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Metagame National Dex Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter Nashrock
- Start date
Galarian Slowbro is more frail than Kantonian Slowbro, and it's typing is worse since it can't handle Water-types like Urshifu or Barraskewda. It's also weak to Ground-types like Landorus-T and Great Tusk, the latter Kantonian Slowbro can somewhat handle. It's typing overlaps completely with Galarian Slowking, which is much better since it can beat the special attacking Fairy-types like Iron Valiant, meanwhile the only physical Fairy-type (that's popular) is Mega Mawile which beats Galarian Slowbro with Knock Off anyways (and since its part Steel-type).
Yo good to see you here, unfortunately gbro just doesn’t have the stats to perform well as an offensive or defensive presence. With middling to just poor bulk, it can’t switch into many special attackers in the tier safely unlike Galarian slowking, such as choice scarf lele, Volcarona (crippling it then with twave), and most importantly other fairy stuff like koko and iron valiant, among other things I haven’t mentioned. It also doesn’t have the ability to reliably be an offensive presence with nasty plot and quick draw, being stopped by stuff like heatran and mtar despite its coverage and because it’s so slow it needs to rely on its ability to even get a smidge of damage off due to its worsened bulk investing in spatk and it’s really low speed. It may seem that it would be a check to stuff like mlop or even shifu with a physdef set, but the issue 1. is that better checks to both exist like toxapex and regular Slowbro and provide much more useful defensive value in general, while gbro doesn’t really have anything else it checks due to its poor special bulk and 2. It doesn’t even have pivoting, so it can’t even be a short term pivot (and even then, it would still be outclassed by gking and its regular counterpart). Heck you could even use some physdef bias Galarian slowking (not full physdef, just some mixed bulk thing) which has been used before and can probably get better results than gbro.
Edit: I’m sorry I just write a lot, it’s a normal thing dw
Just wanna do a quick shout out that rain is still doing excellent in this meta. Pelipper sets the stage and you slap in your rain team. Mega-Swampert for fast destruction (alongside Kingdra/Barraskewda if you feel daring), Tornadus-T for your amazing offensive and well as defensive glue when paired with Ferrothorn who is your safe defensive pivot when necessary. For Tornadus, I have actually slapped on Tera Rock to obliterate Charizard Turn 1 as you retain boots, or if you want you can do Flyinium Z on Hurricane to do a similar effect. Tapu Lele guards against priority attacks and tears through the water resists that try to oppose you, Raging Bolt is an option since you can destroy opposing water types faster, Urshifu is stupidly strong when it can use boosted surging strikes under the weather, Archaludon is a great offensive tank who can provide defensive utility, Zapdos is another option for a defogger who can help you win the hazard war, Waterpon does waterpon things but now with a boosted water STAB and many more options are usable including Mega-Scizor, Manaphy, Azumarill, Iron Threads, Serperior and more.
TL;DR, Rain kicks ass, you should use it.
TL;DR, Rain kicks ass, you should use it.
My personal view is that they are not good, and that they are probably on the very outer-fringe of viability, if at all. Alolan-Ninetales is outclassed by Grimmsnarl and Tapu Koko for a long list of reasons (priority screens, team support with electric terrain, access to pivoting moves, better offensive presence with Koko, prankster Taunt to deter hazards and setup, etc.). 348 speed is simply not sufficient in this metagame with the number of opposing anti-offense options being as common as they are (e.g. Diancie, Encore/Taunt Ogerpon, Mega Lopunny, Bullet Punch Mega Medicham, Booster Iron Crown, etc.)
Snow/Veil teams also generally lack any noteworthy abusers apart from Kyurem to justify compressing screens and weather into a single slot. While Baxcalibur had a variety of traits which arguably made it worthwhile to justify this, I would argue Kyurem can already function either self-sufficiently outside of Snow, perform just as well on generic Grimm/Koko screens teams, and/or abuse Snow more effectively on structures with Slowking which can set weather and pivot it into play more reliably than AlolaTails can. Other potential Snow abusers like Cetitan or Arctozolt are limited due to their poor speed even while boosted, lackluster damage output or generally requiring so much support to function that you would be better off choosing something else.
If you are looking to experiment with the playstyle purely for fun, you could try to revamp a team like this to fit the current metagame, but otherwise Snow teams do not see much usage in tournament play and are not likely to be consistent.
