np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 8 - Mr. Roboto (SEE POST #240)

[Shurtugal]

Very nice and thought out post Shurtugal. I agree with most of it, but here are my objections:

1. Expert Belt is not only useful against stall, it is useful for every team out there, as it is the best lure bar none, for almost any sweeper. If you go and take a look at the thread about which Genesect set is the best, you will see plenty of people mentioning the EB set. RP Genesect is one of the best sweepers to use against offensive teams, i agree, but what about balanced or even the occasional semi-stall teams? Heatran, Blissey, Chansey, Gyarados, Conkedlurr, Kyurem(-B), Ninetales, Tyranitar, Volcarona, Rotom-H and Victini all are pretty good checks/counters that any balanced team can use. Yeah i realize that Gyarados, Tyranitar, Kyurem-B, and Victini can be screwed by the appropriate move (Bug Buzz or Tbolt), but this is going to happen only the minority of the times. Balanced teams have plenty ways to deal with RP Genesect, unlike offensive teams. But because offensive teams are everywhere, and RP Genesect dominates them, this set ends up being the best sweeping set of Genesect. Opening the way for a sweeper, which is what EB Genesect does, is not inferior to actually sweeping, which is what RP Genesect does. People often forget the support pokes, and keep their eyes only on the big guns, which is a big mistake and can lead to many losses. There is a reason that every good player runs at least one lure on their teams, when they want to sweep with another offensive poke. This is because any good player will try as hard as he can to keep his checks and counters alive against the poke that has the better chances to end the game, aka your sweeper.

2. U-turn is not used only on choiced sets. This is easy to get if you read the above paragraph. EB set is as good as RP imo, and it uses U-turn to great extend.

As for my opinion about Genesect's tiering... I agree that once you learn Genesect's set it is much easier to handle, but the simple fact that you can suffer huge damage until you do is what makes it broken. It is true that most of the times you can tell the difference between the RP set and any other set, simply because the first is never played early game, where the latter is (even ignoring that if RP Sect uses EB it can bluff a choice set early game). But there is still the guessing game between the choiced and the EB sets. Simply use a sand team with EB Landorus-I and EB Genesect, and use another more unexpected scarfer, and watch how easy it is to make the opponent guessing all the time, and finally lure and kill the pokes that stop your sweepers. You don't even have to use another Scarfer. Simply by using those two together with either Scarf or EB, will put a huge strain to your opponent. Then there is the fact that most of Genesect's checks and counters are swiftly killed by Dugtrio, which comes in safely via U-turn. This leads to crappy and ridiculous measures, such as Shed Shell RestTalk Heatran. Using RestTalk without even Lefties in 5th gen. A strategy that was almost nonviable before Genesect was released, became one of the best ways to counter Genesect, alongside with outclassed UU pokes (Rotom-H). Now if this isn't a very strong sign that something is broken then i don't know what is.

So i believe that Genesect is broken, because of its unparalleled versatility, its ability to threaten every type of team with ease, its ability to support a team like no other poke can by luring and killing pokes with the EB set, the fact that there is almost no reason to not use Genesect in your team which leads to a decrease of diversity, and because it puts a huge strain on team building. I realize that some of those criteria might be very objective, but let's be honest; many bans that happened the past years were objective too.

Hey

The Expert Belt said is good, really. However, I just want to point out a few things about Genesect itself:

1. Choice sets tend to give themselves away: A scarf set will punish you with high-speed spamming U-turns and revenge kills, the Band set is going to wallbreak you (seriously, how do you NOT know a Banded Gene when you see one? the U-turn damage is usually astronomical) and the same for the Specs set (Bug Buzz kills so, so much). The advantage to this is that you can usually learn their sets very early in the match. The EB set and the RP set each have their drawbacks you can catch early. Stall's protect scouting or simply double switching can often catch an EB Genesect off guard, while the RP set simply either has LO or lack of U-turn, and like I mentioned earlier, they don't usually try to sweep early game because the opponent is likely to have their counter in tact. Bri mentioned it could go for an early game sweep, but so could RP Lando or Double Dance Terrakion if it set up on HP Grass locked Politoed and if it's counters were gone too.

