Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

[Alternator]

Palafin was also banned at a time when it was the only strong Water-type attacker, and there weren't a lot of good Water resists. People could, and did, occasionally run Bulk Up, Flip Turn, Jet Punch, and Wave Crash because there wasn't any good way to punish the lack of coverage, but now that set lets Waterpon or Walking Wake set up freely, and every team is already prepared for strong Water attacks thanks to Waterpon anyway.

Bulk Up, Jet Punch, Drain Punch, and Taunt was a pretty popular set that ate stall teams alive, but stall teams are equipped to deal with Wogerpon using techs like Tera Grass/Dragon Gliscor, Poison Jab Toxapex, and Tera Grass Talonflame (as long as it doesn't switch into the taunt), and almost all of the counterplay to Wogerpon also handles Palafin.

Grass types in general do pretty well; Rillaboom forces a tera or hard switch, Sinistcha doesn't really care what coverage Palafin is carrying, the odd Hydrapple can duel any set lacking Ice Punch, thuds into Wo-Chien versus stall, etc.

There's also not a ton of set variety to worry about, because Palafin's coverage isn't anything special. It has good Fighting options (Close Combat or Drain Punch), but then...Throat Punch or Zen Headbutt, for 80 BP non-STAB? Ice Punch is only 75 BP, but does hit enough things 4x to justify, but still, 75 BP? Facade, to protect against status? It's shallow enough that Body Slam is its strongest (physical) option after Close Combat, and you could run it for that Water/Normal neutral coverage and chance to paralyze counters on the switch in.

On top of all of that, Bulk Up sets are vulnerable to fast encore, Palafin's bulk in base form is middling so getting in and out to trigger Zero to Hero can be tricky, Palafin's speed isn't amazing so plenty of things can revenge kill it...

It'd be a great mon, but I don't think it'd run over the tier. OU comes pre-prepared to deal with its exact kit, and the lack of a second STAB option is noticeable.

 

[Avira]

Palafin was also banned at a time when it was the only strong Water-type attacker, and there weren't a lot of good Water resists. People could, and did, occasionally run Bulk Up, Flip Turn, Jet Punch, and Wave Crash because there wasn't any good way to punish the lack of coverage, but now that set lets Waterpon or Walking Wake set up freely, and every team is already prepared for strong Water attacks thanks to Waterpon anyway.

Bulk Up, Jet Punch, Drain Punch, and Taunt was a pretty popular set that ate stall teams alive if Dondozo was out of the picture, but stall teams are equipped to deal with Wogerpon using techs like Tera Grass/Dragon Gliscor, Poison Jab Toxapex, and Tera Grass Talonflame (as long as it doesn't switch into the taunt), and almost all of the counterplay to Wogerpon also handles Palafin.

Grass types in general do pretty well; Rillaboom forces a tera or hard switch, Sinistcha doesn't really care what coverage Palafin is carrying, the odd Hydrapple can duel any set lacking Ice Punch, thuds into Wo-Chien versus stall, etc.

There's also not a ton of set variety to worry about, because Palafin's coverage isn't anything special. It has good Fighting options (Close Combat or Drain Punch), but then...Throat Punch or Zen Headbutt, for 80 BP non-STAB? Ice Punch is only 75 BP, but does hit enough things 4x to justify, but still, 75 BP? Facade, to protect against status? It's shallow enough that Body Slam is its strongest (physical) option after Close Combat, and you could run it for that Water/Normal neutral coverage and chance to paralyze counters on the switch in.

On top of all of that, Bulk Up sets are vulnerable to fast encore, Palafin's bulk in base form is middling so getting in and out to trigger Zero to Hero can be tricky, Palafin's speed isn't amazing so plenty of things can revenge kill it...

Tera Grass/Dragon Gliscor hard loses to Taunt Bulk Up Palafin as does Toxapex if it uses Tera Steel, which was the most common Tera for that set.

While I may have overrated Palafin before, Choice Band Tera Water Wave Crash under rain at least 2HKOes everything in OU aside from Dondozo and Water-immune Pokemon, which would be extremely restrictive and force Water-immune Pokemon or Hydrapple on every team to avoid losing a mon every time it comes in.

For reference, not even Dondozo or Hydrapple takes on Palafin well in rain well with Hydrapple taking more damage than it regens:

252 Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo in Rain: 225-265 (44.6 - 52.5%) -- 21.5% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 244 HP / 0 Def Hydrapple in Rain: 158-186 (38.1 - 44.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

It wouldn't be healthy for the meta given how it heavily restricts building. We just got rid of Gouging Fire too, which was one of the most toxic mons introduced to OU this gen, and we should be looking at how the meta will adapt in the meantime rather than drop an easy-to-use Pokemon with a high ceiling of performance into OU.

I'll drop several calcs to show just how strong Palafin is when not Choice-locked:

252 Atk Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 160-189 (40 - 47.2%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Punching Glove Palafin-Hero Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Sinistcha: 158-188 (45.6 - 54.3%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dragapult: 145-171 (45.7 - 53.9%) -- 48.4% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Palafin-Hero Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 177-209 (58.8 - 69.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

So Corviknight is 2HKOed with just a bit of chip, and even most Grass-type Pokemon will struggle if Palafin uses Punching Gloves and hits anything other than Zarude and Wo-Chien (which are very rarely seen if at all) with a supereffective attack.

