore but im still curious as i wonder if it'd help or give any feedback, as i really don't feel like we're gonna be seeing any more suspects or anything by the end of summer, and thats a bit generous on my behalf
edit:not even gonna mention dropping anymore ubers to OU, darkrai was the one exception i feel like cuz the tier already has 2 pretty fastish dark types that can deal damage, bringing in a mon like solgaleo or lugia, while funny for like a day would get very tiring quickly, oh well, maybe next gen :P
thats all i have on my mind though, defintiely fluctuated in topics but i hope i at least kept my thoughts interesting enough for people to read, thanks
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This meta is in a bizzare state where very few think it is balanced - Mainly due incredible threat saturation. Yet trying to fix it with a suspect test to ban something most likely won't work, due to everyone disagreeing on which threat to target. Sounds kinda ironic, doesn't it? And it does not bode well to the health of the tier in my mind.
So, how to fix it? The first part would have to be a true consensus that something must be banned. People might not agree on what to ban, but if we have a huge case of 90% or so players saying at least one Pokemon must be banned to create a better tier, that's enough to create some kind of process that guarantees a ban will be enacted.
With that out of the way, what manner can be do a voting process that guarantees a ban? Probably the silliest-sounding method out there - Which I call The Amongus method! We have a suspect process where everyone ladders and goes for GXE requirements, then at the end of that period, there's a blind vote where each player selects one Pokemon in the tier to ban. Then we could narrow it down to two Pokemon for a second vote, and then the one with the most votes of the two is banned.
This might seem like an odd way to do a suspect, where everything is 'sus', so to speak. But remember the point: Nearly everyone wants a ban to happen to fix the tier, and however dissatisfied people might have with their threat no getting banned, a true "vote off the island" suspect will guarantee that at the very least a ban will happen.
Probably goes against Smogon sus-spect guidelines... But if we're at the point of heavy dissatisfication of this tier right now, this is one idea that could work.
So, how to fix it? The first part would have to be a true consensus that something must be banned. People might not agree on what to ban, but if we have a huge case of 90% or so players saying at least one Pokemon must be banned to create a better tier, that's enough to create some kind of process that guarantees a ban will be enacted.
With that out of the way, what manner can be do a voting process that guarantees a ban? Probably the silliest-sounding method out there - Which I call The Amongus method! We have a suspect process where everyone ladders and goes for GXE requirements, then at the end of that period, there's a blind vote where each player selects one Pokemon in the tier to ban. Then we could narrow it down to two Pokemon for a second vote, and then the one with the most votes of the two is banned.
This might seem like an odd way to do a suspect, where everything is 'sus', so to speak. But remember the point: Nearly everyone wants a ban to happen to fix the tier, and however dissatisfied people might have with their threat no getting banned, a true "vote off the island" suspect will guarantee that at the very least a ban will happen.
Probably goes against Smogon sus-spect guidelines... But if we're at the point of heavy dissatisfication of this tier right now, this is one idea that could work.
This concept is genuinely good but I think we should do it a bit differently. Setup like a blind survey or something where you get to choose between 2 pokemon that are considered banworthy by a significant amount of people, do it with random combinations of 2 and at the end of the survey's lifespan, show results and suspect the one that got the most ban%. I don't know if this kind of thing has a name but I think this is the only way to go about it at this point
y'see lugia is a pretty cool pokemon until you gotta actually kill this thing before you kill yourself. like i don't see what lugia would be doing in OU besides sitting on 90% of the tier (and not even pokemon you'd actually want it to sit on like kingambit or kyurem)
honestly considering giving ogerpon a high score on the next survey just so we get something out of the tier. like at this point something has gotta go
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I was just reading through this thread and wanted to let you know you can still vote even after the outcome is announced, obviously won’t change anything but you should if you want the TC badge
i swear 90% of the people here talk (or type) more than they actually play the game 
Its just terrible in general i gave up caring asking them to ban this and that, if broken stuff is not banned, u abuse the broken stuff and may the best at abusing the broken stuff win
Its just terrible in general i gave up caring asking them to ban this and that, if broken stuff is not banned, u abuse the broken stuff and may the best at abusing the broken stuff win
tbf actually playing gen 9 OU isn't funi swear 90% of the people here talk (or type) more than they actually play the game
Tbh i found it kind of refreshing to play once every couple of weeks games are really fast these days they dont usually go beyond 20 turns XD unless u run stall, gives u time to play other stuff do life stuff. Same with replay checkers u already know what the guy is probably doing if he lets timer drop to 60-40s, theyre just bad if they have to check replays on ladder
I've seen some people hating on the GOAT Ogerpon and wanting to ban her, making this post to change minds about this mon and expose the truth that Ogerpon isn't broken.
