Legitimately if there's a single mon I'd push for removal its this fucking thing. The fact it has free stab on its moves due to the mask, water immunity, and a no contact STAB that chunks half the meta game unless you're zama is downright stupid. I hate it so much. Hazard week or not the fact it can generate progress for free with one move that isn't knock off drives me nuts.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
For me, the thing that tips the scale towards wanting at least a suspect test is that Ogerpon Wellspring has no actual checks. If it has the right move, or is adamant, it can actually beat usually weaker Pokémon like Hydrapple that you would add to your team specifically to check Wellspring. Play Rough beats dragons, you can pivot out of a bad matchup with U-turn, you can ruin a lot of pokémon with Encore... And that's not even counting the fact that it can set up itself with Swords Dance (also, why does she have Swords Dance? She has a stick, not a sword).
The thing about Wellspring to me that's so irritating is that it has ridiculously strong attacks and is still plenty capable of rocking utility moves while still being a huge pain to switch into. It's not enough thay it has one of the most spammable stabs in the game with Water Cudgel complimented nicely by Grass STAB while having the necessary coverage in Knock Off or Play Rough. It also got U-Turn to maintain offensive momentum, Taunt or Encore to disrupt defensive play, a healing move in Synthesis to ensure that "Just use Stealths Rocks and switch around it" isn't as plausible into it, and it's an offensive hazard setter with Spikes. If you want to delve into it's movepool for weird stuff like Grassy Glide on GTerrain teams, feel free to do so.
This ogre has options and plenty of them; Too many i'd argue. I'm not inherently opposed to pokes with lots of offensive options if they still feel consistently managable inspite of that (see Valiant, Tusk, Dragapult, Moth, Deoxys-S, Gholdengo), but to me at least, it always felt like Wellspring just has the best of both worlds since it's damn good at breaking holes in teams, and damn good at disrupting them with utility moves.
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the only positive thing it does is make walking wake not run even more powerful in the tier even with the incredible spdef walls in the tier walking wake into non ogerpon-w is terryfying so maybe a wake test if in the event of a ogerpon ban
You can use CLODSIRE to stop Wake. Yeah, its not an offensive check but a defensive one, but Ogerpon isn,t even reliable vs Wake, Specs DM deletes it.
Wake has other checks, like Primarina (good AV user), Azumarill (decent AV user that without Ogerpon becomes somewhat viable), AV Alomomomola, Glowking, Blissey, Gastrodon, Hisuian Goodra (again, with AV), Pex, etc. Ogerpon is not needed to stop Wake.
Wake has some case for being suspected, and if its done, I would vote Ban, but still, Waterpon, Gliscor, Kyurem, Gholdengo and several more Mons come before Wake. Waterpon and Gliscor above everything else.
Is there any shot Dragonite is suspected? There are like 8 viable sets right now and it’s just a guessing game to see which one it is. Whoever said Tera isn’t a guessing game, that’s just not true. I recently lost to Tera ghost Tera blast-low kick-encore. That doesn’t even feel like pokemon anymore lol.
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Not necessarily true on the first take. Sure, you're less likely to see a Random off meta tera, but some mons has multiple viable tera types. Again, check the Tera Type Index for reference.
The thing of having coverage he didn't have, is also a bit false. It wasnt as strong but Hidden Power is also something the mons did have for any type-ish coverage on all past gens except 8 and 9. Yet, nothing was done vs it.
And i think that just trying to time a Terastal is less impactful than predicting which tera the opponent might have and when he is using it. Because then you have a ton of outcomes to account for.
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About what darkmoonbeam said, that I saw just later after posting, yea, Gen 9 can be said it settled. It has a Unbalance between offense and defense, yeah, but if we try to achieve that balance, like in older gens it's said that would be done, we will be here until Gen 11 and we wouldn't achieve it. The mons that were walls before lost everything they need to be effective walls and who still has those tools are mon with RU-level stats or lower(Clodsire). We need to just settle some bans and we can already wait the Next Generation. Or Pokémon Champions.
