np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 19 - Moths

[Finchinator]

Hello everyone, the OU tiering council has decided to retest Volcarona!

Let's start with some relevant information:

• Tera Blast was banned from SV OU on April 26th with a 61% supermajority
• While we opted to immediately drop Regieleki back to OU, other previously banned Pokemon used Tera Blast that warranted reevaluation
• After some days of internal discussion, the SV OU tiering council voted on both Volcarona and Roaring Moon -- the three options in the vote were to unban outright, retest, and no action (remain Uber). Both Volcarona and Roaring Moon received support to be retested with all, but one, vote being in favor.
• Between the two, we voted once more to see which Pokemon would be retested first as overlapping variables in the same test leads to compromised results. This vote resulted in Volcarona being the clear favorite to retest first.
• With the timeline of the World Cup of Pokemon's main event kept in mind, we are retesting Volcarona now and will keep Roaring Moon atop the radar for now.

After Volcarona was banned with an 76% supermajority back in mid-2024, the infamous "match-up Moth" returns to SV OU with Tera Blast no longer being at its disposal. Volcarona used Tera Blast over 60% of the time, making Tera Blast a noteworthy contributor to Volcarona's eventual ban. This retest will allow Volcarona back onto the OU ladder so players can determine if it is still banworthy or not. Please note Volcarona is not "officially" OU during this test for the sake of ongoing tournaments and this test will conclude before the commencement of the main event of the World Cup of Pokemon.

When Volcarona was banned, players cited how potent a win condition it was with Quiver Dance combined with its coverage. Volcarona could seemingly handpick its own counterplay at this point, running Tera Blast types such as Water, Fairy, Ground, and Dragon to dispatch of various would-be checks and counters. Without this option, Volcarona is a fundamentally different Pokemon in the context of SV OU. Does this make it balanced by default? Absolutely not. However, this does change the equation enough to make a retest worthwhile to determine if a Volcarona lacking Tera Blast warrants being officially unbanned or not.

Volcarona did not lose all of its coverage and offensive range with Tera Blast being banned. For starters, strong STAB moves give Volcarona a respectable offensive floor. Giga Drain, which can be used in conjunction with Tera Grass, helps with Rock types like Garganacl or Water types like Primarina as well. Psychic is another viable option that gives Volcarona an option to hit certain switch-ins with a boosted neutral attack after a Quiver Dance while taking out Glimmora and Iron Moth. While the coverage profile shifted from nearly perfect with Tera Blast to merely good without it, Volcarona has other tools such as Will-o-Wisp and Flame Body to cripple physical attackers. You may also see Volcarona running recovery to increase longevity or Substitute to prevent opponents from crippling it with status like Toxic. It is true that Volcarona lost a great asset in Tera Blast, but you can see that it still has a myriad of viable options that can make counterplay challenging nevertheless.

We have outlined that Volcarona still has a lot going for it, but there should still be reasons to proceed with caution. While you no longer have to sink a moveslot to Tera Blast, Volcarona users now have to accept that each individual variant has a significantly larger pool of potential counterplay. Every single offensive variant now is going to have numerous strong OU Pokemon that will be able to survive any attack it may have without Tera Blast. To provide some very rough examples:

• If Volcarona lacks Will-o-Wisp, Dragonite may challenge it
• If Volcarona lacks Giga Drain, Garganacl and certain Primarina may wall it
• If Volcarona lacks Bug Buzz, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Tyranitar, and Assault Vest Samurott-Hisui may check it
• If Volcarona lacks Psychic, Fire types like Ceruledge, Brave Bird or Roar Moltres, Toxic Iron Moth, and Blaziken may be able to initially wall it
• If Volcarona lacks Substitute or Recovery, Heatran may be able to permanently wall it -- and even with these things, the right Heatran variant could prove to be a counter

This is just a surface level analysis, but the pool of would-be counterplay was much smaller with Tera Blast at Volcarona's disposal. With more checks and counters to each variant, there is an argument that Volcarona is balanced and teams will be able to handle it.

Overall, Volcarona's presence was deemed banworthy from SV OU with Tera Blast, but the council believes it could be different without Tera Blast. As a result, we are letting the playerbase decide what to do with Volcarona through this retest. Volcarona still has plenty of great options as we outline above. It is also true that the ability to handpick what checks and counters it no longer exists to the same extent it once did with Tera Blast. Participants of this suspect retest will have to determine if Volcarona is balanced or still banworthy through playing in SV OU with Volcarona to get voting requirements!

The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:

• Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in OU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W-L does not count for this -- the account you use must never have played OU before the test, full stop.)
• You can use /rank to check if your alt is allowed to get requirements. Whenever in doubt, type /rank and it will tell confirm if you are eligible or not
• At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command
• Double check that you're listed as a voter here
• If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact Finchinator and Ruft
• If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM Finchinator and Ruft!
• The requirement to vote in this suspect retest is a ELO of 1750 and GXE of 80! This was done after discussion in this thread. The deadline for getting requirements will be May 15th at 11 PM GMT-4. Good luck to all!

• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects -- if you wish to discuss another Pokemon, we encourage you to do so in the metagame discussion thread, but this thread is strictly to discuss if Volcarona is banworthy or not;
• No discussion on the suspect process -- this includes retesting Volcarona vs other potential suspects;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• You are required to read this thread before posting;
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning;
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the OU Council and the OU Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering these will help out our time moderating the thread and present your arguments better and more educated;
• Do not argue because it's your favorite Pokemon. This should be common sense, but please don't do this, because we will delete posts like this;
• You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this;
• Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have an informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator;
• Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result this suspect, then so be it;
• This thread is not to voice complaints about the suspect process or decisions of the council. While we are more than open to hearing complaints that may arise, this isn't the place for it. I suggest you message our Tier Leaders, Finchinator and Ruft, or make a post in Senior Staff requests, should you have a badge.

Should you have any questions about the suspect test, feel free to message the OU Council. And if you have any questions about the moderation of this thread, feel free to message the OU Forum Leaders.

Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you.

Check your reqs here!

 

[Finchinator]

Please note that the SV OU tiering council as well as Smogon's tiering staff is still discussing the current proposals to implement tournament voting requisites from this thread. However, we are not implementing anything for this retest for the following reasons:

• As Mada notes in his post, no current metagame experience can qualify someone for a retest landscape with a Pokemon reintroduced to SV OU on the suspect ladder. Therefore, it would be a misapplication to group prior metagame players into the voter pool by default.
• The decision to implement Tournament Voting Requisites is not yet finalized by the SV OU council or Smogon's tiering staff.
• The specific parameters of Tournament Voting Requisites that would be used if we were to implement this practice are not yet finalized either.

Please PM me and Ruft with any further questions on this matter. Please post in the PR thread linked above immediately (if you have access) if you feel strongly on the topic as we will be deciding in the near future.

 

[Finchinator]

Locking this for 24 hours so people can collect their thoughts!

 

[Finchinator]

Also, just some notes on the process and retest:

• Volcarona is fully legal on the SV OU ladder during the retest.
• We normally like to have an extra week for retests, but some circumstances mandate this being the length of a normal suspect instead. We hope to return to the additional week in the future.
• The voting period will be strictly only for two days, which is the same length as Tera Blast's voting period. Friday the 15th at 11pm-4 until Sunday the 17th at 11pm-4. This allows for the upcoming week to reflect the result, which coincides with the start of the World Cup of Pokemon among other things
• Volcarona needs 60% support to be unbanned. This is the threshold needed to flip the status quo.
• Qualified thread will be up tomorrow before the 24h buffer period is up

 

[Finchinator]

This thread is open for posting now.