Checks exist. Any two of Kingambit, Dragapult, Kyurem, Bolt, Moon, Gouging, Bulky Rilla, Weavile, Zama, Dnite, Valiant, Meow, Ace, Darkrai, Lucha, Boulder, Latis, Serp, Torn, and various other Pokemon can shut down Ogerpon-W no matter what set it is. Even if you can't fit any of these mons, there are still tera users to shut it down. Volcarona, Gliscor, Landorus, Heatran, and Dondozo are some examples of Pokemon that can run tera Dragon and/or Grass, while there are also underrated picks, particularly Grass Gambit. Anything with existent bulk + tera grass/dragon that can 1v1 a mon it dual resists can do the job though.
Ogerpon has four moveslots. Yeah its broken if its running 6+ moves on the same set, but it cannot. Ogerpon needs STAB and SD to pose a real threat, leaving you with a single slot remaining. In addition to the blanket answers earlier, Ogerpon has even more answers depending on what move it drops. The main options for its fourth move are Encore, Play Rough, and Trailblaze, all coming with major costs for dropping them. Without Encore it loses to Kingambit and Raging Bolt, two top 3 usage mons, in addition to IronPress Steel Birds, while lacking its ability to punish passive moves and gain setup opportunities. Without Play Rough all Dragons hard wall it. Without Trailblaze its ass into offense, not that its good into any good offense team even with Trailblaze to begin with.
Another major weakness is its tera lock and hazard weakness, making it very easy to outplay even without hard counters because it can only come in so many times and can't bluff any weird teras. Shouldn't have to elaborate on this one hopefully.
Checks exist. Any two of Kingambit, Dragapult, Kyurem, Bolt, Moon, Gouging, Bulky Rilla, Weavile, Zama, Dnite, Valiant, Meow, Ace, Darkrai, Lucha, Boulder, Latis, Serp, Torn, and various other Pokemon can shut down Ogerpon-W no matter what set it is. Even if you can't fit any of these mons, there are still tera users to shut it down. Volcarona, Gliscor, Landorus, Heatran, and Dondozo are some examples of Pokemon that can run tera Dragon and/or Grass, while there are also underrated picks, particularly Grass Gambit. Anything with existent bulk + tera grass/dragon that can 1v1 a mon it dual resists can do the job though.
Ogerpon has four moveslots. Yeah its broken if its running 6+ moves on the same set, but it cannot. Ogerpon needs STAB and SD to pose a real threat, leaving you with a single slot remaining. In addition to the blanket answers earlier, Ogerpon has even more answers depending on what move it drops. The main options for its fourth move are Encore, Play Rough, and Trailblaze, all coming with major costs for dropping them. Without Encore it loses to Kingambit and Raging Bolt, two top 3 usage mons, in addition to IronPress Steel Birds, while lacking its ability to punish passive moves and gain setup opportunities. Without Play Rough all Dragons hard wall it. Without Trailblaze its ass into offense, not that its good into any good offense team even with Trailblaze to begin with.
Another major weakness is its tera lock and hazard weakness, making it very easy to outplay even without hard counters because it can only come in so many times and can't bluff any weird teras. Shouldn't have to elaborate on this one hopefully.
Some people have been saying Hearthflame is less broken as an argument for Wellspring being broken 
Why it is NOT less broken:
Why it is NOT less broken:
- Having Fires as a dual stab resist instead of grass is huge, they are crippled by knock/hazards and Cinderace, Heatran, Torkoal, and Volcarona lose outright leaving only Gouging Fire as an answer to it (and it's a wellspring answer too...)
- The Fire typing makes it resist Thunderclap and Grassy Glide shutting down Rillaboom and Raging Bolt as revenge killers, makes it immune to burns from Cinderace, Dragapult, Darkrai, and Volcarona/Moltres Flame Body.
- It is less reliant on Swords Dance thanks to Embody Aspect, allowing it to pull off trailblaze, encore or an extra coverage move without a severe lack of power, and the tera attack boost also lacks a setup turn to punish it.
- Mold Breaker invalidates would be switchins like Dirge, Tera Dozo, Heatran, and Dragonite.
What?! I had no idea this was a thing!Tbh i found it kind of refreshing to play once every couple of weeks games are really fast these days they dont usually go beyond 20 turns XD unless u run stall, gives u time to play other stuff do life stuff. Same with replay checkers u already know what the guy is probably doing if he lets timer drop to 60-40s, theyre just bad if they have to check replays on ladder
I swear, more than anything I wish there was an option to set a timer, or give us an allotted amount of time (10 minutes to spend as you see fit). People acting like they're money matches, literal stall takes less time. 30 sec is more than enough time to make a decision.
