Pet Mod VaporeMons - Raging Bolt Unbanned @ Post 834

[HydreigonTheChild]

dragon tera shard removes its grass STAB as well which means if you roll giga drain it's a dead slot. especially if it's supposed to be a regen pivot, the lessening of the ice weakness isn't worth forfeiting both a move that helps its longevity and lets it threaten waters and the utility of HDB. chisel regigigas is a different scenario entirely - that set doesn't have a normal move, and rock tera shard is used to make sure chisel is as strong as possible, because chisel is a really risky move if it goes wrong, and in randoms until you know the opponent's entire team you can't be certain they don't have a fat steel in the back or something similar.

you know these are for random battles, right? a lot of random sets are things that would be completely nonfunctional in standard but specifically work well in the context of an environment where you lack team preview and don't have control over what pokemon are on your team. (for example, salazzle in randoms exclusively runs toxic protect substitute flamethrower with leftovers, and anyone who has ever had to face that set knows it's a fucking nightmare.) listing specific counters to gliscor doesn't help when you roll a team of heatran grumpig seviper vaporeon arboliva passimian. scaring it out with ice / water moves is nice in theory but in practice what it frequently means is your ice or water user (if you have one, and if it hasn't already been killed before gliscor gets revealed) gets poisoned as you switch them in and then either stalled to death if they're slower via subprotect or weakened to the point that they aren't able to accomplish much.

like i said, there's a reason that sub/toxic/protect is in gliscor's regular randoms pool - because it works, and it'll broadly work just as well here. sure, there's a couple more things that hard counter it like zone and levitate gengar (though, frankly, if i was gliscor i'd be more scared of ngas), but there are things that hard counter it in standard randoms too like skarmory and bronzong and weezing, and those don't stop it from being a highly effective set because you're not guaranteed to have those specific answers. (or, if your opponent is smart and has gliscor in the back when you have revealed one of those hard counters, they'll try to get rid of it before showing that they have gliscor.)

(also, the fact that tsareena "spins on it daily" is more reason to give it something to do beyond setting spikes, not less.)

same thing said above applies to sandaconda. i'm not denying that shield dust is useful and it should be in the pool, but there's also a lot of utility in switching sandaconda in on something that can't threaten it (such as for example the aforementioned chisel regigigas), immediately trapping them because they didn't know you had sandaconda and thus threw out an attack, and then setting up to your heart's content.

then just make it be unable to roll tera shard dragon + giga drain, cuz in OU tera shard dragon is a legit set by removing its weakness and dragon rage + earth power is solid

i mean its not sub toxic gliscor... and so far gliscor hasnt run sub protect cuz a lot of stuff eats its ass otherwise. Maybe in the future but i fail to see at the moment

the thing is there is tera in randoms yet there isnt here.... you can tera gliscor to make it miserable to face but here if smth like larpras comes in and threatens wash away you are kinda forced to take dmg and basically be forced out. THere is a lot more stuff that can beat gliscor in this mod compaed to SV randbats

sure conda could have all 3 abilities, i was trying to make it run shield dust cuz its a mod change and id rather have a showcase of it but sure

 

[Z-nogyroP]

Gonna vouch for Tera Dragon Hydrapple. It's the set the mon runs in Vape OU and it's very good there. Also SD+U-Turn Scizor is a pretty standard set

i still have my doubts in the context of randoms - stuff that works in OU doesn't always work in randoms. i'll take your word for it that it works, but at minimum, if dragon tera shard is in the pool i think giga drain needs to be axed and replaced with leaf storm, because (assuming levels are the same as regular randoms) non-STAB giga drain fails to 2HKO golduck and lumineon, which, at that point why do you have a grass move at all. (before anyone says anything this is not a statement about golduck and lumineon specifically. my point is that non-STAB giga drain doesn't really do its basic job of threatening your average water-type and that's a moveslot that could go to something you'd value more on the set.)

randoms also specifically doesn't allow for the generation of pivot moves alongside setup moves unless it's the only four moves you have, and setup sweeper forces scizor to carry swords dance. i know it's a normal set in standard, but again, context.

then just make it be unable to roll tera shard dragon + giga drain, cuz in OU tera shard dragon is a legit set by removing its weakness and dragon rage + earth power is solid

i mean its not sub toxic gliscor... and so far gliscor hasnt run sub protect cuz a lot of stuff eats its ass otherwise. Maybe in the future but i fail to see at the moment

the thing is there is tera in randoms yet there isnt here.... you can tera gliscor to make it miserable to face but here if smth like larpras comes in and threatens wash away you are kinda forced to take dmg and basically be forced out. THere is a lot more stuff that can beat gliscor in this mod compaed to SV randbats

sure conda could have all 3 abilities, i was trying to make it run shield dust cuz its a mod change and id rather have a showcase of it but sure

sure, that also works. i was assuming from the fact that the code might not be able to read the types of custom moves that there wasn't a whole lot of behind-the-scenes editing going on wrt how sets are generated, but if it's possible to only give dragon tera shard when you don't roll giga drain then that's a fine solution too.

i'm saying it should have the option to be subtoxic gliscor, just as it does in normal randoms. gliscor doesn't run subprotect in standard, yes, but this isn't standard. you can't count on having a taunt user or a poison-immune mon that can tank earthquake. in the example you gave, subtoxic gliscor would win that interaction if it hits toxic or uses substitute on the switch-in, unless wash away bypasses substitute and nobody told me (regular force-out damaging moves like circle throw don't force you out when used into a substitute). you don't bring gliscor out if the pokemon that's out can already threaten it, you bring it on against something that it can exploit, and there are a lot of pokemon that it can exploit - anything choice-locked into a ground or electric or fighting move, anything passive and vulnerable to poison, anything that gets scared out by earthquake. sure, it's unlikely that you'll have no answer to it whatsoever, but you're also not likely to have more than one solid counter, and if that counter is taken out before you even know you need it for gliscor, you're kinda up the creek.

plus, free turns are a lot easier to force in random battles than in standard, and a free turn is all subtoxic gliscor needs. that's why shell smash sweepers are the bane of randoms players' existences - yes, you can answer them with priority or haze or taunt or paralysis, but you aren't always going to have those tools, and you're even less likely to have them on the turn you need them, i.e. on the turn they use shell smash, before they outspeed and blow holes in two thirds of your team.

ehhh i think your wo-chien set is a better showcase of shield dust

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

i'm saying it should have the option to be subtoxic gliscor, just as it does in normal randoms. gliscor doesn't run subprotect in standard, yes, but this isn't standard. you can't count on having a taunt user or a poison-immune mon that can tank earthquake. in the example you gave, subtoxic gliscor would win that interaction if it hits toxic or uses substitute on the switch-in, unless wash away bypasses substitute and nobody told me (regular force-out damaging moves like circle throw don't force you out when used into a substitute). you don't bring gliscor out if the pokemon that's out can already threaten it, you bring it on against something that it can exploit, and there are a lot of pokemon that it can exploit - anything choice-locked into a ground or electric or fighting move, anything passive and vulnerable to poison, anything that gets scared out by earthquake. sure, it's unlikely that you'll have no answer to it whatsoever, but you're also not likely to have more than one solid counter, and if that counter is taken out before you even know you need it for gliscor, you're kinda up the creek.

plus, free turns are a lot easier to force in random battles than in standard, and a free turn is all subtoxic gliscor needs. that's why shell smash sweepers are the bane of randoms players' existences - yes, you can answer them with priority or haze or taunt or paralysis, but you aren't always going to have those tools, and you're even less likely to have them on the turn you need them, i.e. on the turn they use shell smash, before they outspeed and blow holes in two thirds of your team.

How is sub toxic gliscor any less annoying than spikes gliscor? if you roll sub gliscor into smth like lapras and toxic it and protect + sub stall it then what can it do? at least without sub you can hit it hard with an ice beam and threaten it.

Sure Spikes is smth it should roll but i can easily make it roll stealth rock, or knock off and make it so its less annoying that way i guesss. Why do you keep mentioning sub gliscor btw? i didnt even sub that as a set

 

[Z-nogyroP]

How is sub toxic gliscor any less annoying than spikes gliscor? if you roll sub gliscor into smth like lapras and toxic it and protect + sub stall it then what can it do? at least without sub you can hit it hard with an ice beam and threaten it.