2. Everyone think set X is Genesect's best set: Can we drop that arguement please? People think EB its best set, RP, Band, Specs, Scarf, I've seen many users argue this for what reason? All of it's sets are usable and great in the metagame and what sets you use depends on what you are looking for in Genesect.

3. RP Gene: It can run EB and bluff scarf here and there, but there are things that Scarf Gene will do and RP won't. Half the Scarf Gene's will lead, and U-turn ofc. Seeing U-turn on any Gene already tells you that you don't have to prepare for a RP sweep. Also, the RP Gene player has to be careful to not give away it's speed tier than you know EB / RP set comming, and the funny part is that most Scarf Gene players are newer players and will reveal their speed tier early on.

 

[alamaster]

So I ended up going 48-4 on the OU Current ladder, which goes to show how terrible the ladder is lol. 2 of my losses were to Rock Polish Genesect, and I prevented a ton of other potential losses to that set through solid playing. As it looks now, the team I used heavily overprepared for RP Genesect so I can't imagine a team that doesn't prepare for it doing well. The fact that I needed one check to the scarf set, 2 checks to the RP set just goes to show how strong Genesect is in this tier. Obviously I'm only halfway done the suspect test, but so far to me it is looking like Genesect is uber material.

 

[Pocket]

Congrats, ala and andeby, for being half-way there! ala, your team prepared well for Genesect, just like a good team should be prepared for any big threat. The question I have for you is this: were these checks added exclusively for Genesect? Was it useless or even a liability against teams without Genesect?

I am asking this question, because I found most checks to Genesect are really easy to fit in onto my team, and they are not dead-weight outside of checking Genesect. Sometimes, I don't even have a "hard check" for it; I just play around it with faster Pokemon, entry hazards, etc... pretty much how you deal with any other volt-turn Pokemon.

If it's RP Genesect in question, I just simply don't let it set up Rock Polish in the first place; or make sure I have strong priority (ie Breloom's Mach Punch) or a Pokemon healthy and bulky enough to take it's non-STAB moves.

 

[alamaster]

Thanks man, and to answer your question, they definitely weren't a liability on my team. If they were, I wouldn't have won as many matches as I had! The problem is the checks that Genesect loses to are few and far between, thus centralizing the metagame with the same checks over and over. If you look in the top 20 pokemon used, chances are a good number of them can deal with Genesect. The problem is given the right conditions (the right time to use Rock Polish, the right number of spikes/sr on the field to secure KOs for cleaning) Genesect can still break through these checks. That's what was so troubling for me, the fact that I had a team to combat Genesect with ease (supposedly) and still ended up losing to it.

 

[alexwolf]

@Shurtugal

When i said choiced sets, i wanted to say Scarf sets so sorry for that. Of 'course you will notice the power difference of Band and Specs. But it is really difficult to understand the difference between those two (EB and Scarf) when facing a good player, until it actually shows you it is not choiced locked. You also say that the Scarf set is easy to identify because it comes in against something fast and forces it out. First of all EB Genesect can do this easily too, because the opponent would never let their pokemon in, if it is slower than ScarfSect, only for the off chance that Genesect holds EB. So whenever EB Genesect gets a free switch against Latios, Landorus or Starmie, you can be almost sure that the opponent will switch out, because the threat of ScarfSect is simply too big to ignore (assuming that it is early game, so your opponent doesn't fear that Genesect is RP). And ScarfSect comes in plenty of times against pokes that are slower from Scarf-less Genesect, such as Ferrothorn, Celebi, and Gliscor. All the above mean that EB sets are really hard to identify when played correctly, because they bluff the scarf set so fucking well.

About which Sect set is the better. I am not interested at all in continuing this discussion, as opinions differ, but you brought this up in the first place:

EB Sets kind of lack that speed and only hurt stall, which means it isn't the best set for an offensive metagame right now.

