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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
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yeah let's go ahead and change the subject
i've had this question bouncing around in my head for a while and i wanted to ask everyone:
what are your hottest positive and negative viability-related takes?
i.e., what's the most obscure low-tier mon that everyone thinks is garbage but you think is great? and what's the biggest meta mon that everyone thinks is great but you think is garbage?
i've had this question bouncing around in my head for a while and i wanted to ask everyone:
what are your hottest positive and negative viability-related takes?
i.e., what's the most obscure low-tier mon that everyone thinks is garbage but you think is great? and what's the biggest meta mon that everyone thinks is great but you think is garbage?
I don't particularly know if this is answering the question, but I think Clefable is currently ranked too high. I do not believe that Clefable is in the same tier of viability as pokemon like Hatterene or Alomomola (same for Walking Wake but that isn't my point). The only place I really see Clefable (though tbf I don't see it that often in general) is on stall teams which are not very good at the moment. Clefable's bulk is also not really the same anymore as thanks to power creep it is tanking a lot more powerful hits than in gens 6-8. We have such insane monsters like Wogerpon and Kingambit that are easily able to put the pressure on Clefable and there isn't that much it can do in return aside from spreading status and using knock off. Still though, both of those things are useful and Clefable still has good bulk so it isn't out right bad. I just don't think it deserves to be in A-. I think it could reasonably be ranked B as I feel the same about it as I feel a lot of pokemon ranked there (at least the ones that actually make sense there) but I would understand if it was ranked B+ instead.
The removal of one of the only strong, splashable knock + pivoting options (Moon, who also served as a check to Woger) directly drives up the usage of it's competitors in that slot, Woger being by far the biggest one. Other beneficiaries of Moon's ban also indirectly benefit Woger, such as the rise of both Scarf and Metal Coat Ghold (the #2 and #3 most used items on Ghold during OLT). With Woger checking both of these sets, it also serves crucial defensive utility in some games. Woger-Glim-Gambit has also been a very notable core recently that helped multiple players qualify for OLT and also has won recently in tour, which is definitely healthier than webs and veil cheese.
We need to be very careful about bans going forward, because the tier relies on these interactions to keep threats in check. The term "broken checks broken" is thrown out a lot, but this is a situation where 'mons are preventing each other from reaching broken status by limiting usage or movesets (such as Kyurem/Bolt making Woger run PRough). These are healthy dynamics that need to be preserved to ensure that a variety of viable styles.
Woger's overall winrate also fails to paint it as this unstoppable threat: despite its high usage, it maintains a similar winrate to most other top tier Pokemon in WCoP, sitting comfortably around 50%. In fact, its usage and winrate actually dropped greatly during playoffs, winning only 8/20 games. This was despite the presence of plenty of balance, demonstrated by the high usage rates of bulky staples like Gliscor, Corviknight, Glowking, Ting-Lu, and Weezing-Galar. Usage was driven to it by the ban of its biggest teambuilding competitor, but that number is just an indicator that the tier needs its unique traits.
The current metagame, while I find it boring, does not have any 'mons that I feel are currently banworthy. I agree with the sentiment above that we should look into retests instead for progression. Gen 9 is very unique as a tier and we should treat it as such.
1.
with triple axel, flower trick can kill wellspring After tera, Garganacl and is in general great. And either knock off to, well.. Knock off or use scarf trick to practically destroy defensive pokemon while outspeeding even booster valiant or band to do GREAT damage. and yes. it has defensive counters. but by using choice trick it can beat them and...
2. I think Moltres and Zapdos are Overrated with a capital O. other than defensive utility Zapdos and especially Moltres are forced to use boots because of rocks. they aren't especially fast or bulky or want to use power. Moltres is horrible against wellspring (so there's a 25% chance Moltres is useless) and Zapdos just is really passive and a huge momentum sink
I mean, it's not like Moltres is letting Ogerpon come in every time bc of the possibility of Wisp or Brave Bird on switch in, and it also commonly runs U-turn or Roar with hazards as well. And even then if you're team ends up being weak to it you can always run tera Dragon + Wisp on Molt to turn the tables on it. I don't think a defensive pokemon is bad just because one of the biggest threats in the tier easily kills it. Nobody is saying Gliscor is bad because Ogerpon beats it.1.Meowscarada is A tier if not A+. It's able to enter on View attachment 769614 and u turn to do Major damage, kill View attachment 769611View attachment 769612and View attachment 769613
with triple axel, flower trick can kill wellspring After tera, Garganacl and is in general great. And either knock off to, well.. Knock off or use scarf trick to practically destroy defensive pokemon while outspeeding even booster valiant or band to do GREAT damage. and yes. it has defensive counters. but by using choice trick it can beat them and...