To those upset with the timing of this retest and the ladder differing from the official format: I completely understand. I just ask that you keep in mind that we have the following calendar to be cognizant of:

• WCoP immediately after this test
• Smogon Tour's next SV tour in 3 weeks + rest of ST
• OLT immediately after WCoP
• SCL overlapping with OLT

These are the least busy SV OU weeks until December, which we still need to be careful about due to SPL/OST in January. I think we need a larger discussion of community expectations surrounding retests once this one is over and I look forward to hearing everyone's feedback, but this was what all but one member of the council voted for, with that vote being to unban Volcarona outright (not keeping it in Ubers for the coming weeks/months).

Thanks for understanding and enjoy the retest everyone!

 

[Finchinator]

Crazy start to the week to me since my car got rear-ended by a 1200 ELO driver. I had to scramble to get the suspect up yesterday and go for reqs on mobile mostly today, but we ball.

I have tried to ban Volcarona in 3 generations, succeeding at 2 points in SV and nerfing it in BW. It is one of the most annoying and fishy Pokemon EVER, BUT...without Tera Blast Volcarona is absolutely not broken and the historic min-max nature of Volcarona is dwarfed. I am coming out strongly in favor of unbanning Volcarona, which surprises me as I thought otherwise when we began discussing it. I would consider changing my mind if new variants take the metagame by storm, but I have used 3 different sets, will share a team with an offensive set later in this post, and have explored the full movepool many times over the years -- I just do not see it as broken at all right now despite acknowledging it is day 2.

Why Volcarona is not broken? Simply put: it has enough consistent checks and counters now. Volcarona was handpicking what it covered with Tera Blast, but it cannot do that to the same extent anymore. Volcarona ran Tera Blast over 60% of the time, so it should be no shock that it is fundamentally different now.

There is still customization with coverage options like Psychic and Giga Drain, but you get diminished returns with them relative to Tera Blast Ground, Dragon, etc. Offensive sets, which I will share a team with later on, are nowhere near problematic and have many games where they rely on bluffing or are liabilities. Bulkier sets have a good amount of utility and can threaten some things you would see as checks with burns or healing, but feel more like a good presence for balanced and bulky-offense than some otherwordly win condition.

If people want to vote ban because they find Flame Body annoying, want one less win condition in the metagame, or just dislike the Pokemon, I cannot stop them at all. Suspect tests come down to the judgement of those who qualify and I respect that, but I do want to go out of my way to say I think Volcarona without the Tera Blast coverage/threat can be a very healthy presence. It makes users of some of the strongest Pokemon (Kingambit, Iron Valiant, Zamazenta, Rillaboom, etc.) think twice before committing to spamming certain moves, it punishes some of the highest ceiling Kyurem sets that have plagued teambuilding all generation, provides us with another offensive Fairy resist as Iron Moth has fallen off and not every team can afford a Poison/Gholdengo, and it provides a potential cost to U-turn spamming for leverage. I personally do not vote off of "like" or "dislike" because these things are all in the eye-of-the-beholder -- I vote based on broken vs not broken strictly, but I know a lot of people look outside the normal lines and I just want to point out that Volcarona does add a great deal to the metagame.

---

As for my laddering experience, I built a team with Volcarona to use for most of my reqs (all besides 5 games with stall when I tilted -- which I lost 4 of, oops -- and 5-10 games with other Volcarona teams). It was mainly built for lower ladder farming, just to see if 3A offensive Volcarona was still effective or not while clicking through. It ended up being my best team for the run vs this particular ladder. It is probably too weak to BU Tusk, Stall, Rain, opposing Wisp Volcarona, and a few other things, but I did want to share it.

In fact, I advise other people who get reqs to share their own Volcarona teams!!! We can all see how the playerbase interacts with and uses Volcarona to get the best idea if we do this. It is pretty cool to see the metagame evolve at our fingertips and retests are rare, so I want to make the most of this moment for our community. Volcarona was pretty satisfactory in my run with this team, but it only swept a couple of times (linked below) and it mostly traded or threatened Flame Body. I did use a bulkier set in some other games, but much fewer -- it was ok.

- Click for import

I would probably make Kingambit Tera Fire or Lum Berry if Will-o-Wisp Volcarona picks up, but I liked Tera Dark to give me a shot against fat/Dondozo. I also only clicked Tera Fairy with Volcarona a couple of times and Tera Steel with Gholdengo once, so feel free to tinker. I do not think this is a perfect team and I bet a lot of better stuff will pop up as the suspect transpires, but just wanted to share something to get the ball rolling here.

Replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602746062-5n0lx6nw2vea4uxrqruy6hs6v7064ikpw - vs high ladder Sun
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602741011-n0tg1nfqhovgnl4bf0ae9eh7svhh7q9pw - vs Stall
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602709162-3ll3uf1ukksmy5utpbxgiex70meer78pw?p2 - Rain, really tough game, hard MU
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602704300-2wwd4jysdd22ef5gvm4730bgsmo8g5fpw - OU's last Flame Body Heatran
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602697182-7xugc734nm2xe4liojurwr2denfec5hpw - Ladder CB Zama BO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602690908-g3vmx0h01qvwq536f3crc5uxemb22u8pw - Old xavgb Offense
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602684980-kv1sccmmw5m7cvvqcywtp701qx3sqfmpw - LokixCind
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602682305-5ax57e3juw3kpmpq01vrt6i1taaapw4pw - GMolt Screens
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602672268-q569h6showe34fpvdu6qo78icf0brsfpw?p2 - Volcanion BO
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602665381-0xfwytnysgm8i2630wdsvp3m5vy0gaopw?p2 - Iron Hands Screens
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2602660757-pnailjpuwdbata7aefpnqo29mmohc1vpw - Tempo BO ft. me missing Air Balloon lol

Everything else is from too low ladder for me to post with any hope of accomplishing anything productive tbh

Finally, I am a huge baseball nerd and my favorite team is the Yankees. Their beloved radio broadcaster passed away on Monday, which has made me very sad. My name pays homage to one of his favorite Home Run calls from when I was growing up. RIP John Sterling

 

[Sqookblooks]

Volcarona @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Overheat
- Psychic
- Quiver Dance
- Morning Sun
(Or you can run Fire Blast + Psychic if you're a coward smh)

+ Choice Band


Volcarona forms a pretty natural combination with Mr. Choice Band Rillaboom. The two basically share almost the entirety of their checks together (Dragonite, Moltres, Ceruledge, Heatran, Dragapult etc). Rillaboom answers the water-types holding the Rona back. Volc answers the Grass Types holding the boom back.

IMO defensive tera types are kind of wasted on Volcarona. Woger has effectively banished all physical water type moves to the shadow realm. and it's also coincidentally not a great answer to Volc. Rock and Flying coverage are pretty rare in the tier. Most mons I've seen are generally using resistances to Volc + powerful neutral physical moves to stop it (ala Dragonite or Ceruledge). That's why I think Tera Fire should be run to overwhelm checks with sheer firepower.

The reason to use Overheat (or Fire Blast if you are a coward) is that the combo of Rillaboom Knock Off and +1 Tera Fire Modest Overheat from Volc can cleanly kill offensive Dragonite and Moltres (you only need the two to be roughly at 70% health for Overheat to start threatening kills). After you smash through the Dnite / Moltres, you can pretty easily clean up with Rillaboom + Wogerpon. Psychic is just so you have a move to click into Ceruledge or Heatran.

