Hello just dropping by to give my opinions on moon, ill be arguing both sides here, whatever outcome happens here wont change the metagame much at all.
I'll argue the ban side first, here is my reasoning for why it should go:
- Lets start with the set variance, every check for a specific moon set, is guaranteed to lose to another, you prepare for tera ground eq with priority like weav dnite, you lose to fairy blast, or at the very best, forced to tera the dragonite which can still lose if its invested enough, you prepare for fairy blast with say irondef corv/skarm you lose to ghost roost, you prepare for ghost roost with gambit or samu sucker, you lose to bulky ground eq and you lose to terablast fairy + eq, but what if we are ready for all those sets?, Aka balloon gambit, you will lose to brick break moon which is used for veils aswell, you can never be safe vs a roaring moon, always forces progress and 80% of the time forces a tera, stall is not safe, it loses to fat fairy blast taunt, neutralises glisc corv and dozo with 1 slot, and if you run scarf wisp darkrai, or wisp rai, you lose to tera fire terablast which is seen on sun and sometimes in grassy terrain, you prepare for all those with dbond encore valiant, you lose to jolly tera flying acro or jolly tb fairy, yes i know that its 4mss, but if you guess those moves wrong, roaring moon will likely end the game right there.
- Speed, Bulk and Power, moon has an incredible base 119 speed, which makes it faster than even booster valiant at +1 if it chooses to run jolly, and with this speed stat, it can afford to drop its speed significantly to invest in bulk while still being faster than threats like dd dragonite/kyurem at +1, it has a base 105 hp and base 101 spdef, so with enough investment it can actually live a +2 tera normal espeed from dragonite, allowing it to raw 1v1 it with a knock off into tera blast spam, behind veils this turns dragonite into setup fodder, now that we've discussed this thing's incredible speed and bulk, lets talk about the extremely high power that it has, a base 139 attack, keep in mind that gouging fire has base 115 attack, and it 2hkoed dondozo with tera fire raging fury in the sun with the cb + attack boost, what if you give that to moon with an insane 24 base attack difference, thats way stronger than gouging fire, i will leave the calc comparison here:
252 Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Tera Dragon Roaring Moon Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 350-414 (69.4 - 82.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Tera Dragon Gouging Fire Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 336-396 (66.6 - 78.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
this calc proves that a JOLLY moon is STILL stronger than an ADAMANT gouging fire, thats mind blowing to me.
- Its easily splashable because of its great typing, dark dragon is amazing defensively, and the viable/common tera types for roaring moon completely fuck over its type weaknesses, its weak to bug/ice/fairy/fighting/dragon, notice how tera fairy destroys fighting/dragon and makes it neutral to the other 3, tera flying destroys bug/fighting, neutral vs fairy/dragon but is weak to ice, tera fire destroys bug/ice/fairy, neutral to fighting, making it only susceptible to dragon, the point im trying to make here is, moon fits on many many offensive structures specifically HO/BO, with a built in ability to be ridiculously strong on sun, BO is a structure that is very cheap this gen and arguably the best team style in gen9ou, a pokemon as powerful as roaring moon should not be able to fit this perfectly on that many offense structures, and pair well with that many good pokemon like gholdengo or valiant, there is absolutely no drawback since its not weak to hazards.
- Restrictions on teambuilding, as a builder myself, someone who knows the tier better than anybody currently, i can kind of gage whether a pokemon is broken or not by the restriction it puts on my teambuilding, since i build every single playstyle including stall. Usually, when im building balance, id be like, oh hm, weav molt should be enough vs kyurem, zama clef steel levitate lati is enough for kyurem, no matter what route i take building balance, i always find a moon set that destroys it, it forces priority or unaware on every single balance, priority on every BO and HO, priority + a physdef steel bird or molt on every balance or unaware mons + gweezing, and on stall, obviously, unaware mons + a physdef gliscor, which still get severely damaged or outright solod by taunt moon with enough bulk. I never understood why people wanted to ban kyurem over moon, i never felt a strong restriction building for kyurem, it was always moon, sub tect has been adapted to, its good but not amazing like it used to be, mixed dd is mediocre, specs is mid, weak to hazards, etc, actually has defensive checks unlike moon, but this thread isnt about kyurem, its for moon, and as i said, its restriction on teambuilding is ridiculous.
