OU SM OU Discussion Thread

clematis said:
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I want to talk about Mega Absol, since I've been really enjoying using it lately, and I feel like it's one of those semi-niche things that flies under a lot of people's radars.

Magic Bounce is a really cool ability, and means that you can, unsurprisingly, do an absolute number against stall, and its Dark typing means you're immune to Prankster shenanigans too. Absol's movepool, too, is something to behold, with a good selection of both Physical and Special moves. Sucker Punch, Knock Off, Pursuit, Swords Dance, and Play Rough are all totally viable, and do hit hard coming off of a fully invested base 150 Attack. Even specially, you can run Fire Blast and Ice Beam, and uninvested it'll absolutely chunk Landorus, Gliscor, Ferrothorn, etc. 150/115/115 are really good in terms of offensive stats, especially if you choose to run Swords Dance too.

I've been using two different sets recently, both of which have their merits.
Absol-Mega @ Absolite
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Play Rough
- Swords Dance
This one makes use of Absol's sky-high Attack and access to Swords Dance to act as a monstrous wallbreaker. You're practically immune to status, and I can't honestly think of anything that actively wants to be taking a +2 Knock Off or Play Rough aside from a select few Megas. Most games, I've been able to set up at least once and pick up a kill or two. Entry hazards are obviously super nice with this, so I'd suggest pairing with Ash-Greninja for a terrifying double Dark core. Absol's 65/60/60 aren't great defensively, but with careful play and technique you can make it work well enough. It's a lot of fun though, which I feel is kind of the point of this. Just watch out for U-Turn.

Absol-Mega @ Absolite
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 156 Atk / 100 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch
- Ice Beam
- Fire Blast
On the other hand, mixed Absol is a surprising answer to a pretty large chunk of the more passive parts of the metagame. You pretty much invalidate Stall, even stuff like Ferrothorn, SubSeed Serperior, random Thunder Waves and Toxics being tossed around, Gliscor, etc cetera. Even base 115 SpA is nothing to laugh at, and Ice Beam and Fire Blast provide a decent enough coverage for the aforementioned things. Being able to cleanly outspeed and OHKO Garchomp is, I feel, doubly nice to have, while 100 SpA guarantees the kill on 244 Jolly Gliscor after Rocks. You need 224 SpA to kill 252 SpD Careful, but imo that's an unacceptable drop in power for Knock Off.

You may have noticed that neither of these sets have Pursuit on them. This is entirely for personal preference, but rest assured it absolutely is workable. I simply prefer the combination of Knock Off and Sucker Punch in most cases, especially on set 1, where STAB +2 Sucker Punch is gonna do a ludicrous amount to a lot of the metagame. However, Pursuit is still a very good choice, given how many switches Absol forces. The 4MSS absolutely sucks, but hey ho. I guess you could drop Play Rough if you really want, but then you get hard walled by Kommo-O. Fire Blast is droppable on set 2, as long as you have something like Magnezone to deal with Scizor and Ferro.

Anyway, there's my two cents. Give it a try! :D

(if you want the teams drop me a message, I'm not too happy with them but hey ho)
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show me some proof of this thing working before I take it seriously.

it's very cute on paper, but barely passable in practice outside of screens in my experience.

and even with screens, there're a lot more powerful options to fk with instead
 
I know this was not taken seriously but having Darkrai tested in gen 7 and 8 could be interesting, specially in gen 7 where many counter to him exist like Magearna and Chansey, I don't know if this is possible to test a Uber pokemon long before the tier has been stopped but since ban like Dugtrio arena trap has existed I suppose this could be possible.
 
Darkrai is infinitely more egregious in gen 7 than gen 8. Nasty plot Z move would be a nightmare, no pun intended. It also has knock to cripple the only two immediate counters in chansey and gear if that wasnt enough.