 

[Magcargo]

I don't think that waterpon will be the queen of the tier once Kyurem leaves (the new monarch will probably be Raging Bolt, which is neutral to her since she can Encore / Play Rough but she can't truly switch in) but she will definetly get stronger

I see Grass-types getting marginally better, so it could be argued Waterpon would drop. Its hard to say how it'd be affected overall since kyurem isn't the most splashable mon to begin with.

As for Palafin it might be kinda cool. I see it functioning best on balanced / BO teams compared to HO since the turn you have to switch out is enough for something like Bolt to come in and deal a lot of damage, but eh. I am kinda buying a lot of the Palafin propaganda here, but I'd imagine that Paly will be pretty OP with the right teammates, like Sinistcha for Ogerpon-W, and Gliscor / Clodsire for T-spikes, which can weaken Raging Bolt and Ogerpon, letting Bulk Up Palafin set up even more easily. There is something there, but idk.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

and there weren't a lot of good Water resists.

there still aren't, at least not against palafin. it's at that chi-yu/gouging fire power level where you can get away with ignoring the type chart and just spamming its strongest stab a lot of the time and it just kinda works. go ahead and run the numbers, barely anything can comfortably switch into even non-banded wave crash and almost everything that can gets ratio'd by the bulk up set. when—not if, when—a set crops up that beats all of the handful of examples that don't fall into one of those two categories, we'll be in the same predicament as we just were with gouging fire and i'll have to post the glowking image again

People could, and did, occasionally run Bulk Up, Flip Turn, Jet Punch, and Wave Crash

no one ran bulk up + flip turn, that was a meme

 

[JackRG]

is there any merit to a palafin retest, especially since he was banned pre-dlc? i think with introduction of some dlc mons (namely ogerpon and possibly raging bolt) and rise of dondozo he might be healthier

he's almsot certainly not broken anymore, but the priority rn is banning broken stuff, we can retest stuff later

 

[JackRG]

Lot of tera blast in that video. I agree kyurem is the most annoying to fight right now and would be ok with a ban. But would volcarona and no stored power magearna make it less annoying? Maybe not. But I'd still prefer we try to axe tera blast first. I don't know if it would work but it's a concept of a plan. :)

people really wanna keep tera blast for some reason so I think we should just focus on kyurem rn

 

[peepeepoopoo722]

people really wanna keep tera blast for some reason so I think we should just focus on kyurem rn

It surveyed relatively well.

But on that note palafin discussion is truly mudding the waters hahaha. Genuinely I can see it possibly being okay due to wogger kyurem wake and even dragapult however...

Unlike midleki, volcarona, Archaludon and magearna I don't believe palafin really adds anything to the meta besides another top tier threat whether broken or not.

That being said I am totally down to try it but it's low low priority at this time. If we took a route of banning tera blast and signature moves and it did result in keeping woger, kyurem and possibly adding some of the above then I could easily see a palfin retest down that line.

But only given that direction and we're too far at this stage and pace to worry about palafin. And dolphins are my favorite animal.


By the way there is an unofficial tour going on that has allowed palafin and watched replays it has been underwhelming

 

[Heatranator]

Bulk Up, Jet Punch, Drain Punch, and Taunt was a pretty popular set that ate stall teams alive, but stall teams are equipped to deal with Wogerpon using techs like Tera Grass/Dragon Gliscor, Poison Jab Toxapex, and Tera Grass Talonflame (as long as it doesn't switch into the taunt), and almost all of the counterplay to Wogerpon also handles Palafin.

Yeah, no I don't think they do. I remember talking with a few people on discord when they brought up a palafin retest, and we theory crafted a covert cloak, tera fire set. Which would you look at that, it beats every bit of counterplay here. They would need to knock off the cloak first in order to beat palafin, and even still, they would have to deal with tera fire palafin. Tera grass Gliscor is extremely niche on stall due to having a u-turn weakness, with Tera Dragon Gliscor only beating palafin if its physical defense (which while good on gliscor, means you can't use sp.defense gliscor at all, which is also very good). Poison jab toxapex is fine enough, but being forced to use it is undesirable, as you want many other options such as baneful bunker, surf, liquidation, sludge bomb, toxic spikes and infestation. Finally, tera grass talonflame doesn't really beat palafin unless it gets extremely lucky, and if palafin tera fires, lol, palafin gets to set up for free on it (sure, it now loses to dondozo, but beating dondozo isn't the biggest hurdle in the world, and if dozo runs bp or avalanche, palafin can probably still win).

There's also not a ton of set variety to worry about, because Palafin's coverage isn't anything special. It has good Fighting options (Close Combat or Drain Punch), but then...Throat Punch or Zen Headbutt, for 80 BP non-STAB? Ice Punch is only 75 BP, but does hit enough things 4x to justify, but still, 75 BP? Facade, to protect against status? It's shallow enough that Body Slam is its strongest (physical) option after Close Combat, and you could run it for that Water/Normal neutral coverage and chance to paralyze counters on the switch in.