Sure Spikes is smth it should roll but i can easily make it roll stealth rock, or knock off and make it so its less annoying that way i guesss. Why do you keep mentioning sub gliscor btw? i didnt even sub that as a set

i think you've completely misinterpreted what i'm saying. i never said spikes shouldn't be an option (it should!) and i haven't been approaching this from the standpoint of trying to nerf the gliscor set. subtoxic is more annoying than spikes gliscor generally, which in randoms means more effective, which is why i'm suggesting that substitute and knock off should be added to the movepool you proposed as options for moves to roll. i'm not trying to make gliscor less annoying, i'm trying to make it more effective, and subtoxic is one of its most effective strategies in randbats, so substitute should be in the pool of moves you're proposing rather than always rolling the exact set of earthquake toxic protect spikes.

i'm aware you didn't submit substitute on your set. that's why i'm saying that your proposed set should include it as an option. i'm trying to make this as clear as possible

 

[G-Luke]

Just make a dedicated Tera Shard set, because Hydrapple always loading Tera Dragon Shard would be mad annoying when you face a strong Ground type. It being Grass is just pretty cool in general.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Just make a dedicated Tera Shard set, because Hydrapple always loading Tera Dragon Shard would be mad annoying when you face a strong Ground type. It being Grass is just pretty cool in general.

I made it boots/tera shard

i think you've completely misinterpreted what i'm saying. i never said spikes shouldn't be an option (it should!) and i haven't been approaching this from the standpoint of trying to nerf the gliscor set. subtoxic is more annoying than spikes gliscor generally, which in randoms means more effective, which is why i'm suggesting that substitute and knock off should be added to the movepool you proposed as options for moves to roll. i'm not trying to make gliscor less annoying, i'm trying to make it more effective, and subtoxic is one of its most effective strategies in randbats, so substitute should be in the pool of moves you're proposing rather than always rolling the exact set of earthquake toxic protect spikes.

i'm aware you didn't submit substitute on your set. that's why i'm saying that your proposed set should include it as an option. i'm trying to make this as clear as possible

ok.... so why would u want sub protect toxic if not many teams have a solid answer to it.... this is prob gonna be super annoying for teams as u said and its why i didnt sub the set

 

[G-Luke]

I made it boots/tera shard


ok.... so why would u want sub protect toxic if not many teams have a solid answer to it.... this is prob gonna be super annoying for teams as u said and its why i didnt sub the set

Its a good set, and its not explicitly broken in regular RandBats, where it can Tera out of weaknesses. Idk why people are so hellbent in making the most boring and cumbersome version of RandBats ever.

Anyways alotbof boring shit is being suggested so here is some heat

Can we please ban forced abilities and items LMAO y'all are freaking out man



Pokemon: Hydrapple
Role: Set Up Sweeper
Moves: Nasty Plot, Leaf Storm, Dragon Rage, Recover, Earth Power, Giga Drain
Forced Ability: Regenerator


Pokemon: Archaludon
Role: Stealth Rock Setter
Moves: Dragon Rage, Flash Cannon, Stealth Rock, Body Press, Protect, Thunder Wave
Forced Ability: Stamina


Pokemon: Archaludon
Role: Choice Specs
Moves: Draco Meteor, Flash Cannon, Thunderbolt, Aura Sphere, Steel Beam, Dragon Rage
Forced Ability: Stamina


Pokemon: Kyurem-White
Level: 73
Role: Choice Specs
Moves: Draco Meteor, Ice Beam, Freeze Dry, Focus Blast, Earth Power, Fusion Flare
Forced Item: Choice Specs


Pokemon: Baxcalibur
Role: Choiced Wallbreaker
Moves: Icicle Crash, Earthquake, Ice Shard, Glaive Rush, Iron Head
Forced Item: Choice Band
Forced Ability: Thermal Exchange


Pokemon: Baxcalibur
Role: Set Up Wallbreaker
Moves: Swords Dance, Icicle Spear, Scale Shot, Ice Shard, Earthquake
Forced Item: Loaded Dice
Forced Ability: Thermal Exchange


Pokemon: Baxcalibur
Role: Set Up Wallbreaker
Moves: Dragon Dance, Icicle Spear, Glaive Rush, Icicle Crash Earthquake
Forced Ability: Thermal Exchange


Pokemon: Suicune
Role: SubTect
Moves: Scald, Substitute, Ice Beam, Protect, Calm Mimd
Forced Item: Leftovers
Forced Ability: Pressure


Pokemon: Suicune
Role: CroCune
Moves: Scald, Rest, Sleep Talk, Calm Mimd
Forced Item: Leftovers
Forced Ability: Pressure


Pokemon: Flapple
Level: 90
Role: Set Up Wallbreaker
Moves: Dragon Dance, Grav Apple, Outrage, Sucker Punch
Forced Ability: Hustle


Pokemon: Flapple
Level: 90
Role: Choiced Attacker
Moves: U-turn, Grav Apple, Outrage, Sucker Punch
Forced Item: Choice Band, Choice Scarf
Forced Ability: Hustle


Pokemon: Kommo-o
Role: Set Up Sweeper
Moves: Clangorous Soul, Clanging Scales, Dragon Rage, Boomburst, Flamethower, Drain Punch
Forced Item: Throat Spray


Pokemon: Kommo-o
Role: Set Up Sweeper
Moves: Dragon Dance, Close Combat, Outrage, Dragon Claw, Poison Jab, Earthquake


Pokemon: Kommo-o
Role: Set Up Sweeper
Moves: Belly Drum, Drain Punch, Substitute, Ice Punch, Iron Head, Thunder Punch
Forced Item: Salac Berry


Pokemon: Kommo-o
Role: Set Up Sweeper
Moves: Swords Dance, Scale Shot, Close Combat, Upper Hand, Earthquake, Iron Head
Forced Item: Loaded Dice


Pokemon: Kommo-o
Role: Defensive
Moves: Drain Punch, Body Press, Dragon Tail, Dragon Rage, Taunt, Stealth Rock, Poison Jab


Pokemon: Kommo-o
Role: Offensive
Moves: Draco Meteor, Close Combat, Flamethrower, Poison Jab, Clanging Scales, Stealth Rock, Taunt
Forced Item: Eject Pack, Life Orb


Pokemon: Altaria
Level: 86
Role: Trapper
Moves: Fire Spin, Perish Song, Roost, Will-O-Wisp
Forced Item: Heavy Duty Boots
Forced Ability: Natural Cure


Pokemon: Altaria
Level: 86
Role: Defensive
Moves: Brave Bird, Defog, Roost, Will-O-Wisp, Flamethrower, Dragon Rage
Forced Item: Heavy Duty Boots
Forced Ability: Natural Cure

 

[Yoshiblaze]

Two quick announcements!

First, I've gotten some headway on VaporeMons Randbats coding but it's gonna take awhile. Going to officially state I'm shooting for it being ready to play by the end of this week or early next week.

Secondly, please welcome HydreigonTheChild to the council! They've been one of the most active and knowledge VaporeMons players for a long time now, so it only felt right to promote them to this position.

That's all for now, see you soon!

 

[Yoshiblaze]

Quick tiering announcement!

After some on-and-off discussion over the last couple weeks, we have a quickban to announce!

Rain has been a dominant force in the metagame for almost the entire post-PMOTS period. This directly led to Archaludon's suspect test and ban, but even afterwards the playstyle has proven to be extremely hard to deal with due to a devious combination of abusers in Torrent Inteleon, Swift Swim Basculegion and Barraskewda, and Calm Mind Raging Bolt, among other options. After a lot of discussion, we ultimately decided that our first step in dealing with this will be to ban Damp Rock. This heavily limits the effectiveness of all these very powerful but weather-reliant elements on Rain teams since they have fewer turns to play with. Further tiering action may be coming soon, but this is all for now.

See you soon!

 

[Yoshiblaze]

More tiering news!

While we originally wanted to let things settle for a bit after the Damp Rock ban, there's actually potentially some big things around the corner, big enough that we decided to take some more tiering action very quickly after the Damp Rock ban. And, it's a good thing we did, as Rain even without Damp Rock just has some many crazy abusers that it's still a headache to play against.

