Using my enormous wide-reaching platform as BIG VR COUNCIL I want to quickly address the hate that sun is getting for imo undeserved reasons. I think people are hopping on a bandwagon without trying to push the envelope themselves.
Mystic Water sets can use their great speed tier & flexibility of switching moves to put immense pressure on offense teams because the immediate power to OHKO stuff like darkrai after rocks is still there without specs. You can still 2hko and outspeed waterpon with flamethrower in sun while living any attack back so your matchup vs that is fine, and you can flip turn on glowking/prima into a sun partner that can abuse them (many choices available for this, tusk should be on most sun teams anyway).
My true love is modest specs though. I will never understand the "Inconsistent" allegations. A lot of people don't realize that modest tera water specs in sun literally ohkos glowking and 2hkos tera water glowking. Non AV prima is 2hkod by hydro steam in sun without tera water. Waterpon is ohko'd by any non hydro steam move and does not OHKO.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Protosynthesis Tera Water Walking Wake Hydro Steam vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Tera Water Slowking-Galar in Sun: 186-219 (47.2 - 55.5%) -- 75.4% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Protosynthesis Walking Wake Hydro Steam vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Primarina in Sun: 180-212 (56 - 66%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Far from inconsistent, this is imo the most consistent wallbreaker in the tier. The fact that you can blow through the sturdiest water resists in the tier means you are rarely clicking off of hydro steam and you aren't very prediction reliant as far as Choiced breakers go. It's far stronger than specs kyurem under sun, less prediction reliant than specs raging bolt, and still useful outside of sun and vs HO. It can cleanly 1v1 HO staples like rmoon, darkrai, deo-s, glimmora, raging bolt, and tusk which is perfectly fine for a wallbreaker. These calcs do not show wake losing momentum. This is not a B+ rank mon.
First off wake can be great outside of sun, check out this game where Finch wins smogtour this week with a Walking Wake bootspam team I built with him. Even out of sun, Wake puts solid pressure on glowking and comfortably forces knock off, leading to opposing glowking quickly getting overwhelmed by max layers. Wake can bring a unique anti-weather properties in conjunction with own glowking for bootspam teams while making great progress and being a very difficult mon to absorb knocks from.
The rest is all fair, but only if you've been sticking with the same ol shitty sun archetypes. Stuff like triple dragon death barrage or hatt/tusk/rmoon/wake/gf kinds of teams have all the problems listed above, but there's way more flexibility in the builder than these shitty and outdated sun builds.
Tera Water Garg is annoying and clicking Protect? Use growth venu
Primarina threatens a kill? Use Venu
Tspikes annoying you? Use venu
Wogre ate a hydro steam? Use venu
Iron valiant outspeeding ur team and threatening you? USE VENU
Venu might be relatively undertuned BST wise for this gen's powercreep but boy does it cover a lot of hard to reach spots for sun. I prefer weather ball/sludge bomb/giga/growth but if you don't have a way to handle iron moth, I recommend earth power>weather ball.
Lacking ground resists/immunes? Use Slither Wing
Lacking a pivot and relying on eject button/double switches? Use Slither Wing
This mon is super nice for providing a ground resist and is very good at positioning your walking wake, raging bolt, or several other teammates in safely vs stuff like lando-t, ghold, zapdos, moltres, corv, skarm, etc that admittedly do come in freely but as long as you're mashing U-turn and bringing in your big hitters, you're doing your job. AV is a solid set from RKOtaku's RMT but I would encourage exploration into morning sun/wisp sets as well, they're solid. Check out this game from smogtours where the RMT puts in work.
I agree that CB GFire has been adapted to, and that's why I suggest going back to good ol' DD under sun instead. Sun activating Proto and boosting Flare Blitz power is quite busted, allowing you to DD as opposing Lando-T comes in and just ohko them from full:
252 Atk Protosynthesis Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Landorus-Therian in Sun: 382-450 (100 - 117.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
No tera, no boosting item, nothing else needed. Just DD once in sun and Lando-T isn't even a check, you get the speed boost and item slot to do whatever you want.
I'm not going to fully show my hand and drop teams+all the cool sets I've come up with for sun due to WCoP but I assure you that this new direction is just the tip of the iceberg. Sun is still an extremely powerful playstyle with tons of room for innovation and exploration to work around its well-defined and narrow weaknesses. Torkoal and Wake should remain A- and I will be voting as such in upcoming slates.
I really don't get where this "wake feels inconsistent" is coming from. Let me preface by saying that my favorite 2 wake sets are mystic water speed booster and modest specs.