With 160 base attack, coverage isn't really an issue. You need to be a bulky resist in order to beat palafin, which while not the most strenuous task in the world, isn't exactly easy and something like sinistcha can get blown up by tera+coverage.

On top of all of that, Bulk Up sets are vulnerable to fast encore, Palafin's bulk in base form is middling so getting in and out to trigger Zero to Hero can be tricky, Palafin's speed isn't amazing so plenty of things can revenge kill it...

And which encore mons like switching into palafin? Wellspring is 3hit ko'd by drain punch, and doesn't really want to drop knock off or play rough. Valiant is 2hit ko'd by +1 jet punch (this is also assuming it has no attack, but palafin is probably going to be investing in some attack). Dragonite can use it, but wants to use its wide coverage movepool and setup opportunities more, which means its going to use the scale shot set because that's the only standard set that uses it without giving up important coverage. Clefable can't really use it (didn't even show up in the 1825 stats), primarina also can't really fit it over the miriad of options it wants, hamurott doesn't want to switch into drain punch AT ALL, grasspon is also 3hit ko'd by drain punch. So, if you 'predict' with certain mons, sure, you can encore palafin. But all of these are either non existant, or very flimsy.
Also can we stop saying palafin's zero form's bulk is middling or bad? 100/72/62 is good enough, and can get the job done when switching into resisted hits. Also palafin's speed issue isn't as bad as you make it out to be. 100 base speed is fine enough, as anything slower then it will not like taking boosted attacks like wave crash, while faster foes can't take too many jet punch's if they don't resist the move, and palafin has enough bulk to take stab moves comfortably from full (which with drain punch, it can definetely stay at full) and fire back with a powerful attack.

It'd be a great mon, but I don't think it'd run over the tier. OU comes pre-prepared to deal with its exact kit, and the lack of a second STAB option is noticeable.

It would absolutely run over the tier. The tier already struggles with waterpon's bullshit (seriously people, that mon is still broken lmao, banning it would free up teambuilding so much) and adding a mon which is bulkier, has priority, can boost its bulk, and can truly wipe stall teams off the face of the earth. The only downside compared to waterpon is that it... has to switch in and out once. Which is such a non issue that is basically has no weaknesses and thus we have a 650 bst mon.
Maybe once the metagame has had time to settle, sure. But rn, we should focus on banning the broken things in the tier and that includes kyurem.

 

[Alternator]

there still aren't, at least not against palafin. it's at that chi-yu/gouging fire power level where you can get away with ignoring the type chart and just spamming its strongest stab a lot of the time and it just kinda works. go ahead and run the numbers, barely anything can comfortably switch into even non-banded wave crash and almost everything that can gets ratio'd by the bulk up set. when—not if, when—a set crops up that beats all of the handful of examples that don't fall into one of those two categories, we'll be in the same predicament as we just were with gouging fire and i'll have to post the glowking image again

no one ran bulk up + flip turn, that was a meme

Palafin also needs to come in twice before it does anything, unless you're a madlad who leads with Palafin and completely hands all initiative to your opponent, which wasn't true of Chi-Yu or Gouging Fire. Moreso than anything lacking a Stealth Rock weakness, Palafin needs his HDB if it wants to sweep. Also unlike Chi-Yu or Gouging Fire, Palafin would be spamming a recoil move, so even if you get it in-and-out cleanly to trigger Zero to Hero, even if you can avoid chip, it's still going to put itself into revenge killing range.

Choice Band is taking hazard chip plus Wave Crash recoil, so while it's phenomenal at breaking walls, it's not going to last long unless you really dedicate to hazard control. If you do manage to keep hazards off, congrats, your game plan is successful and you get rewarded, which doesn't feel like a problem to me. Locking into Jet Punch instead makes it an excellent revenge killer or cleaner, but mostly inferior to Kingambit in the role.

Gouging Fire has a much better movepool than Palafin does, so the "I can out-adapt the meta" element that got Gouging Fire banned simply isn't present. Water, Fighting, and Normal are the only three types where it has moves over 80 BP, and 80BP exactly only adds two more, Dark and Psychic. You have to go down to the 75BP Ice Punch before you can hit any of the three types that resist Water for super effective damage.

Also unlike Gouging Fire, and the likely next suspect Kyurem, Palafin can't boost its speed effectively, which makes it much easier to revenge kill. Palafin does learn Agility, but has issues fitting it onto a set. Dropping either Bulk Up or Taunt ruins its value as a stallbreaker, and dropping a coverage move leaves it unable to touch Wogerpon, Walking Wake, or the rare Hydrapple stall.

Yeah, no I don't think they do. I remember talking with a few people on discord when they brought up a palafin retest, and we theory crafted a covert cloak, tera fire set. Which would you look at that, it beats every bit of counterplay here. They would need to knock off the cloak first in order to beat palafin, and even still, they would have to deal with tera fire palafin. Tera grass Gliscor is extremely niche on stall due to having a u-turn weakness, with Tera Dragon Gliscor only beating palafin if its physical defense (which while good on gliscor, means you can't use sp.defense gliscor at all, which is also very good). Poison jab toxapex is fine enough, but being forced to use it is undesirable, as you want many other options such as baneful bunker, surf, liquidation, sludge bomb, toxic spikes and infestation. Finally, tera grass talonflame doesn't really beat palafin unless it gets extremely lucky, and if palafin tera fires, lol, palafin gets to set up for free on it (sure, it now loses to dondozo, but beating dondozo isn't the biggest hurdle in the world, and if dozo runs bp or avalanche, palafin can probably still win).