Yes that has been a thing for ages, im so glad there is the dont allow spectators button now so u can get rid of any unwanted attention without going thru the trouble of ionext everytime now, most people dont build their own teams they just take from other ppl by stalking replays or games (and good teams take a lot of time and testing to build) & these kinds of ppl dont tend to be very nice in general, so just save urself the trouble of getting ur team copied or people trying to check ur sets by always keep spectators off, ull win way more that way
I've been keeping spectator off in general for some time now, this is very interesting indeed! Here I was thinking they we're thinking too hard.
I will say that either way, they're taking the game far, far too seriously.
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Tera Water Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Roaring Moon: 327-385 (93.1 - 109.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Tera Water Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Kyurem: 270-318 (69 - 81.3%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Wellspring Mask Tera Water Ogerpon-Wellspring-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Skarmory: 298-352 (89.2 - 105.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
All I see is another reason why we won't have any more bans for the foreseeable future. This isn't criticism of your arguments, btw. It's simply worse for the ban case if these anti-broken arguments gain steam. Nearly every single borderline case is going to be like this. It appears enough people are going to be convinced for no ban, if they weren't already, where we won't have a majority to push ban.
I had a small, slight hope for Waterpon just because some of the council was pushing it. Something like maybe a likelihood of 7... out of 100. But still a bit more hope than everything else. Seeing this post just brought that hope down to zero for me. For the record, I'm not even pro Waterpon ban. I don't care if the thing stays or goes. I just want the tier to do something.
I've seen some people hating on the GOAT Ogerpon and wanting to ban her, making this post to change minds about this mon and expose the truth that Ogerpon isn't broken.
Checks exist. Any two of Kingambit, Dragapult, Kyurem, Bolt, Moon, Gouging, Bulky Rilla, Weavile, Zama, Dnite, Valiant, Meow, Ace, Darkrai, Lucha, Boulder, Latis, Serp, Torn, and various other Pokemon can shut down Ogerpon-W no matter what set it is. Even if you can't fit any of these mons, there are still tera users to shut it down. Volcarona, Gliscor, Landorus, Heatran, and Dondozo are some examples of Pokemon that can run tera Dragon and/or Grass, while there are also underrated picks, particularly Grass Gambit. Anything with existent bulk + tera grass/dragon that can 1v1 a mon it dual resists can do the job though.
Ogerpon has four moveslots. Yeah its broken if its running 6+ moves on the same set, but it cannot. Ogerpon needs STAB and SD to pose a real threat, leaving you with a single slot remaining. In addition to the blanket answers earlier, Ogerpon has even more answers depending on what move it drops. The main options for its fourth move are Encore, Play Rough, and Trailblaze, all coming with major costs for dropping them. Without Encore it loses to Kingambit and Raging Bolt, two top 3 usage mons, in addition to IronPress Steel Birds, while lacking its ability to punish passive moves and gain setup opportunities. Without Play Rough all Dragons hard wall it. Without Trailblaze its ass into offense, not that its good into any good offense team even with Trailblaze to begin with.
Another major weakness is its tera lock and hazard weakness, making it very easy to outplay even without hard counters because it can only come in so many times and can't bluff any weird teras. Shouldn't have to elaborate on this one hopefully.
Some people have been saying Hearthflame is less broken as an argument for Wellspring being broken
Why it is NOT less broken:
- Having Fires as a dual stab resist instead of grass is huge, they are crippled by knock/hazards and Cinderace, Heatran, Torkoal, and Volcarona lose outright leaving only Gouging Fire as an answer to it (and it's a wellspring answer too...)
- The Fire typing makes it resist Thunderclap and Grassy Glide shutting down Rillaboom and Raging Bolt as revenge killers, makes it immune to burns from Cinderace, Dragapult, Darkrai, and Volcarona/Moltres Flame Body.
- It is less reliant on Swords Dance thanks to Embody Aspect, allowing it to pull off trailblaze, encore or an extra coverage move without a severe lack of power, and the tera attack boost also lacks a setup turn to punish it.
- Mold Breaker invalidates would be switchins like Dirge, Tera Dozo, Heatran, and Dragonite.
Of course Wellspring has offensive counterplay. The issue is the highly lacking defensive side, which are all very abusable by sets like Encore which exploit recovering or boosting slow mons like Dondozo, Garg, Gliscor, and more for free set up. As for what you listed, Dragapult is a very short check due to how much it takes from Ivy Cudgel (If it gets crit even once then it can't switch in again). Weavile straight up struggles if Oger already tera'd as knock is weakened and triple axel is resisted. Dnite does well so long as it isn't facing Play Rough varients (which also applies to Kyurem and Raging Bolt). Valiant is best a check to it when running physical sets, as otherwise the spdef boost from a tera'd Ogerpon can make revenging it difficult. Boulder is drastically falling off for good reason (only fits on HO and not even every HO, plus bad 4mss). Latios actually isn't a super comfy switch when the threat of Ivy Cudgel high crit rate potentially allowing a 2HKO, which forces gamble moves. Also Bulky Rilla is piss weak and can potentially get dropped by +2 Power Whip from full if rocks are up.