And this is simply not true. EB Genesect can screw easily both offensive and balanced teams too. Against offensive teams, Genesect can easily kill a set-up sweeper trying to set-up against Genesect's supposed choice locked move. Against balanced teams it can easily lure and kill key walls, or set up sweepers in the same manner that he did against offensive teams. So at the end of the day EB and RP are both amazing sets, and you can't just say that EB is not its best set in this meta.

Finally i agree with what you said about RP Genesect. RP Genesect will rarely manage to bluff a scarf set, due to the reasons you mentioned. I just mentioned that it is still a possibility.

 

[Aqualouis]

Ok, i'm half-way since yesterday too.
My main trouble with Genesect is, as ala said, that it's centralizing the metagame. I played 54 battles to get the deviation and i probably faced at least 30/35 teams using Gensect, and 1 or 2 good teams without it. So obviously, most of the teams I faced are similar, built to be able to deal with Genesect, and it was like playing the same battle again and again.... Honestly, there is absolutely no fun in it. I'm not saying that Genesect is the most powerful Pokémon ever (he is a very very good 'mon indeed, but I can't affirm that lol), but in order to keep an interesting game, and not a metagame centralized over Genesect I think at the moment that we must ban it. I'ma test now the other ladder to see how the things could be without it, but I'm pretty sure it will be better. I hope not to be disapointed.

 

[BlankZero]

While I agree that Genesect's main problem is just over-centralization, there's some level of lethality to the Bug/Steel-type, or else it wouldn't over-centralize a meta-game in the first place. If it was just as overrated as you guys claim it is, wouldn't its usage either remain stagnant or drop otherwise? Why would it topple over Politoed in the usage thresholds?

All I'm saying here is that Usage =/= Power and that suspect test ladders are terribly skewed with Premade Winbutton Teams made for laddering quickly so you can vote.

Genesect is good, but I don't think it is broken. It sucks that when playing, you have to either dance around it or just bite the bullet and use it, and if ever there were a BL tier for OU, it would be in it, right along with Exa and Blaze and SV Chomp.

There will always be pokemon in every Gen that become stupid powerful the minute we figure out what the heck it can do, which takes a couple months of testing, trying it on several teams, posting our results, collaborating, realizing it has X move that it could theoretically abuse, and starting the whole process over. Genesect just happens to be that pokemon for BW2, just like Exa for BW, Blaze for DW, and Salamence in Gen3.

Also, its typing, while very good, needs the stats to back it up. It cannot win against most of the DDancers with STAB Outrage due to how frail it is. it dies horribly to fire. Fighting types in OU are superpowered to some extent (Terrakion) and can blow away any Genesect not running Iron Head, which is a rarity nowadays.

I'll stop here, but Genesect is not broken. He's good, but not Uber-Ban class.

 

[SalTheThief]

Also, its typing, while very good, needs the stats to back it up. It cannot win against most of the DDancers with STAB Outrage due to how frail it is. it dies horribly to fire. Fighting types in OU are superpowered to some extent (Terrakion) and can blow away any Genesect not running Iron Head, which is a rarity nowadays.

I'd just like to point out that Genesect is often on the way out with U-Turn rather than coming in on a move. It has the defenses to take some moves but to use him to tank a Terrakion Close Combat would be a waste of its potential.

 

[Huntofthelion]

I know this has been said before but I think people are confusing versatility and effectiveness with something being broken. Genesect is used a ton because it fits on all four of the major types of teams currently being used, Deo-D , Rain, Sand, Sun, but it's not impossible or even that difficult to play against. The band and non-RP Ebelt sets are ok, but I don't think they should even be discussed in deciding whether or not Genesect is broken; they aren't game breaking. Scarf is also way overrated in my opinion as it's not really fast enough to revenge the important speed boosters and it's setup bait if it's locked into anything early-mid game. Sure fast and decently strong U-turns is cool, but it's not that hard to deal with and it's not that much different than the other scouts being used. It's ability to clean late game is solid, but a lot of scarf users can clean up late if their checks are weakened. The Rock Polish set is really good, and it will sweep a lot of teams, but as other people have said most teams have a built in check to it. Sure it can get around every check it has but in doing so it leaves it self open to losing to other things, and in most cases if it's not running the standards it loses to more things total. This lets it act as a really good lure, but that's not game breaking either. His typing is cool but it just lets him set up things, he can't really switch in more than once to anything as long as SR is up.