Thus, we had a quick council vote on the topics of Raging Bolt and Inteleon, the two biggest reasons why Rain has been broke for awhile (aside from the already banned Archaludon), as well as Baseball Bat, which has been somewhat maligned for awhile now. Through the vote and a bit of discussion, we have decided on the following things:
- Raging Bolt will be quickbanned - This mon has been a thorn in the side of VaporeMons players basically ever since it dropped. It does much of the same things it does in OU, mainly bullying teams with its Booster Energy Calm Mind sets. Now, Bolt is interesting in that it should be worse here on paper given higher power creep and the lack of Terastalization, but a couple key factors have made even better here, even after we took Dragon Rage away from it. Rain being much better here and Bolt being a perfect teammate makes an already terrifying archetype more terrifying, and the Electric checks that have risen to the top of the metagame having meh matchups against Bolt, namely Magnezone. The latter problem was made less of one by the removal of Dragon Rage, but Raging Bolt can still break through most of the most relevant Ground-types in the tier with a boost or two and its strong Draco Meteors or Dragon Pulses. Thus, we've decided to quickban it. I could definitely see a future where Raging Bolt gets an unban suspect test, though. Also, kinda like the Archaludon ban, the things that VaporeMons added to Raging Bolt don't make it broken (the most notable being Prehistoric Might, which isn't used very often), so banning was the way to go instead of nerfing it.
- Baseball Bat will have its power boost on contact moves lowered to 1.2x - Baseball Bat's high boost to contact moves has always been contentious. With a 25% power boost, Baseball Bat pretty much fully outclassed Life Orb for most physical attacks and also outclassed the Punching Glove clones that happened to be added during the same slate. However, this problem by itself was not a valid reason to nerf the power boost, so things stayed this way for awhile, even after the Punching Glove clones got buffed to a 30% boost to their respective moves. However, with the recent dominance of Rain, the topic of Baseball Bat came up again since Basculegion and Barraskewda can make pretty extraordinary use of Baseball Bat's power boost, as the fall off in power from Choice Band is noticeable but not enough to make it not worth it. This, among all the other very strong abusers of Baseball Bat we've had over the course of VaporeMons history, namely Kingambit and Zamazenta, opened up the opportunity to consider nerfing the power boost, which we decided to do. A 5% power nerf may not seem like much, but this means that you have a significant drop off in power from Life Orb's 30%, giving you more opportunity cost. Additionally, this in turn makes the Punching Glove clones more desirable with their 30% power boosts, but at the cost of their specificity. Baseball Bat should remain one of the best items in the metagame, just not quite as free as it used to be
- Inteleon will be banned temporarily - This one requires some explaining. Everyone agreed that Inteleon is a pretty big problem right now, as Torrent Choice Specs Snipe Shots in Rain hit so ridiculously hard that they take us right back to the days of Sniper Inteleon's dominance. Basically nothing wants to take two of those and most things can't even take one. However, the question of how to actually nerf Inteleon is where things got kinda weird. The obvious answer would be to nerf Torrent by removing its passive power boost, but it's not quite as simple as we then have the question of whether to ignore consistency with the other starter abilities and only nerf Torrent, or nerf the others for consistency but unfairly nerf balanced and meta relevant mons in Cinderace and Meowscarada. Then, there was also the question of whether we should wait to see if Inteleon is still broken with Raging Bolt and Damp Rock banned or if we should get ahead of it and pull the trigger now. Ultimately, we went with a hidden third option of temporarily banning Inteleon for the duration of the big news that got us to have a vote this soon (I'm not saying exactly what it is since it's not 1000% official yet but you probably know what I'm talking about if you're in the Pet Mods Discord). This takes the problematic element in Inteleon out of the metagame ASAP, but without having to commit to breaking flavor or nerfing other things as collateral just yet.

These all should lead to very interesting developments in the near future, with me personally expecting slightly more item variety from Bat's nerf and decent buffs to Fire-types with Rain's massive nerfs and the ban of a bulky Dragon-type, plus Sun maybe having a chance to shine again though it did just lose one of its best abusers.

Oh, and for a quick update on Randbats coding, it's been very slow, but I'm still working on it, so stay tuned for that!


That's all for now, see you soon!

 

[G-Luke]

Seriously, most of the problems being listed here are dependent on Rain being a prominent part of the tier....but Damp Rock is banned. No matter how u dice it that is a MASSIVE gut to the viability of Rain as a playstyle. Unless we have multiple replays showcasing Rain and specifically Raging Bolt and Inteleon performing to an unbalanced degree **after** Damp Rock was banned, this just reads (to me) as a gross oversight and two unnecessary bans.

 

[zxgzxg]

Seriously, most of the problems being listed here are dependent on Rain being a prominent part of the tier....but Damp Rock is banned. No matter how u dice it that is a MASSIVE gut to the viability of Rain as a playstyle. Unless we have multiple replays showcasing Rain and specifically Raging Bolt and Inteleon performing to an unbalanced degree **after** Damp Rock was banned, this just reads (to me) as a gross oversight and two unnecessary bans.

We did run a couple games after the Damp Rock ban and I can say for certain Inteleon was way too strong. Inteleon under rain 2HKO's nearly the entire tier, regardless of 5 or 8 rain turns. You could argue for a Drizzle ban, but Pelipper is fine, Basculegion is fine, etc etc. It's the specific combo of Torrent + Snipe Shot that Inteleon has that "breaks" Rain.

errr raging bolt is poopoo cringe. i hate clap 50/50s grrrr

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Raging Bolt will be quickbanned

good, it was way to nuts and often times it would live hits from other ground types and just often times it would take advantage of more mons than not like magnezone, milotic, alomomola, skarmory, etc. Thunderclap often means that offensive options were very limited to stuff like booster tusk, off lando-t, weavile (+1 clap outside booster doesnt kill but booster now fucks it over and limits its checks even more since smth like lando-t i think just drops)

- Baseball Bat will have its power boost on contact moves lowered to 1.2x

Yeah... this shouldnt have been a LO boost pretty much, any physical mon kinda abused this and you saw no variety in items since a lot of moves are contact and u feel the power boost of bat zama-h vs no bat, the power boost often was good enough where having access to coverage is way bigger than the 20% stronger choice band

- Inteleon will be banned temporarily

cool, i love when my milotic takes like 48 + rocks. SO yeah its nice that its getting banned for now... but it feels like a victim of drizzle... as a whole rain has been very good or broken... sure pelipper can be banned for it which i feel is the better solution allowing stuff like Protosmosis and just in general mons like bascu-m be still useful.

I felt an inteleon nerf is way to hasty of a decision as we just banned damp rock and we have very little testing on "is rain without damp rock broken or not" as without it it felt you often had to force peli in way way more. A snipe shot nerf isnt a problem for it as hydro pump is also stronger despite being less accurate, it just makes it more of a coinflip

Seriously, most of the problems being listed here are dependent on Rain being a prominent part of the tier....but Damp Rock is banned. No matter how u dice it that is a MASSIVE gut to the viability of Rain as a playstyle. Unless we have multiple replays showcasing Rain and specifically Raging Bolt and Inteleon performing to an unbalanced degree **after** Damp Rock was banned, this just reads (to me) as a gross oversight and two unnecessary bans.

raging bolt is raging bolt, it was way to good at forcing progress before and still is now... even without rain proto sets just have an easy time to setup esp against magnezone, corv, skarm, crab, and off mons who cant really 1v1 it like cinderace, thundy-i, heatran, etc.

Inteleon yeah... buts its being banned for the sake of the stuff happening soon so the decision was made more so "inteleon wont be a problem. then we can test it back in"

 

[Yoshiblaze]

Cutting right to the chase, we've got a HUGE VR update before PMPL to more accurately reflect the current metagame


Rises
A+ to S
A+ to S
A- to A+
A- to A
A- to A
B- to B+
B- to B+
B- to B+
C+ to B
C+ to B
D to B-
C to C+
C to C+
UR to C+

Drops
S to A+
S to A+
S to A+
S to A+
A+ to A
A+ to A
A to A-
A to B+
A- to B+
A- to B+
A- to B+
B+ to B
B+ to B
B+ to B-
B+ to B-
B to B-
B to B-
B to B-
B to C+
B- to C+
B- to C+
B- to C+
B to C
B to C
B to C
B- to C
B- to C
B+ to C-
B- to C-
C+ to C-
C to C-
C to C-
C+ to C-
C to C-
C+ to D
C to D
C to D
C to D
C- to D
C- to D
C to D
C- to D
B- to UR
C+ to UR
C+ to UR
C+ to UR
C+ to UR
C to UR
C to UR
C to UR
C- to UR
C- to UR
C- to UR
C- to UR
C- to UR
C- to UR
C- to UR
C- to UR
C- to UR

Moved to "Recently Changed" - Suffered major nerfs that massively changed how they play, thus it's too early to accurately rank them right now
A+ to Recently Changed
B+ to Recently Changed
B+ to Recently Changed
B+ to Recently Changed

That's all for now, but we'll hopefully be coming out with updated sample teams very soon, so look forward to that!