Now i will argue the dnb side, most of my friends gave me very strong arguments in discussions as to why it should stay and i also have some arguments myself that make me see it in a different light, so as promised, here are my dnb arguments:
- It is a massive tera hog, the only moon sets that dont require tera to function are knock eq roost sets which lose to twave unless u tera and acro sets which lose to zama unless you tera, and these, dont break moon, its the tera blast sets along with the tera ground to block twave, having to use tera in a gen 9 meta is a huge price to pay, especially if they have something to beat or phase you out without having to tera themselves, like wisp moltres, which taunt still isnt safe vs bc u have to avoid 2 flame body burns + a scorching burn to avoid being crippled, whirl ting lu, which gets stopped by taunt but if it doesnt tera it loses the 1v1, also keep in mind that the threats that force a moon tera, are very common in the current metagame, these checks will be listed in my second point.
- The current metagame has alot of counterplay for roaring moon, the notable counterplay i will list below:
1. iron defense roar zamazenta: forces a tera fairy or flying which is easily revenged by gambit revenge tera or sciz for fairy and dnite/weav for flying respectively. Defensively, its revenged by physdef toxic gliscor, avalanche dondozo or tickle alomomola
2. Tickle alomomola which owns every moon set besides taunt, which can get burned by scald, and with the surge in pecharunt, zama dragonite and the steel birds, wellspring cant get going vs it, it gets tickled, and if its not encore, u just wish into the check, no damage taken.
3. Physdef toxic gliscor or bulky sd tera fairy, stall's main tool for disabling moon, what people don't realise is that this mon can fit on other structures outside of stall, this set fits on every structure except full HO, it even benefits rain which is heavily underexplored rn.
4. twave clef (preferably with barb) this forces a moon's tera ground immediately, or forces it to taunt which isnt enough it has to be tera ground eq + taunt or itll still lose the interaction.
5. Iron defense steel bird(corv or skarm), beats all moons except taunt, and if its taunt it cant roost, 1 attack is non existent, jaw lock is a meme.
6. Espeed ada dnite, this is a good one, bulky sets can power past it but that does not mean they arent threatened, ghost roost is still threatened by dd eq the moon user still has to position the moon well, no moon set is really safe vs this if you play the dnite safely yourself.
7. Encore destiny bond valiant only checks the bulky sets, which are the most common moon sets, the bulky sets are the only sets that really push moon, the faster sets lacking bulk are mediocre at best and easily revenged, so listing this as a check felt fair.
8. Iron hands, this is a nice one as it checks and revenges every set with tera flying, and supercell slam drain ice punch combo, if moon doesnt tera, hands can live a +1 hit and ohko back in return, moon has to tera to kill it and if hands tera it actually beats whatever tera set moon has with this coverage.
9. Primarina, pair it with a steel bird or possibly bulky helm lando t and u got good moon insurance basically, its good at its job which is checking zama/moon/dnite or at the very least forcing their tera.
10. Dondozo, ah yeah we cant forget this, the ultimate physical attacker check, with curse and sometimes even without curse, it beats every non taunt moon set.
11. Tera steel banded scizor, possibly my favorite moon check rn, basically the best moon revenge killer in the tier, its not very difficult to chip moon with say a lando u turn or a corv u turn, and once u do, and scizor gets in, moon is basically dead, there has been an increase in scizor usage aswell, since its so good at revenging moon especially the set that people say broke it, terablast fairy.
12. Balloon kingambit, fairy blast or lefties tera flying, with iron head low kick sucker kowtow coverage, u can afford to drop kowtow in the current metagame since you are not beating corv/moltres anyway, and low kick with tera fighting obliterates dondozo and corv anyway, but yeah balloon gambit is basically a safe check to all moon sets, except brick break, but tb fairy and lefties tera flying low kick/iron head owns that, this is a great check, and also great ghost resist and priority, it is kingambit after all, gen 9's mascot mon lol.