Long story short Genesect isn't even as good as most weather abusers, his only advantage is that he fits well on every team thanks to solid typing and coverage. If you're keeping up the offensive pressure it shouldn't be hard to keep it from setting up, and the fact that if you guess wrong you lose a pokemon with Genesect is something easily attributed to many threats in the metagame. I want to be clear that I'm not saying I'm 100% sure that Genesect isn't broken or anything like that, I'm just saying that right now I remain really unconvinced that it's a) game breaking or b) centralizing the metagame more so than weather. My vote as of now is pretty undecided but for now I'd side with keeping it legal.

 

[Joeyboy]

ala, what sort of Pokemon were you running to check Genesect, out of curiosity.

Also, how do people get those little pictures of their ranking from PS?

 

[dice]

I personally use Terrakion / Heatran / Rotom-W commonly, but then again Dugtrio says hii. Genesect brings so many garbage strategies to the table.

 

[Schpoonman]

If we can all agree that Genesect is a centralizing Pokemon, what are the effects of his centralization? How will OU improve without his presence?

The metagame will slow down. Immensely. I've taken to using RPSect as an example. He is, in my opinion, THE most threatening sweeper in the OU metagame, currently. Every other sweeper, I can think of something on my current team to deal with. I have NOTHING to stop him, and my team is decently offensive. So an option would be "use a more dedicated special wall". Okay. Now I'm using Blissey instead of Jellicent. Whoops, that Genesect I had pegged for RP is actually CB and just took out most of my health with a boosted U-turn, and then Volcarona boosted and swept because Blissey was half-dead. Alternately: Now I've lost my spinblocker and Keldeo check. I can never keep rocks up and Keldeo now proceeds to do whatever the fuck it wants with my team.

Using walls isn't an option unless you are straight-up Jesus at team building, and most of us aren't. Now, I'm not a fan of stall (fuck Protect, I played a guy last night that would literally use Protect on his Gliscor every fucking turn he could, it never even accomplished anything), but the metagame has turned into "Use Genesect or use a substandard team."

Please, don't say any bullshit about "You don't HAVE to use Genesect for a team to be good!" He's the best Pokémon in the metagame by a mile and he instantly improves any team. That's too much. When we tested DrizzleSwim, did we see any Pokémon break 50% usage because they were an "instant win" button? No, because nothing was this good.

 

[PK Gaming]

ala, what sort of Pokemon were you running to check Genesect, out of curiosity.

Also, how do people get those little pictures of their ranking from PS?

-Terrakion
-Heatran (I was never too fond of shed shell)
-Rotom-W(until RP Giga Drain started catching on)
-Genesect

If it's choiced so I can rely on switching into resisted hits & faster Choice Scarf users. If it's RP, i'm going to do my damndest to stop it from setting up or get my shit wrecked. I don't "counter" with Genesect, I just make moves that make it less likely that I get my shit wrecked by it.

Print screen key (near the f12 button) --> pasting a picture on paint, photoshop, etc --> uploading onto a imagehost site like imgur.

 

[Huntofthelion]

The metagame will slow down. Immensely. I've taken to using RPSect as an example. He is, in my opinion, THE most threatening sweeper in the OU metagame, currently. Every other sweeper, I can think of something on my current team to deal with. I have NOTHING to stop him, and my team is decently offensive. So an option would be "use a more dedicated special wall".

I will respectfully disagree with RP Genesect being the most threatening sweeper in the metagame. He is very dangerous no question, but he can't sweep most well built teams without most of the other team taking residual damage. He can't boost his power which personally makes him less threatening then say Volcarona with rapid spin support, or something like Terrakion that can be more of a factor mid game. Also if your team has nothing to stop Genesect then you should probably fix your team, he's a pretty common threat.

Okay. Now I'm using Blissey instead of Jellicent. Whoops, that Genesect I had pegged for RP is actually CB and just took out most of my health with a boosted U-turn, and then Volcarona boosted and swept because Blissey was half-dead. Alternately: Now I've lost my spinblocker and Keldeo check. I can never keep rocks up and Keldeo now proceeds to do whatever the fuck it wants with my team.