Lastly, the tier already sees hell from greninja spamming dark pulse, a significantly stronger one that has more flexible options is a hard no lol. Thing is closer to marshadow in terms of its offensive capabilities than it is the high tier offensive mons in gen 7

I can reasonably see a world where its a healthy addition to the meta, and it absolutely is not this one
 
Why not at least test him once to see the result? Many people said that to Darkrai in gen 9 and see the result, again I think darkrai is not the powerfull monster people think he is but this is just my opinion.

While Marshadow is similar to him he has the advantage to have a better type, a prority moves, a good unique attack and a powerfull Z move.
 
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Maxicheese said:
Why not at least test him once to see the result? Many people said that to Darkrai in gen 9 and see the result, again I think darkrai is not the powerfull monster people think he is but this is just my opinion.

While Marshadow is similar to him he has the advantage to have a better type, a prority moves, a good unique attack and a powerfull Z move.
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You could host a tour with Darkrai unbanned in SM OU if you want to see what its like. I think that's the best way to test out how it is in this tier. I personally wouldnt want it unbanned since I dont think it'd be a healthy addition to the meta and SM is hard enough to build in already.
 
Again this is just my opinion, but after having see finally available in a OU metagame since gen 5, I can certainly say the dark void nerf has nerfed him hard enough to be here, of course nasty plot+ Zmove is incredible but there are many other powerfull boost thing who could destroy a team if play correctly like Hawlucha green seed, Ash greninja awakening, shift gear Magearna, Tail glow Manaphy.

For me, what's stabilise Darkrai is the fact tat he is a limited movepool who make him check by pokemon like Magearna and Chansey, the fact he has access to no priority moves and has a mid bulk which make him weak to priority moves like Scizor bullet punch or Ash Greninja Water Shuriken. 125 speed is incredibly fast by there still pokemon who are more fast than him like mega alakazam, mega lopunny or Ash greninja.

I was really skeptical if he could be viable but after all that I am at least ready to test him.
 
I'd like to submit my two cents on Darkrai, from a position of having never played SM Ubers and having 0 experience using it in any situation.
  1. It does seem frail, but not to an extreme amount. Even uninvested, 70/90/90 defenses aren't terrible, and I imagine it's likely to be able to take at least one vaguely strong hit. It's only slightly less bulky than Serperior, and about the same as Rotom-W, from some rough calcs.
  2. I'm aso not sure exactly how one dimensional Darkrai is. The traditional Nasty Plot + Z-Move set would obviously be a nightmare for unprepared teams to face, simply because of its ability to clean as soon as anything that doesn't hit 384 Speed is gone. Even Focus Sash could be an option here. There's also (I can see) a Choice Specs set with some combination of Dark Pulse / Ice Beam / Thunderbolt / Focus Blast / Knock Off / Spatial Rend / Trick, and even potentially a bulkier, more utility set with something like Dark Void / Dream Eater / Knock Off / Thunder Wave with Leftovers. Choice Scarf Modest looks good here too to blow through chipped answers. Even Haze looks vaguely decent on the aforementioned Scarf set to deal with stuff like Volc. It's like it's role compressing a lot of SM into one mon.
  3. Dark Pulse spam, as stated before, means that a Dark-resist on every team is pretty much necessary. Most teams will do this with a Fairy-type (eg one of the Tapus) but we don't need another (significantly stronger) one running around, especially given that Darkrai is immediately more threatning than Ash-Greninja (better stats than base Gren, better movepool imo.
  4. Darkrai seems like the kind of thing that could just be splattered onto a team that would be missing a mon and it would immediately be fine, similar to Magearna almost. You lose out on the defensive utility, but in return you get what on paper is a super consistent cleaner/breaker/setup mon.
It would probably end up being similar to Magearna, but even more polarising; since Mag at least needs to set up at least once before becoming a teamstopping threat. I suspect if Darkrai was given a free turn, it would simply set up into a sweep. Kind of like Naganadel. I'm all for trying it out, but probably I wouldn't put it into OU.

Shaymin-S, on the other hand, given how powerful the meta is and how bulky it isn't....
 