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Checks and counters to common top tiers (preferably by using other top tiers which ill try to update maybe with explanations):

(ill finish this.. eventually)

Magnezone

Check #1 - Zamazenta-H

Check #2 - Heatran

Counter #1 - Gouging Fire

Counter #2 - Iron Treads

Counter #3 - Goodra-Hisui

Slowking-G

Check #1 - Dragapult

Check #2 - Weavile

Check #3 - Heatran

Counter #1 - Gliscor

Counter #2 - Gholdengo

Counter #3 - Kingambit

Jolteon

Check #1 - Iron Treads

Check #2 - Ting-Lu

Counter #1 - Gliscor

Counter #2 - Slowking-Galar

Thundurus

Check #1 - Magnezone

Check #2 - Hydrapple

Check #3 - Jolteon

Counter #1 - Gliscor

Counter #2 - Fezandipiti

Ogerpon-Wellspring

Check #1 - Wisp Hex Pult

Check #2 - Specs Kyurem

Check #3 - DD Dragonite

Counter #1 - Goodra-H

Counter #2 - Hydrapple

Cinderace

Check #1 - Great Tusk

Check #2 - Phys. Def Gliscor

Check #3 - Toxapex

Counter #1 - Heatran

Counter #2 - Crabominable

Counter #3 - Alomomola

Zamazenta-H

Check #1 - Iron Valiant

Check #2 - Skarmory

Check #3 - Landorus-Therian

Check #4 - Primarina

Counter #1 - Milotic

Counter #2 - Zapdos

Counter #3 - Pecharunt

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Vaporemons Pokébilities: All of a Pokémon's obtainable abilities are active simultaneously.

(no order)

Top Viability:

- Magearna
- Mienshao
- Magnezone
- Milotic
- Muk-A
- Gliscor
- Skarmory
- Volcarona
Chien-Pao

Very good Pokemon:

- Pelipper
- Conkeldurr
- Basculegion-M
- Inteleon
- Rillaboom
- Heatran
- Lando-T
- Gouging Fire
- Clodsire
- Jolteon
- Dragapult
- Zamazenta
- Kingambit
- Cinderace
- Reuniclus

Good Pokemon:


- Raging Bolt
- Iron Moth
- Hippowdon
- Excadrill
- Perrserker
- Water Bear (Urshifu-Rapid-Strike)
- Crabominable
- Alomomola
- Kyurem
- Corviknight
- Goodra-H
- Clefable
- Hydrapple
- Rotom-W
- Iron Treads
- Lilligant-H
- Typh-H
- Torkoal
- Okidogi
- Dondozo

"Usable" Tier:

- Espathra
- Ninetales-A
- Sandslash-A
- Lapras
- Tyranitar
- Wo-Chien
- Walking Wake
- Volcanion
- Orthworm
- Hariyama
- Cinccino
- Blissey
- Bellibolt
- Arcanine-H
- Azelf
- Brute Bonnet
- Frosmoth

Need more experimentation:

- Deo-S
- Baxcalibur
- Fezandipiti
- Blaziken
- Haxorus
- Dnite
- Great tusk:
- Iron crown
- Iron hands
- Iron Jugulis
- Iron valiant
- Ogerpon-H
- Ogerpon-W
- Primarina
- Thundurus
- Weavile
- Ting-Lu
- Darkrai
- Azumarill
- Roaring Moon
- Gholdengo
- Pecharunt
- Shaymin
- Zapdos:
- Ceruledge
- Melo-P

+ EVERYTHING ELSE

 

[Orangesodapop]

Tier list is wrong.
S


+ EVERYTHING ELSE

 

[Abyssal Human]

So I dared to voice my opinion on the internet, these are the changes i'd make to the VR. (vanilla vaporemons)

B+ > A-: - Honestly there's nothing i can tell you about hoodra that you don't already know, but looking at the other pokemon in B+, hoodra is clearly above them, it's easy to slap this mon on any team and make it work, it has seen a lot of use and its counters can be played around fairly consistently.
C+ > A-: - This thing goes absurdly hard, period. Wait for a slow mon, usually a "wall" to come in, slow pivot into this mon, click something funny to pick up a KO. Outspeeds and OHKOs magnezone with SE CC, does severe damage to skarmory and forces it to recover (pair it with a green eye or death aura mon for the lols) can OHKO hydrapple, Shaymin and Crabominable at +2, is not hindered by status (obviously) and if you're against it, you're basically forced to either read your opponent's every move or out-offense it, in which case it will just switch out and wait for another opening. This thing might be even more stupid on TR but i haven't tried that yet.
C- > B: - Like hoodra, it can life dew (or wishpass, if you're feeling brave), can pivot (round) and can help get chip, but with seismic toss and only if your target isn't spooky. Unlike hoodra, this thing is NOT fleeing from any special attacker that doesn't carry psyshock or hasn't set up and can and will get it paralyzed in return, what i mean by that is that SE hits don't phase blissey, and it's a tale as old as time - aura sphere is too weak and focus blast doesn't land (and when it does it's usually still not a OHKO, so you do get para or round momentum) and this is where blissey has an edge over hoodra, hoodra can be threatened by EP or even Aura Sphere (though there's not really a good aura sphere mon rn) whereas blissey can't.

B- > B+: - Crown is interesting, having a 100 BP 100% acc steel STAB option is great by itself, but it having psychic noise, psyshock and psycho boost too just gives it more options than it knows what to do with, it's a pretty neat anti-stall mon, psyshock and psychic noise both are great against stall, as blissey doesn't like either of those moves, specs psycho boost/tachyon cutter just clicks, crown isn't weak to dark, and together with its defenses that comes in very handy. (if you remember to switch its ability to justified, which i did not and used vanilla iron crown for a while. hooray.)

It has a speed stat, decent defenses, great special attack and pivots around really nicely. It has utility, breaks walls, can set up, it's a pretty round mon.

NA > C: - Espeon still needs more experimentation, with LO lumina crash, a lot of would-be walls get 2HKOd by the mon, and even if they're not getting 2HKOd, they're getting chipped down. as long as you have a way to keep espeon healthy (grassy terrain, life dew, healing stones, etc.) you should be able to get reliable chip, which isn't much, but it's honest work. (i've taken down a hoodra with this thing once, i give credit when credit is due.)

 

[Beaf Cultist]

It's been a while, but I wanted to do a breakdown post for my PMPL run despite my... lacking results.

Teamdump

- I was testing this team for W1 but Tauros was really underperforming so I scrapped it. Glowking/Toxapex core is pretty legit tho.

- Edited version of the above team with Tauros swapped out for Charizard. Probably even worse somehow.

- The team I ended up bringing for W1. My squads were underperforming in testing and ana built this GTerrain squad, which I edited a bit. Definitely one of the more solid teams I used, but I ended up losing to Fez cause I let Heatran drop too low.

- I thought Muk-A actually had a good bit of potential, so I considered bringing it. This squad paired it with a bunch of Fairy-weak mons cause Muk-A kinda destroys mons like Valiant and Milo. Unfortunately I was still losing to Milo squads in testing because it could still wear Muk down over time, especially if the opp was also running a Muk answer, not to mention shoddy matchups into Woger and Magearna.



- My "heat" stall team that I brought W2. Went through a few versions before I settled on a final lineup, but I ended up losing spectacularly because I hyperfixated on walling offensive mons in the builder and ended up super status/hazard weak.


- This team was made for W3 to counter Hydrei's building preferences (particularly mons like Glowking and Magnezone), with SD+Brick Break Bax to hopefully catch an unsuspecting Zone. First version of the team kinda sucked cause I overdid it with the Jolteon/Fez counterplay, but the final squad was pretty great in testing. I ended up having an insanely bad matchup into Oger-W + Crabominable, but won thanks to Furrets dropping the ball on lineup planning.

- Weavile was the topic of discussion last week, so I wanted to bring Weavile hazardstack.
- Ended up swapping Muk for Dragalge tho, at first just to test the mon out, but then I realized it really helped my matchups into mons like the Ogerpons, Gliscor, and Darkrai, so I decided to keep it. Unfortunately I had literally nothing for MBeam+Software Crash Moth, so I lost W4 on preview.