What you have described is a lure, and is a role that a ton of Pokemon can do. Pretty much anything with strong attacking stats from both side and half decent coverage can pull off something similar. The only thing Genesect has over most of them is U-turn, which is nice but there are other advantages that other lures have. Being able to lure doesn't break something. CB Genesect isn't a major threat and if I saw an enemy Genesect do Iron Head I would be thrilled because that's a chance for something on my team to set up; either Skarmory / Ferro / Forry on a more defensive team or Lucario / Genesect / Scizor etc. on offense. If you are concerned about losing your dedicated special wall to a CB Genesect then you should have a backup special tank that can take the first hit until you know the set.

Using walls isn't an option unless you are straight-up Jesus at team building, and most of us aren't. Now, I'm not a fan of stall (fuck Protect, I played a guy last night that would literally use Protect on his Gliscor every fucking turn he could, it never even accomplished anything), but the metagame has turned into "Use Genesect or use a substandard team."

I disagree with this as well, you don't need Genesect to build a good team. It is a crutch pokemon for sure, meaning that you can rely on it to do a lot and it does make team building easier, but that is due to it's versatility not it's power. Yes, versatility is one of it's biggest strengths and if it is broken that is a contributing factor, but you don't need it by any stretch of the imagination.

Please, don't say any bullshit about "You don't HAVE to use Genesect for a team to be good!" He's the best Pokémon in the metagame by a mile and he instantly improves any team. That's too much. When we tested DrizzleSwim, did we see any Pokémon break 50% usage because they were an "instant win" button? No, because nothing was this good

Well that's a little awkward because I just said the aforementioned bullshit, but he's not the best by a mile he's just easy to fit onto teams. Look through and you'll notice that most of the big threats are usually held to one or two archetypes of the four that are really good right now (sun deo-d rain sand not in any specific order), where as Genesect has the set flexibility to be a sweeper on any of those types. Again, he's not that difficult to deal with and versatility does not make something broken.

 

[alamaster]

ala, what sort of Pokemon were you running to check Genesect, out of curiosity.

For Scarf Genesect I had Scarf Keldeo to outspeed it, and a couple resistances to Uturn. For Rock Polish I mainly used Thunderwave Ferrothorn in the rain (Flamethrower KO'd me at 89% though lol, mostly faced RP Sects without it though) and as a last ditch effort I'd use Perish Song on Politoed as Genesect RP'd. After you force it out you know its set and its a lot easier to deal with. Not the greatest checks but somehow it worked out.

 

[Dark Fallen Angel]

I disagree with this as well, you don't need Genesect to build a good team. It is a crutch pokemon for sure, meaning that you can rely on it to do a lot and it does make team building easier, but that is due to it's versatility not it's power. Yes, versatility is one of it's biggest strengths and if it is broken that is a contributing factor, but you don't need it by any stretch of the imagination.

Lie or true, there is no reason to not use Genesect. You can say that it's possible to create a team without a Genesect, but what are your reasons to do so? Using Genesect on a team substantially improves it some way. There are no drawbacks on using a Genesect; you only gain by using it, even if you are using a stall team.

Also, to those that say that Genesect is not broken; at least you must admit that it centralizes the metagame around itself. With people lowering IVs on their Pokémon, using more Hippowdon in place of Tyranitar and being forced to use Shed Shell on Heatran, when you could be using better items such as Air Balloon or Leftovers, there are no arguments to those that want to argue that Genesect doesn't shape the metagame.

 

[Huntofthelion]

Lie or true, there is no reason to not use Genesect. You can say that it's possible to create a team without a Genesect, but what are your reasons to do so? Using Genesect on a team substantially improves it some way. There are no drawbacks on using a Genesect; you only gain by using it, even if you are using a stall team.

Also, to those that say that Genesect is not broken; at least you must admit that it centralizes the metagame around itself. With people lowering IVs on their Pokémon, using more Hippowdon in place of Tyranitar and being forced to use Shed Shell on Heatran, when you could be using better items such as Air Balloon or Leftovers, there are no arguments to those that want to argue that Genesect doesn't shape the metagame.