With 160 base attack, coverage isn't really an issue. You need to be a bulky resist in order to beat palafin, which while not the most strenuous task in the world, isn't exactly easy and something like sinistcha can get blown up by tera+coverage.

And which encore mons like switching into palafin? Wellspring is 3hit ko'd by drain punch, and doesn't really want to drop knock off or play rough. Valiant is 2hit ko'd by +1 jet punch (this is also assuming it has no attack, but palafin is probably going to be investing in some attack). Dragonite can use it, but wants to use its wide coverage movepool and setup opportunities more, which means its going to use the scale shot set because that's the only standard set that uses it without giving up important coverage. Clefable can't really use it (didn't even show up in the 1825 stats), primarina also can't really fit it over the miriad of options it wants, hamurott doesn't want to switch into drain punch AT ALL, grasspon is also 3hit ko'd by drain punch. So, if you 'predict' with certain mons, sure, you can encore palafin. But all of these are either non existant, or very flimsy.
Also can we stop saying palafin's zero form's bulk is middling or bad? 100/72/62 is good enough, and can get the job done when switching into resisted hits. Also palafin's speed issue isn't as bad as you make it out to be. 100 base speed is fine enough, as anything slower then it will not like taking boosted attacks like wave crash, while faster foes can't take too many jet punch's if they don't resist the move, and palafin has enough bulk to take stab moves comfortably from full (which with drain punch, it can definetely stay at full) and fire back with a powerful attack.

It would absolutely run over the tier. The tier already struggles with waterpon's bullshit (seriously people, that mon is still broken lmao, banning it would free up teambuilding so much) and adding a mon which is bulkier, has priority, can boost its bulk, and can truly wipe stall teams off the face of the earth. The only downside compared to waterpon is that it... has to switch in and out once. Which is such a non issue that is basically has no weaknesses and thus we have a 650 bst mon.
Maybe once the metagame has had time to settle, sure. But rn, we should focus on banning the broken things in the tier and that includes kyurem.

Tera Fire + Covert Cloak would absolutely hose stall, this is very true. It's also going to suffer greatly versus non-stall teams, taking chip from hazards and lacking the immediate power of Choice Band, and there's already mons that run through stall teams with a bit of support. If a player wants to matchup fish for a specific matchup, then the options to do so already exist.

Also, claiming that activating Zero to Hero is "such a non issue that is basically has no weaknesses" is such a non-credible take. Switching a non-entity like base Palafin in and out is a massive momentum sink, and if you get predicted and eat an unresisted attack, it gets chunked, which is a problem when your big attacking move does recoil.

 

[JackRG]

Unlike midleki, volcarona, Archaludon and magearna I don't believe palafin really adds anything to the meta besides another top tier threat whether broken or not.

I'd argue another strong priority user could be good in a metagame so skewed towards offense

 

[Bold School]

The very idea of a Palafin unban in a Tera metagame is unhinged. The need for Water counters on teams would go through the roof. Double STAB Jet Bunch is nonsense, especially when you factor in Rain potential. On the other hand, TB would let it counter all its supposed checks it couldn't already beat through brute force. It adds nothing necessarily to the meta while adding plenty of pressure on the builder. No thank you.

And for whoever brought up Magearna earlier, the thing can run like a bajillion sets. It could run Shift Gear or Trick Room. It can run double dance, specs, scarf, AV, Spikes lead, etc. There is no way to really adequately prepare for it in the builder in a Tera metagame. And even if it doesn't Tera, Steel/Fairy is an amazing typing.

In general, most of these unban ideas are misguided. I get a non-Tera Blast Regieleki since its helpful speed tier (and maybe Rapid Spin) are useful for the meta while its STAB can be limited by the Ground types on everyone's teams. I want that one. But I don't want to see most of them. That includes defensively overestimated Volc, which is mainly only a thing by abusing the blatantly OP move in Quiver Dance and/or hax with Flame Body and/or Fiery Dance. Again, no thank you. We don't need any more of gen 9's disgusting power creep.

Palafin also needs to come in twice before it does anything, unless you're a madlad who leads with Palafin and completely hands all initiative to your opponent, which wasn't true of Chi-Yu or Gouging Fire. Moreso than anything lacking a Stealth Rock weakness, Palafin needs his HDB if it wants to sweep. Also unlike Chi-Yu or Gouging Fire, Palafin would be spamming a recoil move, so even if you get it in-and-out cleanly to trigger Zero to Hero, even if you can avoid chip, it's still going to put itself into revenge killing range.

Gliscor has a similar problem with activating Toxic Orb. All you really need to deal is lead it, Protect, and switch. Nobody calls you a "madlad who hands all initiative to the opponent" for this, do they? You don't even have to Protect with Palafin. You can just switch it in and out at some point. There are plenty of pivots that can regain momentum like Corv, Lando-T, Glowking, and stuff like Scizor. There is also Eject Button Hatt. Nobody would build a Palafin team without taking its ability into account. It's not that difficult to mitigate it.