- I really wasn't feeling confident in my building going into W5, so I decided to bring a Regigigas squad zxg had been spamming in testing. Gigas is honestly a really scary mon, and I wish it was used more in this tour, but in this game I loaded into Tera Fairy Garg, which I had nothing for, so I lost on preview. Noticing a trend?
Also TDB Pult is sometimes effective as a lure set but I think it's super overrated. It does straight up nothing into fat, which sucks ass on most teambuilds that want to run Pult.

- Wanted to try building with Iron Moth after it rolled me in W4. I never brought this team out of testing tho cause I wasn't gonna bring any of my own teams at this point, plus it kinda sucked anyway.

- Brought this stall squad into the Nash rematch in Semis. ihbst was farming wins with it in testing so I figured it must be pretty good, and it was. Unfortunately I straight up threw my actual game with it, ending up with a truly outstanding 1-5 record overall.


So yeah, this tour fucking sucked for me. I'm really grateful to the rest of my team for showing up every week, and especially anaconja, zxgzxg, and ihbst for helping me build and test even as I got less and less active over time. Sorry I couldn't be there for y'all, and I'll try to do better in the future.

I also wanted to talk a bit about VR suggestions, but obviously take everything with a grain of salt here considering my tour record.

Personal VR

S:
A+:
A:
A-:
B+:
B:
B-:
C+:
C:
C-:
UR:

Recently Changed:


Rises:

A+ to S: This mon centralizes the meta so much, it's insane. Defensive counterplay for Woger is extremely limited, so you can run it on pretty much any team and always make progress. Not to mention, it's also by far the best Wash Away absorber around, making it near mandatory for hazardstack teams. These are all tired points though - I think anyone who's played the meta knows how dangerous Woger is, and an S placement reflects that better than anything else.

A to A+: Very good offensive and defensive mon. Performs extremely well in anti-offense roles and is a great wincon in lategame scenarios.

A to A+: Pretty sure every tour player will agree with this one. Even after the nerf, Jolteon is an extremely strong offensive pivot, with Round making pivoting around Grounds so easy and drawbackless, and Signal Beam to completely screw over counterplay like Glowking, Gliscor, and Ting-Lu.

A to A+: Insanely strong hazard setter. You can run it as a lead, you can run it in midgame, you can run it in lategame as a cleaner. This mon provides utility and offensive pressure at all stages of a battle, making it exceptional at its role and deserving of A+ at least.

A- to A: The best Wash Away user. The only reason it's not A+ is that it hard loses to Woger, but other than that mon there is essentially no drawback to running Mola as your removal.

A- to A: This might be more of an on-paper thing, but Darkrai is so insanely scary in the builder. If you're not running Magearna, you will always be weak to NP sets, and if you load into a set with the right coverage, it's so easy to just lose on preview.

A- to A: GTerrain is meta, Shaymin is the best GTerrain setter.

B+ to A: Easily the best GTerrain mon in the tier. Pairs extremely well with other abusers like Woger and Iron Hands, and its set variety makes counterplay difficult until you've confirmed its coverage. Meteor Beam sets have also recently seen experimentation, paired with Hippowdon to give it free setup and coverage for Fires.

B+ to A-: Could honestly be A, even. Gouging Fire is an extremely strong offensive and defensive piece, with its setup sets being an extremely strong wincon and a great way of threatening opposing offensive mons thanks to Prehistoric Might. It also preys on the high Milotic usage, as fatter sets can actually set up on Milo and eventually win the 1v1.

B to A-: In a similar boat to Gouging Fire with its offensive prowess and access to Prehistoric Might, but it trades defensive utility and setup for being essentially unwallable even without boosts. TDB sets are extremely strong, with its infinite coverage making it impossible to truly be safe against Gigas, and other sets, while unexplored, also have big potential.

B- to A-: This one is obvious. Fez is the best Hazardous Waste abuser by far, basically requiring a Steel on every team if you don't want to lose to it. Not only that, it's also a very good defensive piece and Healing Stones setter. Fez provides so much utility to its team and it's honestly shocking that it wasn't ranked higher before.

B to B+: Strong defensive piece for balance teams, with Tera Shard sets being versatile and extremely strong in the right matchups.

C+ to B+: Disgusting stallbreaker. Bulkier teams have absolutely nothing for this mon, particularly when it's paired with HStones or Wish support to keep it healthy over time, and I think B+ better reflects its wallbreaking potential.

Recently Changed to B+: Still a strong option for GTerrain teams, but definitely much weaker than it was before. I see a lot of potential in this mon, particularly in fatter Fair Fight sets, which haven't been explored much yet.

B- to B: Seems a cut above the rest of B- based on its recent performance and is generally a solid mon on a lot of teamstyles.

UR to B-: Plenty of tour usage has shown this mon is much better than anything else in UR and has legitimate use cases over other mons like Alomomola and Toxapex. Its set variety is also very high, and I could easily see this mon even higher with more testing.

C- to C: I might be crazy, but I do legitimately see potential in this mon. It really needs more testing before I can be confident in this placement though.

Drops:

S to A+: Obviously a very good mon, but it's not an S tier. Wash Away provides far too much competition for it to be considered the only good removal option, and a lot of squads can abuse Zone pretty well.

A+ to A: Mon has pretty bad matchups into the top tiers, being the absolute worst Ground into Jolteon and also losing badly to the Ogerpons. It's pretty tough to justify this mon defensively or as removal, but offensive sets have shown a lot of promise, hence why the drop is only a small one.

A+ to A: This mon has a lot of set variety, but honestly a lot of those sets are pretty underwhelming in practice. Glowking, Milotic, and Magearna are ubiquitous, and there isn't a single set that can beat all of them, making Valiant much more of a matchup fish here than it is in OU.

A+ to A-: This has proven to be more of an on-paper threat than anything else, as most teams are able to handle it naturally, and actually finding the chance to set up with it is really difficult. Hoger still destroys fat like nothing else, but the rise of Gouging Fire stall structures has made even that role kind of tenuous.

A to A-: It's pretty hard to make Kingambit work in this meta. There's plenty of viable counterplay, and most weakened teams still have outs into SD sets (assuming you even find the chance to set up in the first place!)

A to A-: Milotic+Magnezone. It's a tough world for all the Kyurem fans out there.

A to A-: This mon works fine as a hazard setter, but as a wall it's kinda lacking, particularly in the Jolteon matchup.

A- to B+: Matchup fish, not worthy of A-.

A- to B: This mon is kinda jobless. Offensively it's super lackluster, as a lead it's outclassed by mons like Weavile, even into other offensive mons it often misses KOs and dies for nothing. I just don't get why you would want to run this mon.

A- to B: Competition with Jolteon is the main thing holding this mon back. While it definitely still has its advantages, such as having access to Knock Off and coverage for Grounds, I don't see Thundurus being meta until Jolteon loses Round.

B+ to B: Competes pretty heavily with Fezandipiti, who is overall better imo. Definitely has potential, and wasn't used at all in PMPL, but idt it's worthy of B+.

B+ to B: Pretty lackluster defensive mon in the current meta. Your only real gameplan with it is to fish for Static paralysis, as otherwise you just lose to every offensive mon. It's also not great offensively, as Jolteon has forced every team into running bulky Electric counterplay like Hoodra and Ting-Lu, which Zapdos absolutely hates.

B to C+: Was hit extremely hard by the Justified/Rekindle nerfs, and just hasn't been the same ever since. Its complete lack of usage in PMPL reflects its viability pretty well imo, as it only fits on certain teambuilds that have to bend over backwards to enable it.

B to C+: This mon just lacks stats in every area. It has plenty of good utility, and the Jolteon matchup is better than most Grounds, but with its mediocre bulk, lacking offensive pressure, and inability to consistently heal off chip, I don't think this mon's current ranking is justifiable.

B to B-: This mon hasn't done anything in the entire year of 2024. Anyone claiming it deserves its ranking is completely capping at this point, especially after the Damp Rock ban.

B to B-: Similar to Iron Treads. This mon just lacks the bulk to function in most roles, particularly into premier offensive mons like Ogerpon-W and Jolteon.

B to B-: This mon definitely has potential, but the current meta is just so hostile to it, with mons like Glowking, Gliscor, Gholdengo, etc. forcing it into hard predictions that are never in the Sneasler user's favor.

B- to C+: This mon is kinda lacking in everything from bulk to offenses to utility, with its only real niche being the fact that it blocks Wash Away.

B- to C: HO piece in a meta where HO sucks (or at least the HO builds Azu fits on). Also another mon screwed over by the prevalence of defensive options like Glowking and in this case Shaymin.