The drawbacks to which set? Scarf can be trapped by Magnezone if it's stuck on the wrong move, and in general it can be set up on depending on the move it's stuck on. Scarfers like Terrakion or Keldeo are faster and have better STAB so that they aren't as easy to set up on when they're stuck on them. It's not that fast as a scarfer since it can't outrun base 100s and above, which is pretty important. If it's not scarfed it's also kinda slow in this metagame as opposed to some other threats like the aforementioned Keldeo and Terrakion but also Salamence, Landorus, and the other Therians. He's weak to spike stacking and he's not bulky enough to be a tank throughout the game.

I'm not saying he's not an awesome Pokemon, he is, but to say it doesn't have drawbacks is a little bit of a stretch. And as for centralizing... how can we argue for banning things based on centralization when we have a metagame literally 100% defined by weather wars but yet auto-weather isn't banned. Lowering IV's isn't a big deal and the people that go overboard with it are doing it to structure their team to better handle a threat, I don't see an issue with that. Hippowdon doesn't do any better against Genesect than TTar and Dugtrio has always been a viable way of removing TTar and Heatran so I don't see how that one is Genesects fault. Trapping TTar to win a weather war has been around since BW1 and trapping Heatran to open a sweep for something isn't limited to Genesect as Heatran does a good job of countering more than just Genesect.

 

[nooblikeaboon]

Lie or true, there is no reason to not use Genesect. You can say that it's possible to create a team without a Genesect, but what are your reasons to do so? Using Genesect on a team substantially improves it some way. There are no drawbacks on using a Genesect; you only gain by using it, even if you are using a stall team.

Bullshit. Ive been using teams without Genesect and theyve worked wonderful (aka Top10) and adding Genesect would have most likely destroyed their synergy. Just because YOU arent to cope with it doesnt mean others are. And ive faced quite a few good battlers that created decent teams without Genesect.

Genesect is overrated imo. I dont even know if a Genesect has ever swept me and ive done my fair share of battles (~200+ Minimum).

At the moment im at ~1850 rating will prolly reach requirements at the end of this week.

 

[Raseri]

I'm there at #9. Personally I don't find Genesect to be that bad when prepared for, but preparing for each set is nearly impossible. I had a team destroyed by LO RP Bug Buzz Genesect, but luckily I didn't run in to that set much. It did seem like every battle was a repeat of the last, with Genesect/Genesect check/Genesect check #2/Weather Mon/Weather Abuser/Dragon.

Genesect may not be broken in the strictest sense, but when it appeared on at least 70% of the teams I played, and had the potential to run many different movesets each very threatening. I'm leaning towards banning it just because of how much it limits teambuilding.

Time for ladder #2!

 

[Endeby]

Rock Polish is definitely its best set, but a good portion of the success of that set is simply because the scarf set simply exists. The fact that unless you know your opponent's set, there are so many options it can fire at you. It can just use its plain above average coverage to KO you, or it can U-Turn out to a partner that counters your counter, or it can seize the forced switch due to possibilities to pull off a surprise Rock Polish and THEN sweep. Its versatility and coverage are what truly makes it frightening. It's like that feeling when you think your Lando-T has good it good taking a Thunderbolt but then BAM an Ice Beam hits you in the face.

This guy got it right.

One thing that a lot of people seem to forget about Genesect, is that he has the potential to wreck quite a lot of havoc before you even know his set. Expert Belt, RP, Choice Scarf, Choice Band, Choice Specs and Focus Sash all go in slightly different directions. There`s no Pokemon that can come in safely on all of these, except for maybe Heatran with Shed Shell/Choice Scarf (damn you, Dugtrio).

Most if not every Pokemon with a fire move can deny RP Genesect when he`s about to set up. The problem is that many of these Pokemon also lose to Scarfsect, or really don`t want to take a fast U-turn to the face. If you`re slower he might decide to just Ice Beam anyway, telling you that he might be everything that is not Life Orbed or Choice Specs.