So we have done everything we could for this gen. The goal for Gen 9 was ensure that if we're sticking with an offensive metagame, at least every offensive mon can have a fighting chance and no mon is near-unbeatable.
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What are your thoughts about Tinkaton?
Recently I have tried to use it, but I don't think it has enough steam to keep up with OU anymore. Many of the mons it used to soft-check like Kyurem or Pult have switched their playstyles.
Recently I have tried to use it, but I don't think it has enough steam to keep up with OU anymore. Many of the mons it used to soft-check like Kyurem or Pult have switched their playstyles.
Tink is honestly really held back by its stats atm. being barely slower than kyurem really hurts it in the long run and having to rely mostly on gigaton(which can be exploited sometimes) for dmg can be very annoying.
Also, lack of recovery and vulnerability to hazards without its balloon is still a very bad problem for it. Often times, you pop the balloon just once and then you can wear it down with smth like gholdengo's shadow ball over a few turns with hazards up. I feel it prob will drop back down to uu, or have to innovate on its sets to fit into the new meta
Also, lack of recovery and vulnerability to hazards without its balloon is still a very bad problem for it. Often times, you pop the balloon just once and then you can wear it down with smth like gholdengo's shadow ball over a few turns with hazards up. I feel it prob will drop back down to uu, or have to innovate on its sets to fit into the new meta
it is a encore user which can free up move slots for example for a dd dnite with dtail plus e speed on hazard stacks, also foulplay is a thing i havnt tried it but im curious to see how it works
Am I the only one who can't really see the justification for ever using Razor shell over Aqua Cutter on H-Samurott? Are there any specific damage benchmarks that Razor Shell's 5 BP difference hits to where it's actually worth using over a 100% accurate, non contact move?
The DEF drop can also sometimes flip a 2HKO on a switch in, and a 50% chance to land is not totally negligible if you had reason to click the move already.
It’s not just the extra 5bp, but also the debilitating 50% drop in defense that will apply a high amount of pressure when it happens. This is especially good because it can spam other moves after a razor shell def drop and forces awkward plays from an opponent. It can push some KO thresholds more immediately.
The accuracy difference is basically not relevant because 95% is extremely good already. Contact vs no contact is something, but how many pokemon that switch into it are punishing Samurott with helmet? Especially since it can just knock helmets off.
Tinkaton is never going to be a teams sole Kyurem check, but it forces it to predict much more often because clicking an ice move into Tinkaton sucks. Tinkaton also checks both Darkrai and Weavile, both quite annoying mons to try and check, and with Mold Breaker sets can lock Gholdengo into recovery of nasty plot. Its typing, good enough bulk and smorgasbord of utility moves makes it actually quite decently hard to switch around without being annoyed in some way whether knock off, twave, encore, not to mention potential ice hammer to nail your Gliscor or Lando, and of course it’s a solid SR user. Air Balloon sets also still are hella annoying due to their tendency to snag key items from opposing Pokémon. It’s not meant to last forever but it usually lasts long enough to do what it needs do. There’s a reason it’s well regarded at high level play.
Tinkaton is a great disruptive pokemon with valuable defensive utility. It very well deserves its OU placement (though ladder is being dumb again and letting it drop).
Announcement Thread 'Tiering Policy Framework'
Smogon's tiering framework has been updated, and I'm positively drooling that it shuts down banning Electro Shot on Archaludon, banning Terapagos from Terastalizing to free Terapagos-Terastal, banning Rage Fist on Annihilape, banning Jet Punch on Palafin, and banning Ivy Cudgel on Ogerpon and her alternate forms with the introduction of the preservation of identity segment on why Pokemon are the primary target of tiering action as none of those moves are standalone broken and depend on the strength of the abuser. This is what I believe is the correct way to approach tiering, and I'm glad Smogon higher-ups agree.