Still playtesting teams (not the best teambuilder ever lol + idk how to lure/stop Heatran with this). Hoewever, it's pretty satisfying seeing Dragonite get blown tf back from Volc at +1. I don't know if this combo actually makes Volcarona broken since it is a heavy commitment, but I do think people should try experimenting with Tera Fire to overwhelm checks with sheer firepower.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

I likely won't be getting reqs because I'm busy writing a police report since one drunk driver rear ended someone with expired car insurance, but I'm of the opinion volcarona is an A or A- viability ranking pokemon at best and not unhealthy for the tier. It is certainly a threat you have to account for but you do not have to go out of your way to answer. TBH even earlier in the generation it was very overblown how difficult it was to build a team that isn't weak to volc cause there's plenty of pokemon that nonchalantly stonewall its sets, the problem was if 9 volcs sucked vs. your team there was always that 1 that was designed to hate crime it which leads to some very memorable sweeps. The removal of tera blast basically takes that 1 volc out and says your options whether its for volc or not for volc are solid enough to reasonable block it from doing anything subjectively crazy or "wow this player could only do this because they had a volcarona" moments. If you do want to specifically answer volcarona with a teamslot, that is feasible through multiple already-OU ranked options so it is not without counterplay. Heatran/skeledirge/moltres make volcarona trivial and borderline too risky to commit your full teamcomp build for because the moth can't do shit other than wait for the team to try and 'make it usable' which is just a lot of commitment for something allegedly thanos.

Tera mono type and screens are the only thing that makes volc seem a bit over the fence but I haven't seen a volc sweep meaningfully or pull off anything unexpected yet and of the personal opinion if volc does break screens thats not mutually exclusive even with volc in the tier and can be dealt with at a later time. Its not worth banning volc over whether its broken behinds screens cause frankly there's a lot of things broken behind screens, it would just be even harder to get a 2nd volc trial after screens nerf/ban but also harder to get a suspect on screens/light clay as well, it'd be way easier to get a volc test for brokeness after its already in the tier and undeniably problematic, however I don't see that and I think a lot of the volcarona hate is just personal bias that hate seeing it.

 

[7ayakum]

Got my suspect reqs on Gen 9 OU for the first time in the Tera Blast suspect (better late than never), but I was late joining the discussion. However, I got my Volcarona reqs day one which I'm happy about, and I have a lot of thoughts about it.

I do believe Volcarona was rightfully banned each time it got suspected in Gen 9 OU, and I believe that still stands in the Tera Blast-free landscape.

While yes, Tera Dragon and Tera Fairy Volcarona were what ultimately pushed it over the edge for many players, I think its unfair to say that Tera Blast Grass didn't contribute to that as well. In fact, a lot people found Bulky Tera Blast Grass Volcarona to be the most broken set.

Of course we can't ignore the fact that 60% of Volcaronas ran Tera Blast when it was allowed, and this gave it the means to beat its checks in Dragonite, Heatran, and Ceruledge depending on the set. But that's part of the issue: who else do we really have in the tier that is able to deal with Volcarona on that level, or even close to it?

Off the top of my head, the main answers are things like Tornadus-Therian, but non AV sets can lose to AV Samurott-Hisui, which loses to Tera Grass, Walking Wake, which loses to Tera Grass or even Tera Fairy, and Cinderace, which can 2HKO most bulky Volcarona sets, but can lose to offensive Tera Fire Volcarona or bulky Tera Water Volcarona. Dragonite, Heatran, and Ceruledge are still important checks, but they are not exactly flawless either, especially when you factor in Flame Body, Will-O-Wisp, hazards, and support from Volcarona’s teammates.

Sure the Bulky Grass sets cannot beat the main three checks, well maybe Dragonite if it gets a Flame Body burn or burned via wisp. But Volcarona is an extremely easy Pokémon to support on a wide variety of team structures from HO, to standard Offense, to BO, and Balance. Through hazards and the sheer offensive power that comes with Gen 9, it's not particularly hard to chip Volcarona's checks or get rid of them entirely.

Gholdengo is a great partner for Volcarona because it constantly forces chip onto Heatran. Naturally, AV Samurott-Hisui will see more usage because of Volcarona, and that is obviously Gholdengo's favourite partner. Not only does Hamurott bring hazard support but it also helps pressure teams trying to rely on Heatran or other defensive structures to keep Volcarona in check.

Even if you pair Heatran with something like Ting-Lu or Samurott-Hisui to handle Gholdengo and let Heatran focus mainly on Volcarona, it still is not that reliable. Gholdengo can rack up permanent chip on those Pokémon throughout a game, has Focus Blast to hit them too, and Fairy-types like Enamorus and Iron Valiant can threaten those Gholdengo checks while also pressuring Heatran with Ground or Fighting coverage. With Dragonite being a solid Volcarona check now, those same Fairy-types become even more appreciated alongside Volcarona. You can try to use something like Slowking-Galar, but Volcarona can literally 1v1 that, and Pokémon like Samurott-Hisui and Gholdengo can either beat it or force progress against it. Those Fairy-types and Gholdengo also force Pokémon like Ceruledge out, potentially putting it in range of Psychic from Volcarona later.

I have also started seeing a lot of bulky Tera Water Volcarona, which can sometimes 1v1 Ceruledge and become a nuisance for Pokémon that use Tera Fire to try and check or beat Volcarona. On top of that, I think there is still a lot of innovation left with Volcarona. Because the majority of sets previously focused on Tera Blast, a lot of the creativity and optimisation on ladder was centered around that. Now that the metagame has fundamentally changed, more time will probably be spent optimising non-Tera Blast Volcarona sets. That's not to say there won't be innovation with checking Volcarona, but I think its significantly less than the that aimed at optimising Volcarona. Also, its checks are mostly the same, in fact we have fewer of them now since Pokémon like Roaring Moon and Gouging Fire are not even in the tier anymore.

There is also the argument that using Tera on Volcarona is a heavy commitment. I understand that point, but realistically, if you have a Volcarona, how often do you actually want to Tera something else? In my opinion, 90% of the time the answer is no. Volcarona is usually one of the best Tera abusers on the team, and Morning Sun lets it stay alive throughout longer games, giving it multiple chances to become a win condition.

The main thing for me is that I find it really difficult to call Volcarona a healthy presence in the metagame. I do not think there was anything in the tier that felt truly broken or unhealthy before this suspect test. If anything feels that way right now, it is Volcarona itself. There aren't any Pokémon that we need more help to beat via Volcarona. I do not think it adds anything particularly positive to the tier. What it does add is more restriction in the builder, more pressure to run very specific checks, and more games where the specific Tera type or set decides everything.

---

I happened to achieve my suspect reqs with this Tera Fire Iron Hands team

Iron Hands coincidentally became my answer to Volcarona in a lot of the games I played, mostly because I was already laddering with Iron Hands before the suspect was announced. I also had Dragonite, AV Samurott-Hisui, and Booster Speed Iron Treads, but Volcarona was still not an easy Pokémon to deal with.

I did end up winning against almost all of the Volcarona teams I faced, but Tera Grass was still very annoying. Even without Tera Blast, there is still a good level of unpredictability it can work with. Dragonite cannot just freely come in because it fears Will-O-Wisp, and Tera Grass forces Dragonite to click Ice Spinner more than once, which means more chances for Flame Body to activate.