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Something... something... funny meme in response to today's tier shifts.
It actually has more usage than last month, where it was 4.763% usage.
It actually has more usage than last month, where it was 4.763% usage.
Is there any way for a stall team to deal with Tera ghost taunt volcanion? I'm asking this question because even though volcanion isn't that high in vr , neither has high usage but it has proven itself as an underrated mon and a certified stall counter , seriously every time I use stall I see this or taunt Tera grass heat ran and I get 6-0ed so please if your a stall expert I would appreciate an answer to this question (by the way unviable mons / strategies that can deal with such a threat are irrelevant also no offensive mons since we are talking about stall teams in general which never run offensive mons otherwise they are semistall and not full stall)
sableye mega should just beat it outright, you can't get taunted and it tera ghosting means its immune to knock off. also if it's taunt volcanion it certainly isn't running a lot of spa investment, so msab should pretty easily stall it out with knock off, protect and recover
Offensive Garg never really breaks Tera Dozo, Mixed Kyurem puts in a ton of work though and Taunt Tran is good as always
To be fair, Garganacl would force Dondozo to Tera which can be abused by your other teammates. But yeah, that is probably all that stands between offensive Garg and victory in that match up.
Other ideas I have include Hypnosis Darkrai, Dragonium Z Raging Bolt, Taunt Tapu Koko and maybe Mega Medicham. Thoughts?
Oh yeah, and Mega Gyarados?
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Mega Gyara is great into stall, especially if you're running Sub+DD (block status). Sadly not too easy to fit on teams but hey the option is there. Anyways on the subject on Taunt Volcanion, it is a pretty neat, if very niche, option for breaking down stall and general fat teams. I personally really enjoy Fire Spin on such sets since it can target and remove specific pokemon on the opponent's team that might be annoying to get through otherwise.
garg often just gets pp stalled against stall by any regen + gliscor or even corv+tera or dozo + tera, some strong stallbreakers that actually work are ursaluna, psychic noise iron crown, taunt lele, rain manaphy, endeavor mdiancie, taunt mega gyarados and of course things like mega medicham and hoopa-unbound
edit: also tera ghost volcanion with taunt fire spin
What are your opinions on weavile? imo it's quite splashable and stab banded knock and pursuit is good for trapping specs Lele locked in psychic/psyshock and some glowking. sure it loses to +2 ogerpon wellspring and mlopp and ig msciz but it's quite good at pursuit trapping right?
Weavile is a Pokémon whose viability went up dramatically with Zamazenta gone, as that dog just destroyed it. It’s good at revenge killing with choice band pursuits and knock offs, with Ice Shard for priority and either Icicle Crash (the preferred option) or Low Kick if you wanna smash Ferrothorn and Heatran. While the Heavy Duty Boots set has longevity I feel that without swords dance it can struggle to secure kills and with its frailty getting an SD off is hard. However, this prevents you from losing 25% to Stealth Rock which is what the band set suffers from.
The Gen IV veteran can certainly work in this meta. Really just comes down to making sure you can capitalize on knock off and ensuring you can play around the few things that give Weavile a hard time.
The Gen IV veteran can certainly work in this meta. Really just comes down to making sure you can capitalize on knock off and ensuring you can play around the few things that give Weavile a hard time.
Isn't ice stab triple axel? and with enough hazard control(mbounce mdiancie/hatt and defoggers) band is better imo. and sd boots doesn't really have longevity. stone edge smacks it. heat wave and heatran could switch on weavile lacking low kick.
CB Weavile is strong but the necessary support it dictates makes it less splashable than boots sets, since you need pretty aggressive anti hazard tools to either deny them from going up or remove them.
I think you’re misinterpreting longevity. Boots Vile has great longevity in the sense it can’t be worn down by hazards which means that it can tend to stay at higher health, which in conjunction with its great speed make it somewhat challenging to revenge kill at times. Heatran also isn’t a super free switch into Vile directly since knock off cripples it badly, but it can discourage triple axel spam if you’ve got a helpful back up partner like Ferro.