My only disagreement with the application of the framework is banning Commander instead of Tatsugiri. Given Gamefreak designs with VGC in mind, it can be argued that Gamefreak intended for Tatsugiri to use Commander and be paired with Dondozo, and if it's the case that preserving a Pokemon's identity is relevant to tiering, then it should be Tatsugiri banned rather than Commander since Commander is core to Tatsugiri's identity. Back when Houndstone was the only abuser of Last Respects, Smogon argued in favour of banning just Houndstone since with only one abuser, it wasn't clear that Last Respects itself is broken, and I believe this should apply to Tatsugiri and Commander as well since Commander is only available to Tatsugiri.
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Terapagos-Stellar (Not Exceptional)Announcement Thread 'Tiering Policy Framework'
Smogon's tiering framework has been updated
- Terapagos-Stellar is a form that results in Terapagos terastalizing. Since terastalization is the only method to use Terapagos-Stellar, banning Terapagos instead of modding the game to remove the option of terastalizing it is the preferred option.
Yeah, that is a mistake. For Terapagos-Stellar, it should read that arbitrarily disallowing a Pokemon from using a universal mechanic goes against the tiering framework with there being no good reason why Terapagos alone should be the one the one mon that is not permitted to Terastalize since doing so is in effect starting a Tera List, which is undesirable with regards to simplicity of ruleset.
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Preserving Tatsugiri didn't even make sense from a utilitarian standpoint because it doesn't seem to be viable outside of Commander BS. I glanced over some Doubles OU stuff and it's not like it was ever some huge linchpin of the meta that kept it stable.
I still think a raw BST change is enough to make Terapagos more than an edge case than, say, Ogerpon with regards to tera, but I also dont care enough to deal with arguing against the tiering framework when it mostly works efficiently. We're in an alright spot as is.
In this case there is actually a valid reason. For terapagos alone it is more akin to mega evolution since it has a fixed tera and can't change. So it would be no different than banning any of the broken mega forms back in Gen 6 and 7. The base mon was still useable but it was not allowed to mega evolve which was typically done by banning the mega stone but it was also applied to Rayquaza as pointed out. So in this case I do think a valid argument can be made that fits with previous tiering decisions to ban terastalization on terapagos and thus free terapagos itself from being banned.
Terapagos's case doesn't wholly track with Mega Evolution since Mega Evolving was tied to an item (at least in OU) and was exclusive to certain mons whereas Terastalizing is universal and meant for ALL mons to potentially use. The Mega Ray precedent in Ubers shouldn't be brought up in terms of OU tiering since it was a situation that wouldn't apply to OU as if the Ubers tier were actually OU, it wouldn't have been Mega Ray banned but Rayquaza itself due to there being no Mega Stone that triggered the Mega Rayquaza transformation since Ubers tiers differently than OU. That's why banning Terapagos-Terastal from Terastalizing is a no-go in OU since holding a Mega Stone shows intent to use a Mega while there's no similar thing for Terastalizing. Look at it this way, in Smogon's stats it's always Terapagos rather than Terapagos-Stellar, which is why it's not treated similarly to Mega Evolution.
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The hypothetical case is actually very straightforward, and touches into an ill-defined topic on Smogon: when, exactly, do distinct forms count as different mons for tiering purposes?
Right now it's a bit of a kludge job; currently Smogon mostly uses Pokedex numbers, but there are exceptions like the Urshifu forms and the Indeedee genders. Mega Evolution could be skirted around by banning the stones, with only Mega Rayquaza needing an exception, but the possibility for more edge cases in the future makes this a latent problem.
Tightening up the definition could result in Terapagos and Terapagos-Stellar qualifying as two different mons for tiering purposes if the definition was either retroactive or terastalization reappears in a future generation - which, given that we have Mega Evolutions returning, is certainly possible.
This is not the place to discuss the finer details of Terapagos, make another Policy Review if you want to do that.