13. Flame body moltres, with roar or wisp, keep in mind moon is never safe vs this, if it roars moon out, it loses almost half its power that the booster energy gave it, if it wisps, moon is crippled, and if its taunt, it has to avoid not 1 , not 2 but 3 burns, since knock is a 2hko, and scorching sands can burn, also moltres learns burning jealousy, so if moon is taunt, and it taunts u, just click it on dd, its 100% burn if a stat is risen on the turn that its used, so it cannot dd on moltres, idk why more people dont use this great tech, it 100% burns dd dragonite too without having to use wisp.
14. Static twave Zapdos, basically every moon is susceptible to this set except the super rare tera electric, even ground moon risks getting paralyzed by this annoying pokemon, which cripples it if it does paralyze.
15. Tera fairy wisp alluring voice dirge, which btw also checks dnite/kyurem/hatt/weav/zamazenta(bc heavy slam is 40bp on skele for some reason lul)/corv/skarm, and toxicless glisc/sd glisc, those are enough things it can beat to give it a valid reason to show some usage.
16. Tera dark physdef foul play pecharunt, shuts down all roaring moon sets barring terablast fairy, but pecharunt can also use tera fairy/water physdef malignant foul play, to completely shut down every single roaring moon set.
- Limited Setup Opportunity, i know that there are pokemon that allow a free roaring moon dragon dance, but on the contrary, there are also alot of pokemon that punish a dragon dance on the turn that its used, the counterplay that i listed above is not uncommon barring skeledirge and iron hands of course, but stuff like moltres and dnite, twave clef, toxic scor, whirl ting lu, are very common, most of the common metagame structures do not allow a moon dragon dance, there are few instances where a moon sweep happens out of the control of the player on the receiving end of it, but 90% of the time its them choking/allowing it to position, and that burning jealousy moltres tech, now that ive mentioned it, i believe is going to be used to an insane degree on both ladder and tournament play now that ive made everyone aware of it, which would ultimately lower roaring moon usage longterm, moltres is not uncommon at all, and now it has another tool in its arsenal to shut down roaring moon, even with the recent surge in pecharunt structures, moon has to risk malignant chain to get a dragon dance off, and if pech teras it has to risk it twice, or force a 5050 between tb fairy and knockoff, also moon needs to have tb fairy or it outright loses to tera dark foul play pecharunt.
- Weak to hazards, specifically, toxic spikes, with the surge in galar weezing which i pioneered myself, tspikes pex and the already existing toxic debris glimmora on classic ho preferably with red card, say if you red card a moon out with pecharunt, glim, or even gweezing, and a tspike is up, moon cannot come back in unless an absorber gets sent out first + it loses nearly half its power, there has also been a recent surge in tspikes gweezing in both tour and ladder, that i also pioneered myself, it has been effective in shutting down threats like moon and wellspring, people have also started using tspikes pex to great success, its effective at preventing free entry for moon, this tier has had a lack of removal since the beginning of the gen, with few spin options because of gholdengo, cinderace/tusk/treads and fog corv + mons to pressure dengo like spikes lu, moon is basically never coming in for free on a hazard stack especially if it has toxic spikes.
Now that ive covered both Ban and Do Not Ban arguments, i will cover a universal argument that people have been making, that i think is a double edged sword argument, aka 4mss, this argument can apply to both ban and dnb, yes if you guess the fourth moveslot wrong it can punish you very badly, moon can really leave a path of destruction in its wake, but on the contrary, if you guess it right, which is not very difficult to do if you carefully examine the team structure that roaring moon is on, then it badly punishes the roaring moon user. You can tell what its weak to, if the structure is weaker to zama, you can guess taunt flying or tb fairy, and it would likely be the set for moon, if the structure is weaker to corv and dnite, you're likely looking at ghost roost, if the structure is weaker to stall itll likely be bulky taunt roostless, remember to look at their team structure, pinpoint its weaknesses, and determine the set based on what the structure is weak to, and if it doesnt make sense, its likely just a bad team on their part, like tauntless flying moon on a team thats weak to dnite or weavile is just careless fishing on their part, and fishing is going to be an element of gen 9 regardless, with any setup tera threat not just moon, cant do anything there.
Concluding my post by saying i would be fine with either outcome, i will not take a stance here i am just posting unbiased, fair arguments for both sides, and i will let everyone who is voting decide, thats about it, cya.