Maxicheese said:
tat he is a limited movepool who make him check by pokemon like Magearna and Chansey
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Firstly, I question how a Pokémon like that could be labeled as having a limited movepool. It already boasts access to the highly spammable Dark Pulse, can utilize Sludge Bomb against Fairy types, and has the option of running Focus Blast and Bolt Beam while doubling its Special Attack twice. This alone highlights its potential drawbacks on the tier.

As PapaMax pointed out, the inclusion of Knock Off in its moveset is incredibly powerful, shutting down Pokémon that you consider long-term checks. With these versatile options, Darkrai can easily select its checks without sacrificing much, not to mention its array of support moves. Simply opting for Z-Dark Pulse or Z-Thunder/Thunderbolt provides ample firepower to overcome numerous obstacles.

Maxicheese said:
he fact he has access to no priority moves and has a mid bulk which make him weak to priority moves like Scizor bullet punch or Ash Greninja Water Shuriken
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As for the bulk argument, darkrai is bulky enough to be dangerous and not just a glass cannon. It is bulkier than greninja (while being faster) and tapu Koko, and those mons are not particularly easy to revenge kill. In the case of gren or Koko, you either got a scarf/a naturally faster mon (which is limited to zam, punny, Koko mainly since you need to activate battle bond for gren so I don’t consider it) or a wall to get rid of them. But for darkrai, how is it sustainable when the only way is to revenge kill it with faster mons, since its coverage just get rid of the wall possibility lmao?!
As for the priority argument:
252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Water Shuriken (15 BP) (3 hits) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Darkrai: 102-126 (36.1 - 44.6%) -- approx. 3HKO
0+ Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Darkrai: 111-132 (39.3 - 46.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Maxicheese said:
Many people said that to Darkrai in gen 9 and see the result, again I think darkrai is not the powerfull monster people think
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Also just to come back to this, power creep is much more important in Gen9 and can’t be compared to even Gen7 with just overall extraordinary new Pokemon that can compete with it.

So I think Darkrai would not be a healthy addition to the tier due to how it can overwhelm what would be answers and how it would wrap teambuilding.
If there was a change to do to the tier, it would be to ban volcarona:fukyu:
 
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Hi guys, sorry for my last messages I was a little angry, honestly after some thought I know you are right that he is too powerfull for the tier, I still just wanted to test it since it has some counter I just didn't think it would create such tention.
 
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clefable.gif
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Been enjoying these three two together a lot recently, weirdly, and it might be one of my favourite cores I've found so far this generation, actually. Gastrodon and Scizor go pretty damn nicely together, with each absorbing the main weakness for the other and handling those mons that threaten its partner. They've both got consistent and reliable recovery each in the form of Recover and Roost, meaning you can keep them healthy throughout a game. The whole thing originally happened when I was messing around with Mirror Coat Gastrodon (absolutely brilliant thing by the way, there's nothing more satisfying than clicking it on a Tapu Lele and watching its health go from 100% to 0%. highly recommend), and ended up replacing Celesteela with Scizor for a little more offensive presence. Knock Off from Scizor helps Gastro too, you can Toxic on a lot of things and end up keeping it that much healthier in the long term. U-Turn from Scizor is equally viable, considering how much that thing loves to bait in Heatrans, Victinis, Tapu Leles, blah blah, not to mention Magnezone, which Gastrodon hardwalls.

Clefable can also bring Aromatherapy support, in case Gastrodon is on the recieving end of a Toxic or Scizor eats a Scald burn (though Gastrodon is running Water Absorb), in addition to setting Stealth Rock, which helps Scizor late-game as a formidable wincon. It's also the beginning of a very nice Dragon/Fairy/Steel core, I can see something like Z-Kommo-O here, or Garchomp. Maybe even Dragonite if you really want, but that just makes Stealth Rock more of a problem.