Moving on, how do you guys feel about Ceruledge and Veil right now? It made a big splash in WCOP, but I haven't seen it a lot on ladder. Do y'all think its just a passing trend, or a more permanent addition/rediscovery?
Moving on, how do you guys feel about Ceruledge and Veil right now? It made a big splash in WCOP, but I haven't seen it a lot on ladder. Do y'all think its just a passing trend, or a more permanent addition/rediscovery?
Greetings to you all, I come here to express the belief that Manaphy is extremely underrated due to its movepool which includes tail glow, a status curing calm mind, scald and u-turn along with solid stats across the board, I personally find it crazy that it isn’t even UU by usage given its wallbreaking potential, its flaws like average speed and reliance in tail glow to do massive damage really aren’t too severe even in a power crept metagame like Gen 9 OU and prevent from being top tier, not viable.
Manaphy @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Tail Glow
- Energy Ball
- Surf
With one turn of setup it becomes a wallbreaker that is near impossible to switch into and has solid bulk that prevents it from being deadweight against faster pokemon, even utilising this to hit them back for massive damage that often KOs them. With two turns of setup, most defensive pokemon will fold in one or two hits.
if they even if they aren’t caught on a switch, a 2HKO will not be favourable since most defensive pokemon won’t be able to do much against it since manaphy will shrug off most attacks from these pokemon that do not invest their offenses, can use substitute to avoid harmful moves like toxic or salt cure and its fast enough to avoid getting locked into tail glow via encore from most of these pokemon after using it the turn after whilst hitting the specially defensive pokemon extremely hard.
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking-Galar: 207-244 (52.5 - 61.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+6 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 96 SpD Assault Vest Slowking-Galar: 276-325 (70 - 82.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+6 252 SpA Manaphy Energy Ball vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Primarina: 384-452 (119.6 - 140.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 384-452 (74.7 - 87.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 24 SpD Tinkaton: 288-339 (77 - 90.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 204+ SpD Garganacl: 492-582 (121.7 - 144%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 204+ SpD Tera Fairy Garganacl: 246-291 (60.8 - 72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Energy Ball vs. 252 HP / 204+ SpD Tera Water Garganacl: 328-388 (81.1 - 96%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+6 252 SpA Manaphy Energy Ball vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Toxapex: 183-216 (60.3 - 71.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Basically, tail glow sets have ways around almost any defensive pokemon that isn’t blissey, eviolite chansey, clodsire or terastallizated skeledirge due to their vast options for coverage and high power, allowing them to make solid progress for its teammates by weakening or breaking their checks.
+6 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 4 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey: 286-337 (43.8 - 51.6%) -- 10.9% chance to 2HKO
Ok, at least blissey can avoid a 2hko most of the time, but non calm mind sets won’t be able to do much back due to their passivity.
Manaphy @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 104 Def / 152 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Acid Armor
- Take Heart
- Stored Power
Whilst Take Heart sets are harder to use since they are meant to be full on sweepers and are vulnerable to fast encore users, they are still solid on hyper offense teams due to manaphy’s solid bulk that can be boosted by acid armor and take heart, the latter of which making attempts to paralyse or poison it pointless, to make it hard to dent on both sides whilst boosting its special attack.
Since each turn of step up makes manaphy bulkier and bulkier, it can begin to snowball out of control as hits start to do less and less damage. multiple boosts will not only make manaphy near invincible, but will also make stored power do insane levels of damage capable of getting clean OHKOs on multiple pokemon.
Whilst manaphy is undeniably flawed and not as viable as it was in dlc 1 where some players thought it was suspect worthy, it does have a unique role that it can fill out on OU teams as a tail glow wallbreaker, with take heart sets also being surprisingly good on some HO teams.