-> B+ : Sun has had a pretty bad showing lately. Torkoal plummeted into UU, and Wake would have just barely made the cutoff for OU at a mere 4.627%, and it’s not hard to see why; sun is on the downturn, on account of how irritating it is when the opponent gets a free 1.3x on their Raging Bolts or Tusk which sucks. But it’s not just sun. Wake feels inconsistent—none of its moves feel particularly easy to click into the myriad of threats in the metagame, such as Waterpon and Primarina, which can threaten to squeeze valuable momentum out of the limited turns sun already has. It still has its perks, but it doesn’t really reflect the A ranks.
Walking Wake @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Steam
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower
- Dragon Pulse
Walking Wake @ Mystic Water
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 12 Def / 244 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Steam
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower
- Flip Turn
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Steam
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower
- Dragon Pulse
Walking Wake @ Mystic Water
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 12 Def / 244 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hydro Steam
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower
- Flip Turn
Mystic Water sets can use their great speed tier & flexibility of switching moves to put immense pressure on offense teams because the immediate power to OHKO stuff like darkrai after rocks is still there without specs. You can still 2hko and outspeed waterpon with flamethrower in sun while living any attack back so your matchup vs that is fine, and you can flip turn on glowking/prima into a sun partner that can abuse them (many choices available for this, tusk should be on most sun teams anyway).
My true love is modest specs though. I will never understand the "Inconsistent" allegations. A lot of people don't realize that modest tera water specs in sun literally ohkos glowking and 2hkos tera water glowking. Non AV prima is 2hkod by hydro steam in sun without tera water. Waterpon is ohko'd by any non hydro steam move and does not OHKO.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Protosynthesis Tera Water Walking Wake Hydro Steam vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Tera Water Slowking-Galar in Sun: 186-219 (47.2 - 55.5%) -- 75.4% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Protosynthesis Walking Wake Hydro Steam vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Primarina in Sun: 180-212 (56 - 66%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Far from inconsistent, this is imo the most consistent wallbreaker in the tier. The fact that you can blow through the sturdiest water resists in the tier means you are rarely clicking off of hydro steam and you aren't very prediction reliant as far as Choiced breakers go. It's far stronger than specs kyurem under sun, less prediction reliant than specs raging bolt, and still useful outside of sun and vs HO. It can cleanly 1v1 HO staples like rmoon, darkrai, deo-s, glimmora, raging bolt, and tusk which is perfectly fine for a wallbreaker. These calcs do not show wake losing momentum. This is not a B+ rank mon.
Also gonna reach back to a month ago to a post I remembered from 658Greninja about sun archtype.
Sun: 6/10
Pinkacross rated Sun a 7.5/10, but I disagree about it being at that level. Sun is the best weather in the tier, with strong abusers like the Past Paradoxes and H-Lilligant and Torkoal being a decent check to Gambit, Dnite, etc. Sun has more flexibility in the builder than Rain. The Paradox Dogs are also still great outside Sun (besides Wake). The archetype still has a lot of holes that are frequently seen on these builds. Glowking is an infamous matchup that can pivot into Wake or Torkoal to reset the Sun, nearly everything on Sun hates Garg and it can Protect to stall out turns or Tera on an incoming Wake. Prima can pick up a kill vs Sun as they have few ways to OHKO or switch into it. Wogre makes clicking Hydro Steam a risk and pivoting around Wake easier. Booster mons like Valiant can outspeed and threaten everything under Sun. Glimmora messes with a lot of Sun builds, either by getting up rocks/tspikes or dealing big damage. We’ve also seen Balance teams adapt to CB G-Fire with Tera Water Knock Gliscor or G-Fire/Heatran to switch into Blitz. The archetype has other fundamental issues like lacking Ground immunes making Headlong Rush or EQ free to click, Sun also relies on double switches or stuff like Eject Button Hatt since they have few ways to generate momentum otherwise.
First off wake can be great outside of sun, check out this game where Finch wins smogtour this week with a Walking Wake bootspam team I built with him. Even out of sun, Wake puts solid pressure on glowking and comfortably forces knock off, leading to opposing glowking quickly getting overwhelmed by max layers. Wake can bring a unique anti-weather properties in conjunction with own glowking for bootspam teams while making great progress and being a very difficult mon to absorb knocks from.
The rest is all fair, but only if you've been sticking with the same ol shitty sun archetypes. Stuff like triple dragon death barrage or hatt/tusk/rmoon/wake/gf kinds of teams have all the problems listed above, but there's way more flexibility in the builder than these shitty and outdated sun builds.