The team was really fun though, and I might keep laddering with it to see if it is worthy of making an RMT. It is also the first time I got reqs with a team that I made myself, so that is pretty cool too.

Overall, I am currently leaning heavily towards ban. Volcarona is still too restrictive, still too easy to support, and still too good at turning limited counterplay into shaky counterplay. Even without Tera Blast, I do not think it makes the metagame healthier. However, I will play more of the ladder and use Volcarona as well as some other teams to get a more holistic perspective on it.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

not sure i'll be getting reqs since i got run over by a car that had just rear-ended another one, but i actually think volc is fine here. far as i've seen, the most unhealthy thing it's doing is giving easy setup opportunities to ceruledge, a mon that really shouldn't have easy setup opportunities, but it's not destabilizing anything to any significant degree. ceruledge being meta is poison to volc, heatran still does heatran things even though it's not the crazy widely used ol' reliable guy it was before, blissey's the same way, and skeledirge (an unironically goated mon that people have been sleeping on for ages) actually hard counters it even harder than heatran does. besides those guys who can check or counter every volc set at once, there's a good variety of stuff that checks specific volc sets. what do you do against prim or tera waterpon without giga drain? what do you do against moltres without some jank coverage like hurricane or psychic, especially if it just roars you out and forces you to fish for setup opportunities at a worse time? outside of clicking an appropriate defensive tera and praying, volc has very little recourse against a good amount of mons, far more than it could deal with when it had access to tera blast, and even then you need the exact right defensive tera and proper play to not get screwed. and i do like the defensive utility it's providing—it's always nice to have another option against kyurem, especially now that physical kyurem sets are mostly deprecated. it's still early enough that i can't firmly lock myself into the position, but i'm leaning towards an unban on this one

 

[JackRG]

Tbh from the 40 or so games I played I just don't see how Volcarona is broken. Naturally checked by a ton of common mons, meaning even if it manages to get a boost of two off its far from guaranteed to sweep. By gen 9's standards 135spa/100spe are honestly perfectly reasonable offensive stats and its difficulty breaking through already top tier mons means I will without a doubt be voting Unban

 

[N ™]

The reasoning behind this suspect is that tera blast was banned, so let's look at how that actually affected its matchups into defensive checks:

Before tera blast ban

With access to tera blast, the mons that can reliably switch in and deal with volcarona were, checks notes, one.


Calm mind blissey unsurprisingly checks the special sweeper because it's the only mon bulky enough to not care about any boosts or any type of tera blast, not that tb fighting was ever an option for volc anyway. This obviously almost doesn't even count because blissey is viable exclusively on stall which is a playstyle that never really cares about most setup sweepers anyway.

After tera blast ban

We do get more counters! As a matter of fact, this increased the amount of counters by an impressive 300%, for a total of... 4 mons.


These mons all reliably beat volcarona. You might notice that apart from blissey, they are all fire types, meaning that if you are running anything that is not stall or ho, you have to run one of these or your volc matchup will always suck. These are good and can fit organically on some teams, but they are far from universally applicable, and even if you are willing to look past the insanity of certain playstyles being locked into a couple mons, a lot of structures just cannot fit them without compromising many different matchups, without even mentioning how this metagame has so many different sweepers you need to not lose on the spot to that it's not even hard at all to overload the dedicated volc counter and lose to volc anyway.
Heatran covers a bunch of matchups and has some good utility, but it has no recovery and to even beat morning sun volc it's also forced to run flash fire over flame body and heat crash, or taunt and risk bad magma storm luck. It's also too much of a momentum sink for some teams.
Moltres isn't a momentum sink thanks to U-turn and it can check many different physical attackers, but lacks some key resistances to rely on it successfully role-compressing, and it is also forced to run either brave bird or roar to beat sunny day volc.
Skeledirge isn't locked into a specific set, but it's by far the most niche and checks maybe three other mons you might worry about.
Not losing on the spot to any of this metagame's sweepers is already so hard to do without stall, but now you're also invalidating any structure that can't afford to run a fire type defensively.

There is two more options worth talking about: emergency tera fire tech and
Tera fire is not enough to keep it in check for all the same reasons the other counters can't fit on a lot of teams: the opportunity cost to give up a different tera type you might need for a different matchup is bad enough, but also now instead of having to slot a mon on a structure it doesn't fit on, you just start every match against volc with a resource disadvantage because you need to tera every time.
Dragonite is also a bad answer simply because of burn. Even if you're not up against specifically wisp volc, you are still in risk of your dnite being invalidated for the rest of the game by flame body every time you attack, and even dragon tail variants aren't safe against tera fairy, no need for tera blast.
"But what about running X mon for this set and Y mon for that other set?"
This has two problems. 1, there aren't many combinations that do this that are already good into the rest of the metagame, and even counting those that are this locks two mons put of 6 of your structure and ends up somehow even more restricting than just picking one of the previously mentioned counters. More importantly though is what happens when you're actually playing against volc: say you're running scale shot dnite for non wisp volc and garg for wisp volc. Volc hits the field and you switch into garg as they quiver dance. You click salt cure, as they click tera grass Giga Drain and your garg is suddenly down to 20% and even if you now switch into dnite their pult/zapdos/cinderace etc is now impossible to deal with. Alternatively say you switch into dnite first to be met with wisp on the turn after qd. Your just don't know what set it is until you gamble on it and volcarona is explosive enough for one bad guess to completely ruin your game.

Defensive benefits of volcarona itself

For some reason this is part of every argument unban people make. Volcarona is a kyurem check, but so is moltres in the exact same way and only until specs draco or dd scale shot comes out. Volcarona can burn kingambit but once again so can moltres, and this is even riskier because a lum berry or tera fire, which it sometimes actually runs even without volc in the picture, turns your check into a setup opportunity. I was going to look for more examples, but I'm honestly not even sure what others there would be because volcarona is just not a great defensive mon and what makes it good mon in general is inherently tied to what makes it bad for the metagame, there are no volc sets that aren't an unhealthy presence. Plus, what happened to not arguing for broken checking broken? If these mons really need more checks because the current meta doesn't have enough then maybe they are just too strong and should be going to the chopping block.

Because of all these reasons I will be voting DO NOT UNBAN, and I will be very sad if unban wins

 

[RoyalDispenser]

Realistically most sweepers have very few counters and a lot of checks.

acting like 4 completely viable non-RU-shitmon stonewalls/phasers is insignificant is disingenuous when those are 4 counters (I'd argue maybe not blissey into the very niche safeguard set but there's no real reason to run that set over others atm) you can use to guarantee your draft doesn't have volc problems in addition to several checks that volcarona can't blow past/one shot now whether you use those specific answers alongside them or not.

For example, is still a very good check into volcarona, is a decent switchin to volc with its typing only threatened by psychic, doesn't 'counter' an already QD'd volc but it does use volc as setup fodder 1 on 1 and switches into it consistently, beats anything non-giga drain, and volc is still very managable from various defensive tera types such as tera fire . You could throw in some niche revenge killers in the mix like but its not necessary. can still run unaware and para non-lum variants. You can see adaptions of lum berry to check will-o-wisp varients too since if volc stays in to wisp a dragonite now suddenly you know it lacks a vital coverage option needed for beating something else that checks volc but you unintentionally have on the team regardless of one.

, , , reliably shutdown volc from ever doing anything productive which is more than I can say about idk who is going to make direct answers take unappreciated knock offs or chip them each switch in to the point they can't actually 'counter' it anymore.