I'd argue another strong priority user could be good in a metagame so skewed towards offense

We have enough, especially if you include some mons from lower tiers like Scizor, Comfey, and maybe Harcanine. But if you want a Water priority user that badly, Azu and Crawdaunt can be made to work on certain teams. It's niche. It's not that common in OU because of presences like Wellspring, among other things, but you can get your fix without dropping a broken Ubers mon.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Palafin also needs to come in twice before it does anything, unless you're a madlad who leads with Palafin and completely hands all initiative to your opponent, which wasn't true of Chi-Yu or Gouging Fire. Moreso than anything lacking a Stealth Rock weakness, Palafin needs his HDB if it wants to sweep. Also unlike Chi-Yu or Gouging Fire, Palafin would be spamming a recoil move, so even if you get it in-and-out cleanly to trigger Zero to Hero, even if you can avoid chip, it's still going to put itself into revenge killing range.

Choice Band is taking hazard chip plus Wave Crash recoil, so while it's phenomenal at breaking walls, it's not going to last long unless you really dedicate to hazard control. If you do manage to keep hazards off, congrats, your game plan is successful and you get rewarded, which doesn't feel like a problem to me. Locking into Jet Punch instead makes it an excellent revenge killer or cleaner, but mostly inferior to Kingambit in the role.

Gouging Fire has a much better movepool than Palafin does, so the "I can out-adapt the meta" element that got Gouging Fire banned simply isn't present. Water, Fighting, and Normal are the only three types where it has moves over 80 BP, and 80BP exactly only adds two more, Dark and Psychic. You have to go down to the 75BP Ice Punch before you can hit any of the three types that resist Water for super effective damage.

Also unlike Gouging Fire, and the likely next suspect Kyurem, Palafin can't boost its speed effectively, which makes it much easier to revenge kill. Palafin does learn Agility, but has issues fitting it onto a set. Dropping either Bulk Up or Taunt ruins its value as a stallbreaker, and dropping a coverage move leaves it unable to touch Wogerpon, Walking Wake, or the rare Hydrapple stall.



Tera Fire + Covert Cloak would absolutely hose stall, this is very true. It's also going to suffer greatly versus non-stall teams, taking chip from hazards and lacking the immediate power of Choice Band, and there's already mons that run through stall teams with a bit of support. If a player wants to matchup fish for a specific matchup, then the options to do so already exist.

Also, claiming that activating Zero to Hero is "such a non issue that is basically has no weaknesses" is such a non-credible take. Switching a non-entity like base Palafin in and out is a massive momentum sink, and if you get predicted and eat an unresisted attack, it gets chunked, which is a problem when your big attacking move does recoil.

a lot of your arguments seem to be boiling down to "it can't run every single thing at once". not once in recorded history has that ever been a meaningful obstacle to a mon's brokenness. you're also focusing a lot on the difficulty of getting base palafin in and out when it's actually pretty easy to get something in and out safely in glowking's ou. and the issue of coverage doesn't matter as much as you're saying it does because, aside from the fact that palafin can just power through damn near everything, this is gen 9, everything can have any type of coverage if it wants, and i don't foresee that changing at this time. lastly, palafin isn't that easy to revenge kill. even though it can't boost its speed without gimping its movepool by running agility, it has a 60-power stab priority move. that makes sets with jet punch pretty fucking hard to revenge with anything except waterpon/bolt/rilla, and as established earlier those can all be dealt with via a well-placed defensive tera. palafin is broken, has always been broken, and will remain broken. full stop. end of story. credits roll. fin.

 

[Heatranator]

Tera Fire + Covert Cloak would absolutely hose stall, this is very true. It's also going to suffer greatly versus non-stall teams, taking chip from hazards and lacking the immediate power of Choice Band, and there's already mons that run through stall teams with a bit of support. If a player wants to matchup fish for a specific matchup, then the options to do so already exist.

I don't think this is true at all. It can use mola as a easy setup opportunity and with its great bulk, it can at the very least trade with something once it's activated zero to hero. And usually, said mons that run through stall teams with a bit of support have good outs on stall. Mola+ursa gets decimated by sinistcha and tera ghost wo chien, with other tera ghost mons helping in that regard. Hoopa-u can be dealt with by specially defensive gliscor or Mola decently well. Palafin doesn't really have any outs in this regard, so I don't think it's comparable to other stall breakers.

Also, claiming that activating Zero to Hero is "such a non issue that is basically has no weaknesses" is such a non-credible take. Switching a non-entity like base Palafin in and out is a massive momentum sink, and if you get predicted and eat an unresisted attack, it gets chunked, which is a problem when your big attacking move does recoil.