2. I think Moltres and Zapdos are Overrated with a capital O. other than defensive utility Zapdos and especially Moltres are forced to use boots because of rocks. they aren't especially fast or bulky or want to use power. Moltres is horrible against wellspring (so there's a 25% chance Moltres is useless) and Zapdos just is really passive and a huge momentum sink
1.Meowscarada is A tier if not A+. It's able to enter on View attachment 769614 and u turn to do Major damage, kill View attachment 769611View attachment 769612and View attachment 769613
with triple axel, flower trick can kill wellspring After tera, Garganacl and is in general great. And either knock off to, well.. Knock off or use scarf trick to practically destroy defensive pokemon while outspeeding even booster valiant or band to do GREAT damage. and yes. it has defensive counters. but by using choice trick it can beat them and...
2. I think Moltres and Zapdos are Overrated with a capital O. other than defensive utility Zapdos and especially Moltres are forced to use boots because of rocks. they aren't especially fast or bulky or want to use power. Moltres is horrible against wellspring (so there's a 25% chance Moltres is useless) and Zapdos just is really passive and a huge momentum sink
Without a boosting item, Meow is actually quite underwhelming damage wise and doesn’t even OHKO Garganacl with Flower Trick. It doesn’t comfortably enter on Wellspring because of the risk of U-Turn as well as how much it takes from even resisted Ivy Cudgel. Scarf simply is too much of a set that gets punished for locking into moves, especially the wrong move from a bad prediction. Choice Band is the set to use, and is worthwhile in some teams but it’s still prediction heavy and teams are often loaded with enough pokemon to force that heavy prediction and wrong guesses make Meow very exploitable.
As for the Zap/Molt take, I can’t even understand it. They’re both bulky enough to do their job well, as evidenced by their continued success and tenure in this tier. Being forced to use boots is not the end of the world, they’re quite fast for the defensive pokemon they tend to be and even if they weren’t… why is that relevant? They’re doing their defensive duty well.
This idea of Moltres being potentially useless if Wellspring is on the other team just is wrong. Moltres doesn’t exactly let it come in freely due to the threats of flying stab as well as u-turn, wisp and roar with hazards down. Moltres still answers other threats on Wellspring’s team. And Zapdos is the furthest thing from passive let alone a momentum sink. And with people rediscovering offensive sets and how threatening those can be…
I think Garchomp usage will rise simlar to Heatran as being an Stealth Rock/Spike setter with an offensive pulse is becoming more valuable as BO structures want to make progress on both a micro and macro level. That and Rough Skin + Helmet will always put inherent pressure on various pivots/breakers as losing up to 1/4 of a Pokemon's health is super gnarly. It still has extremely stiff competition with the more reliable ground types like Tusk, but Chomp's qualities will always give it home somewhere.
I think long term, this 'mon is going to end up like Tinkaton where it's usage fluctuates enough for it drop a tier as while what it brings to the table is valuable, its passivity and awkward sustain will hold it back (especially when more players are slotting in Taunt onto their offensive pieces).
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Moltres and Zapdos are more pivots than breakers in SV OU right now. I don't think either are that overrated at all. Having Roost + U-turn + random status haxxing at the right moment always has a spot with their bulk (and yes, Zapdos does run U-turn over Volt Switch on some pivot sets to get out against bulky Ground types). I wouldn't switch Moltres on to Wellspring of course, but if I need to get chip on Tusk I'd roll the dice.1.Meowscarada is A tier if not A+. It's able to enter on View attachment 769614 and u turn to do Major damage, kill View attachment 769611View attachment 769612and View attachment 769613
with triple axel, flower trick can kill wellspring After tera, Garganacl and is in general great. And either knock off to, well.. Knock off or use scarf trick to practically destroy defensive pokemon while outspeeding even booster valiant or band to do GREAT damage. and yes. it has defensive counters. but by using choice trick it can beat them and...