Manaphy @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 40 HP / 252 SpA / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Tail Glow
- Energy Ball
- Surf
With one turn of setup it becomes a wallbreaker that is near impossible to switch into and has solid bulk that prevents it from being deadweight against faster pokemon, even utilising this to hit them back for massive damage that often KOs them. With two turns of setup, most defensive pokemon will fold in one or two hits.
if they even if they aren’t caught on a switch, a 2HKO will not be favourable since most defensive pokemon won’t be able to do much against it since manaphy will shrug off most attacks from these pokemon that do not invest their offenses, can use substitute to avoid harmful moves like toxic or salt cure and its fast enough to avoid getting locked into tail glow via encore from most of these pokemon after using it the turn after whilst hitting the specially defensive pokemon extremely hard.
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking-Galar: 207-244 (52.5 - 61.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+6 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 96 SpD Assault Vest Slowking-Galar: 276-325 (70 - 82.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+6 252 SpA Manaphy Energy Ball vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Primarina: 384-452 (119.6 - 140.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 384-452 (74.7 - 87.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 24 SpD Tinkaton: 288-339 (77 - 90.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 204+ SpD Garganacl: 492-582 (121.7 - 144%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 252 HP / 204+ SpD Tera Fairy Garganacl: 246-291 (60.8 - 72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Energy Ball vs. 252 HP / 204+ SpD Tera Water Garganacl: 328-388 (81.1 - 96%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+6 252 SpA Manaphy Energy Ball vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Toxapex: 183-216 (60.3 - 71.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Basically, tail glow sets have ways around almost any defensive pokemon that isn’t blissey, eviolite chansey, clodsire or terastallizated skeledirge due to their vast options for coverage and high power, allowing them to make solid progress for its teammates by weakening or breaking their checks.
+6 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 4 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey: 286-337 (43.8 - 51.6%) -- 10.9% chance to 2HKO
Ok, at least blissey can avoid a 2hko most of the time, but non calm mind sets won’t be able to do much back due to their passivity.
Manaphy @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 104 Def / 152 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Scald
- Acid Armor
- Take Heart
- Stored Power
Whilst Take Heart sets are harder to use since they are meant to be full on sweepers and are vulnerable to fast encore users, they are still solid on hyper offense teams due to manaphy’s solid bulk that can be boosted by acid armor and take heart, the latter of which making attempts to paralyse or poison it pointless, to make it hard to dent on both sides whilst boosting its special attack.
Since each turn of step up makes manaphy bulkier and bulkier, it can begin to snowball out of control as hits start to do less and less damage. multiple boosts will not only make manaphy near invincible, but will also make stored power do insane levels of damage capable of getting clean OHKOs on multiple pokemon.
Whilst manaphy is undeniably flawed and not as viable as it was in dlc 1 where some players thought it was suspect worthy, it does have a unique role that it can fill out on OU teams as a tail glow wallbreaker, with take heart sets also being surprisingly good on some HO teams.
Veil will die out imo. It hasn’t really been good for a while so naturally people haven’t really been considering it in the builder. However, I think after its performance last week people will be much better about making their teams more cheese proof going foward.
Ceruledge on the other hand, I think is a new HO staple. The only other fire type that sees use on HO rn is moth (which is doo doo rn, feels like it gets walled by everything and I can never justify using it outside of webs, since I feel like it REALLY needs booster SPA). Its movepool is just a bottomless bag of riches to the point where picking a set for it just feels like playing mr potato head lmao. Bitter blade is a crazy move, poltergeist is really nice especially cuz it has other tools to threaten booster mons, sneak is good priority which is always nice, close combat is great coverage that hits garg and is just generally great strong neutral coverage. Solar blade is a good anti bulky water option on sun. Dragon claw might be an option to hit booster bolt and maybe be some gfire larp. I even think will o wisp + SD could be heat, since you can turn physical attackers in setup fodder.
Just wanted to point out they changed the wording and to say thanks for that! I didn’t mean to derail the thread into more Terapagos talk, so I apologize for that, but I did want to just say I appreciate the fact that we as a community are being listened to, even over small things like this.