Let me rephrase it. Switching in and out palafin once is such a small negative, that it doesn't even impact it to that much of a degree. Unless a team is using a HO or offense team, then they will have a bulky mon like corviknight, Mola or glowking that palafin can switch into, then switch back out immediately in order to get off it's transformation for free. And they opponent will be forced into a situation of "do I attack and make little progress with my mon, but prevent pala switching in for free? Or do I try to make progress, but allow a mon to become a 650 bst monster to now rain terror on my bulkier team?" And frankly, wave crash isn't 'mandatory' to Paladin's success. Just look at gouging fire. Despite the band sets having immense immediate power, they were niche. Palafin can easily use liquidation if it wants to in order to increase its longevity, while still doing immense power.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

By the way there is an unofficial tour going on that has allowed palafin and watched replays it has been underwhelming

yeah they said the same thing about darkrai in upl and then it split the tier wide open with hypnosis and that cascaded into the sleep ban (and a couple months after that there was a substantial wave of anti-darkrai sentiment anyway, i remember that because ima wrote got chatgpt to write a whole pro-darkrai rap and vert was malding so hard about people wanting darkrai gone that he almost quit the council). we shouldn't be using a small sample size like an unofficial tour for stuff like this. i've spoken several times about the unreliability of low winrates as an indicator of non-brokenness, and it's even more unreliable in a "let's unban this thing" tour where everyone is specifically prepping (and usually overprepping) for the thing they unbanned

 

[RS25802580]

is there any merit to a palafin retest, especially since he was banned pre-dlc? i think with introduction of some dlc mons (namely ogerpon and possibly raging bolt) and rise of dondozo he might be healthier

So that this isn’t just a meme… Palafin isn’t something we want in the tier. Taunt + Bulk Up exploits most defensive answers including Dozo and Water Absorb Clodsire. Banded Palafin OHKOs Waterpon with Close Combat. So you’re playing a guessing game called “Band or Bulk Up?” that can break even well-prepared teams. IIRC Finch said it’s closer to a perineal Uber than a mon that would ever be considered to drop.

 

[Magcargo]

So there were some discussions semi-recently about how Darkrai and Ogerpon-W are OP Pokemon (though the focus on these two Pokemon has died down drastically I feel). However, as a bit of a hot-take, I feel that Samurott-H is a better Dark- and Water-type than both Pokemon. This isn't necessarily in-terms of OPness (though an argument could be made on that front for sure) but rather as an overall package and team player, I think it has the other two Pokemon beat. Its similar to Landorus-T in that sense where it isn't the flashiest or most special Pokemon, but provides a lot to a team (though it can be argued that Samurott-H is unhealthy a lot easier imo). I took a hiatus from using this Pokemon for a good while, so I forgot how cracked it truly was.

Been using the AV set on CTC's balance squad and its felt amazing. On pivot heavy teams, this set just takes hits from the likes of Darkrai and Gholdengo while providing immediate value between its good and reliable damage output, and Ceaseless Edge's Spikes. The immediate value from getting Spikes off on two of OU's most common staples, Gholdengo and Gking is just massive and just forms OU cores with Pokemon that struggle with these guys (the one I'm running right now is Fezandipti). Being able to punish two of OU's best Pokemon with permanent reprucussions in Spikes is just brutal. Admittingly, I haven't found Spikes to be as much of a game winner as they were before or in earlier gens, as most teams are built to be Spikes proof + have a few annoying removers whether it be Corviknight, Cinderace, or Great Tusk, but even without the support of a Sturdy spinner, Samurott-H just gens a lot of mileage off these guys by the interactions it forces. Great Tusk being forced to spin just gives you an easy switch into Zapdos or Moltres for the guarenteed hax or Dragapult to more reliably block the Spin. Cinderace is admittingly a pretty shit MU which I've had difficulty truly exploiting besides maybe getting a lucky burn with Moltres against Libero variants. I think Samurott could tech Tera Fire pretty easily on AV to exploit Cinderace, but haven't tried it. Corviknight can annoy Samurott temporarily, but it is easy to keep it down low by just repeatedly attacking it after Knocking off its Helmet. I've also been running non-Ghold partners partners to eat up the Defog like Defiant Ogerpon-T, Moltres / Zapdos to punish U-Turn or Body Press, and partners that just block Corviknight from doing much like Dragapult.

Anyways, while Samurott-H is well-equipped to play the long game between Ceaseless Edge and Knock Off, its Spikes pick up a lot of immediate value on Pokemon that typically aren't running Boots like Ogerpon-W or a couple of booster energy Pokemon. In theory, Samurott-H should make the team worse against Ogerpon-W, but in practice, I find it to be a lot less exploitable because Ogerpon-W never wants to switch into a Ceaseless Edge. Because Samurott-H is less punished for setting up its spikes compared to, IDK, Gliscor or Ting-Lu, its a lot easier for temporary answers like Ogerpon-TM and Dragapult to stave it off than it would be otherwise. Beyond that, Hazards just have a lot of lasting impact against other guys like Garganacl, Raging Bolt, and Kyurem, which makes it a lot easier to pressure them with good reads and plays.

Really, the bang you get for your buck with Samurott-H is just incredible. It isn't enough this Pokemon has the most broken move in the game, but it can pick and choose what utility it provides. On AV alone, this mon has the option of making its own Spikes more effective with Knock Off, extremely strong Water-STAB, Sacred Sword for Kingambit, priority in Sucker Punch or Aqua Jet, and a pivoting option in Flip Turn. I'm sure even moves like Ice Beam aren't bad to troll Gliscor. Beyond AV, this Pokemon has a lot of sets that just flip interactions and match-ups to suit its needs. Scarf flips the match-ups against Cinderace and Dragapult while generating its Spikes. Boots is more suited to play the long-game and can slot in Encore to punish Pokemon like Kingambit better. I haven't used Swords Dance in eons but the powerful priority it has is just a fantastic trait, in addition to its unresisted STAB combination. The defensive utility this mon has for an offensive Pokemon between the Ghost and Dark resistances and immunity to FSight is just amazing as well.