This is the main issue, at least what I feel, is with the mon. It's not impossible to handle and good players are able to play around it, but there's zero denying the influence it has on the builder and it itself is a centralizing mon in the tier.
Edit: also Ironpress Skarm/Corv are Encore bait sooo...
I do agree with most of this, Boulder is indeed ass and the only real Booster speed user being Val and sometimes Moth or Crown. That being said, I still believe a large part of what makes this gen feel so insanely fast is the ubiquity of Booster Valiant and mons trying to outspeed it. Even other booster users that don't actually boost their speed with it, try to get sweeps with the added power complemented by boosting moves (Calm mind for Bolt, DD for Goug and Moon, Fiery dance procs for Moth etc.). What I'm trying to say is, booster spam is a large contributor in making HO as good and prevelant as it is. I don't even think booster is banworthy or anything given that it doesn't really break any mon, but I do think its impact warrants discussion.
I think it would come down to a discussion of "if booster valiant is removed, would the speed tiers go down by a lot" and to that I would say no. Due to threats such as dragapult, zama and weavile, speed tiers have been creeped so much, and booster valiant being gone would be just one aspect that would be removed. There technically would be a reduction in speed tiers, but not by much I believe.
You confirming that is booster spam as a whole, rather than booster speed is good. However, I still do think that overall it is mainly alright in the tier. I would bet that Bolt, Goug and Moon would still be broken (if you believe they are broken) in the tier without booster. Bolt would switch over to lefties/balloon, gouging does commonly run HDB and lefties, so this would just mean 20% of the time you don't choose it, so maybe that's the one that would be the most impacted. While moon uses it on 70% of sets, I have run grassy seed on it and 1 time boost items would probably replace it. Heck, it might become even more broken because people realise, "oh shit, moon isn't just a one trick pony, it can use many sets", which is what I have been trying to say, but oh well. Moth would most likely go down in popularity, but scarf sets could emerge, as well as HDB sets which sacrifice power for more longevity.
I mean, if nothing else, Booster (and I suppose Tera) are the main reasons I feel Raging Bolt and Roaring Moon could be seen as problematic, as their damage output feels a bit high with the item. That being said, the items drawback of being 1 time use is really annoying in a meta where the walls have such high bulk (looking at you Ting-Lu). The damage output of other booster guys like Gouging Fire also shouldn't be taken lightly.
I mostly find Valiant to be a healthy wincon with Speed booster (especially in a metagame where Gking is everywhere) though its set versatility can be irritating with Booster since its outspeeding everything, letting it win a bit easily if the opponent doesn't read the set. It also forces mons like Excadrill / Venusaur to run suboptimal natures to outspeed it under weather. Iron Moth is a bit cheap though with speed booster if it fishes the boost with Fiery Dance. It can feel more broken than Volcarona since it starts off so fast off the bat and most of its answers can't stomatch boosted Fiery Dances, but it is banking on fishing those boosts in the first place. Great Tusk with Booster speed also feels like it can snowball a bit too easily, though it needs to work for those bulk ups. Iron Boulder gets some hate, but the one set that's scary is Booster Speed SubSD Tera Flying, which can snowball a bit fast vs Lando-T teams. Iron Crown can be a bit cheesy with Stored Power Booster speed, but that's more of a Stored Power issue imo.
Most other Booster Speed mons, like Sandy Shocks, Iron Treads, etc. I think are healthy.
I mostly find Valiant to be a healthy wincon with Speed booster (especially in a metagame where Gking is everywhere) though its set versatility can be irritating with Booster since its outspeeding everything, letting it win a bit easily if the opponent doesn't read the set. It also forces mons like Excadrill / Venusaur to run suboptimal natures to outspeed it under weather. Iron Moth is a bit cheap though with speed booster if it fishes the boost with Fiery Dance. It can feel more broken than Volcarona since it starts off so fast off the bat and most of its answers can't stomatch boosted Fiery Dances, but it is banking on fishing those boosts in the first place. Great Tusk with Booster speed also feels like it can snowball a bit too easily, though it needs to work for those bulk ups. Iron Boulder gets some hate, but the one set that's scary is Booster Speed SubSD Tera Flying, which can snowball a bit fast vs Lando-T teams. Iron Crown can be a bit cheesy with Stored Power Booster speed, but that's more of a Stored Power issue imo.
Most other Booster Speed mons, like Sandy Shocks, Iron Treads, etc. I think are healthy.
Is this set using sub, sd, mighty cleave and e-quake/cc on it? Because if that is the case, then wouldn't it have coverage issue? Just wondering, because I finally know what set people are saying is the broken set and I'm not quite sure if it would be crazy.
Funny you say this because I had the same thought the other day