B- to C: Sun sucks, and if you're running Sun idt you'd even run Venusaur in most cases.

C+ to C: Overshadowed by other Fairies, zero tour usage, loses to new meta threats like Fezandipiti and Muk.

C+ to C: Webs are as fishy as ever, particularly in a meta with Wash Away and Magnezone.

C+ to C: This mon singlehandedly carries Trick Room as a playstyle, but I just can't justify it being any higher than C. It's extremely strong when played well, but every good team (stall included) has ways of playing around it, and its lack of longevity can be seriously frustrating.

C+ to C-: Abysmal matchups into Magnezone, Gliscor, Skarmory, and Corviknight make this mon impossible to justify on anything but the most passive of stall teams, and even then it's often overshadowed by other options.

C+ to UR: This mon is so unbelievably ass. It's impossible to set up with, can never beat Milotic, does no damage even at +1 or +2, is easily revenged...it's just horrible in every way, and there is no reason to run it over options like Zamazenta and Gouging Fire.

C to C-: PsyTerrain is super fishy and honestly shouldn't be ranked at all, but I'll leave it in C- due to its lack of testing.

C to C-: This mon just isn't that good and is hard to fit on most teams.

C to UR: If PMPL has shown anything, it's that Shelter is incredibly overrated as a removal option, particularly on more defensive builds. I see absolutely no reason to run Slowbro over better options like Hoodra or Hydrapple, and if that wasn't enough, Shelter's recent downturn in popularity has done nothing but confirm this mon's jobless status.

C- to UR: Why would I ever run this mon?

C- to UR: There's way too much competition among Waters, and the fact that Vap lets in Woger so freely really makes it hard to justify in any circumstance.

Overall I think this meta is honestly pretty balanced, and there's not much I'd want to change, despite how much some people seem to want to complain about it. I can mostly chalk my poor tour performance up to bad luck or bad play, and there was never a week where I felt like I lost unfairly (besides that Moth in W4, but when I tried using it I couldn't make it work so idk lol). That being said, we'll be putting out a form to gauge the opinions of tour players on the meta here soon, so please look forward to that! i LOVE vaporemons <3

 

[G-Luke]

My personal VR

I'll leave my personal hot takes on stuff soon.

VR Rankings

S Rank

S


A Rank

A+


A



A-


B Rank

B+


B


B-


C+


C


C-

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

OPINIONS ON META


- Jolteon is way to good... i dont think anyone has much to say about it but round guarantees a pivot, the only thing that can stand in its way is bulky grounds, sp. def fez, glowking, and in general has an amazing speed tier to just bully bulkier teams, there are very few mons who can bully teams as well as jolteon
- People talk about fez... this is a weird mon I think as in it can be very dominating like in https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...ons-5570-8aumru6keqqa9y8xlmcu9kg5bfff70ypw?p2 but in general it also suffers in that some steels just shit on it (heatran wouldve gone ham esp against a team with no fire resist) but it also just took a shit on hydrapple. I think this mon is strong and very depends on the MU, people want this to get nerfed and any time I played against it idt it does as much. I have no opinion on it
- Rain was banned pre PMPL with the intention to not disturb PMPL and look at it afterwards... im unsure what specific action fixes the most stuff. My suggestion is to ban pelipper and unban everything else, politoad is infinitely worse as a rain setter and its unlikely we can fix everything, the most dmg control we can do while maintain mons like inteleon, raging bolt, damp rock, maybe even archaludon
- Future unbans: Maybe raging bolt and urshifu-rs... urshifu rs was never tested once in OU but with mons like mage, milo, prim, shaymin, rillaboom, ogerpon-w, dragonite, crabominable, wash away alomomola, while smth like its 4th slot often causes 4MSS with aqua jet, ice punch, t punch where anything u choose u often sacrifice a MU. Raging Bolt is prb ok... it was banned mainly for its threat on rain to just shit on everything specifically on these 2 teams HO and RAIN HO where it was a very good mon....
- Buffs? yeah... a lot of mons deserve it, some abilities deserve it cuz they are seen as ??? cloud nine has poor distribution, counteract is very niche, permafrost has like very poor distribution. While some moves never see use like latent venom (easily blocked by top mons and often is on mons that cant really fit it or have moves with better value), desert storm (generally hard to fit and 2 turns is smth hard to get value out of or position with most grounds as they would rather run eq and most dont really have the moveslots compared to f sight and slowking/glowking), or adjustments to mons like bellibolt, decid/decid-h, pyroar, oricorio, revavroom, many rotom forms, snorlax,etc... they arent good enough sadly.


personal VR - Post Tour (may update after finals)

S:
S-:
A+:
A:
A-:
B+:
B:
B-:
C+:
C:
C-:

NEW URS:

UR:

VR reasonings (major rises and drops)


- Jolteon and weavile -> S, super solid mons and weavile is able to force progress every game with ceaseless, knock, and potentially also SD. While jolteon can always pivot and force in good situations with pivot + spines esp to get in its teammates
- lando-t from A- -> A+, i think it really did super well this tour and deserves it splacement up there
- zone and slowking-g -> A+, i think yes they are good butzone isnt really that good def and is more so of an offensive mon with bulk and spin rather than the max sp. def set we were using. Glowking is in general not as top tier lol
- darkrai -> A+, it is a super solid mon and generally has the ability to put in work any time it is in a match, its speed tier is solid as well for this and often times its 4th moveslot can be bent to whatever it wants on boots sets, while NP sets are in general a larger surprise factor and can tear a hole into a team
- fez B- -> A, i think S tier is overshooting but i think its current VR placement is underating it. I think it cna bring a lot with stones, h waste being solid at pressuring, wisp threatening a lot of stuff, and generally bullying a lot of mons with neut gas. Most teams do carry some form of steel or some mon that can wall it, and wash away mons generally give it problems for h stones strats
- valiatn from A+ -> A-, with its movepool you often have to pick a poison a lot, sd often struggles with either smth like skarmory, magnezone, magearna, corviknight, heatran cuz its using spirit break or with smth like fez, milotic, crab, zama-h, lando-t. Special sets have to eithe rget shit on by smth like fez, gholdengo, heatran, corviknight, iron moth if ur running shadow ball or similar mons with psyshock, and if ur using focus blast ur either dropping encore (valauble tool) or a coverage move and are walled by glowking, fez, and smth like moth, volcarona, pecharunt, muk, iron crown shit on it, mixed generally is prob ok but has similar issues as CM and SD

UR'ed MONS

- i think amoonguss deserves a UR cuz its just... not very good and super passive and outclassed
- scream tail loses into every relevent steel and poison... jsut doesnt do much and also is passive asf
- Thundy-t was useful on HO teams with chain lighting iron hands being around, deserved to be UR a while ago and also doesnt beat much outside from it esp with no tera to back it up
- weezing-g is a shit mon, loses to a lot and is passive asf, fez is much better as a neut gas user and iron valiant isnt as good as a abuser to justify its use (use revavroom)
- sylveon idt saw any usage, and i think mage, fez, prima, and milo being top tier doesnt do it anything
- sun saw no usage i think and venu is just in general not a good mon esp into everything
- webs saw no usage in general for the past few months and a lot of top tiers run boots anyway


TEAMS used during PMPL + REPLAYS


W1:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...remons-5626-j3kfpugzb7npe4ggh7felx0hiju9579pw

This was a skarm gliscor balance team without a good way to deal with zone... and not a good team without a good fire resist, learnt a lesson that this team is creamed by cind, gouging fire, heatran, blaziken, iron moth, etc.

W2:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...remons-5716-fcnyw5kgrnngoqa0zdggxwwkldejbzbpw

Learnt how strong pivot ogerpon-w was in this game.... this was a close game, the glowking was future sight + t wave so i MAYBE couldve won but at that point i think jolteon would put me into range anyway so idt it mattered and moth prob won, ursaluna was a nice showcase this game

W3:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...remons-6322-lhad32ikb1xboawydbi0x3lzscewc5apw

off zone is smth that did very well against the team but with enough mons i think it wouldve been overhwlmed esp with cc valiant who can catch it off guard and red card ting lu allows me to bring in other mons, this team is surprisingly good into a lot of other things and i feel that red card ting lu is a surprising tech in this meta when most commonly they are lefties

W4:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...remons-6509-0fl9taiyvj6n1dwekd7wuczhwj69eyfpw

This team showcased volt turn + heatran which allowed jolteon to just have an amazing MU against defense since ogerpon-w, heatran, and jolteon all do well against fatter teams esp with their pressure they output while jolteon, jet punch crab, and dragapult all pressure offense and use their speed to potentially run circles around many faster mons.