Counter is something that beats volcarona completely unconditional and... genuinely those are hard to find for a lot of the tier (who 'counters' gholdengo exactly? Not checks I mean flat out one sided all scenario impossible to circumvent counters it like skeledirge does to volc?). Checks are all over the place set dependent, TB ban no longer makes its counter list nonexistent and its checks have a more comfortable time since you don't need to consider fairy STAB in the mix either.

Even something like Ting-lu can muscle a QD'd volc and phase it out for something else to setup and take down manually;

+1 252 SpA Volcarona Bug Buzz vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 284-336 (55.2 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

[JackRG]

The reasoning behind this suspect is that tera blast was banned, so let's look at how that actually affected its matchups into defensive checks:

Before tera blast ban

With access to tera blast, the mons that can reliably switch in and deal with volcarona were, checks notes, one.


Calm mind blissey unsurprisingly checks the special sweeper because it's the only mon bulky enough to not care about any boosts or any type of tera blast, not that tb fighting was ever an option for volc anyway. This obviously almost doesn't even count because blissey is viable exclusively on stall which is a playstyle that never really cares about most setup sweepers anyway.

After tera blast ban

We do get more counters! As a matter of fact, this increased the amount of counters by an impressive 300%, for a total of... 4 mons.


These mons all reliably beat volcarona. You might notice that apart from blissey, they are all fire types, meaning that if you are running anything that is not stall or ho, you have to run one of these or your volc matchup will always suck. These are good and can fit organically on some teams, but they are far from universally applicable, and even if you are willing to look past the insanity of certain playstyles being locked into a couple mons, a lot of structures just cannot fit them without compromising many different matchups, without even mentioning how this metagame has so many different sweepers you need to not lose on the spot to that it's not even hard at all to overload the dedicated volc counter and lose to volc anyway.
Heatran covers a bunch of matchups and has some good utility, but it has no recovery and to even beat morning sun volc it's also forced to run flash fire over flame body and heat crash, or taunt and risk bad magma storm luck. It's also too much of a momentum sink for some teams.
Moltres isn't a momentum sink thanks to U-turn and it can check many different physical attackers, but lacks some key resistances to rely on it successfully role-compressing, and it is also forced to run either brave bird or roar to beat sunny day volc.
Skeledirge isn't locked into a specific set, but it's by far the most niche and checks maybe three other mons you might worry about.
Not losing on the spot to any of this metagame's sweepers is already so hard to do without stall, but now you're also invalidating any structure that can't afford to run a fire type defensively.

Let's be real here. 4 hard counters is way more than most pokemon in SV OU have. The reality is in a metagame like this one most pokemon are just going to have multiple soft checks rather than any hard counters, so I fail to see how Volcarona is any different from dragonite, and especially Woger and gambit who have 0 hard counters compared to Volcarona's 4. Just by looking at any successful OU team, you'd be hard pressed to find any teams that would even have to make small adjustments to account for tera blast-less volcarona

 

[CodeFour]

i was gonna try for reqs but i had to stay over at work to finish this really crazy crash report. really though ive been trying today im on my third run i made it pretty far but always get a loss before 20 wins in a row. its tough. im just not that good. lost twice today to that hydrapple team posted in the discussion thread.

im gonna run this same account for the rest of the night and see if i can get the GXE up but not feeling good about it.

I really could go either way on volcarona and not sure how id vote if i made it. love it defensively. hate getting swept by it. I started using heatran but you're playing 5v5 waiting on them to use volcarona

 

[LoseToRU?]

For why, though?

My first reaction was whatever. I haven't played since 2025 and just came back about 2 weeks ago. TB ban- whatever. A small concession that Tera is beyond cringe and always will be. When you have to start Frankenstein chopping up a gimmick it's time to reflect. That's like banning certain Z-Moves. Gave me a good chuckle but it did take away what little fun Tera did offer, which was letting lower tier mons have a decent tool to work with. We can't ban Nite, though, so it had to be chopped up.

Anyway, after playing some ladder this week, Volc is absolutely going to make the meta worse.

Passive status abilities are annoying and uncomp af. One of the worst aspects of gen 8 was a player in a losing position just sending in Zap and getting their prayers answered. We don't need more of this.

We have some smart, talented builders out there. Volc is a win button on so many different structures. Players are already getting creative.

There seems to be a weird, political sort of push for this mon- or like a false hype that we're doing the tier justice, or something. This entire endeavor just reeks of a strange desperation. If the tier was really good, we wouldn't be trying to bring down ubers. Leki was fine, this is a bridge too far.

Just drop Moon next, who cares, right? TB pushed it out, it's only "fair" we give it another chance. This is the logic we're using? Was/is there really a massive demand from the playerbase to drop these mons? Are they thinking this will make the meta better?

Let me take this post from another thread and make sense of it- my two cents will be in red:

Let's list as many Volcarona counters/checks I can think of off the top of my head!

Clear cut counters, able to switch-in fairly easily in most match-ups with no worries.
(Taunt) Yes, tran has literally always been Volcs #1 enemy.
Already dipping into Unaware UU shitters I see.
Nice, number three and we have a passive, dedicated special wall. Looking real nice so far.
(Brave Bird, Roar) Brave....Bird..... not only is that set wildly ass and unreal, but do you already see what Volc is doing? Roar is a temporary solution. Volc will absolutely be the last mon that tears your balance team to shreds.
(AV) Have fun with hazards. The most successful Volc teams I've seen so far are hazard stacking Balance with Volc in the back. +1 68 SpA Volcarona Giga Drain vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Primarina: 130-154 (40.4 - 47.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes So, you scared +1 Volc out, now try it again 12 turns later. No recovery, taking hazards. They either fire off two Gigas and KO, or QD + Giga and it's over.
(AV) Hazards, no psy noise to stop morning sun, QD just meme'n on you. Do y'all even know Volc at all? Like wtf are we even talking about. 216+ SpA Kyurem Earth Power vs. +1 0 HP / 0 SpD Volcarona: 68-80 (21.8 - 25.7%) -- 1.5% chance to 4HKO
Psyshock, what a cool move fr.. but I digress. A counter should be able to hard switch in on a +1 Volc, like the actual counters such as Tran and Skele. Yet, look what we have here again. 152+ SpA Slowking-Galar Psyshock vs. 80 HP / 252 Def Volcarona: 121-144 (36.5 - 43.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO okay, cool, right? Not really. +1 0 SpA Volcarona Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 96 SpD Assault Vest Slowking-Galar: 106-126 (26.9 - 31.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes Volc wins this 1v1 with Morning Sun.
lol.
lmao, even.

The so-called "clear cut counters" are dedicated stall mons, a literally fake Molt set, and AV mons that require max HP, no hazards, and still can quite easily lose to the correct set. Prima, Tran and Glowking are fairly splashable and at least, in the perfect scenarios, stop certain Volcs from sweeping.