2. I think Moltres and Zapdos are Overrated with a capital O. other than defensive utility Zapdos and especially Moltres are forced to use boots because of rocks. they aren't especially fast or bulky or want to use power. Moltres is horrible against wellspring (so there's a 25% chance Moltres is useless) and Zapdos just is really passive and a huge momentum sink
(and for sprites feel free to use :pokemon: to make it easy with the pokemon you want the sprite for where the pokemon is :) )
Woger does provide defensive utility yes, however is that worth keeping such an oppressive Pokémon in the tier? Aside from the fact that most people, myself included don't consider Gholdengo to be broken (and the main argument for it's brokeness is its ability to block defog, not ghold itself). In fact Woger's ability to switch into guys like Great Tusk, Iron Treads, Hrott, and Walking Wake (none of which are anywhere near passive) is part of what makes it so difficult to deal with, since these pokemon, especially the first two, are so essential to so many teams.
Woger hardly needs perfect coverage honestly. Let's take your example of play rough. Even without it, resists like kyurem and bolt (especially the former with it's SR weakness, struggle to switch into Ivy cudgel more than once and both despise knock off. Not to mention you don't even know it's set to begin with.
Winrate isn't as important as you might think. After all the "best" pokemon in the tier, Zamazenta, is consistently posting winrates around 40-50%. Not to mention 20 games isn't even close to a sufficient sample size. It's effectiveness is undeniable and is reflected in how it has risen to the #2 pokemon on ladder and is always near the top in tours as well. It's clear winrate is a shaky metric to determine brokenness atp.
Instead of just saying this, what should we be retesting? Gouging and Volcarona where overwhelmingly banned, and despite what CTC glazers would like you to believe a retest won't change that. The idea of freeing moon is also asinine, considering it was banned only a few months ago and it's vote wasn't particularly close either.
Not them, but I'm going through the list of Tiering Actions, and unless you can convince a majority of, well lets just go with Qualified Voters on a Survey given these were all either =<70% ban support or 7/9 council bans, to unban Iron Bundle, Annihilape, Ogerpon-H, or Roaring Moon (this one is the least likely because it "just" happened), I don't think any of them will actually happen.
My low-tier that's good is Hydrapple, and my meta that's shit has got to be Pecharunt. Being walled by Steel types which are quite common on teams has to suck.
My beloved shitmon is Maushold, because it has a shocking number of OHKO and 2HKO rolls.
252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 240-280 (47.6 - 55.5%) -- approx. 85.2% chance to 2HKO
Leftovers sets are a guaranteed 2HKO if there's any hazards on the field, and a 3HKO if there isn't. Even factoring in imperfect accuracy, if you read the switch in correctly, Dondozo just loses - and even if you don't, unless Dondozo has Body Press instead of Waterfall, you win the 1v1.
252 Atk Technician Maushold Population Bomb (10 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 400-480 (132.8 - 159.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Outspeed and remove Ogerpon, though a hard switch in relies on reading a Swords Dance correctly, otherwise you just drop dead (Ivy Cudgel, Power Whip), get outsped (Trailblaze), or are neutered (Knock Off).
It's also the "fast Encore" that helps stop a Kingambit sweep by locking it into Sucker Punch, and if the opponent doesn't have Rocky Helmet, Flame Body, or a Sinistcha, it's actually really hard to switch into, because a +1 Tera Dark Bite will kill offensive Gholdengo, 2HKO defensive Ghold while surviving its attacks, and deals almost 50% to Pecharunt.
It requires a good bit of support, but when used as an offensive mon first and hazard control second, it's more dangerous than expected. Support reliant, yes, but dangerous.