My only issue is this mon is that it gets "outstat'd" like Gholdengo. A common gauge of this for me is in the match-up against sun. I know Sun players hate Samurott, but I find it a lot harder to win against Sun with Samurott than other Pokemon such as Garganacl, Clodsire, Alomomola, Dragonite, and Kingambit, which I feel as a whole, need a lot less support to just start cracking down on Sun. While you can rely on Sam for priority, you can't rely on it to tank a Wake Hydro Steam for example. With other Pokemon like Almomola and Garganacl, I feel like I can play like a monkey against Sun by not taking initiative, consistently messing up plays, and not really predicting, and still eek out a win because of their combination of stats and risk-free moves that make it really hard to lose.

So yeah, I feel that H-Sam's been flying under the radar admist all the latest discussions and just wanted to give it a shoutout given how much utility it provides.

 

[Avira]

View attachment 668404


So that this isn’t just a meme… Palafin isn’t something we want in the tier. Taunt + Bulk Up exploits most defensive answers including Dozo and Water Absorb Clodsire. Banded Palafin OHKOs Waterpon with Close Combat. So you’re playing a guessing game called “Band or Bulk Up?” that can break even well-prepared teams. IIRC Finch said it’s closer to a perineal Uber than a mon that would ever be considered to drop.

He did post that, but I don't think Palafin is a perennial Uber in a Teraless meta in future gens as Tera massively increases the threat level of Palafin since it's one of the best abusers of the mechanic. And with how much defensive and offensive powercreep we saw in Gen 9, Gen 10 could very well continue releasing fully-evolved mons/Ultra Beasts/Paradoxes/Legendaries with cracked statlines that help check Palafin.

 

[Talpr0ne]

IIRC Finch said it’s closer to a perineal Uber

I get it's a big pain in the ass but I don't think he said that.

 

[Heatranator]

I get it's a big pain in the ass but I don't think he said that.

Palafin should be closer to perennial Uber each generation than it is to being an OU drop this generation.

This was all the way back in February, but I don't think much has changed with how Pala would rip through the meta. Archaludon was def annoying for pala, as its sheer bulk meant it could fire off draco meteor's or electro shots into it. Volc gone is a 50/50, as with tera it could softcheck pala, but was another jet punch target if untera'd. Gouging fire could prob bullshit its way through it with d-tail sets, so it being gone prob benefits pala.

 

[Eeveeto]

Palafin is one of the worst thing for the meta that I can think of to retest. We already have enough with Waterpon as a fast and powerful Water that doesn,t depend on Rain to run over things. Would honestly rather have directly Kyogre, at least that one would centralize the whole meta around itself instead of being one more of the "Broken, hard to counter but not overwhelming enough to be banned" Mons that we already have many of and would make other broken Mons a little worse. This is non ironically preferable for me than having Palafin.

 

[Joycap]

View attachment 668404


So that this isn’t just a meme… Palafin isn’t something we want in the tier. Taunt + Bulk Up exploits most defensive answers including Dozo and Water Absorb Clodsire. Banded Palafin OHKOs Waterpon with Close Combat. So you’re playing a guessing game called “Band or Bulk Up?” that can break even well-prepared teams. IIRC Finch said it’s closer to a perineal Uber than a mon that would ever be considered to drop.

Nah Fawful's Minion got the better Palafin meme right here:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1761466024912630262

OK but fr - I have a lot of hipster opinions on what should be unbanned in any revision of OU (if being booed out for Ban DD takes and 'Free Lunala' way... WAY back when wasn't any indication), but even I have to look at this thing and sort of bite my lip at the damage it can do. I may be an anti-Tera Blast advocate, but that's where I draw the line as far as the mechanic - I don't picture Tera getting a full boot, and I've seen Tera Water Wave Crash, be it banded or otherwise, do silly amounts of damage.

Also, isn't there... y'know, literally nothing stopping this thing from going mixed? It's special coverage is hardly unworkable, and while 106SpA isn't as high, it's not stopping it from chunking a few ITDers or Physical Walls that do want in on even soft countering it (I spied Grass Knot in here iirc). Kyurem is half what this thing could potentially be, and it's future suspect might as well be an open secret. Oh, and then there's Scarf, so... yeah.

Something I've found myself noticing about offensive suspects like this is that they're more likely to be susceptible to the whole 'I hate it anyway, ban it' mentality than defensive or support mons that imply a healthier role in the tier. That's been less the case recently, where we're actually around 7-6 as far as ban:DNB ratio this gen (and even that's closer to 50/50 given Gliscor is more ubiquitously considered a defensive mon, although I won't deny SD sets and the like exist) - but this is why I bring up Tera Blast and Salt Cure, and what it means for tiering policy, as (and I feel like I've said this before...) we seem to be going after symptoms of your disease and not the main cancer. And Palafin? Yeah, that's junk food right there.