Tera Water Garg is annoying and clicking Protect? Use growth venu
Primarina threatens a kill? Use Venu
Tspikes annoying you? Use venu
Wogre ate a hydro steam? Use venu
Iron valiant outspeeding ur team and threatening you? USE VENU
Venu might be relatively undertuned BST wise for this gen's powercreep but boy does it cover a lot of hard to reach spots for sun. I prefer weather ball/sludge bomb/giga/growth but if you don't have a way to handle iron moth, I recommend earth power>weather ball.
Lacking ground resists/immunes? Use Slither Wing
Lacking a pivot and relying on eject button/double switches? Use Slither Wing
This mon is super nice for providing a ground resist and is very good at positioning your walking wake, raging bolt, or several other teammates in safely vs stuff like lando-t, ghold, zapdos, moltres, corv, skarm, etc that admittedly do come in freely but as long as you're mashing U-turn and bringing in your big hitters, you're doing your job. AV is a solid set from RKOtaku's RMT but I would encourage exploration into morning sun/wisp sets as well, they're solid. Check out this game from smogtours where the RMT puts in work.
I agree that CB GFire has been adapted to, and that's why I suggest going back to good ol' DD under sun instead. Sun activating Proto and boosting Flare Blitz power is quite busted, allowing you to DD as opposing Lando-T comes in and just ohko them from full:
252 Atk Protosynthesis Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Landorus-Therian in Sun: 382-450 (100 - 117.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
No tera, no boosting item, nothing else needed. Just DD once in sun and Lando-T isn't even a check, you get the speed boost and item slot to do whatever you want.
I'm not going to fully show my hand and drop teams+all the cool sets I've come up with for sun due to WCoP but I assure you that this new direction is just the tip of the iceberg. Sun is still an extremely powerful playstyle with tons of room for innovation and exploration to work around its well-defined and narrow weaknesses. Torkoal and Wake should remain A- and I will be voting as such in upcoming slates.
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->B-/C+ : This isn't a joke. The big dog serves many purposes and checks Zam, Kingambit, Darkrai, and Rillaboom. Has knock. Absorbs Toxic Spikes. Guard Dog prevents any whirlwind/roar or stat changes from a cycling lando or the rarer haze tox. He can spiral out of control quick with his drain punch bulk up combo and even beats out Great Tusk 1v1 more easily than you would think. He is a much better mon than given credit for and I think truly deserves a spot on the VR. B- is more accurate but I understand the reluctance to set anything from unranked into the B tiers
also deserves a low ranking. The trouble with me is that I love these silly bad pokemon but surely this can deserve a D ranking. Perhaps if a better player than I tested it after I provide the evidence below it would be easier to look at.
: UR -> C
, 
, 
, and 
(notably being one of the best checks without tera to the omnipresent boots hex 
due to the latter’s hazard control and ability to deny/dissuade annoying taunts and encores and status moves that may be thrown at the former, alongside taking fighting moves and appreciating 
); there are so many big threats that really appreciate safe entry and not every team can rely on facilitating that through sacs. I’ve been experimenting with it a lot recently and while I am obviously using it against a meta that lacks preparation specific to it, 
; alternatively, leaving your speed alone lets you outspeed bulky 
, 
, 
, 
, etc., and because I feel flare blitz doesn’t cover many things that aren’t covered by other moves like wisp.
UR to D
A+ to S-
A+ to S-
A to A+
A- to A
B to B+
B to B+
B- to B+
C+ to B-
S to S-
A- to B+
B+ to B-
D to UR
: Veti mentioned it before but yeah we didn't vote on Crown in this mini slate; I think it's pretty borderline between B+ and A- right now but I could see it rising in future, will definitely keep an eye on it though until we do a full slate!
: On the other hand, this is a mon that we did vote on; for a little perspective, it got 4 A+ votes and 5 As so it was very close! As one of the people who voted to keep it in A for now, I do think it's really really good - I'd put it on a level slightly above a lot of the things in A because of how much utility it brings and how much it threatens, but I'm not convinced it's as splashable or tier defining as what we have in A+ and above rn. Another mon that I'd be open to pushing up further at some point. It kinda feels to me like a juiced up pre-Home Azu where it trades into everything and it has a ton of utility options (even more bc Flip Turn) while being a threat itself, but a limited health pool and kinda bad PhysDef without investment stops it from being too insane defensively.
: Since it's a mini shift and we didn't go over the whole tier comprehensively, this is another thing that wasn't voted on this slate. I do like it though and yeah I could definitely see an argument for it joining its fellow impresser in D at least if not C, I think I'd like to test it out first myself as I haven't seen it too much so it's still mostly good on paper to me!
being gone far outweighs this for now, and :landorus-t:’s helmet can be removed by 