I`m not saying people are wrong when they claim that every Genesect set is counterable. The problem is that different Genesect sets have different counters. This alone is not reason enough to ban Genesect (the same can be said about a lot of other OU threats). I`m just saying that this is something people should keep in mind when they argue that Genesect is "just annoying" or is "easy to check". Perhaps if you`re a big fan of Shed Shell Heatran. That`s pretty much it.

Is Genesect ban-worthy? I`m not 100 % sure yet. Gonna play around on the suspect ladder and see how the metagame is without him. Maybe putting him away will just open up the way for something much worse... I must say though, that I had a lot of trouble making a team without him on the current ladder. I did manage to do so with the tedious 5Drag1Mag, but that`s almost sad. Fitting into and being the star "every team" doesn`t make him broken, but it surely make him a great Pokemon.

 

[TheWaddleDeeKing]

I'm not the greatest on giving insight, and what I'll say has already been said, but from my personal experience, Genesect is just a monster. You could just about slap any viable competitive item on him and you're golden. I don't use Genesect (I'd feel bad if I did) but many a times I have used oddball sets, such as SashSect, which is one of the better leads I've ever had, and even the Choice Banded sets, which still manage to wreck havoc despite being arguably inferior to Choice Scarf/Expertbelt/RP set. The main problem that causes all of this is Genesect's versatility. With BoltBeam and U-turn, as well as any other move that tickles your pickle, you EASILY have the advantage almost regardless of what your other team has. What further adds onto this is the Download boost. I'd argue that if he had almost any other ability, he'd be a top tier threat, but not OP. But no. Due to this download boost, his amazing BST of 600 (btw, 120 of that is Attack and 120 is Special attack) basically skyrockets to the near 700's. Obviously higher BST =/= good Pokemon, Kyurem and Slaking account for this, however when you factor in that he has 1.) Arguably the best typing in the game, second to possibly Electric/Steel, and 2.)70/95/95 defenses, you have essentially a battle-cruiser that can fly, only being held back by 1 base stat in speed, and even then it's easily remedied with the Rock Polish set. Think you can counter him with Blissey? Nope, U-turn your ass outta there into something else, taking way more damage off than necessary. What about Ferrothorn, he's a good wall, right? Nope, Flamethrower.

I could list examples all day, but that's just obnoxious. Now, sure, Heatran and Volcarona make great counters, but two counters (the latter of which is slowly disappearing from play imo) is not nearly enough, especially when you factor in the advent of EdgeQuake being popular on many Pokemon. Even Hydreigon, who's official Smogon page says he has no counters, still gets wrecked by Mach Punch and anything that hits hard with priority. When I have to lug around a Heatran just to make sure my team isn't screwed over by half the teams out there, there is quite a problem. Prediction is the best counter, but when it's your only counter, there's a problem.

P.S., I can't account for the RP set, I've never tried it and I've never been up against it. I mainly only face Scarf Sets and Expert Belts, though regardless, if what I hear is true, that ScarfSect is the inferior set, I truly do not want to go up against it.​

 

[Manitary]

First post after many months of lurking...I'm not a veteran of competitive pokémon so I give my opinion but I'll appreciate any correction to my opinion.

"best set" for Genesect: I still haven't tried the Expert Belt or a mixed/physical set, but on the special side the RP+LO is far better than the scarf, one less move for coverage but great potential for sweeping if you remove the counters that resist all of them, and you're not forced out after each hit.
I usually run boltbeam+giga drain (very useful if you can use on a non 4x-resist to keep gene healthy), thunderbolt over flamethrower or bug buzz to get past many fire-type mons.
There are some common wall to every special set but they are few: namely Heatran, Chansey, Blissey plus other few if spdef-invested. Many other pokemon can check but if gene has the right move they are often ohko'ed (e.g. Ferrothorn if you don't have flamethrower or many bulky water/water-ground if you don't have tbolt/giga drain).
If the enemy team has few check/counter to gene and you can remove them you've win expecially if you get the sp boost, but this is true for other pokemons as well!
However, if you don't play safe gene can be ko'ed early because it's really frail even being a steel type: not speaking about fire move (fire fang/punch/etc. and the omnipresent hp fire), most dragons can ohko with +1 outrage or +2 dragon claw/eq and if gene is weakened from hazard, weather, previous hit or LO recoil things are even worse because many mach punch user can kill him (the most dangerous is obviously LO techinloom, taking away 70% hp) and many unresisted hit are potentially lethal (eq, stone edge, scald/hydro pump etc.) even from not heavy offensive mons.