Solid checks that can answer Volcarona offensively even at +1, or via proper scouting
Good check. Can't be lame-bodied burned, Flash Fire, and a Bitter Blade. +1 252 SpA Volcarona Psychic vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Ceruledge: 151-178 (51.8 - 61.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO So, even though this mon is on Tran's level of seemingly being built to handle Volc, it has to be careful. Bitter Blade + Sneak is a KO, though.
Can't safely E-cheese due to FB- Wisp is GG. Nite can win the 1v1, obviously, just not when burned.
+1 252 SpA Volcarona Psychic vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Cinderace: 191-225 (63.4 - 74.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO This is a decent check, though. Pyro is a clean 2HKO and does more than what Morning Sun can heal off, but that second turn is a predict on Sucker Punch or not- SP wins, or they MS and heal up. Now, let's be fair- is Psychic + Morning Sun a real set? Maybe, it could be lol. But yeah, this is a check forsure, you just take a huge chunk from offensive sets.
+1 Psychic is a OHKO. If it comes in on a +1 there's the obvious Protect where they just QD again, or they just KO. As with Cinder, it at least forces some prediction.
Like Nite except no Multiscale or prio - just gets burned and set up on. D-tail is w/e - not a permanent solution.
Like Chomp except takes more SR damage and can't phase it out.
+1 252 SpA Volcarona Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Glimmora: 362-426 (117.9 - 138.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Gets Wisp'd- specs is fodder. T-wave is your best bet lol
RU bad boy getting burned on a dragon tail that does 20%. Nice.
Not bad, actually. IronPress obviously loses, but boots attacker is nice if it can hit that SE. +1 Psy only does max 97% - if burned, it is not a OHKO on bulky variants and all they need is one miss to morning sun up. But yeah, you can trade Zama forsure.
Boulder is a pokemon, that we can agree on. Mighty Cleave smashes, but that also means you have it on your team.
Another mon that is forsure a pokemon. It's cool that Volc makes you look at the builder and go, "fuck it, H-Arcanine, maybe?"
Only Specs cleanly wins the 1v1, and still takes a ton from Psychic. If SR are up then it is essentially a trade, which is fine. This mon and set are not splashable whatsoever. The bulky Giga set can handle non-specs Volcan if Volc is at +1 when it comes in- between wasting Steam PP and Giga there are scenarios where the Fire/Water mon still loses.
Sure, man.
(AV Nuzzle) Solid check. Just in the same boat as AV Glowking where hazards need to be gone. Psyshock is a 2HKO. If they Sub on the Nuzzle it's GG, though.

Some of these checks are good vs the right sets, but often require 100% HP, with some being overall subpar mons. Let's remember that Volc doesn't have to sweep. A team structure sometimes just needs the right mon gone and it's over. Volc is trading or leaving the opposing mon very weak.

I'm not trying to be disingenuous. Yes, many of these sets check/counter certain variants- I just listed variants that they struggle with. It's to show how versatile and straight up deadly Volcarona is. Notice how I haven't touched on Tera yet, though. See my Cinder calc below.

Good team builders will tailor their Volc to handle exactly the mons their team benefits most by being gone/heavily weakened. You can't save Zama for late game Gambit when it took 90% from a Psychic. That offensive 3 attack set will struggle more with AV Prima, but they built around Prima already- they have a Glowking in the back. Or, inversely, their team handles Zama, and they need Prima gone- so they bring a bulky Giga Volc. This is a basic concept of the game we play. Mons that can choose their checks put a massive strain on team building and thus the meta.

Solid checks that can absolutely force a tera, forcing the opponents hand through mechanics alone





(T-Wave)





(AV)

I'm actually not touching this category. "Forcing a tera" as if that's a bad thing. Oh no, you forced my Volc to go Grass- now your Volcanion is setup fodder and I win. Damn, sucks I was forced to Tera and win.

We have a mon that can essentially pick and choose its own counters. That's insanely strong on its own, but when you factor in Tera, which is essentially a free turn to QD, burn, recover, attack, etc then not only is it choosing its counter in the team builder, it can bypass the mons that would normally do well vs certain sets via Tera.

Example: You have a bulky Volc with Flame and Giga as your only attacking moves. You have a good team that highly benefits from this set. You have chosen your own checks/counters, of which there are few already. Cinderace comes in. Any other meta? Yeah, this is a check. But watch the shitter gen 9 magic at play- 252 Atk Cinderace Pyro Ball vs. 80 HP / 252 Def Tera Water Volcarona: 93-110 (28 - 33.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO The check is now setup fodder. GG.

This argument is not what you think it is. I've seen it countless times when someone is defending a broken/unhealthy mon.

How long before we see Tera Dark Volc break past an AV Glowking and sweep? Volc just needs one turn sometimes, and "forcing a tera" is just that. Tera Ghost for Blissey? Fairy for Dragon Tail? This mon will have several very viable, common teras, and a good amount of more niche, but quite effective unpredictable ones.

Belongs in its own category
- Pokemon that are able to threaten easily mid-game due to knock off, thunder wave, encore, etc.
- Weather mons that are able to switch into Volcarona at least once and threaten with utility, or pokemon that are marginally faster than Volcarona even at +1 and are able to threaten in some type of way
(Tera Dragon) - No bug buzz = the most annoying giga wall volcarona will probably ever come across
- Pokemon that answer through tera quite reliably with a higher game-ending ceiling should Volc attempt to set-up
- Pokemon with a higher speed tier even at +1 thanks to booster energy can counteract Volcarona fairly well. Trick users with choice scarf can threaten Volcarona out quickly.

Memes





Not touching this section either. Between the right Tera, burn, or set they all get easily handled. Tera Ground/Sub memes on T-Wave. Tera Grass laughs at Sand. Wake is the same as Volcanion, Trick Meow/Rai is fine, I guess, but when we get into the Tera Dragon Garg section of a post I think it's time to wrap it up.

For fun, though: 252+ Atk Choice Band Barraskewda Liquidation vs. 248 HP / 104 Def Tera Water Volcarona in Rain: 203-239 (54.4 - 64%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Oh jeez.. did I just list like, half of the tier? This 'mon is as BALANCED as it gets.

As balanced as it gets. With all caps, no less.

Forcing players to now work around such a complex mon, with so many viable sets, with so many insane tools, is not what SV OU needs at all right now.

From Finch's post, "I would probably make Kingambit Tera Fire or Lum Berry if Will-o-Wisp Volcarona picks up" Why even contend with that? The Tera Dark is much better overall for that team, but now bro is forced to run a certain set. Again I ask, for why, though? Where are the arguments for what dropping this Uber will ADD to the meta. We can argue about what sets check and counter which mon all day, but WHY is Volc necessary for this meta? Did we need more Flame Body procs, guessing which set it is, and needing dedicated checks that hardly overlap with anything else?

The mon will stay, because of course it will. I never said it was hard broken, just very unhealthy and adds nothing positive to the meta. By even dropping it in the first place the outcome was decided. I predict it will be seen in retrospect as a mistake, and just be a final footnote in the sad obituary of SV OU.

You will load up a game 3 months from now and wish Volc wasn't here. You will sigh and rub your eyes. You will go to your already strained team builder and say, "idk, Tera Fire Hawlucha might work?"

 

[Piyu]

Not broken but very unfun to play against

Volc adds even more variance to a meta already full of that. Makes the already broken HO even more broken as suddenly u have a check to common revenge killers and at even in worst case u probably get off a flame body on something important. I am sure most of u will agree that static and flame body are some of the worst aspects of modern gen OUs. Def don't need more of that

 

[DiegoVstar]

I most likely won’t be making reqs but I would be voting unban if I did. It’s not broken, more so on the balanced side. This is more of a pointless testing since Tera Blast doesn’t exist in OU now, which is what made Volcarona so good. There are many checks and counters to Volc like Heatran, Skeliderge, Moltres, Blissey, etc. It got banned before (twice) and shouldn’t be banned a third time. I’m sure 99% of the people here would agree with me.