W5:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/...ons-6796-843d46td0jrh4mrho677nfzop9y9e4dpw?p2

This team really is a showcase of how HO can be very hit or miss, here it was a good hit, with QD volcarona sweeping turn 1 (losing to para) and dragonite picking up the slack to finish it off.. the idea was there and it went well. NP deo-s is a surprise mon that i brought

Semi finals:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9vaporemons-226?p2

lost to scarf RM esp since i didnt expect it coming and also crab gave the team a lot of shit.. shouldve just drain punched turn 1, i was expecting a phys def glowking but i shouldve just clicked buttons and figured stuff out later

Semi finals tiebreaker:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9vaporemons-32?p2 (funny)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/dragonheaven-gen9vaporemons-33?p2

This team is a very good team, while it lacks ogerpon-w counterplay and xrn hasnt brought it once before they decided to bring it... how did i win tho? well heatran is a very good mon, it is showcased here by taking down a lot of their team and handling volcarona, scarf gholdengo, and echo chamber being a strong tool it has, modest heatran put in a lot of work showing how good its utility and pressure is. Muk-A is also another great mon, with neut gas + dark / poison this allows me to come and check with sp. def muk on a lot of mons like dragapult, jolteon, deo-s, iron crown, valiant, etc and here it used its bulk to just toxic volcarona and esp since nothing else on their team really wanted to 1v1 it forcing a lot of chip on ogerpon-w (i wish i was gunk shot). Slingshot also is a great thing on muk as a pseudo red card can easily be used to my advantage and get progress on a mon who doesnt wanna come in because thye clicked a pivot move on jolteon and it forced in dragapult or zama-h for ex. instead of skarmory. Defog lando-t is the final thing i wanted to talk about, it is a useful tool it has taken advantage off and i took advantage of it here, with Defog it was able to make sure ting lu never got hazards up and allowed me to just play a game pressure free of hazards while also taunt allows me to shut down gliscor, skarmory, ting-lu, and opposing lando-t from setting hazards up or denying recovery and setup attempts from other mons

TEAM DUMP TIME!!!

What a team dump <- this is a lot of teams... from before PMPL, to what i tested, to post PMPL its an interesting ride with these teams... for ex. off deo-s is smth i tried and it seems to work surprisingly well, smth like baxcalibur has often been MU fishy, while trying to make HO work is asking to fish the opponent cuz the tier has many things for HO and usually u can only slot so many

Why DO i like this tier?

Its very interesting often times... you can often use very niche mons and get away with it... just cuz a mon is C tier doesn't mean much when the rankings are often determined by how much experimentation they get.. so what if magnezone is S rn, it def flopped in the tour and is more of an A rank mon and sp. def sets are def not the rage.

Iron crown despite being ranked B- still put in a lot of work, took out lando-t pretty much, and took out like 80% of iron moth

Abyssal human is currently testing out some wack sp. def steadfast gallade (thank steadfast buffs) while just running over teams who cant brute force it enough or dont really have a way to pressure such a mon over the course of a match

Despite me 6-0'ing it def shows how niche mons just often times need experimentation... muk-a pretty much shut down a team reliant on abilities or had the potential to (thanks heatran) thanks to neut gas and its solid bulk

 

[Nashrock]

https://pokepast.es/0984b8a593dcd84b
https://pokepast.es/19d782eddef3ef09
https://pokepast.es/78b7f6a97e592a5d
https://pokepast.es/091696fa683a8056
https://pokepast.es/f28d9ceabd21f11f
https://pokepast.es/9dbe50b607a1eca9
https://pokepast.es/77776b1ef88b7591

Jolt is broken. Firepon is broken. Washaway is broken.

 

[Beaf Cultist]

Now that every Vape game in PMPL has been played (assuming no tiebreaker in finals), I wanted to look at the usage stats and see what we can take away from them. Some of these aren't too shocking, and some are definitely new from this tour, so let's see what's up.

PMPL Usage Stats

Pokemon	Use	Usage %	Winrate %
Dragapult	10	26.32%	60%
Magnezone	9	23.68%	77.78%
Ogerpon-Wellspring	8	21.05%	12.5%
Jolteon	8	21.05%	50%
Ting-Lu	8	21.05%	37.5%
Milotic	7	18.42%	71.43%
Slowking-Galar	7	18.42%	57.14%
Weavile	7	18.42%	28.57%
Iron Moth	6	15.79%	83.33%
Gliscor	6	15.79%	83.33%
Alomomola	6	15.79%	66.67%
Crabominable	6	15.79%	33.33%
Landorus-Therian	6	15.79%	66.67%
Shaymin	5	13.16%	40%
Zamazenta-*	5	13.16%	60%
Magearna	5	13.16%	40%
Ogerpon-Hearthflame	5	13.16%	80%
Heatran	4	10.53%	25%
Fezandipiti	4	10.53%	50%
Corviknight	4	10.53%	25%
Gouging Fire	4	10.53%	25%
Cinderace	4	10.53%	50%
Ursaluna	4	10.53%	50%
Dragonite	4	10.53%	50%
Iron Valiant	4	10.53%	50%
Great Tusk	4	10.53%	75%
Skarmory	3	7.89%	66.67%
Darkrai	3	7.89%	66.67%
Goodra-Hisui	3	7.89%	66.67%
Garganacl	3	7.89%	33.33%
Iron Hands	3	7.89%	66.67%
Mandibuzz	3	7.89%	100%
Gholdengo	3	7.89%	0%
Rillaboom	3	7.89%	66.67%
Volcarona	3	7.89%	33.33%
Roaring Moon	2	5.26%	50%
Zapdos	2	5.26%	0%
Blissey	2	5.26%	50%
Dondozo	2	5.26%	50%
Muk	2	5.26%	50%
Hawlucha	2	5.26%	100%
Diancie	2	5.26%	0%
Kyurem	2	5.26%	50%
Regigigas	2	5.26%	0%
Deoxys-Speed	2	5.26%	50%
Hydrapple	1	2.63%	0%
Iron Jugulis	1	2.63%	100%
Quaquaval	1	2.63%	100%
Toxapex	1	2.63%	0%
Sinistcha	1	2.63%	100%
Magearna-Original	1	2.63%	100%
Clodsire	1	2.63%	0%
Grimmsnarl	1	2.63%	0%
Tauros-Paldea-Blaze	1	2.63%	0%
Cobalion	1	2.63%	0%
Oricorio-Pom-Pom	1	2.63%	0%
Baxcalibur	1	2.63%	100%
Meloetta	1	2.63%	100%
Iron Crown	1	2.63%	100%
Thundurus	1	2.63%	100%
Dragalge	1	2.63%	0%
Hippowdon	1	2.63%	100%
Copperajah	1	2.63%	0%
Rampardos	1	2.63%	0%
Cresselia	1	2.63%	0%
Hatterene	1	2.63%	0%
Scream Tail	1	2.63%	0%
Tornadus-Therian	1	2.63%	0%
Ribombee	1	2.63%	0%
Iron Thorns	1	2.63%	0%
Manaphy	1	2.63%	0%
Samurott-Hisui	1	2.63%	100%
Kingambit	1	2.63%	0%
Tyranitar	1	2.63%	100%
Muk-Alola	1	2.63%	100%
Basculegion	1	2.63%	0%

Looking at the overall stats, a couple things stand out right away. First of all, the meta is extremely diverse. No singular mon achieved higher than 26% usage, and 75 unique mons were used over the course of 19 battles. This is a great sign for meta health, as many teambuilding paths are able to be explored without too many constraining elements, though I'll talk later on the builder constraints that do exist. Additionally, I was curious to see how tournament usage compared to our current tiering, as Vaporemons is tiered based on its VR rather than by usage. To examine this, I made a graphic.

PMPL Usage vs Current Tier

OU (Actually and through PMPL usage)


OU (Actually but not through PMPL usage)


UU (but received enough usage in PMPL to be OU)

Mostly, things were very consistent between our current tiering and PMPL usage, but there were a few notable standouts. Mons like Iron Jugulis, Kingambit, and Blaziken were hardly used in the tournament, and while some of these can be explained by only fitting on certain playstyles, Kingambit and Thundurus stand out to me in particular. Thundurus is a clear case of being outclassed, in this case by Jolteon, but I'd be curious to hear thoughts from other tour players on why they chose not to bring Kingambit to any of their games.