Maybe I'm just too low on ladder but for now I don't think that gene is broken: sure you must have something to check and/or wall it, but if you don't play ultrasafe until checks/counters are removed your genesect won't be a problem for your enemy.

 

[Dark Fallen Angel]

I'm not saying he's not an awesome Pokemon, he is, but to say it doesn't have drawbacks is a little bit of a stretch. And as for centralizing... how can we argue for banning things based on centralization when we have a metagame literally 100% defined by weather wars but yet auto-weather isn't banned. Lowering IV's isn't a big deal and the people that go overboard with it are doing it to structure their team to better handle a threat, I don't see an issue with that. Hippowdon doesn't do any better against Genesect than TTar and Dugtrio has always been a viable way of removing TTar and Heatran so I don't see how that one is Genesects fault. Trapping TTar to win a weather war has been around since BW1 and trapping Heatran to open a sweep for something isn't limited to Genesect as Heatran does a good job of countering more than just Genesect.

If you are lowering EVs just for one threat, I think that this is a case of overcentralization.

About Hippowdon, actually that's what you are thinking. What happens is that Genesect usage skyrockted Dugtrio's usage, and Dugtrio happens to easily defeat Tyranitar, but it cannot touch Hippowdon at all. For this sole reason, people started to use Hippowdon instead of Tyranitar... and that was the specially defensive version, with a Careful nature, and less defense IVs to tank Genesect's Ice Beam, and the specially defensive set can also better handle Fire-type attacks from sun teams. As you can see, people are wasting Hippowdon's potential as a physical wall and afraid of using Tyranitar, indirectly because of Genesect.

Dugtrio already existed before Genesect was released, but it wasn't used nearly as much as it is now. Dugtrio just happens to defeat almost all counters/checks to Genesect, such as Tyranitar and Heatran. This skyrockted Dugtrio's usage in such way that if people wanted to use Tyranitar and Heatran, they had to use Shed Shell. People still use Heatran because of other factors, but for Tyranitar, sadly, it started to face competition with Hippowdon for "the better sandstorm summoner".

However this is all because of Genesect. It's him, the culprit for encouraging people to use Dugtrio. I don't know if removing Genesect from the metagame will actually diminish Dugtrio's usage, but at least people will don't have a great reason to use him.

Although there are other things that usually lower their IVs because of Genesect, but there is no Dugtrio involved in their cases. A Yache Berry Garchomp surviving an +0 Ice Beam from a Scarf Genesect, for example, can mean the difference between a win or loss. The same applies to a Tornadus-T surviving a Genesect's Ice Beam/Thunderbolt to have another chance to spam a Hurricane again.

 

[PDC]

World So Cold

Pretty easy for the most part on the OU Current ladder. It is hard to side against something when you have so much fun using it. I really liked it and it is probably one of the easiest tests reqs I ever did. Now comes the hard part, doing the Suspect ladder where more competition is going to be around.

 

[shrang]

Personally, while I think Genesect is unhealthy for the metagame, I really don't think it's broken. All I see is a VERY versatile Pokemon that can fit onto pretty much every team. However, none of its sets are overpowering in any way. Can you really say that, individually, Scarf Genesect is broken, or CB is broken, or Expert Belt is broken? I don't think any of his sets are broken, whereas shit that we've banned have clearly had broken sets. Excadrill swept virtually everything with SD, Thundurus had NP (with a couple of variations, but it was still the same idea). Blaziken only needed one set to be broken. None of Genesect's sets, in my opinion, are broken. Rock Polish is threatening, yes, but you have to remember it can only hold 4 moves, and more defensive teams have a better time with it too.