RE: Ogerpon-Wellspring, while it's a centralizing force, I remember earlier in the generation where the lack of such centralizing mons caused problems. While I am not a competent team building (I am quite terrible at it, in fact), I'd rather have one centralizing mon to build around than zero centralizing mons, so long as there's a reasonable variety of options to handle it. I'm just not seeing the secondary signs of problematic overcentralization from Ogerpon: nothing crashing in usage because of an unplayable matchup, no terrible mons being dragged up to deal with it, no play styles rendered utterly unviable by its presence, etc.
I would even argue you don't have to run boots on Zapdos if you have the right support. It is only 2x weak to rock so it can come in more often than Moltres could without boots and due to that it can afford to run leftovers or rocky helmet which I think is quite useful in this tier considering physical pivoters are quite common in this tier. Meowscarada, Cinderace, Wogerpon, (Choice Scarf) Hamurott, and Corviknight already hate Zapdos for the potential to get paralyzed when they click their precious U-Turn/Flip Turn so the extra chip from rocky helmet is all the more useful.
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Maushold and Hydrapple are OU. Maushold as a sweeper is something I've been leaning more into as of late outside of just an encore bot, and it seriously rocks. I've had great success with a unique TB set up for it and it's been preforming outstandingly well. I need to tinker the team more before I share, but I love this thing.
Hydrapple is a mon that quite literally never feels bad to use. Its powerful, bulky, and god you can run so many sets on it. Big fan of Modest Life Orb recently, absolutely blows up things
Ok so for my low tier mon it'll be fezandipiti, volcanion, and hydrapple. These guys have insane amount of defensive utility, with Fezan checking rai val and bolt, volcanion sits on alo and being a wisp bot vs stuff like gambit, and hydrapple checking wellspring and zama
https://pokepast.es/1f5bf70c63085f92
These are the sets im using atm here. These guys could potentially be a solid core for a lot of teams rn.
For my imo garbo mon, its glowking icl. At least the chilly sets. AV im on the fence about. Glowking a lot of the time gets overwhelmed extremely quickly, and barely stays alive for another attacker. In addition, with so many sweepers having coverage or brute force against glowking, a lot of the time it can just die and be a glorified sack. Its pretty predictable when majority of the time it clicks chilly and has to get sent back in anyways further chunking it hard. And while its typing is solid, it ends up thudding into stuff like treads and kingambit depending on one single coverage move since sludge bomb chilly and psychic move are locked in, so you can end up losing to both
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Not actually garbage: Serperior, Jirachi, Thund-T, Blaziken, and Washtom. I don’t really feel like discussing all 5 in depth, but to sum up, all 5 of these either are proficient para spreaders that also abuse para effectively themselves in a meta where para is incredibly good (Serp, Rachi) or adept progress makers that tend to trade positively even if they burn out quickly, while providing utility functions (Washtom, Blaziken, Thund-T). They appreciate the meta fattening a bit and their speed tiers are more acceptable than they used to be.
Overrated: Gweezing is good but it’s not THAT good. It finds itself in mortal danger far too easily/often with its poor special defense and its fairly common weaknesses, a good chunk of the teams running around rn have at least one thing that nearly completely or completely blanks it (Ghold can be defogged on but comes in easily, Moth and Heatran come in even more easily, Pech can take it on, Ceru sets up on it, etc). It’s excellent at removing hazards, sure, but often it just lets in so much bullshit that I question why non-stall teams are bringing it over like Treads + Hatt or Corv + Ace even on greedy builds that rely heavily on solid removal.
Overrated: Gweezing is good but it’s not THAT good. It finds itself in mortal danger far too easily/often with its poor special defense and its fairly common weaknesses, a good chunk of the teams running around rn have at least one thing that nearly completely or completely blanks it (Ghold can be defogged on but comes in easily, Moth and Heatran come in even more easily, Pech can take it on, Ceru sets up on it, etc). It’s excellent at removing hazards, sure, but often it just lets in so much bullshit that I question why non-stall teams are bringing it over like Treads + Hatt or Corv + Ace even on greedy builds that rely heavily on solid removal.
As for low-tiers, I think Volcanion can annoy mola and break down many fat structures well. It is also nice at trading if boots or if you can get rocks off.