 

[Whaloob]

I most likely won’t be making reqs but I would be voting unban if I did. It’s not broken, more so on the balanced side. This is more of a pointless testing since Tera Blast doesn’t exist in OU now, which is what made Volcarona so good. There are many checks and counters to Volc like Heatran, Skeliderge, Moltres, Blissey, etc. It got banned before (twice) and shouldn’t be banned a third time. I’m sure 99% of the people here would agree with me.

Don’t take for granted that Tera Blast was responsible for Volcarona being broken just because it used Tera Blast a lot. Tera Blast was its best option in many situations—that’s why it used it 60% of the time—but when discussing how broken Volcarona is relative to pre-TB-ban Volcarona, the question isn’t how often TB was best for it, but how much better it made Volcarona. To give a contrived example, if Volcarona had special fire type Boomburst, it would almost certainly use it 99+% of the time, but that doesn’t make it responsible for Volc being broken, it’s just one of the many ingredients.

Anyway, I won’t deny that Volcarona does some good for the tier. It checks several of the tier’s biggest monsters in Gambit, Zama, special Kyurem, Ghold, etc., all in 1 slot. We’re saved! Well, more like under new management. It doesn’t need TB to boast overwhelming set variety, and tera is still really strong on Volcarona even without TB. “Runaway sweeper benefits from a variety of defensive tera types” is not a new formula, and for most of the counters Volc would use TB to break through, a defensive tera and further setup is an acceptable path to almost as potent results. Even Heatran with taunt is in danger of being broken through: if an offensive Heatran comes in on QD, then Volc QDs again on the taunt, Volc will win 1v1 with Psychic if it has either a fire-resistant (not ground weak) tera like Water or Dragon, or tera Psychic. Spdef Heatran fares better but still needs to be nearly full to win this exchange. This is Volcarona’s most notorious counter, mind you.

Also, as much as hazard vomit has been a defining characteristic of the SV OU meta throughout its lifetime, we are at a point in the meta where hazard-weak mons can be supported and even stacked together onto 1 team by supporting them with a hazard removal duo, be it Hatt/Treads, Hatt/Tusk, Corv/Ace, Tusk/Ace, Hatt/Gweez, Ace/Gweez, and so on. As much as most Volcarona are going to run boots, and worry little about knock off anyway because they don’t need to come in and out often, the fact is Volcarona doesn’t necessarily need boots. Sub-Swarm Volcarona with Lefties is an incredible set (and Lefties in general are excellent on Volc), Rocky Helmet is surprisingly good on bulky Volc to make trading with it positively that much harder, Covert Cloak trolls Garg harder than you already do with Tera Grass, Mental Herb can get you an extra QD vs Heatran (and screw over fast Encore vs the hard read IVal swap, since you outspeed booster Val at +2), Grassy Seed or Kee Berry could be the gimmick choice that gets your Volc through revenge kill attempts alive, Throat Spray procs on Bug Buzz, LO does standard LO things and lets you break things with 1-2 fewer QDs than you would’ve needed, and while for the remaining items you’d probably rather just have boots, the list of niche item choices goes on.

Basically, unlike before, it now loses to Skeledirge and is a little easier to soft check. It’s still broken, and it should still stay locked up in Ubers.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

I wish players would post replays more often in these suspects, I understand why its a bit hard to do that for the previous one but like...

Where's the demonstrations that volc sweeps happen against good teams on a regular basis? Cause at this point we can just pivot the topic of 'threatening sweeper' to 'utility moth' if no one can show off the goods high ladder where volcarona does something illegal against a good team.

I think we keep echo chambering what happens to <1200 players or 10 years ago cause majority of teams just built with proper fundamentals don't really go out of their way for volc, teams that do should have no excuse and the fact players are makes volc a bit of liability to even be using (matchup pokemon has way WAY more worse matchups than good ones, and the ones its supposed to be good against can also tech uno reverse it like iron valiant).

Replays would certainly help showcase flame body's somewhat cringe nature, but also flame body is not mutually exclusive to volc and you'd be running flame body moltres in I would assume all those situations anyways, so where's the replays and vod reviews that demonstrate volcarona's offensiveness/defensiveness genuinely corners players into bad situations or does more than the average pokemon is capable of doing? Show reasonable examples where you were face to face with a volc and had to commit a coinflip decision because of its set that lost the game.

I'm very anti-ban on this but I would love to see the teams that lose to this or the opportunities you get your volc win heist in cause I really doubt most of everyone's laddering had to do with any of that bar the occasional FB burn putting is work in games volc is typically useless otherwise in.

IME volc is sometimes just not even worth using over other options and maybe my perception is kinda fucked cause it just feels like a liability.. moltres is far more consistent at its job, and even though most players have a 1/5 chance the volc they're checking is the volc that actually participates in the win, that's still 4/5 volcs flying infront of cars..

 

[moore's law]

I don't really have a horse in the race here, but I am not convinced by the do not unban arguments.

I don't have the time to read everything in detail, but to (grossly) simplify the arguments, it really sounds like the argument sums up to "it adds variance and is not fun to play against, but is not necessarily broken." I don't think that should be grounds for banning something, because fun is subjective. There is no shortage of stuff that's quite unfun to play against (at least with the wrong matchups) like sub protect Kyurem and Garganacl, but I don't think we have many people arguing that they are banworthy. And if flame body and static were ban worthy (they are not), we should have gotten rid of Moltres and Zapdos years back.

We know that Volcarona was manageable in prior gens and we have more tools than before to check it with new mons like Skeledirge, Clod and Ceruledge. If anything, it doesn't have easy access to psychic terrain setter as it did in past gens to muscle past stuff with boosted psychic, and I don't see anyone arguing about the brokenness of tera psychic moth.

I think it would be better to focus on why it is broken. Yes, moth is very scary with multiple boosts, but who does it get so many chances to QD in front of? Almost every mon in OU carries some way to cripple it, be it nuzzle/twave, toxic, roar/dtail or just one or two shotting it with physical moves. I had a look at every mon in OU, and I think this is the exhaustive list of OU mons it can set up in front of naturally:
- Mola
- Clef without twave
- Corv without brave bird
- darkrai without twave or trick (or choice locked into something like ice beam)
- deoxys
- dozo without waterfall (it can beat that with giga drain, but giga drain is its worst coverage option)
- dragapult that is not attack invested or twave
- enamorus
- some tusks (can't be booster attack or speed booster, the prior does a LOT with headlong, the latter definitely has a rock move) - it does threaten to kill though, so you are probably not leaving your tusk in against volc
- iron crown
- iron moth
- treads
- special val
- sub protect and specs kyurem
- special lando
- pecharunt if it has malignant chain and volc is cloak
- some raging bolts
- rilla

Many of these mons are naturally paired with things that are hard checks to Volcarona, for example those kyurem sets with GKing. I will note that the vast majority of mons either threaten it because they status it (twave/toxic) or phase it out, so teraing will not necessarily change things against them (it won't against mons that phase it out). It does get a few more setup opportunities to set up against stuff like glimmora and some physical attackers like Garg if it runs cloak with tera, and can "choose" which status it gets to avoid with tera electric/ground/poison/steel if it so desires to avoid paralysis or toxic (no one is bringing serperior in on it to glare, so tera ground is good enough for blocking para.)

This isn't such a big list, all things considered, a setup sweeper that could only setup against 1 or 2 mons would be unviable. If someone is able to show me a team comp or even just a good, exhaustive set of replays that highlights the presence of volc allowing teams to abuse it to pressure these mons to win easily or force unhealthy interactions, I think it would be more convincing.