Boots Vile also is better if you want to run 4 attacks with pursuit because you can comfortably trap the Mega Lati twins as well as Glowking (outside Tera) and on the note of Tera, I do believe that using Tera Dark actually bumps pursuit to 60bp through the special mechanic, which means it’s 120bp on switching targets. Might have that wrong though I haven’t seen this interaction much.
On a different note, no one mentioned it since it’s not that interesting but I’ll bring it up anyways
Both of these rose to OU this month and it’s not really dispiriting. MTar was on an upward swing in viability even at the tail end of Zama meta, and with it gone MTar has much more room to do its thing. Utility sets are great, combining knock and pursuit in a classic Kingambit like fashion, and while Tusk being better than previously is annoying, there is no shortage of teammates to cover this match up so it’s very much fine.
MPert meanwhile is a reflection of rain’s continuing strength and viability with the power of both Archaludon and Raging Bolt as potent special options alongside the still excellent choice of Zap for that defensive utility in addition to offense. Top off with Barra backing up rain with matchless speed under rain and power, the playstyle has a lot to work with and is a good, arguably great choice right now.
This dropped and I’m surprised it took so long for it to finally fall out of OU. It’s only ever been fringe at best, and while technically being viable with an okay niche, it’s nowhere near splashable and the poor speed alongside miserably physical bulk are greatly hindering for it.
didn’t drop but for the love of everything good and fun let this thing drop already. As funny as it can be to farm this thing for free wins, it sucks that it can’t be used in a lower tier where it might be good (not UU lol). There’s nothing it does well and it’s just all kinds of bad.
These two are super good right now with Zama gone. They’re clearly the best fighting types around at this point, the former offering incredible anti offense utility and the latter being one of the most difficult mons to answer defensively. Criminal that Medi hasn’t risen by this point but ladder gonna ladder. Speaking of which
Mega is great but why is THIS getting usage still? Even on teams where there aren’t any mega I’ve seen more than a few base Ttar running bad AV or lefties sets which never end up being threatening at all. I can’t think of a single reason you’d ever want this thing when the mega is there and better.
ty Moyashi I'm kinda new tbh. as for base ttar I think it's due to ppl thinking max spdef + sand stream is good and want to save their mega. also continue mega banette slander pls. THIS THING IS ASS
hi there! Welcome. Enjoy your stay :)
I think there is a bit of that “wanting to use another mega” mentality and some may think base ttar can still cut it but the poor natural typing undercuts the bulk a lot, and mega ttar can overcome these issues with much improved bulk and power without drawback of item choice.
I'm low ladder and suck at this format but wanna give a shout out to a Mon I think is good.
this thing is good and here's some pros and cons:
Pros:
stab dracos and luster purge/psyshock coming from base 160 spark.
Speed ties with waterpon which..
252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 192 HP / 100 Def Latios-Mega: 101-119 (28.9 - 34%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock
I'm lazy like shit but draco does like 80%to it
Quite wide movepool
Cons: suffers from 4mss heavily(you want draco, luster, psyshock for blissey/clod, mystical fire to more easily threaten Ferro, aura sphere for weave, hp ground for steels that are too bulky/Garg variants, ice beam for grounds and tbolt for mola). You want everything but can't fit everything(also recover/cm/sub for bulky sweep
Gets pursuit trapped easily if sets lacking aura sphere get targeted
Wastes your mega slot. There are a ton of other megas that are actually worth your time(mmaw, msciz, mlopp etc)
Wastes its own item slot(might actually want to run shit like lefties or specs)
In conclusion, it's quite ok on paper but other megas(mlopp, mmedi) or psychics(glowking, Lele) outclass it. Best set I can think of is some stallbreaker shit(future sight+recover+sub+prob psyshock) but who am I to talk lol
this thing is good and here's some pros and cons:Pros:
stab dracos and luster purge/psyshock coming from base 160 spark.
Speed ties with waterpon which..