I think Garganacl is not good. Well, he is good but how to justify him over Ting-Lu? Sure, reliable recovery is great, but I’d rather have Ting-Lu massive bulk and get the most value out of it. Ting also has Ruination + Earthquake to force progress, so the lack of salt cure may not be a concern. Ting-Lu can also block volt switch and is more effective against RBolt, has spikes, whirlwind is nice anti-cheese etc;
I think Garganacl is not good. Well, he is good but how to justify him over Ting-Lu? Sure, reliable recovery is great, but I’d rather have Ting-Lu massive bulk and get the most value out of it. Ting also has Ruination + Earthquake to force progress, so the lack of salt cure may not be a concern. Ting-Lu can also block volt switch and is more effective against RBolt, has spikes, whirlwind is nice anti-cheese etc;
Garganacl isn’t just a Salt Cure machine, it’s able to function as a wincon as well between various versions of ID and Curse sets which are very potent once key threats are removed and the opponent can no longer damage it significantly. It’s generally able to soft check many set physical set up threats with these boosting sets of its own, since Salt Cure lets it win the race by applying additional pressure and then using its second attack alongside it. And of course it’s a terrific status sponge for teams with generally great longevity.
People truly underestimate how good is priority immunity.
Its huge problem tho is doing barely anything else, which makes it really hard to justify in most teams but when you find its place you really appreciate it.
I can't recall a single time I saw this alleged "broken snowball sweeper" sweeping a team before, it does although not bad but underwhelming damage initially with spe booster and if it chooses spa booster it is forced to tie with Ogerpon and becomes very revengable due to its physical fraility
I have to credit that it is quite amazing on webs but webs is not at its best right now.
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Male is the more used one between the two (still niche), female has more bulk so it might be worth tinkering with tho.
I'm not too familiar with Smogon formats but in my experience indeedee male is really only better than female in psyspam
Male is the more used one between the two (still niche), female has more bulk so it might be worth tinkering with tho.
| 98 | Indeedee | 1.08835% | 24447 | 1.088% | 21272 | 1.194% |
| 267 | Indeedee-F | 0.16650% | 3740 | 0.166% | 3111 | 0.175% |
Source
Edit to avoid another one-liner: Sorry for not initially explaining it.
NDDM has a more passable speed, less passivity with expanding force and encore is nice.
While on the other hand most of NDDF's support options are irrelevant in singles.
There is a point I am missing but I am way too tired to remember, other players should feel free to add it or correct me if I am mistaken.
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as I said I'm not familiar with Smogon I'm trying to learn it so all my prior knowledge will come from vgc please explain why instead of just giving stats I was told here was a good place to learn and improve on my singles skills I'm sorry if I'm being hard
From my understanding Indeedee-F's main niche in VGC aside from setting psyterrain is sitting on the field and using doubles-only supporting moves like follow me and helping hand. In singles, as Hon07rial mentioned, it barely does anything else outside of psyterrain. This means that a) You would only ever use either Indeedee form on a psyspam team and b) If you do use it, you want it to output damage with expanding force to be able to do something while it's on the field.
1. I never gave up on manaphy, its still a skull-crushing wallbreaker that makes any defensive mon that isn’t blissey tremble upon switch in, this thing is a great substitute user since it can use the switches it forces to set up a sub, if the mon switching in doesn’t threaten to kill it after breaking its sub then it can set up tail glow and potentially KO it. Its still an extremely powerful pokemon with solid natural bulk that farms most stall teams.
2. Enamorus has fallen the hell off in my opinion, its no longer the consistent mon it once was due to the meta evolving to absolutely bully pokemon like it and its bad bulk combined with no way to boost speed without scarf makes it way too easy to revenge kill, its a miracle that it still gets enough usage to stay in OU given that its a mon that barely has anything going for it apart from stab moonblast.
2. Enamorus has fallen the hell off in my opinion, its no longer the consistent mon it once was due to the meta evolving to absolutely bully pokemon like it and its bad bulk combined with no way to boost speed without scarf makes it way too easy to revenge kill, its a miracle that it still gets enough usage to stay in OU given that its a mon that barely has anything going for it apart from stab moonblast.