 

[Baharoth]

I wish players would post replays more often in these suspects, I understand why its a bit hard to do that for the previous one but like...

Where's the demonstrations that volc sweeps happen against good teams on a regular basis? Cause at this point we can just pivot the topic of 'threatening sweeper' to 'utility moth' if no one can show off the goods high ladder where volcarona does something illegal against a good team.

I think we keep echo chambering what happens to <1200 players or 10 years ago cause majority of teams just built with proper fundamentals don't really go out of their way for volc, teams that do should have no excuse and the fact players are makes volc a bit of liability to even be using (matchup pokemon has way WAY more worse matchups than good ones, and the ones its supposed to be good against can also tech uno reverse it like iron valiant).

I believe you are missing the point here. It's not about Volc sweeping good teams on a regular basis because it does something illegal. Obviously a good team will be prepared for it to some extent, Volc is going to be an A- threat at least, a team that gets 6-0ed by it wouldn't be good by any stretch of the word.

The issue at play here is that teams already need to deal with an absurd amount of powerful sweepers that need to be covered somehow or they will just run away with games. And to make it worse, they don't need 1 such check per threat, but 2 or 3 to cover different sets, account for your checks being worn down by other stuff and tera simply turning your check into a victim. Making a good team is already akin to working your way through a page long check list written in tiny letters full of stuff you absolultely need and the amount of role compression needed to accomplish that is excessive already, limiting choices.

Adding Volc to this meta will just add half a dozen more checks you have to make on your list and more match up based loses because with this new threat you need to cover, chances are your team will lose the ability to check something else.

In my opinion this suspect boils down to what role one believes banning should play.
If someone is of the opinion that mons should only be banned if they are broken and unbanned if they aren't, then Volc should be unbanned no questions asked.
But if the vote is based on whether the mon is a good/healthy influence on the meta then things aren't as clear anymore and arguably a lot more subjective.
Personally, I don't see Volc bringing much good to the tier. Yes it has some defensive uses but there are plenty of other mons you can use that provide the same thing. However, unlike those mons Volc is a huge threat of its own that needs to be answered. At the end of the day it raises more questions than it answers in a tier that is already starving for answers.

The matter would be different if this was about banning Volc but it's already banned, we are talking about unbanning it and there is no reason to do so unless one strongly believes it's going to be a healthy addition to the tier.

 

[Alternator]

In response to complaints about how Volcarona will add team building pressure and it's just another offensive mon to prepare for and that's doubleplus ungood, what about the fact that Volcarona, itself, is a pretty good blanket answer to special attackers for an offensive team, while having no shortage of checks and a handful of hard counters?

This is a genuine question because I am lousy at team building, but can anybody post an otherwise-solid team that just gets steamrolled by an ordinary Volcarona set? It seems like there's a lot of complaining about how hard it is to manage in the builder, but I've not actually seen any evidence of that, just that people don't like it.

Which, fine, people will vote for whatever reason they want, but "I don't like it" is a really lousy reason.

 

[moore's law]

I think this is the exhaustive list of OU mons it can set up in front of naturally:
- Mola
- Clef without twave
- Corv without brave bird
- darkrai without twave or trick (or choice locked into something like ice beam)
- deoxys
- dozo without waterfall (it can beat that with giga drain, but giga drain is its worst coverage option)
- dragapult that is not attack invested or twave
- enamorus
- some tusks (can't be booster attack or speed booster, the prior does a LOT with headlong, the latter definitely has a rock move) - it does threaten to kill though, so you are probably not leaving your tusk in against volc
- iron crown
- iron moth
- treads
- special val
- sub protect and specs kyurem
- special lando
- pecharunt if it has malignant chain and volc is cloak
- some raging bolts
- rilla

I realized that it isn't even guaranteed setup in front of Lando (since 50% of them carry taunt and bulky volc is outsped by lando so it gets no boosts), most deoxys (~60% carry taunt) and valiants with either encore or taunt as well. So it is only free to click QD blindly, unpunished without scouting against Mola, Enamorus, Iron Crown, Iron Moth, Iron Treads and Rilla. Treads can carry stone edge for it in theory as well, but generally doesn't have the moveslots for it, and mola does over 30 when it flips out on the QD turn.

Of these, only treads, moth and mola are really common in OU. The others are decent in OU, don't get me wrong, but they don't see as much usage. I'm guessing Iron moth will probably see its usage drop as well while Volcarona is around because Volcarona generally outclasses it.

You are also guaranteed setup against corv in the early game regardless of whether it has brave bird or not because no one is risking their corv until it has done its job, but setting your volc up early game is unlikely to result in a sweep because things are probably not chipped enough, and your opponent's checks are probably healthy. It can definitely use the opportunity to wallbreak though.

 

[Baharoth]

In response to complaints about how Volcarona will add team building pressure and it's just another offensive mon to prepare for and that's doubleplus ungood, what about the fact that Volcarona, itself, is a pretty good blanket answer to special attackers for an offensive team, while having no shortage of checks and a handful of hard counters?

This is a genuine question because I am lousy at team building, but can anybody post an otherwise-solid team that just gets steamrolled by an ordinary Volcarona set? It seems like there's a lot of complaining about how hard it is to manage in the builder, but I've not actually seen any evidence of that, just that people don't like it.

Which, fine, people will vote for whatever reason they want, but "I don't like it" is a really lousy reason.

Just think a bit more indepth about that "having no shortage of checks and hardcounters" argument.

What "hardcounters" are there? Heatran, Moltres, Skeledirge, Blissey, Clodsire, Toxapex. Skeledirge is an UU mon that has very little use aside from checking Volc in OU and the other 3 are basically stall only options and also UU. So assuming we aren't playing stall we don't have 6 counters available but 3, one of which is sub par for just about anything else.

Out of the remaining 2, Moltres can't even touch Volc with it's currently used sets, it will need to run Bravebird or Hurricane to serve as a counter going forward. 2 moves that do pretty much nothing else aside from beating Volc. /Edit nvm mixed up that up with prankster -.-

Then about checks. Dragonite and Zamazenta may look like checks on paper but then you run into a whisp set and now your check is set up fodder. Not to mention that Dnites E speed set for example only 3hkoes with it's strongest move aka EQ. Volc can actually beat it even without whisp if it has Morning Sun. Not to mention random burns. Meanwhile Zama can only touch it in the first place when running Stone Edge and Volcs higher speed + tera + psychic can mean it will beat Zama anyway. Cinderace or Ceruledge quickly end up losing against tera water + psychic coverage. I could continue this with more of the niche options presented as checks so far but i think this gets the point across.

It's easy to say Volc has a lot of checks/counters but if you look more closely and consider Volcs available options and the sets it's checks/counters typically run then it's easy to see that almost all those checks/counters only work against some of Volcs sets while losing to others. You can just apply these considerations to any team you like and see how safe the team actually is against Volc. Also keep in mind that any competent player making a team around Volc as it's win con will plan for it's checks and have ways to deal with them.

I think most people don't care much about these issues because they are likely going to happen like once in 50 games at best. So it's not significant and you can write it off but that just brings us back to those match up based losses i mentioned. If you don't mind those because they are rare then i guess for you there is no issue for you but i do consider them an issue. I don't want more of those. I am glad we got rid of many of those by banning tera blast, introducing more of them back into the tier by adding Volc and/or Moon means taking one or two steps back after taking one step forward. The meta is already oversaturated with threats, we don't need more.