Overall, a very flexible core that I've found to be very consistent at at least checking a goodly portion of the metagame, without sacrificing a lot of offense. Nobody wants to switch directly into Scald (see this post here), and if Scizor gets too many free turns, it can easily reverse entire games. Enjoy!

https://pokepast.es/d162c19ec3754304
 
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Assault Vest Magearna is high key the most annoying pokemon in the metagame because it can just bluff every other set until your stupid strong special attacker does like 60% and then dies in return
 
YubelVT said:
Assault Vest Magearna is high key the most annoying pokemon in the metagame because it can just bluff every other set until your stupid strong special attacker does like 60% and then dies in return
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It's a very good blanket special check, for sure. It's one of those things you can't just smack a Hidden Power Fire onto something and go "Magearna is covered" because it'll simply sponge it. The damn thing eats a +2 All-Out Pummeling from Thundurus-T, ffs.
However, if I could remove one Pokemon from the tier it would probably be Volcarona. Dang thing sweeps so many teams
 
clematis said:
It's a very good blanket special check, for sure. It's one of those things you can't just smack a Hidden Power Fire onto something and go "Magearna is covered" because it'll simply sponge it. The damn thing eats a +2 All-Out Pummeling from Thundurus-T, ffs.
However, if I could remove one Pokemon from the tier it would probably be Volcarona. Dang thing sweeps so many teams
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I used to be a "ban toxapex" guy because I was bad. I'm still bad but now I can actually build teams that don't lose to pex. I think my one ban would be either hawlucha or volc.
 
YubelVT said:
I used to be a "ban toxapex" guy because I was bad. I'm still bad but now I can actually build teams that don't lose to pex. I think my one ban would be either hawlucha or volc.
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Hawlucha I reckon isn't banworthy, it doesn't hit particularly hard and even at +2 a lot of mons can sponge a hit and cripple/ohko it in return. Also considering how terrain-focussed SM OU is, I haven't found it particularly difficult to deny the opponent terrain control with my own Tapu with careful switching. Volc, however.. 100%
 
clematis said:
Hawlucha I reckon isn't banworthy, it doesn't hit particularly hard and even at +2 a lot of mons can sponge a hit and cripple/ohko it in return. Also considering how terrain-focussed SM OU is, I haven't found it particularly difficult to deny the opponent terrain control with my own Tapu with careful switching. Volc, however.. 100%
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Lucha isn't really banworthy but it has such an intense momentum swing when it comes out that I really wouldn't mind if it left. Personally I don't like being put on the backfoot because my opponent has u turn on koko. Like again it's not banworthy but it is something I don't really like, even if I do use and abuse it myself.
 
I have no idea for how long Thundurus-Therian has been ranked B- (he very well could have been there before and I'm misremembering my own opinion), but I just checked the most recent VR and I feel extremely vindicated that other people see the potential in him. He's extremely strong and one of the most threatening things to see behind screens. Using him in Gen 7 OU has solidified him as my second favorite pokemon of all time, I literally got a plush of him. He's so obscenely strong and, while I'm the first to admit his many flaws, he also hoses a lot of sets of the top 4 in the metagame, which a lot of pokemon ranked higher than him can't say. He even arguably 6-0's shed stall with HP Flying. His flaws don't make him any higher than B- though, base 101 speed is good but not amazing, he's not as strong as you'd want him to be a lot of the time and he's extremely reliant on screens or suicides for safe entry. But he is like a stronger and slightly faster Zapdos, which is kinda nice.
 
What are your favorite wall breakers personally I really like mega gyarados, victini and kartana. Mega gyarados is very fun to run with dd sets. With victini I run z celebrate with stored power, searing shot and thunderbolt. Kartana is also extremely fun with both its scarf and sd sets.
 
Gotta say I love the classic wall breakers the most, specs lele and mega medi. Out of the two I’d say I prefer medi because when paired with electric terrain there is such a small amount of solid checks that it generally does just come down to predictions that are in your favour. Aggressive high jump kicks are very much rewarded. I just freeze any Cresselias anyway
 
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In terms of wallbreakers I'm a massive fan of SD Garchomp, it's just nice to use. Good neutral coverage, Z-Nuke if you need to, just is consistently good. Specs Lele is always nice to use, it just slams everything. And so is Sub Mega Mawile
 
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