Additionally, quite a few UU mons received enough usage to be OU, the most notable of course being Fezandipiti. Besides Fezandipiti, some other standouts include Ursaluna (brought a total of 4 times), Mandibuzz (brought 3 times, with a 100% winrate), Rillaboom, and a bunch of stall mons. While I think the current OU tier is mostly pretty accurate, I would definitely like to hear tour players' thoughts on these mons as well.

Now, let's get into the individual mons.

HEROES

The first mon in the usage stats, Dragapult was an extremely common sight in PMPL, and its positive winrate shows that was for good reason. The most common sets seen were WispHex and Choice Specs, though folks experimented with other sets like Tie-Dye Band (to little success).

To the surprise of absolutely no one in the Vape community, Magnezone sits at a comfortable second place in the usage stats, with a strong 78% winrate cementing its position as one of the premier mons in the meta. While folks experimented with a variety of sets in the tour, pretty much every set was running Rapid Spin, showcasing Magnezone's strength as a removal option. There was also a bit of a mindset shift towards Zone as the tour went on, with most players now seeming to agree that offensive Zone sets are better overall, though defensive sets also have a place in the meta.

Despite how much certain members of the community want to call it overrated, Milotic also had a very good showing in this tour, making it all the way to the top 10 in usage with a dominant 71% winrate. One development from this tournament was the advent of offensive Sheer Heart sets, which had mostly been written off in the past. However, they showed their worth in spades here, perhaps explaining the lack of Primarina usage (as it's usually seen as a more offensive alternative to Milotic).

Boasting an eye-watering 83% winrate, Iron Moth absolutely popped off in this tour. As Grassy Terrain showed once again to be one of the meta's premier playstyles (even after the Iron Hands nerf), Iron Moth was pretty much always a fixture on these teams, using its strong offensive profile and great synergy with other abusers to establish itself as a dominant threat in every game it appeared in. Additionally, Meteor Beam Moth made an appearance, paired with Hippowdon to give it free 120 BP setup as long as Sand was up, and ended up completely sweeping the opposing (aka my ) team.

In a development I'm not sure anyone was expecting, Gliscor also achieved a shocking 83% winrate. Despite its middling to bad matchup into the tier's best removal option, Magnezone, Gliscor showed that it is still a force to be reckoned with, setting hazards and crippling walls with Toxic.

While it wasn't the most-used mon in the tour, Ogerpon-Hearthflame showed why you can never count it out, as players piloted it to victory in 4/5 of the battles it appeared in. SD sets appeared to be the most popular, though even just spamming unboosted Ivy Cudgel was sometimes enough to punch holes in opposing teams.

Probably one of the most unexpected winners this tour was Mandibuzz. Top Vape player Xrn developed a liking for Mandi, bringing it to 3 battles and winning every time. While Mandi has always been considered usable in OU, it seems Xrn saw it as more than just usable, and its winrate reflects that.

ZEROES

In easily the biggest flop of the tour, Ogerpon-Wellspring achieved third place in the usage stats with a 13% winrate. This is comically bad, to the point where it really makes you question if Woger is viable at all. While I think most would agree that this was just a bad showing for an otherwise alright mon, I do think some real discussions need to be had about this mon's current VR placement, as this winrate is hardly admirable for a supposed A+ tier mon.

While it tied for third in usage with Woger and Jolteon, Ting-Lu also had a pretty dismal winrate, only reaching 38% over 8 appearances. While it's an appealing choice in SV OU, I think Ting-Lu's passivity and inability to properly counter common special attackers like Jolteon and Milotic makes it fairly questionable as a hazard setter and special wall in Vaporemons, especially compared to other options like Gliscor and Slowking-Galar.

Despite being widely agreed to be one of the strongest mons in the tier, even moreso now than at the beginning of PMPL, Weavile wasn't able to reflect that status in its tour games, only reaching a 29% winrate despite being in the top 10 usage-wise. It would seem the biggest setback for Weavile was the prevalence of counters like Milotic and Alomomola, but even despite that, Weavile made progress in nearly every game it appeared in, setting Spikes with ease thanks to Ceaseless Edge.

Another unequivocal flop, Crabominable was yet another mon that really suffered from Milotic's prevalence. More than that, though, Crab's biggest issue seemed to be that it was only run by Vape mainers, who did very poorly overall in this PL. Myself, Hydrei, and Gravity Monkey (Hydrei's substitute) accounted for 5/6 of Crabominable's appearances, and all 4 of its losses, making it difficult to say whether the mon itself is bad or if it just wasn't being used by the players who were winning.

While I think Heatran has a lot of anti-meta potential, it didn't show that very well in this tour, only achieving a 25% winrate. Despite solid matchups into mons like Iron Moth and Fezandipiti, it can be really difficult to run Heatran into a lot of meta teams, as it very easily gets overwhelmed by more offensive squads.

Now, this one surprised me. I don't think Corviknight is bad at all, but it also only achieved a 25% winrate in this tour. I think it can be difficult to run Corviknight due to its passivity, but Flying Press is a great tool for preventing that passivity, so it really could just be bad luck that Corvi scored so low.

In a turn of events somehow even more shocking than Corviknight underperforming, Gouging Fire only reached a 25% winrate. I don't think it's controversial to say Gouging Fire is one of the best sweepers in the tier, with bulkier sets even able to set up on Milotic (a new supposed counter), but it could not show that here, whether due to players overprepping for it or just poor piloting on its users' parts.

Gholdengo is currently ranked A on the Vaporemons VR, but I wouldn't blame you for doubting that considering its absolute bottom-of-the-barrel 0% winrate over 3 games. It's hard to nail down exactly why Gholdengo performed so poorly, but it seems that it was mostly run on hazardstack teams, who ended up underperforming all-around, which left Ghold in a bad spot. It also doesn't help that Gholdengo can't even block the tier's best removal, Wash Away.

I've been saying Zapdos is terrible in Vape for a long time, and its terrible performance here (2 appearances, 2 losses) only shows that even more.

Yeah, I don't even know why this mon was brought twice. There's a reason it's unranked.


Overall, I would say this was a great PMPL for Vaporemons! The meta saw a lot of development, and I think we as a council have a pretty clear picture of what to do going forward, but we'll be putting out a form to gauge player opinions before we take any action, so once again I hope you all will fill that out once it's posted. With any luck, I'll look forward to seeing all of you in next year's PMPL, but until then, i LOVE vaporemons!! <3

 

[Yoshiblaze]

Hey, long time no see!

Barring a Finals tiebreaker, VaporeMons for PMPL III has wrapped up! It's been a predictably crazy ride but, while there were some bumps especially early on, I'd say that this tournament went pretty well for VaporeMons overall! That said, there's very clearly a lot of stuff that should be looked at, so we're holding a Post-PMPL Community Survey to get opinions on the state of the VaporeMons metagame, similar to OU's Community Surveys.

This survey is open to everyone, but we're particularly looking for opinions from those who played in PMPL. Using the results from the survey, we may make balance changes, have quickbans, hold suspect tests, or whatever else we need to do. The survey is linked below, we'd greatly appreciate your input!

>>>CLICK TO ANSWER SURVEY<<<

Tagging those who played in PMPL

Beaf Cultist (shoutouts to you for creating the survey btw)
HydreigonTheChild
Xrn
Nashrock
Fragments
Baloor
Gravity Monkey
big tony 2014
Bobsican

Your input would be greatly appreciated!
Please also share the survey with anyone you playtested with, we'd like to hear their input as well!

In completely unrelated news, VaporeMons Randbats is still coming! I'm busier now than I was over the summer, and I was waiting awhile for an update to DH that streamlines the coding process a bit to come out (which now has), but Randbats should be close enough to a releasable state, even if it's only in Alpha, hopefully by the end of the month, so look out for that!

That's all for now, see you soon!

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

https://pokepast.es/0984b8a593dcd84b
https://pokepast.es/19d782eddef3ef09
https://pokepast.es/78b7f6a97e592a5d
https://pokepast.es/091696fa683a8056
https://pokepast.es/f28d9ceabd21f11f
https://pokepast.es/9dbe50b607a1eca9
https://pokepast.es/77776b1ef88b7591

Jolt is broken. Firepon is broken. Washaway is broken.

interesting that the time we see bascu-m in like a serious game is in a final tour game...