I could say more, but I'll save us all the headaches. Although if you want me to be wrong and open minded about future suspects and the rest of the tier, then I'm also willing to be wrong about this.

 

[Moisture99]

a lot of your arguments seem to be boiling down to "it can't run every single thing at once". not once in recorded history has that ever been a meaningful obstacle to a mon's brokenness. you're also focusing a lot on the difficulty of getting base palafin in and out when it's actually pretty easy to get something in and out safely in glowking's ou. and the issue of coverage doesn't matter as much as you're saying it does because, aside from the fact that palafin can just power through damn near everything, this is gen 9, everything can have any type of coverage if it wants, and i don't foresee that changing at this time. lastly, palafin isn't that easy to revenge kill. even though it can't boost its speed without gimping its movepool by running agility, it has a 60-power stab priority move. that makes sets with jet punch pretty fucking hard to revenge with anything except waterpon/bolt/rilla, and as established earlier those can all be dealt with via a well-placed defensive tera. palafin is broken, has always been broken, and will remain broken. full stop. end of story. credits roll. fin.

I've been lurking a lot and feel like I should say something since imo the issue of Palafin is more gray than people give it credit for.

To say moveslot limitations have never been a 'meaningful obstacle' is quite exaggerated. There are mons that are limited significantly by the lack of a 5th moveslot, such as Ace and Corv. There are also mons at most debatably suspect worthy, that are significantly held back by their inability to fit one or two more moves, such as Valiant, Gliscor, Waterpon and arguably Zamazenta. No matter how broken you think they are, you would probably agree that a 5th moveslot would make some of these guys quickban worthy, so you can't say not being able to run everything it wants isn't a meaningful limitation. Also SM Protean Greninja is a direct counterexample.

You mention 'glowking's ou' but most of the time, you want to pivot glowking into a breaker or something that doesn't lose all momentum. Base Palafin is gonna give a free switch to opposing threats like Waterpon or Moon, which is definitely not a negligible drawback. And you don't safely Flip on anything that isn't a slower passive mon either. In general, you don't want to be giving free turns in this extremely unforgiving metagame. Whether this drawback alone is enough to make it not broken is something I'm more doubtful of, but Alternator's point isn't worthless.

Your point on revenge killing Palafin being difficult is not wrong, but it's worth pointing out that a lot of the mons that you revenge kill with are mons that probably resist Jet Punch e.g pult and moon and the other guys you listed.

There isn't an individual Palafin set that beats all counterplay, which seems to be what you are suggesting by 'palafin can just power through damn near everything'? There are two main sets that I think are worth using. All-out attacking sets will lose to everything band loses to + more so those probably won't exist.

The Bulk Up set that got it banned last time will not like new stuff such as Bolt, Alo (which can scald or flip into rkiller), Sinistcha (which is a genuine meta threat), Oger, and the meta defining dog. Bolt, oger and dog aren't long term checks but it doesn't really matter if oger gets 3hkoed by drain punch when offense teams aren't looking for games longer than 20 turns, so forcing something out even once is fine for them.

Band doesn't like a lot of the tera water mons that pop up on balance e.g. glisc and garg, also thuds into alo, doesn't like dozo and *really* doesn't like pex. You didn't mention this yourself, but rain should also not really be cited as a reason for brokenness. Rain isn't exactly at peak viability right now, Palafin does not fix its problems and rain is definitely not looking for more power. Barraskewda can also do pretty much the same thing and has pretty much the same counterplay. Palafin's power can also be replicated by some of the other wave crashers out there. Jet punch does have the potential to really clean against offense if they don't preserve their resists though I think having access to powerful priority that limits offense is a positive if anything.

I'd actually argue Palafin, at least without tera, has more counterplay than some of the mons in the tier right now lol. What I am personally concerned about is how Palafin can abuse tera itself. I think the bulk up set being able to flip its typing against checks is a genuine concern and can generate free turns that might let it run away with the game. It's up in the air enough such that it's worth testing in game rather than in discussion in my opinion. I wouldn't mind suspect testing Palafin since I don't think we would be losing very much. I'm personally doubtful it would stay, mainly because of tera and threat saturation but eh whatever

 

[Talpr0ne]

This was all the way back in February, but I don't think much has changed with how Pala would rip through the meta. Archaludon was def annoying for pala, as its sheer bulk meant it could fire off draco meteor's or electro shots into it. Volc gone is a 50/50, as with tera it could softcheck pala, but was another jet punch target if untera'd. Gouging fire could prob bullshit its way through it with d-tail sets, so it being gone prob benefits pala.

I don't know I think Finch is too polite to call a mon "perineal".

 

[party_po1s0n]

I encourage everyone to give this video a watch:

How useable is specs kyurem at this point? I know pinka says he's using it at certain points in the video but it seems that versions with sub are the most common/popular these days. Is it really just because of the freeze dry fishing? I've been going back and forth between specs pult and specs kyurem on my team with relatively similar outcomes. Kyurem synergizes extremely well with my glowking (I run blizzard) but I love the speed that pult provides on my admittedly slowish team

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I don't know I think Finch is too polite to call a mon "perineal".

don't worry man, i got the joke and that's what matters