252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. 192 HP / 100 Def Latios-Mega: 101-119 (28.9 - 34%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock
I'm lazy like shit but draco does like 80%to it
Quite wide movepool
Cons: suffers from 4mss heavily(you want draco, luster, psyshock for blissey/clod, mystical fire to more easily threaten Ferro, aura sphere for weave, hp ground for steels that are too bulky/Garg variants, ice beam for grounds and tbolt for mola). You want everything but can't fit everything(also recover/cm/sub for bulky sweep
Gets pursuit trapped easily if sets lacking aura sphere get targeted
Wastes your mega slot. There are a ton of other megas that are actually worth your time(mmaw, msciz, mlopp etc)
In conclusion, it's quite ok on paper but other megas(mlopp, mmedi) or psychics(glowking, Lele) outclass it. Best set I can think of is some stallbreaker shit(future sight+recover+sub+prob psyshock) but who am I to talk lol
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so the main thing I’ll agree with is pursuit vulnerability. Mega Tyranitar being strong in this meta is annoying and often feels like it forces Aura Sphere into its moveset which can be crowded.
That said, Draco/Luster tends to pull weight enough on their own that it’s not too big an issue. MLatios is a wall breaker with great defensive utility which is the strength that justifies its usage over other mega Pokémon. For the record you really don’t need Psyshock as Blissey is relegated to Stall and not common while Clodsire is just bad and still gets pressured by Luster Purge anyways, especially with hazards up. Luster Purge spdef drop also lets it potentially bust open Ferro without Mystical Fire. If it’s not above a certain health percentage, a Luster Purge spdef drop into Aura Sphere will snipe Ferro. Especially with spikes up. Heatran is tougher, but a bit of hazard backup helps wear it down into range.
as for Garg, Draco hammers it without Tera but Luster can let Mlati break through it well enough (as a Garg player this can be very annoying). Grounds outside Ting Lu get Draco’d and Mola too takes way too much from the move.
Substitute is a legitimate option also as it turns many things like Ferro, Garg, Mola and Heatran into easy substitute fodder and then it can pepper the opponent with attacks which makes it hard to pivot around. Ideally you’d use Sub+Roost and Luster+Aura Sphere. This also breaks Tyranitar and Weavile as trapping options.
For base Latios I think the only worthwhile option is specs with Tera because Tera Draco meteor is pretty silly but yeah. Glad you brought this Mon up because I’ve been meaning to talk about it for a bit now. It’s honestly an underrated option and while increased dark type prominence is annoying, it’s not unsolvable.
My main issue is honestly 4mss. Draco and luster are required as well as recover+sub, then aura sphere so you don't get as easily pursuit trapped. I didn't know that m-fire could threaten out Ferro since my calcs end with a 2hko then it seeds and stalls you but maybe I'm wrong then prob ice beam for stall gliscor but ty. Also base latios? Is that even ranked?
Draco + Luster can kill gliscor or force it out with a SpDef drop. Even with protect (I think). Ferrothorn is annoying, you deal a lot of damage with mystical fire so it’s not unreasonable to get it in range of an ohko. However, aura sphere is still a good option to hit thorn with. I think you always want it for Mega-Tar, and recover last.
While we are discussing Mega Latios, I feel we might as well discuss Mega Latias as well.
The former has wallbreaking power for sure but the latter has some very admirable qualities. Its extra bulk can come in handy as it wards off the strong psychic, grass, water, fire and fighting attacks flying around this tier, serving as a dangerous win condition that can go for Stored Power sweeps on a that thanks to the extra bulk leveraging the means to stack calm minds. And even when it doesn’t go for the all or nothing sweep it has the same fantastic coverage of Latios and can anchor balance teams nicely, even spreading status reliably as it can heal easily and even use Defog in a worst case scenario.
Mega Latias can stack up the big guns as long as like Mega Latios you account for the pursuit weakness. Zamazenta may be gone but a lot of good Tyranitar checks and even counters are still around. Just wanted to throw out some love for the second Lati twin.
The former has wallbreaking power for sure but the latter has some very admirable qualities. Its extra bulk can come in handy as it wards off the strong psychic, grass, water, fire and fighting attacks flying around this tier, serving as a dangerous win condition that can go for Stored Power sweeps on a that thanks to the extra bulk leveraging the means to stack calm minds. And even when it doesn’t go for the all or nothing sweep it has the same fantastic coverage of Latios and can anchor balance teams nicely, even spreading status reliably as it can heal easily and even use Defog in a worst case scenario.
Mega Latias can stack up the big guns as long as like Mega Latios you account for the pursuit weakness. Zamazenta may be gone but a lot of good Tyranitar checks and even counters are still around. Just wanted to throw out some love for the second Lati twin.